The Conversation -- December 20, 2024
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the shutdown standoff: "With a possible government shutdown looming at day’s end..., Donald J. Trump early Friday renewed his demand that Congress suspend the debt ceiling, intensifying a face-off with lawmakers from his own party as Republicans run short of options before a midnight deadline." ~~~
~~~ Here are the Washington Post's live updates of developments in the countdown to shutdown: "The White House Office of Management and Budget alerted federal agencies Friday morning to prepare for an imminent government shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal communications. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lashed out at Republicans who had agreed to a bipartisan deal and then abandoned it. 'This is a mess that Speaker [Mike] Johnson created, that is his mess to fix,' she told reporters at the daily briefing, adding that there was 'still time' for Republicans to 'do the right thing.' On Capitol Hill, House Republicans were discussing voting on separate policy bills to fund the government ahead of a midnight deadline in hopes of avoiding a shutdown. They were meeting to consider separate bills that would extend current fiscal levels into the new year, send $110 billion to natural disaster victims, and another to extend the farm bill that requires reauthorization." CNN's live updates are here. ~~~
~~~ Mike Lillis, et al., of the Hill: "Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he has a plan C to avert a shutdown and the House will vote Friday morning on the legislation — but Republicans indicated there is not yet widespread agreement. 'Yeah, yeah, we have a plan,' Johnson said Friday morning as he entered the Capitol. 'We’re expecting votes this morning, so you all stay tuned....'” ~~~
~~~ Here's the Hill's live coverage.
Digby in Salon lays out how Elon snookered Donald: Trump thought he could shunt Musk aside by putting him in charge of a powerless, non-governmental "commission" where Elon & Vivek would "recommend" federal spending cuts. But Elon demanded that Congress follow his cues as to how to fund the government. And then, and then. "Those rascally, backbench Tea Party/Freedom Caucus ideologues finally got the leader they've been waiting for and his name is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.... It's Elon Musk's House now. In fact, a bunch of Republicans are proposing that they fire [Mike] Johnson and make him Speaker instead.... Trump wanted the richest man in the world by his side, for both the glamour and the lucre he brings with him, and it's blowing up in his face. How's Trump going to get rid of Musk now that he's shown he has more clout with the base than he does? Who owns the MAGA brand now? "
Heil Elon! Christopher Schuetze & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to ... Donald J. Trump, on Friday endorsed Germany’s far-right party, a group with ties to neo-Nazis whose youth wing has been classified as 'confirmed extremist' by German domestic intelligence. 'Only the AfD can save Germany,' Mr. Musk posted to X, referring to the anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany, by its German initials." Politico's story is here. MB: Oh, it's a great day for Elon, endorsing Nazis & watching his own government shutter at his behest.
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Once again, Not-President Trump -- this time with his co-president* (or his puppetmaster) Elon Musk -- has sent a normally-chaotic Washington into utter disarray. Why, one just might think this is what they want. ~~~
One or two puppet masters weigh in and extreme MAGA Republicans decide to do the bidding of the wealthy, the well-connected, the millionaires and billionaires, not working-class people all across America.... The bill that is before us today is just part of an effort to shut down the government. -- Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, on the House floor, Thursday ~~~
~~~ Jacob Bogage & Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "The federal government moved closer to a weekend shutdown Thursday, after the House overwhelmingly voted down Speaker Mike Johnson’s new plan to extend the deadline despite support from ... Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk. The GOP proposal would have extended federal operations into mid-March, sent more than $100 billion to natural-disaster survivors and suspended the country’s borrowing limit for two years. But it needed the support of two-thirds of the House to pass, and it went down by a 235-174 vote, with one member voting present. It wasn’t clear Thursday night what the next move will be....
