Congress Catch-All

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dcphx said:
Musk has effectively executed a hostile takeover of the United States. He will answer to no one and each time his will is challenged, he will threaten to spend millions on opposition to every Republican who does not fold to him. He doesn't have to go through with it because having to combat the endless coffers and social media influence of Musk is nightmare fuel to every House member. Further, with the House so close, most of the time he won't have to move very many members to make it completely untenable. Johnson won't even bring anything forward without Musk's approval.

Since Musk doesn't have to care about voters, he is going to touch every traditional political third rail and laugh about it. It is going to get bumpy quick.
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Cost him a fraction of the cost he paid for Twitter.
 
(i) The timing of Musk starting this kill the CR and shut down the government today hours earlier versus Trump having a rage explosion against the CR later in the day

plus

(II) difference between the shut it down, burn it down message on Xitter versus Trump’s “you need to have the debt ceiling raised now on Biden’s watch”

offers pretty good insight into how Musk (and it appears Vance) are manipulating Trump at the moment.



“…
just as conservative Republicans and Mr. Musk were railing against the bipartisan deal for adding too much spending to the national debt, Mr. Trump called for raising the debt ceiling, insisting that Republicans must increase it as part of the spending package so the borrowing limit would go up while President Biden was still in the White House.

It reflected a recognition by the president-elect that his party would have a difficult time raising the limit next year when they have full control of Congress, and that he would not want to sign such a measure. Many Republicans refuse to back debt ceiling increases, viewing them as politically toxic.

The borrowing limit is expected to be reached sometime in January, and a failure to increase it would cause a default on the nation’s debt. Mr. Trump acknowledged that he did not want to shoulder the responsibility for doing so.

“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great,” Mr. Trump said in his statement, “but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch.” …”

www.nytimes.com

Trump, Egged On by Musk, Condemns Spending Deal, Raising Fears of Government Shutdown

The president-elect weighed in against the huge spending package after Elon Musk had spent the day warning Republicans not to support it. The blowup left the compromise on life support.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
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heelslegup said:
As somone said; "Looks like President Musk and Vice President Trump want a govt shutdown."
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I guess the hope now is that they would “settle” for a clean CR but (a) that would NOT fix Trump’s issue about the debt ceiling (and he is on record that isn’t good enough for him) and (b) wouldn’t allocate a lot of extra funds for hurricane relief that is currently provided in the tanked CR (among other things).

There ARE a number of extras in n the tanked CR that could be removed and have Musk call it a win (like the bit about Congressional raises and protection for Congress against DOJ investigation), but now it seems like Trump is all shut down or bust about the debt ceiling.

Query whether the actual current POTUS will wade into this at any point (for instance with a veto threat on the debt ceiling issue)? Biden has been MIA as a spokesperson for his own administration for a while now, but particularly so since he withdrew from the ticket this summer. I am sure part of the goal is to make it clear that the Musk/Trump administration owns any shut down but Biden has been pretty pathetic playing mute piñata for the incoming admin since November.
 
Musk and Trump could have insisted on a clean CR and it would have easily passed. Clean CRs happen all the time. Instead, they wait until Johnson and Schumer negotiate a bipartisan package with funds for both Republican and Dem priorities since as of now Dems control Senate and WH, A truly clean CR does not contain disaster funding which everyone wants and esp no6t farm aid which is Rep ask.
I presume the eventual outcome will be a CR with disaster funding but Trump amd Musk could have demanded that days ago.

This sort of manufactured grievance drama will happen a lot until the next election in 2 years. It is also one of the reasons Trump 1.0 lost many seats in the 2018 midterm elections and likely will again.

Independent voters quickly tire of this sort of Musk social media outrage drama
 
dcphx said:
Musk has effectively executed a hostile takeover of the United States. He will answer to no one and each time his will is challenged, he will threaten to spend millions on opposition to every Republican who does not fold to him. He doesn't have to go through with it because having to combat the endless coffers and social media influence of Musk is nightmare fuel to every House member. Further, with the House so close, most of the time he won't have to move very many members to make it completely untenable. Johnson won't even bring anything forward without Musk's approval.

Since Musk doesn't have to care about voters, he is going to touch every traditional political third rail and laugh about it. It is going to get bumpy quick.

