Politico has a story on the House Freedom Caucus planning to do what they always do: try to take over the world -- but that's not what really caught my attention.
The Batshit Caucus wants to bypass House Republican leadership and punish Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in some manner and for some unspecified reason, but they only have two days including today to do it.
We already knew Congress would depart Washington for their summer recess tomorrow night and will not return until the second week of September, but they will apparently only be in session for 19 days between September and the election in November.
Trump’s backers in the House worry that time is running short for them to wrench more sensitive material from the Justice Department. After Thursday, the House is in session for only 19 more days until the election. They say the Justice Department could stiff-arm them until then.
If Democrats win the House, they would almost certainly shut down those lines of inquiry.
“Of course they’re running out the clock on us,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a top Trump ally. “It’s why we have been clear that every option is on the table.”
Yesterday when I wrote that congressional Republicans will have less than thirty days to fund the federal government before the new fiscal year begins on October 1st, that was technically true but they will not have that many days of legislative session to do whatever they're going to do to avoid a government shutdown.
The legislative schedules for the months of September and October are not currently available so Politico must have access to a schedule that hasn't been made public, but I assume almost all of the 19 days they plan to be in session between September and the November election will fall in September ahead of the fiscal deadline.
I know this is an election year and the priority of every member of Congress is to hit the campaign trail, but come on. If they're going to be in session for 19 days between tomorrow and November, that means they're going on recess for an entire month, returning for a few weeks, and then going on recess for another month.
It's a nice job if you can get it.
But let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. October may be my favorite month of the year anyway because the weather is cooling down, football is on, and I can start wearing hoodies again, but it will be even better when Congress is on recess for the entire month.