As the gentle reader already knows, Republicans are incapable of functionally governing. One does not need to look further than the House GOP and especially the Free Dumb Caucus, who have taken to trying to strong arm Speaker Jeebus Johnson to do as they will.
In one recent encounter, Johnson was surrounded by Matt “The Forehead” Gaetz, Lauren “Happy Hands” Boebert and others, to coerce him from allowing bills to aid Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to come up for a vote.
Then comes along Wisconsin’s Drunk Uncle, Derrick Van Orden, who decided to interject himself by getting into a playground name-calling session with Gaetz:
Van Orden approached the group on the floor Thursday and dared them to file the motion to oust the speaker, later telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he was attempting to “call their bluff.”
“They’ve been trying to blackmail the Republican conference now for a long time. Just do it. Show the American people who you really are,” Van Orden said in a brief interview about the interaction.
“The American people can’t really see what takes place all the time. What they can see is a motion to vacate — trying to get rid of the speaker,” he said. “And it’ll show their true colors because they are not here to legislate. They are not serious legislators.”
Van Orden called Gaetz “tubby” during the interaction — a jab he said he leveled after Gaetz called him a “squish” as they huddled on the floor. Van Orden said he took the insult to mean he was “a soft person.” Conservatives sometimes use the word to disparage other Republicans as less conservative.
Showing that they are both truly emotionally stunted people, they continued their name calling later.
Gaetz said his encounter with DVO was “puzzling and concerning” and that DVO was being unhinged. Gaetz also added this:
“The only thing I gleaned from it is that Mr. Van Orden is not a particularly intelligent individual,” Gaetz said.
Drunken Van Orden also went crying to reporters, playing the “Do you know who I am? I’m a war hero!” card:
“I said people who have not been to combat and been shot at, who’ve not held one of their friends’ hands as they died, probably shouldn’t be calling other people squishes,” Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL, said. “And then he did it again and I said something along the lines of, ‘Stow it, Tubby.’”
In the interview, he called Gaetz a bully and added: “The only way to stop a person from bullying you is to push back hard.”
DVO also put up this bizarre rant on Xittter:
That much irony can’t be good for a person. Does DVO – who has a long history of screaming at teenagers, White House staff and others – really think he should be calling anyone bullies, much less tubby? I mean, the guy does have a good beer belly going on, amirite?
I don’t know how much more evidence that the voters in Wisconsin’s Third District need that Drunken Van Squishy is not fit to hold any office.