"Only two Democrats supported the legislation, with 197 of them opposing it. But 38 Republicans also voted no — an indication of how difficult finding an alternative solution before the shutdown deadline may be for the GOP leader. The bipartisan legislation the House GOP scrapped Wednesday was substantially similar to the bill that Johnson tried to advance Thursday, though he dropped some provisions unrelated to spending and added — at Trump’s request — a suspension of the debt limit." This is an update of a story linked earlier Thursday. (Also linked yesterday.) Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Scott Wong, et al., of NBC News: "The rejected measure leaves Congress without a clear plan to avoid a looming government shutdown with less than 30 hours left before the deadline, driving up the odds of a funding lapse just ahead of the holidays. A shutdown is scheduled to begin at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday. Asked by reporters whether a new funding bill would be released Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said 'we’ll see' as he left the Capitol on Thursday night." ~~~
~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump’s hammerlock on the Republican Party was shaken on Thursday night when 38 of his party’s lawmakers in the House voted to defy his command to support a spending and debt deal. Writing on social media, Mr. Trump had told Republicans to 'vote "YES" for this Bill, TONIGHT!'... For the better part of a decade, that kind of dictate has usually been enough for Mr. Trump, who has methodically seized control of the Republican Party at all levels. But [yesterday] ... Mr. Trump found out that at least some of his followers were willing to buck his leadership.... The defiance came ... from ... conservatives who would normally align themselves with Mr. Trump’s philosophy....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: But they are falling in line with Elon, aren't they? ~~~
~~~ Cat Zakrzewski, et al., of the Washington Post: "... this week, critics of the world’s richest man [Elon Musk] say he attained a new title: 'shadow president' of the United States. In a matter of hours on Wednesday, Musk wielded his powerful X account to pressure House Republicans to torpedo a spending bill that would have kept the federal government open for three months.... The second Trump-backed measure went down to a broad and swift defeat in the House on Thursday evening, raising the chances of a shutdown beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Musk’s outsize role in sending the federal government careening toward a potential shutdown before Christmas has alarmed Democrats, academics and watchdog groups, while some Republicans said his intervention was uninformed.... The outrage reverberated on X, which Musk owns and where 'President Musk' became a trending topic." See Akhilleus' comment in yesterday's thread on Mickey Musk. ~~~
~~~ Here's Donald trying to save face: ~~~
~~~ Kelsey Walsh of ABC News: "... Donald Trump, after rejecting House Speaker Mike Johnson's plan to avoid a government shutdown, worked the phones on Thursday, showing wavering confidence in Johnson and claiming he is aligned with billionaire Elon Musk, who first posted multiple calls to kill the GOP-brokered spending deal. 'If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker,' Trump told Fox News Digital. In an separate interview, Trump suggested that Johnson's proposed continuing resolution -- which would keep spending going at current levels -- was 'unacceptable.'... Trump also indicated that he had discussed his views on the bill with social media giant Musk and granted the billionaire permission to trash the government spending bill on his social media platform. 'I told him that if he agrees with me, that he could put out a statement,' Trump said. Musk then conducted an all-out pressure campaign flooding his platform with dozens of posts threatening members of Congress to block Johnson's government funding bill." ~~~
~~~ But Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) is sure Elon is in charge. Michael Luciano of Mediaite reports on Goldman's comments to Chris Hayes of MSNBC: "... there does appear to be one president. It’s Elon Musk, who has his own very self-interested view of everything, including the fact that he wanted to remove restrictions on investing– U.S. companies investing in China.... He has no idea how government operates or how government runs. But he spent nearly $300 million to get Donald Trump elected. There are rumors that he is going to use X to buy or merge with Truth Social, which would give Donald Trump a tremendous windfall.... And it is very clear that Elon Musk is now calling the shots."
Elon Musk has Donald Trump in a vise.
~~~ So then Donald pulls this: ~~~
~~~ Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Trump took to social media amid growing discontent over congressional dysfunction to keep the government open over the holidays, and suggested that he’s more interested in the government shutting down over the holidays during the Biden administration than trying to help find a solution to a problem largely undermined [MB: s/b "caused"] by his most significant advisor, billionaire Elon Musk. 'If there is going to be a shutdown of the government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under "TRUMP."’” the President-elect wrote on Truth Social. 'This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!'” ~~~
~~~ That's right: Trump, Musk & Congressional Republicans are shutting down the government, and Trump says Biden should fix their massive fuck-up. ~~~
~~~ BUT Biden Has Left the Building. Adam Cancryn of Politico: "Joe Biden may still occupy the Oval Office, but it’s clearer than ever that he’s no longer in charge of Washington. More than a half-dozen House Democratic lawmakers said Thursday that the conference had yet to hear from the president, even as Congress scrambled to salvage a funding deal and avoid shutting down the government. In the 24 hours since ... Donald Trump and close ally Elon Musk abruptly derailed the bipartisan agreement, Biden has remained conspicuously absent outside a brief statement issued by his press secretary — and for now, Democrats said there was little clamor for him to return."
