Opinion | Congress celebrates 100 days of not much

So, how are things going on the Hill?

About how you’d expect, according to Dana’s latest king-size column.

Dana opens with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in peak form, praising the Discord leaker in one breath and slandering fellow committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) in the next.

The lies were wild — but, Dana explains, like so many kettlebells in a CrossFit gym, Republicans are in the palm of Greene’s hand. “Extremists such as Greene can’t be dismissed as gadflies,” he writes. “They are central to the new majority.”

Next, the big 100-day bash! Dana has fun cataloguing the sumptuous backdrops McCarthy has chosen to showcase how little he’s gotten done.

Finally, he takes a look at the Judiciary Committee’s field trip to New York City, chaperoned by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), to drag Democrats for what is supposedly soaring crime. (In truth, New York’s homicides are relatively low, by U.S. standards.)

“As with seemingly all things Jordan touches,” Dana writes, “the proceedings quickly devolved into chaos.”

This Congress? Chaos? No!

Chaser: One of the Republicans visiting New York urged gun owners not to hesitate shooting if they felt threatened. It’s a perfect example of the culture of fear Paul Waldman warns about in his column.

Bonus NYC chaser: Catherine Rampell adored “The Phantom of the Opera” — enough to put its music in the audio version of her column mourning its closing.

This Bud’s for her, him and them

“As long as there’s been beer, queer people have been drinking it,” contributing columnist Brian Broome writes.

I’m told straight people occasionally partake, too. But Brian says the fuss over Bud Light’s pint-size partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney shows that some of them are drinking another cocktail: “one part stoicism, two parts anger, three parts lust, four parts control over women.”

It’s the classic mix for toxic masculinity, and Brian identifies it as the cause of conservative vitriol directed toward Mulvaney and Bud Light.

Columnist Megan McArdle writes that these conservatives have been mocking Mulvaney when they really should be mimicking her. Good politics, she writes, is rarely dour or dominating; what draws people to your side is optimism, openness and joy.

Mulvaney’s 10 million TikTok followers suggests she’s doing something right, and Megan has a solid guess at her recipe: “She makes life, and being trans, seem like such fun.”

From Catherine Rampell’s column explaining why cutting funding was a bad idea in January and is a bad idea now. Nevertheless, Speaker McCarthy has returned to it as a condition for agreeing to raise the debt limit.

Cathy walks through how much extra money has helped the IRS, and how much more the government will be able to (fairly) collect as the agency does its job more efficiently. If Republicans want “firmer fiscal footing” for the country, the IRS is the last place to cut.

Chaser: Apart from hobbling the IRS, Republicans’ demands are still pretty vague. Or, as humor columnist Alexandra Petri puts it, “We will hold the country hostage until our demands are met — once we know them.”

Did you know that half of all American movies from before 1950 are just gone forever? And 90 percent of those made before 1929? Poof, junked, lost and forgotten.

Back then, many movies basically ceased to exist after their theatrical runs. Film critic Ty Burr looks at Netflix’s decision to stop its physical DVD service — and worries that movies not streaming anywhere might be headed for a similar fate.

And that’s not just a few. “The vast majority of films and series are not and have never been available at the touch of a remote,” he writes. Think beloved classics. Think Academy Award winners. Think “Cocoon”!

Chaser: Contributing columnist Sonny Bunch is a huge believer in physical media. He wrote it’s also a great way to fight streamers’ censorship.

• A dozen readers respond to Kate Clancy’s op-ed about “period weirdness” after the covid shot.
• President Biden needs to make sure his China trade policy doesn’t cause a global rift, columnist Fareed Zakaria writes.
• Jen Rubin’s newsletter this week unpacks the Fox News settlement, “cringeworthy” judges and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

“Are you still watching?”

Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Jerry P.:

Those who refuse to grovel

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!