“House Republican leadership may not bring the House back AT ALL next week. They think the ball is in the Senate’s court. and they will return when they have a bill to pass,” Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports, copied verbatim here to point out a small problem in the otherwise typically solid journo’s update: He’s making this entirely about government funding and a looming shutdown.

Which may very well be the case. However, unintended or not, keeping House members out of DC for another week – on top of looking fucking stupid and tone-deaf if the government does indeed shutdown – also potentially gives Jesus Dork Speaker Mike Johnson more space to maneuver on another problem he’s so desperate to avoid: Swearing in Dem Arizona Congresswoman-Elect Adelita Grijalva and thus adding the 218th signatory to Kentucky edgelord Congressman Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to order the Justice Department to dump anything and everything it has on Jeffrey Epstein. On Wednesday Massie told Semfor that Johnson and “some of the powers that be in DC are in full panic right now,” trying to whip Congresswomen Crazy Nancy Mace, QAdulteress Marjorie Taylor Greene, and high school dropout grandma Lauren Boebert into withdrawing their signatures to the petition so the rest of the House GOP can avoid an extremely damning vote.

“They came back and tried to get the four of us to take our names off of the petition,” said Massie, adding “They asked some of my colleagues who are co-signers. And they actually threatened them politically, not physically.” Seems a bit remiss for Sherman to not have mentioned that a potential variable going into Johnson’s decision to keep the House closed for business another week.