Who's Doing The Shutdown? What Channel Is The Shutdown On? Will We Liveblog The Shutdown?
On that last one: you gotta be kidding.
Republicans in the House of Representatives still haven’t come up with a bill to fund the government before it runs out of money and shuts down shortly after midnight tonight. De Facto President-not-at-all-elect Elon Musk is back on Twitter calling for a shutdown unless a funding bill meets the very specific standard of passing “sensible bills that actually serve the people.”
Shadow Vice President-elect Donald Trump is calling again for any funding bill to also suspend the debt limit for two to four years, and if that’s not in the bill, then a shutdown may as well “begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP,’” complete with scare quotes to indicate he considers himself only an ironic joke.
House Speaker (for the moment ) Mike Johnson has been meeting all morning with other Republicans and with Second Vice President-elect JD Vance, and told reporters earlier this morning that he “expects” a vote on a bill “this morning, we’ve got a plan,” although it’s already afternoon in Washington.
In the meantime, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has called on Johnson to just go back to the bipartisan deal he originally agreed to, which Musk sank Wednesday for no good reason except to be an asshole and lie about what was even in the bill. Republicans seem unlikely to risk their unelected leader’s wrath by doing that, however.
Also too, the Associated Press reports that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is “communicating with” Johnson, according to people who attended a closed meeting of House Democrats, but “there was no discussion in the meeting on whether a deal is being discussed or the details of legislation.”
Maybe Jeffries is just consoling Johnson and making him feel better by pointing out that Johnson probably won’t have the burdens of the speakership much longer. Plus making some hardball demands about what it’ll take for Democrats to save House Republicans from themselves this time.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Republicans who have been meeting with Johnson say that instead of failing to pass a bill with several components like the House did last night, Johnson wants to try having votes on three separate parts of the funding bill so it can fail three times: One “clean” continuing resolution would fund the government at current levels through the middle of March, a second would include disaster aid for those (Republican!) states hit by hurricanes Helene and Milton, and a third would provide aid to farmers. Johnson seems to have dropped any mention of the debt limit at all. No telling whether that would fly with Republicans who want to slash the budget, not keep it at current levels, and for that matter, Musk might also object to that as well, depending on what other idiots on Twitter tell him.
The AP reports that Republicans are meeting to discuss that proposal during lunch.
It is unclear at this time whether Musk is counting on Actual German Nazis to come vote in the US Congress, although he’s endorsing them in Germany this morning. Maybe the best option for keeping our government open would be to just hope he pursues his fascination with German politics all day. He’s not big on attention span.
Also, because Republicans are Exactly That Bad, a special prize goes to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), who explained as she left a meeting this morning that “We’re not cutting deals with Democrats” to keep the government in operation, which seems like a thing Democrats should keep in mind when more senior Republicans try to persuade them to help out, the end.
OR IS IT?
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There is nothing like seeing an incompetent act destroyed by an even more incompetent act.
Media: Why won’t Biden (who we spent all summer smearing as too old and senile to President) come to the Republican’s who just won all three branches of government’s aid and save them from themselves?
jFC I hate our goddamned worthless media so fucking much.