Donald who?

In just under the wire.  An 11th hour passage.

How many times have we seen this?  A week of scare reporting on the possibility of a shutdown, and then they pass a budget.  You may have noticed YWA didn't even bother to post anything about it, assuming they'd get it done, as they do, with very rare exceptions.  

At 2:22 PM, a sweaty and stressed-out looking Mike Johnson emerged from his meeting with House Republicans and declared: "We have a unified Republican conference. There's a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward. I will not telegraph to you the specific details of that yet...I expect that we will be proceeding forward. We will not have a government shutdown."

The House was finally able to pass the 3rd Edition of the Mini-Omni-CR as Mike Johnson largely surrendered to Democrats and mostly returned to the original deal he reneged on before Musk started popping off two days ago. There are very few differences between the original deal and this one because Johnson brought Hakeem Jeffries back into negotiations, and the bill passed with Democratic support.

Every Democrat voted for the bill. 34 Republicans voted against it.

According to WaPo, these are the things that were taken out of the original deal, with the rest of it remaining the same:

1. Provision aimed at ensuring food stamps are replenished for Americans whose benefits are stolen. Possibly as many as 300K affected, per CBPP.

2. A series of changes to the operations of pharmacy benefit managers — middlemen in the medicine business that negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. (EG attempt to end “spread pricing,” where PBMs charge a health plan more for a drug than what they pay to the pharmacies that dispense it.)

3. Pay hikes for members of Congress -- 4% or so increases.

4. Transferring control of the land in Washington, D.C., where RFK Stadium sits to the District. (No new funds here) .

5. Cruz/Klobuchar bill aimed at cracking down on revenge porn/deepfakes.

6. New and expanded restrictions on U.S. investments in China.

  Meidas

So the tech bros and Ivanka can still do business.

Johnson and Musk are saying they are happy with the final deal.

Well, as long as President Musk is happy.

House Republicans had scuttled the CR agreed upon earlier when President Elon told them to, threatening to primary anyone who didn't vote against it.  When Trump said they should pass a resolution and, importantly, lift the debt ceiling to avoid having the mess continue into his reign, they ignored him.

Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Matt Boyle to Steve Bannon: “What we are seeing is Trump is beginning to turn on Mike Johnson.”

Tommy Tuberville: “We should have done this two months ago. Mike Johnson has been riding around on airplanes with Trump, going places, doing speeches with the president. Get back here and do your damn job! We do things half-assed up here. Don’t worry about your Speakership - do your job!”

Johnson backed out of his scheduled appearance at Charlie Kirk’s big AmFest event in Arizona tomorrow because he knew he was about to get booed off stage. The first time his name was mentioned at the event today, the crowd erupted in boos. Probably the first smart move he’s made in months to back out of that.

Mike Johnson's days are numbered. And Republicans are floating making Musk Speaker of the House. They may settle for Vivek Ramaswamy. 

They might not get their wish, however, as it's doubtful Democrats would vote for either.  It's odd to me that the party holding the office doesn't get to simply install whomever they want.

MAGA is really rough on its own when they get any independent ideas.  Not that I have any sympathy for the ones they tear up and spit out.  

I'm surprised they're bucking the Orange God at all.  Maybe they really are looking to Elon to run their party.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY): “I hate to say this in public, but this is a chess game. The Speaker is in a finesse game, this isn’t a bludgeon game. Trump can sit on Truth Social all day, but that didn’t persuade 38 Members of Congress.”

Ouch.

As I said in yesterday's post, Elon may get bumped sooner than we think if Trump feels he's losing the top spot.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:57 pm:

Jeez.  He looks 95.  Hasn't had his spray tan yet either.

UPDATE 12/22/2024:

A worried mind.