Mean Tweets for a Christmas shutdown

I had no idea Republicans are so scared of Elon Musk. Plus: Fani's humiliations multiply.

Dec 20, 2024

Mean tweets are like coal in your stocking, and Mike Johnson just got a heaping helping in his.

I’m an early riser. I read the five word tweet Elon Musk posted on X at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday morning within an hour after he posted it. “This should not pass” was Musk’s repost of Musk’s DOGE partner Vivek Ramaswamy’s comment from 11:07pm the night before: “Currently reading the 1,547-page bill to fund the government through mid-March. Expecting every U.S. Congressman & Senator to do the same.” I never dreamed they would have such impact.

The battle lines are now drawn. Outgoing President Joe Biden is a ghost. Vice President Kamala Harris is the shadow of a ghost. They don’t exist. President-elect Donald Trump claimed credit for Musk’s sinking of the latest continuing resolution to fund the government for another three months. “"I told him that if he agrees with me, that he could put out a statement," Trump told ABC News.

On Wednesday afternoon, following a storm of agreement (and some horror) on Musk’s X social media platform regarding the bill, Trump added on his own Truth Social: “Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH, If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF.”

I have to admit, I have not read the 1,547-page bill that Musk, who runs three or four major companies and breaks speedrunning records on video games, seems to have done before Ramaswamy’s post on Tuesday night. But it’s not unlike Congress to spend months piling on the pork and negotiating (through staff) tiny details of a funding bill that’s slated to pass hours before the present funding runs out. That’s how our government has run for the past decade. It’s terrible—the whole rotten system is bad. It’s also an opportunity for anarcho-capitalists, or chaos-sowers, to throw everyone’s holiday into the toilet. That’s what Musk (and Trump) has done.

Why were Members of Congress visibly shaken, reading mean tweets on the floor of the House of Representatives? The Boston Globe reported,

“I was talking to people on other issues and all of a sudden it was just like it seeped out, ‘Elon Musk tweeted this. We’re in trouble,’ “ said Representative Bill Keating, a Bourne Democrat who watched Republicans reading Musk’s social media posts on the House floor Wednesday.

Do Republicans really care that much what a billionaire posts on social media? I guess they do if the billionaire is the new sidekick of the incoming president and has threatened to use his money to primary anyone who goes against his wishes. I actually agree with Musk’s position on the bill. Sneaking in a 3.8 percent cost of living raise for Congress is always a third rail, and Musk hit it hard; he retweeted a false claim that the increase was 40%. Done properly, the increase is actually overdue: the last pay raise Members of Congress received was in January 2009, and that was a measly 2.8 percent. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t take a job where tiny raises were fifteen years apart.

This is how the sausage is made. Anything negotiated into a huge CR bill is negated when issues like congressional pay or pet pork projects are pulled out to be sacrificed. And Musk is ruthless. I just never thought he’d have this much pure political power.

Republicans quickly cobbled together a 116-page shim to keep the government running, which included a two-year removal of the federal debt cap. That’s a head-scratcher for me. If Musk and Republicans are so hung up on the federal debt, and if DOGE is supposed to make government more efficient, why would they ask to blow the roof off the debt for two years, effectively giving a blank check to GOP-controlled Congress with big spending Trump in the White House?

It doesn’t make sense to me, unless Republicans are disingenuous. I have that concern about Elon Musk also. I think he’s persuasive, and I know he’s smart. But I don’t think he’s truthful about many (most) things. I think Musk is disingenuous about his intentions for getting heavily involved in politics and government. I can’t guess his true motives, but personal enrichment is one that comes to mind—or what does the man with the most money in the world want? Power comes to mind.

(I always think of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics in “Badlands” to explain this. “Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.” It fits this situation very well, don’t you agree?)

The bill that Speaker Mike Johnson threw out for a quick vote was quickly and roundly defeated, 174-235. It would have required a two-thirds majority to pass, and it didn’t even get 50 percent. Every nearly single Democrat voted against, joined by (I believe) 14 Republicans, including Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. Trump responded by saying on social media he hoped some “talented challengers” would run against Roy, who he called an “obstructionist.” “Republican obstructionists have to be done away with,” Trump posted.

