December 19, 2024

Money Matters Muddled by Musk

A couple of months ago, Congress passed what’s called a Continuing Resolution (aka, a “CR”) to keep the federal government funded at current levels until after the election. They picked a follow-up date fairly close to Christmas, with the beliefs that 1) post-election, a lot of congresspeople would be freer to vote their conscience than something that looks good to extremists, and 2) nobody would want to shut the whole thing down that close to the holiday. And with that in mind, Congress — particularly House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) — and the White House were working toward another CR, in an atypically quiet fashion, with the hopes of passing it prior to Friday night’s deadline. While Johnson did try to squeeze in a few GOP priorities, knowing that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House for a few more weeks, he also included a few things in the bill to keep the Blue Team on board.

Then yesterday morning, CEO of eX-Twitter and head of the dubiously-named Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk began to rant on his site about the resolution, sending out over 100 tweets about how terrible a thing it was. (And it should be noted that there were quite a few lies and misrepresentations told about the CR.) Around midday, he issued a warning, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” And not long after that, both President-elect Donald Trump and still-Senator-for-another-month J.D. Vance also came out against the bill, making it clear that any House member who voted for it might be risking their future career.

So Johnson is now stuck trying to negotiate a three-way deal, between the two parties currently in power plus the once-and-future-king and his friends, demanding — among other things — that no concessions be made for Democrats. The deadline of 12:01 AM Saturday morning can’t be changed, so unless Johnson can pull one heckuva rabbit out of his hat, there will be at least a partial shutdown of the government at that time. It should also be noted that the last government shutdown, also caused by Trump, cost the U.S. Government an estimated extra $3 billion once all was said and done.

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Gaetz Goaded into Grousing After Getting Goose Cooked

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) turned to eX-Twitter as well yesterday, attempting to pre-emptively attack a report by the House Ethics Committee into his behavior. Up until yesterday, the members of the Committee had voted to keep the report under wraps; but then they decided to release it after all — most likely within the next couple of days.

Gaetz, sounding a bit like an algebra student trying to explain the cheat sheets stuffed in his sneakers on exam day, posted a long tweet attempting to justify, deflect, and/or defend his activities, which are rumored to have involved illegal drugs, prostitutes, and sex with underage women. Regardless, it seems some very dirty laundry is soon to be aired.

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Christmas Calamity? Warehouse Workers Walk

Workers at seven U.S. Amazon facilities took to the picket lines earlier today, hoping to encourage talks between their union and the massive retailer. A press release by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who represents roughly 10,000 Amazon employees, announced the “largest strike against Amazon in American History”, with picket lines being formed in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, and elsewhere.

Amazon, the second-largest corporation on the Fortune 500 list, has stated that they do not expect any effect on their operations during one of the busiest times of the year. The fact that the Jeff Bezos-founded behemoth has successfully kept unions from representing any more than only about 1% of their overall workforce probably has a lot to do with that attitude. Employees are demanding better working conditions and wages, while the National Labor Relations Board has been issuing complaints about Amazon refusing to bargain with the Teamsters. The retailer, for their part, has claimed that the Teamsters have “threatened, intimidated and attempted to coerce” employees to join them, and has challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB. They also announced about a week ago that they would be donating $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration.

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