There's This. Lolita Baldor & Tara Copp of the AP: "Republicans’ decision to abandon a congressional spending plan will cost troops their paychecks over the holidays unless some agreement is reached before Friday’s deadline to prevent a government shutdown, the Pentagon warned. Even if they don’t get paid, those troops will be required to report for duty both overseas and at home, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday. Without an agreement to fund the government, troops will not receive their end-of-month paychecks, reservists drilling after Friday will not be paid, and federal civilians who are required to work during a shutdown also will not be paid, he said. The military payroll is just one of thousands of federal accounts that would be affected, but one of the most visible." ~~~
~~~ AND There's This. Alice Ollstein & Gavin Bade of Politico: "The collapse of Congress’ spending negotiations is throwing the presidential transition and preparations for ... Donald Trump’s second inauguration into chaos as Washington stares down the prospect of a government shutdown just after midnight Friday. Federal agencies only this week began briefing the Trump transition’s “landing teams,” which began their work more than a month later than their predecessors. Now, if Congress can’t cut a deal in the next couple days, those agencies could be forced to furlough much of the staff doing that work and shut down the government offices where it’s taking place — impeding the incoming officials’ access to documents and further slowing down already-delayed preparations to take over the federal government next month."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "They’re baaaack. Just six weeks ago, voters elected Donald Trump by the slimmest of margins in hopes that he would lower the cost of living. But Trump quickly walked back that promise, saying 'it’s very hard' to reduce prices. Instead, he has already returned the country to the unrelenting chaos, and the government to the ludicrous dysfunction, that dominated his first term. And he hasn’t even taken office yet.... [The impending government shutdown Musk & Trump caused] is just the first act of what promises to be a four-year circus.... For those too young to remember the last go-round, this is what governing looks like under Trump. Musk’s destruction of the spending bill was particularly ugly, for it showed that, with Trump in charge, an unelected megabillionaire can bring the U.S. government to a halt by employing MAGA’s trademark mixture of vitriol, threat and disinformation.... Shutting down the government because of the rants and threats of an erratic billionaire is no way to run a country. But this is where we are."
Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "...Donald J. Trump transferred all of his shares in the social media company that bears his name to a trust controlled by his eldest son, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday night. The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said Mr. Trump moved his roughly 115 million shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, to the trust. He did not sell the shares or receive any financial consideration for the transfer, which was described as a gift to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Mr. Trump is the largest shareholder of Trump Media & Technology Group, and his nearly 53 percent stake is worth about $4 billion. Trump Media, which is losing money, has taken in just a few million dollars in revenue. Mr. Trump’s ownership was one of his most valuable assets based on Trump Media’s market valuation."
You know those classic rom-coms where a couple meets at work, hilarity ensues, and everything works out in the end? They are fiction, people! ~~~
~~~ Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "Georgia’s Court of Appeals on Thursday disqualified the Atlanta prosecutor who brought an election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump and his allies, a surprise move that threw the entire case into disarray. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel reversed the trial judge, who in March had allowed Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., to keep the case, despite revelations about a romantic relationship she had with the lawyer who was hired to manage the prosecution. All three of the appeals judges are Republican appointees. While the decision is likely to be appealed to the full court, if it stands, it could doom the entire case, which is the last active criminal prosecution involving charges against Mr. Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) CNN's report is here.
