A select committee in the House of Representatives yesterday took about fifteen minutes to devolve into chaos. Chairman Trevor McGuire (D.—NE) was preparing his committee on the pressing topic of range management, as they thought they were going to hear testimony from Lloyd Johnson from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). What they actually heard was testimony from Katisha Johnson from Black Lives Matter (BLM).
Johnson opened with an aggressive statement, accusing the committee of luxuriating in their white privilege, and saying that someone really ought to come in and shoot them all. For congressmen who had sought out the institutionalized ennui of agricultural committee meetings for a reason, this was a bit too much. Brigham Tanner (R. – WY), responded with an “oh, yeah?” which drew several sharp looks from his compatriots. This is what it meant, in their world, to have a hearing devolve into chaos.
Down the hall, another committee did not devolve into said chaos as Lloyd Johnson from the Bureau of Land Management showed up with three stuffed notebooks, and a thermos full of coffee. The committee was there assembled and braced, together with all the journalists who were jammed along the walls waiting for the fireworks they had been promised, only to be treated to an hour and a half of testimony on alfalfa growth rates, and rental statistics for this last year’s silage.
McGuire’s scheduling secretary regretted the error, and said that steps had been taken to ensure that it would not, indeed could not, happen again.