The only real question is what Trump will do about it, if anything. Musk is far smarter than Trump and despite his awkwardness, he is far more charismatic than every other wannabe Trump/MAGA heir. Musk has an aura about him that people worship. When we were debating what smart politician would take over after Trump on the right and be able to pull the same shit...no one saw Musk coming. He's a fucking tool who will go to any length to get what he wants regardless of the consequences. If someone showed credible evidence that Musk messed with voting, I wouldn't even doubt it for a nanosecond.
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Welcome to the final fruits of the Citizens United decision. It is now quite legal for billionaire plutocrats to buy presidential and congressional elections and run the country. We really have come full circle back to the Gilded Age, it's just that the names of the plutocrats have changed. I've read that J.P. Morgan used to treat the POTUS like an equal, and would talk about "your man meeting my man" to work out some kind of deal, as if he had the same powers as the president. And I've also read that business tycoon and GOP leader Mark Hanna of Ohio "wore President McKinley practically as a watch fob." It would appear that Trump, like McKinley, has found his Mark Hanna - Elon Musk.
 
altmin said:
Till Trump realizes more people are paying attention to Musk than him. Then Twitter and Tesla and SpaceX will be hit with anti-monopoly investigations.
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I doubt he’ll ever overtly attack Musk. Ttump may be an idiot in nearly all facets of life, sans self promotion and preservation. He’s wily enough to see that Musk’s ability to financially overwhelm just about any person or organization on the planet is an existential threat to ttump - not to mention Musk’s violent incel cult is probably distinctly more dangerous than trump’s bubba and finance bro cult.
 
altmin said:
Till Trump realizes more people are paying attention to Musk than him. Then Twitter and Tesla and SpaceX will be hit with anti-monopoly investigations.
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But then what happens if Musk threatens members of Congress. Who do they follow- Trump or Musk?

God, I’ve mostly unplugged from most news the past few weeks, but this drama has sucked me back in.
 
Rougemont said:
But then what happens if Musk threatens members of Congress. Who do they follow- Trump or Musk?

God, I’ve mostly unplugged from most news the past few weeks, but this drama has sucked me back in.
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I think its Trump but I think they would like to not be put in a position where they have to choose. I think Trump can get almost any Republican primary I'm not sure musk has that power and Congress can raise money from other billionaires.
 
korgguy1971 said:
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Sounds like a guy who used to be a Republican darling desperately hoping to get his name into a media cycle. Maybe he can commiserate with Ted Cruz.

Being the Speaker of the house for the Republican party is a bit of a booby prize at this point. It wasn't that long ago that Newt Gingrich and Denny Hastert basically ruled the party and set the agenda and told members how they were going to vote. Bohnier had that power at the beginning of his term. Now it's just about impossible to keep the MAGA and Moderate Republicans on the same team.
 
HeelingAg said:
I doubt he’ll ever overtly attack Musk. Ttump may be an idiot in nearly all facets of life, sans self promotion and preservation. He’s wily enough to see that Musk’s ability to financially overwhelm just about any person or organization on the planet is an existential threat to ttump - not to mention Musk’s violent incel cult is probably distinctly more dangerous than trump’s bubba and finance bro cult.
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Money doesn't matter if you can command the Patel-run FBI to arrest Musk and take him to Guantanamo while the Supreme Court stands by smiling at their new king.
 
nycfan said:
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This seems about right to me. I'm having trouble thinking of any downside risk to Trump and Rs of shutting down the government until inauguration day. We're too far away from midterms for this to matter, and it will happen on Biden's watch so folks that don't like to think will accept that it was Biden's fault. I think markets have gotten used to shutdowns so I'm not sure they'll react too much, but I'm sure Trump hopes the Dow hits a low on January 19.

Remember, things have to be bad without Trump so he can be our savior. And his first term was a recurring nightmare of claiming triumphant victory over problems of his own creation.
 
Rougemont said:
But then what happens if Musk threatens members of Congress. Who do they follow- Trump or Musk?

God, I’ve mostly unplugged from most news the past few weeks, but this drama has sucked me back in.
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The 10 most expensive house races this year totaled about $350 million, with both sides combined. I’d imagine $10 million for a primary would be a large sum and Musk could easily drop that into a couple dozen races without even noticing.
If they go against him theyre probably going to get fucked and I doubt they’ll get a pony as a reward.
 
altmin said:
Money doesn't matter if you can command the Patel-run FBI to arrest Musk and take him to Guantanamo while the Supreme Court stands by smiling at their new king.
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You know all those agents Patel wants to fire? Musk might find them very useful.
 
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