Will there be a Christmas Miracle?
Or a Blight Christmas?
Let’s start with a poll:
Johnson actually needs to become “Magic Mike” to pull off keeping the government open. If you haven’t been following the minute-by-minute disaster, it started unfolding Wednesday morning when Elmo Muskrat sent a 4:15 a.m. tweet saying “NO” to the CR. He followed with 99 additional tweets during the day. He threatened any Rethuglican who voted for the CR with a primary challenger. He incorrectly cited parts of the bill that didn’t exist. He does not have ANY idea of how government works.
By the afternoon, he had pushed the Orange Menace and Not-His-Real-Name into a corner, where they were forced into coming out against the CR.
Bill dead in the water.
The only way to get it passed would be to bring it to the floor out of regular order, meaning it would need 2/3 of the House to vote in favour of it, and that means more Democratic than Rethuglican votes, meaning that Mike does NOT get to be Speaker in January. (It’s iffy anyway, since he’s pissed off so much of his caucus, and all the Democrats.)
Von Shitzenpants wants something to pass with a suspension of the debt ceiling. I’ve written about this before - it expires on 2 January 2025, although the money will last through mid-April when the tax monies come in, using “extraordinary means.” Therefore, we won’t default - but he wants it because he wants NO debt ceiling so that he can do the rich-people tax cuts he craves.
No debt ceiling is a hard sell to the chaos caucus, and a lot of Democratic spending priorities would need to be included to get it past the line.
OH WAIT!
Those are the same spending priorities the MAGA morons said “NO” to for the CR, which was only going to last until March.
So what’s left?
The government shuts down Friday night, but the House and Senate stay in DC and hammer out something to get the government open by 2 January 2025.
The government shuts down Friday night, and they blow town, returning on 3 January 2025, when the new legislative session begins at noon. Here’s the thing: they can’t do anything until they first elect a Speaker. It took 15 rounds of voting for Kevin to win in 2023, and who knows? If there is no Speaker, a “Speaker Pro Tem” can be put into place, but then legislation can’t move forward. Legalese here.
The CR passes. This is how it would happen:
No matter what happens, it bodes poorly for the incoming House to accomplish anything. By reneging on the bipartisan CR deal, there is no benefit to Democrats negotiating with Mike (or whoever becomes Speaker) because that person is untrustworthy. Therefore, ANY legislation will need to pass exclusively on Rethuglican votes. Here’s a list of things that are MORE likely than getting the entirety of the 119th chaos caucus to agree to any major legislation:
The drones over Jersey turn out to actually be aliens from the future, coming to bring us peace.
Putin concedes and gives back all the Ukrainian territory, and admits to war crimes.
North Korea becomes a full-fledged democracy.
Elmo Muskrat is deported back to South Africa.
Don the Con pays all his legal bills, everything he owes to E Jean Carroll, the state of NY, his lawyers, his debt to Rudy AND he serves time for his criminal convictions.
Eating cookies causes people to lose weight.
It’s going to be a fun time watching the House.