Chip Roy is a good man, and a cancer survivor. He’s competent and a debt hawk. He’s the kind of guy I think Elon Musk would like to have around. He’s the kind of guy who read the 1,547-page bill like Vivek said he should. Sen. Rand Paul probably read the bill, too. Paul suggested that the House might replace Speaker Mike Johnson with Elon Musk. That was echoed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. MTG almost certainly did not read the 1,547-page bill; MTG is not competent, nor is she a debt hawk. She is not the kind of person I think Musk would like to have around. But she’s predictable because she parrots anything extreme or stupid and takes it to a higher orbit. She’s the kind of person Trumps likes to have around, and no, Trump isn’t inviting anyone “talented” to primary her.

Technically, Congress could name Elon Musk to be speaker. They can name pretty much anyone they want. But Musk would not want the job, so it’s not a serious proposal. I don’t think Speaker Johnson’s 116-page bill was serious either. And if the current government funding expires at midnight of December 21, the party at the helm of Congress will be blamed for it. It will be Mike Johnson’s head on a platter if Donald Trump and Elon Musk will it to be so. I’d be happy if Chip Roy was speaker, but that’s not going to happen.

Somehow, magical-thinking Republicans believe the country will hold Democrats responsible for a federal shutdown the week of Christmas, when people are on vacation and traveling around the country. No, they can’t blame the ghost President Biden. They can’t blame the previous speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who is recovering from emergency hip replacement surgery. They can’t blame House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Voters will blame Mike Johnson and Republicans. They will blame him for failing to negotiate a better bill that Democrats called “bipartisan.”

Musk and Trump have thrown Johnson under the bus, which is always the reward for being Trump’s guy. Perhaps there will be a last minute deal to keep the government running without the two-year debt ceiling suspension. But the message is clear: do what Musk and Trump say, or it’s curtains. I do not like this vibe at all. It smacks of some very extra-government para-dictator fascist crapulence. It’s got a bad smell to it. I don’t trust these leaders to do what they say, or say what they are planning to do (though Trump tends to be honest about his intentions to be a dictator on “day one”).

I’m no fan of Mike Johnson either, mind you. He’s a lickspittle and a political chameleon. He wears his Bible on his sleeve but doesn’t consult it when it tells him to be careful to associate with people of good character. However, Johnson won a hard-fought battle for speaker, and now it looks like like he’s being set up to possibly fight again—though Trump says he feels confident right now. That could change tomorrow if Johnson gets a truly bipartisan bill across the finish line.

I would not want to be Mike Johnson right now: either do Musk and Trump’s bidding and fall on the sword of blame for a Christmas shutdown, or get the funding bill passed and earn the scorn of the two bosses.

FANI, FANI, THE HUMILIATIONS MULTIPLY. I don’t have much to add to the New York Times coverage of Fani Willis. She hired her lover to be a special prosecutor in the RICO case against Donald Trump et al. The case is in shambles, and now a full panel of Georgia’s Court of Appeals overruled the trial judge, Scott McAfee, that Willis is disqualified from prosecuting the case. Willis said she’ll appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, but that will take time, and meanwhile, Trump will be in the White House. This only adds embarrassment to failure, like when Young Thug’s associates were acquitted in the longest, most expensive RICO trial in Georgia’s history.

Fani Willis may very well be the most incompetent, inefficient, politically stupid district attorney in Fulton County’s history. And that’s saying a lot since the guy she beat barely walked away from jail when a federal jury found former Fulton DA Paul Howard not guilty of sexual harassment. Fulton County has a history of political hacks in the role of top prosecutor. Willis’s record of failure and humiliation is going to be hard to beat.

For my part, I voted against her. But being a Democrat, her victory was assured. So we get more years of cringe ahead. At least I don’t live in GA CD 14, where voters continue to re-elect MTG. There’s always a silver lining.

Mean Tweets for a Christmas shutdown

I had no idea Republicans are so scared of Elon Musk. Plus: Fani's humiliations multiply.

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