Jeanna Smialek & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "The U.S. economy is pulling ahead of its global peers. Inflation is moderating, and the Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates.... The unemployment rate is low. Consumers are spending.... Add in a decrease in unlawful southern border crossings and revved-up domestic production in several critical industries and they amount to a rough list of Donald J. Trump’s campaign promises. It’s a list of economic wins that Mr. Trump is inheriting in large part because of policies that the Federal Reserve and Biden administration have pursued in recent years.... But a variety of risks — some sheer happenstance, some floated by Mr. Trump — could interfere with that rosy outcome just as ... [he] takes office.... Economists have ... warned that Mr. Trump’s own policies could lift inflation." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Partly but not wholly because Congressional Republicans oppose most laws designed to help ordinary Americans, Joe (Biden) & Jay (Powell) did not do enough to make the U.S. economy work ideally for its people. But in an irony upon irony, Joe & Jay did manage to make ours the best economy in the world, and now Trump, who promised butterflies and rainbows, is poised to wreck all that.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "The 26-year-old man accused of murdering a health care executive in Manhattan agreed at a court hearing on Thursday to be extradited to New York, where he is facing a first-degree murder charge. The man, Luigi Mangione, was being held at a prison in Pennsylvania after he was spotted in a McDonald’s in the central part of the state and arrested by the local police. The Manhattan district attorney’s office sought to bring him to New York to prosecute him for the death of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare.... After his arrest last week, Mr. Mangione initially indicated through his lawyer that he would contest extradition to New York. Mr. Mangione has been represented by a lawyer in Pennsylvania, but he has also hired a prominent New York defense lawyer who formerly worked as a top prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office." (Also linked yesterday.)
Molly Nagle of ABC News: "President Joe Biden's administration will announce on Friday another $4.28 billion dollars in student loan relief for nearly 55,000 public service workers. The announcement will bring the total loan forgiveness by the Biden administration to 'approximately $180 billion for nearly 5 million Americans,' according to a fact sheet from the Department of Education. The forgiveness will be delivered to individuals enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF), which allows for debt forgiveness for people in jobs like firefighting, nursing and teaching after 10 years of continuous payment."
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed a murder case against the suspect in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, holding out the possibility of the death penalty even after a trial on separate state charges. The federal criminal complaint against the suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, includes one count of using a firearm to commit murder, which carries a maximum potential sentence of death, along with two stalking counts and a firearms offense. It came two days after the Manhattan district attorney filed state murder and terror charges against Mr. Mangione in the killing of the executive, Brian Thompson."
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Syria, etc. Edward Wong of the New York Times: "The State Department said early Friday that three senior American diplomats had arrived in Damascus, the capital of Syria, to meet with leaders of the militias that have seized control of the country, and to look for signs of the journalist Austin Tice and other missing U.S. citizens. They are the first American diplomats to enter Damascus since the crumbling of the old government. The visit represents a tentative step toward engagement in Syria, a nation in which U.S. involvement in recent years has usually involved the military, not diplomacy. The Biden administration has been in contact with militia leaders but has wrestled with how directly to engage, partly because the United States designated a precursor of the lead rebel group as terrorists." ~~~
~~~ Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The Pentagon said on Thursday that 2,000 American troops were in Syria, more than twice the number officials had cited for months. Why the Defense Department delayed disclosing the number is unclear. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that he became aware of the additional troops on Thursday morning. They are in Syria on a 'temporary' basis, he said, to support what he called the 'core official deployed forces' participating in the Pentagon’s mission to keep Islamic State forces from reconstituting. General Ryder said the increase in the number of troops was unrelated to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad to rebel forces in early December."
Ukraine/Russia, et al. David Stern & Serhii Korolchuk of the Washington Post: "Russia unleashed a barrage of ballistic missiles on Kyiv early Friday, killing at least one person and injuring 12, city officials said. The attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Brussels, where Kyiv’s European allies are seriously considering the idea of deploying troops to Ukraine in the event of a deal with Russia to stop the war. Hours earlier, Zelensky had posted a tweet that called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a 'dumbass' in response to the Russian leader’s mocking remarks in a year-end news conference about a missile 'duel' with Ukraine’s allies."
6 Comments
Reader Comments (6)
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly."
Thomas Paine, via this morning's Heather Cox.
Have long thought this truism explained how little most Americans think about or value so much of what has been given them: a spoiled nation now led, appropriately enough, by two spoiled boys.
But then, I looked at the current price of crypto. It's remarkably high--and I don't value it at all.
So now the press cares what Biden is doing with legislation? For the whole of his administration the press could not care less about anything he accomplished, but now it is all "Where's Biden?". The Congress is a shitshow partly because of the press's terrible information system along with corruption by the courts and gerrymandering. Every Representative is a legal adult and they have agency to make their own choices. But the press continually ignores the people with the power and elected to do the job for the American people. The press should understand by this point that Biden is not the issue here. Every must pass bill during the Biden years and much of the Trump years has been pushed across the line by the adults in the room, the Democrats, even when the Republicans had the majority. The press didn't think that was newsworthy or an important fact that the American people Needed to know after it happened again and again. Now we got a majority of stupid, selfish, conspiracy theorists running Capitol Hill. This is the usual process now. And CONGRESS owns it's own actions. The press needs to stop trying to find someone else to blame and try to hold the actual perpetrators to account for their actions for once. And the "but the public doesn't care" argument doesn't hold water when they use it over and over to continually excuse their abdication of the core duty of their jobs as journalists.
