Photo: An avalanche.
One of my favorite Christmas songs is It’s Beginning to Look at Lot Like Christmas, written by Meredith Willson, which was a big hit for singer Perry Como, released in the middle of September, 1951. I guess people were already thinking about Christmas in September?
It’s still a big hit, seven decades later, with with over 382 million streams on Spotify as of May 1, 2024. During 2023, it ranked 37 on the ‘Top 100’ in Lithuania. I didn’t know they even celebrated Christmas there.
But the hit song for the 2024 holiday season should be, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chaos.
I’m referring, of course, to the federal government, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla-SpaceX.
Fox News described the most recent mess this way… claiming the Continuing Resolution deal was “killed by an avalanche”:
House GOP leaders are working toward a backup plan after an initial bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown on Friday was killed by an avalanche of conservative opposition…
…Opponents of the legislation include Elon Musk, who posted on X, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
USA Today offered these comments:
With the House GOP struggling to avoid a federal government shutdown, President Joe Biden and the Democrats are more than happy to sit back and watch the chaos play out…
Just weeks away from Biden’s exit from Washington, the White House is willing to cede the spotlight to the Donald Trump and Elon Musk show.
I’ve never actually witnessed an avalanche, but “chaos” seems an apt characterization. USA Today avoided the “avalanche” metaphor and went straight for “chaos” to describe the relationship between Elon Musk and the misbehaving House of Representatives.
Out of curiosity, I watched the Friday evening vote on the revised ‘Continuing Resolution’ that will fund the federal government until March 14. Apparently, Musk endorsed the revised version… so maybe no one deserves to be voted out in 2 years.
196 Democrats in the House of Representatives, and 170 Republicans approved HR 10545, the American Relief Act of 2025, much to the relief of myself and millions of others, some of whom can expect relief from recent disasters. Like, they might receive a portion of $100 billion in relief funding, if they experienced a recent environmental disaster, or a portion of $10 billion if they were a qualifying farmer.
None of the Democratic Party representatives voted ‘Nay’.
But 34 Republicans voted ‘Nay’. Should we vote ’em out in two years? Musk will let us know.
Things might have gone badly, if the world’s richest man hadn’t endorsed the revised resolution. Most of the federal government could have been shut down until… when? January 20th?
Or else our federal employees would have been expected to work without pay. So I imagine they feel some relief.
I watched the voting on the House of Representative website, and couldn’t for the life of me perceive anyone actually “voting”. People seemed to be doing nothing more than wandering around, shaking each other’s hand, patting each other on the back, giving one another a hug.
No one seemed to be paying any attention whatsoever to Speaker Pro Tem Marcus Molinaro. He announced “This will be a 15 minute vote.” But votes were still rolling in 25 minutes later.
I didn’t see anyone raise their hand to vote, or submit a ballot in a ballot box, or doing anything that suggested voting.
But somehow votes were being counted. It was very mysterious to watch. Chaotic, in fact.
The House had to suspend their own rules in order to pass the resolution, but I guess that’s just part of the chaos.