Back in November I speculated about what was going to happen to Kevin McCarthy’s run for Speaker of the House. McCarthy did manage to win the speakership, but it cost him every piece of power inherent in the position, and he now presides over the House on a threadbare arrangement.

Republicans being the extremist, fractious, and treasonous vipers that they are, the rips became apparent right away. You may remember that this happened in January:

Yes, as The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, on the first day of Congress this year, representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, who were on very different sides of the House leadership battle, exchanged fighting words in a bathroom “just off the House floor.” According to the outlet, the congresswoman from Georgia “was in a stall and, upon coming out, confronted Boebert about taking money from McCarthy for her reelection and then turning against McCarthy when it came time to vote.” A source familiar with the fight told The Daily Beast that Greene “questioned Boebert’s loyalty to McCarthy, and after a few words were exchanged, Boebert stormed out.”

Ah, it’s so delicious. And of course after the debt ceiling vote, the threadbare agreement ripped apart. On Tuesday we saw the first tangible evidence of that rift.

Republicans had put a really stupid gas stove-related bill on the calendar, literally the Save Our Stoves Act. It’s full of the fake outrage over imaginary things that is the hallmark of the current iteration of the GOP. The one redeeming part of it are the 2 amendments the Democrats contributed:

A pair of amendments initially drafted by Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat from Florida, appeared to lampoon the legislation. One such amendment called for a formal “sense of Congress that gas stoves merit consideration for an honorary statue in Statuary Hall” at the Capitol. Another of Moskowitz’s initial amendments called for a “czar position” within the Department of Energy called the “Supreme Allied Gas Commander to police the use and sale of gas stoves.”

You love to see it.

The rules package for this bill was put to a vote on Monday, and it…failed. The Freedom Caucus has declared war on McCarthy’s speakership and are demanding that he immediately return to the agreement they all made in January. That’d be the agreement that no one has seen.  Ten House members have said that until that happens they will oppose anything McCarthy puts on the floor, and since the GOP’s margin in the House is 5 votes, this is a threat with teeth. (Or is it? As I wrote last week, no one else wants the job, so…)

The last time a House rule failed to pass was back in 2002. McCarthy’s got to figure out who he’s going to go to for votes to pass legislation. It would make more sense for him to repeat the success of the debt ceiling bill and to work with the Democrats for things both parties could claim as their own. But Republicans aren’t sensible.

Oh, and there’s one more thing that works against McCarthy:

“My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come."

Lawyers for Rep George Santos (R-NY) seek to block the release of the names of the people who helped Santos post bond in criminal casehttps://t.co/aeJDbiDLD3

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) June 6, 2023

If that happens, then McCarthy’s advantage is down to 4. You hate to see it.

I think this sums up the House GOP’s impending implosion.