I don't think Donald was happy to hear that Johnson was in direct contact and taking orders from Elon over the debt ceiling legislation. Johnson was telling everyone that he was texting with Elon and Vivek the whole time. Donnie gets jealous easily.
Here's hoping that Donald and Elon do something about the USPS
on day one of their administration.
My bank statement from Columbus Ohio, which is 327 miles
from there to here, arrived today. It was mailed 8 days ago.
That comes to about 1.7 MPH.
I could walk it faster.
Ali Breland, in The Atlantic, ponders Elon Musk’s X Endgame
"As his successful tirade against the spending bill illustrates, Musk also has outsize power to control how information is disseminated. To quote Shoshana Zuboff, an academic who has written about tech overreach and surveillance, Musk is an 'information oligarch.'
Since buying Twitter in 2022 and turning it into X, Musk has reportedly used the platform to inflate the reach of his posts (and thereby his own influence on discourse). Since July, his posts on X have received more than 16 times the number of views as all of the accounts of incoming congressional members combined. He also appears to have transformed the platform to boost conservative posts, in accordance with his own political aims. This is how he can start posting about his displeasure over a bill and then have lawmakers capitulate. At least one Republican member of Congress reported that after Musk’s posting spree began, constituents flooded his office with calls telling him to reject the spending bill. 'My phone was ringing off the hook,' Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky told CBS News. 'The people who elected us are listening to Elon Musk.'"
RAS,
Yeah, saying “The public doesn’t care” IS an excuse for abject irresponsibility on the part of the press, but they’re not entirely wrong. A huge percentage of the public DOESN’T care.
Democrats, for decades, have tried to take the high road. Walter Mondale spent time and effort trying to educate voters about positions using facts and logic. Then Reagan would crack a joke, tell lies about welfare mothers driving Cadillacs, or say something like “There you go again…” and the press and too many voters would swoon. Facts and logic might work in an academic paper or an essay, but it’s a losing strategy with voters, especially now, in the Tik-Tok age.
It’s not like Democrats have a bad or illegitimate message. They most certainly do not. Pretty much everything Biden has done as President was designed to help the public, whether they realized it or not, whether they cared or not. Every single thing Trump does is designed to help himself, personally. But many don’t seem to care. “Oh! It’s Donald! He’s making America great again!”
He had four years to do that. He made it worse. Much worse.
Democrats need to find a way to package their message differently. One great start would be allowing the next generation to step up, something Nancy Pelosi is dead set against, to our very great detriment.
If young people are getting their news on Tik-Tok, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts, then go there. And use those tactics. Memorable, quick hit bites. Trump is a rapist? Forget ABC. Go to Tik-Tok and produce killer clips saying so. If I were in charge of messaging right now, I’d use AI to create a dozen clips showing Elon Musk making his fat Trump marionette dance. You want to get rid of Musk and Ramaswamy? Be strategic. Present Trump as their puppet. He’ll boot them as soon as he feels like people are laughing at him.
I’m not saying go the Fox route and make shit up. Christ! Who needs to make up horrible stuff about Trump? Use facts, but put them in a new bottle. Be cool, be hip, be creative. But make sure your message gets heard.
We all laughed at those AI pictures of Trump saving cats and dogs and wading hip deep through hurricane waters to rescue poor people. We all know that fat fuck wouldn’t put himself out for anybody, but those images resonated, even with people who knew they were fake. This is how propaganda works. Let’s use some of those tactics against the MAGA horde. No one wants to follow losers who tuck tail and say “Boy, do we suck!” But that’s what is coming from Democrats these days.
Suck it up. Resist! Fight! Point out a different way. But be smart about it. Voters and the press don’t want broccoli. They want red meat. Okay. Give it to ‘em. We have to make believers out of voters. This is what the MAGA mob does, but they do it with lies.
Let’s use the truth against them. It’s a long haul.
Better start today.