HOUSE SAVES HEGSETH BY SEVEN VOTES, 11 DEMOCRATS SKIP

Thomas Massie spent his last weeks in Congress writing a 34-page resolution with eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, built mostly around waging the Iran war without congressional authorization. On Tuesday the House voted 211-204 to refer it to the Judiciary Committee, which in Washington means sliding it into a drawer and forgetting the drawer exists. Massie was the only Republican to vote to keep it alive. He also isn't coming back in January, which tends to do wonders for a man's spine. This was attempt two. Massie filed the same articles in September, and Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home early for the midterms rather than hold the vote. Republicans then lost those midterms. Hegseth spent Tuesday morning calling the effort a farce and a political spectacle, and JD Vance posted that the idea Hegseth committed impeachable crimes is absurd. Everyone read the same scoreboard differently. Trump called the result an EXONERATION and labeled Massie a major LOSER. Hakeem Jeffries said it's just the beginning. Left-leaning coverage framed the whole thing as the GOP closing ranks a week after voters torched them over Iran and the cost of living. The one number nobody is putting on a hat: 18 members missed the vote entirely, 11 of them Democrats, which is a strange way to start a beginning.

Why you should give a shit: Massie's articles die with this Congress, the new one is sworn in January 3, and a seven-vote save that needed eleven Democrats to sleep in buys Hegseth about seven weeks, not a clean record.