Congress is fleeing Washington early to campaign, leaving the Epstein files buried and a war unchecked — and almost nobody in either party has a problem with it.

Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the rest of the House's September schedule Wednesday, sending lawmakers home until after the midterm elections. It's the latest in a long string of schedule cuts — 63 voting days scrubbed this Congress by one tally, nine just this month — while the people's business sits unfinished. Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican Johnson already helped primary out of his seat, seized the floor for an hour to say what most of his colleagues won't.

"Why would we be canceling days when the country is burning?" Massie said from the House floor. "We should stay here for every day that's on the calendar and we should debate."

Massie used a rare procedural move — a question of "personal privilege" — to answer Johnson's claim that he wasn't "participating as a full member of the Congress." Massie's retort was blunt: "I'm here to work. I'm here to get justice for the Epstein victims, the survivors. I am here to get the price of food and fuel down for our constituents. We've got solutions. We just refuse to pass them."

Two big items are getting left behind. Massie's resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran won't get a vote. His discharge petition to force the Justice Department to release more Epstein files is nearing the 218 signatures needed to bypass leadership — but only three Republicans have signed: Massie, Rep. Nancy Mace, and Rep. Ralph Norman. None of them will be back next year. Massie lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger; Mace and Norman both fell short in South Carolina gubernatorial bids. The swamp takes care of dissent.

Norman wasn't silent about the exodus either. "The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress," he wrote on X. "The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid. If Members of Congress want to go home and campaign instead of doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do, then their campaigns ought to be paying them, NOT the American taxpayer."

Johnson's response was to declare victory. "The House has done its job," he insisted, calling it "literally the most productive and successful and aggressive Congress" in decades — a claim the American Press reported without noting the irony of making it while canceling a quarter of the year's scheduled work days. Johnson dismissed Massie's Hegseth impeachment push as "a stunt" and praised the Defense secretary's "extraordinary job." The House did manage to pass sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and name the Tyrannosaurus Rex the national fossil dinosaur before bolting.

Democrats aren't lifting a finger either. If every House Democrat signs the Epstein discharge petition, Massie needs just one more Republican. The silence from across the aisle speaks volumes about who actually wants transparency.

Massie's first Epstein transparency bill, co-led with Rep. Ro Khanna, passed the House against leadership's wishes and was signed into law last November. The sequel may die on the vine — one of the few members willing to fight for it is on his way out, and the rest of Congress would rather be home asking you for another term.