AMA Thursday
This is going well...
Good morning readers.
Quick housekeeping note: This will be the last AMA of the year. Off Message will be on holiday schedule starting Monday through January 3. What that means is a little murky, particularly now that Donald Trump is trying to shut down the government, and Republicans may not be able to elect a speaker before January 6.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We won’t go dark through big news, or deprive you of Evergreen Holiday Content, but the schedule will be lighter and newsletters might arrive at unusual hours.
Speaking of!
Elon Musk front-ran Donald Trump to torpedo a temporary spending bill the bipartisan congressional leadership wrote together.
He seems to have done this based on nonsense he read on X.
Vice President-elect Donald Trump and Assistant to the Vice President-elect JD Vance issued a bizarre joint statement falling in line with President-elect Musk.
The ad hoc Republican position seems to be that the only acceptable deal is a clean extension of current funding levels combined with an untimely increase in the debt limit, so that the Musk-Trump-Vance administration doesn’t have to deal with it.
Government shuts down Friday without a deal.
I’ll save my views on the goofiness of the Musk-Trump-Vance demands, and what Democrats should do now that Republicans have reneged on the deal, for commenters and live chatters.
Speaking of which, Democrats have their own issues, as I wrote and podcasted about this week.
And the assemblage of the Musk-led Trump kleptocracy continues apace.
This isn’t close to an exhaustive list, even if we limit it to domestic news. What else should we chat about? Joe Biden’s clemency decisions (or indecisions)? Chris Murphy’s seamless transition from MAGA whisperer to anti-MAGA warrior? Trump’s chronic hyperventilation about the enemies he wants to harass? The floor is yours, starting around 2 p.m. this afternoon.
UPDATE: The time has come.
