trumpty plumpty

[KUTradition]

i don’t think he knows the definition of friend

[japhy]

Don't worry rubes, the billionaires are just here to help you.

One Sunday in March 1888, former President Rutherford B. Hayes wrote in his diary, “This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.” Hayes offered this private admission at the peak of the Gilded Age, when, as the historian Richard White put it, “corruption suffused government and the economy.” Businessmen amassed fortunes never seen before in American history and demanded government officials aid them in expanding those fortunes further.

If there was any doubt that we are in a new Gilded Age, Speaker Mike Johnson’s admission to Fox News Wednesday obliterated it.

Johnson appeared on “Fox and Friends” the morning after congressional leaders released the full text of a deal to keep the federal government running through mid-March. As my colleague Hayes Brown explained Tuesday, Congress needs to pass a funding bill this week to avoid “a decidedly unmerry shutdown.”

On the one hand, most House Republicans don’t want to vote for a bill that Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden will accept. But they also don’t want to be blamed for a government shutdown. To square this circle, Johnson planned to count on Democratic votes to expedite the bill’s passage with a two-thirds majority, so much of his caucus can oppose the deal without consequence.After playing a compilation of GOP representatives complaining about the bill, “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy asked Speaker Johnson about Elon Musk’s post a few hours prior that “this bill should not pass.”

“If you could,” Doocy asked, “what’s your message to Elon Musk?”

“I was communicating with Elon last night,” Johnson revealed. “Elon, Vivek [Ramaswamy] and I were on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background of this.”

In other words, with the federal government days from a partial shutdown, the person second in the line of presidential succession is spending his time tending to the egos of two rich businessmen.

And the rubes voted to provide debt service for them, why shouldn't the oligarchs be appeased?

Johnson was not even consulting Musk and Ramaswamy on areas where they might have expertise. He was explaining to these men very basic facts about how the House of Representative works. “Remember, guys, we still have just a razor-thin margin of Republicans,” Johnson says he told the two men. “So any bill has to have Democrat votes.”The speaker’s attempts at reassurance were unsuccessful. Like Musk, Ramaswamy has maintained his opposition despite Johnson’s efforts. Nor, it seems, was Musk paying attention to the lesson in congressional basics: He wrote on X that any congressperson or senator “who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Never mind that only one-third of the Senate is up for re-election in 2026.

The problem here goes far deeper than the rich mistaking wealth for expertise — any sports fan, for example, can name a dozen team owners who demonstrate that failing to the world every year. These two men, though, have been granted an advisory commission on government spending. Musk and Ramaswamy want to cut trillions from the federal budget — reductions as vast as their grasp on governance is tenuous. And that’s before you include Musk’s web of conflicts of interest with various government regulators. In a vacuum, their posts would be harmless, but their influence makes them disastrous.Late Wednesday, Musk’s influence was affirmed when President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance released a statement echoing him. They lambasted congressional Republicans for “allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025” and calling for “a streamlined spending bill” that increases the debt ceiling but “doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want,” such as “sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney.” Will Musk and Ramaswamy be the architects of this “streamlined” bill?

For decades, the influence of money in politics has grown alongside the country’s increasing income inequality. Those who warned about this growing influence have been thoroughly vindicated. This year, Trump’s campaign was fueled by roughly $800 million from seven billionaire families. His administration will include more than a dozen billionaires, the wealthiest since President Warren Harding’s corrupt White House.

Drain the swamp he said!

Guberment shut downs saves muney! Eloon said there would be some tough times ahead. He's done such a great job with twitter, why not let him play with the US economy?

Thank you for your debt service rubes.

We are enriched on the unceded finances of the roadkill rube peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the roadkill rube community; their elders both past and present, as well as future generations. The Japhy Empire also acknowledges that it was founded upon the trickling up of their monies. This acknowledgement demonstrates a non-commitment to beginning the process of working to dismantle the ongoing legacies of trickle up economics; cuz the rubes likes it this way.

[japhy]

Putin must be beside himself watching all of the bootlickers line up to kiss the ring of his puppet.

I genuinely wonder if this outcome was even within what he thought possible on the Trump gambit.

You do have to give Putin credit, trumpty plumpty has turned out to be his special boy. Putin chose wisely, he did his homework. It is going to be a very merry Christmas in the Kremlin this year.

[jfish26]

might be the greatest 4 years in history.

at the very least, it will be the most interesting.

Ronald Reagan frowns disapprovingly over your surrender to Russia.

[MICHHAWK]

America hates russia.

Americans hate russians.

[jfish26]

America hates russia.

Americans hate russians.

You put a Russian asset in the big chair.

[twocoach]

America hates russia.

Americans hate russians.

Donald Trump owes his livelihood to Russia and is President thanks to them so I doubt he hates them at all.

[twocoach]

might be the greatest 4 years in history.

at the very least, it will be the most interesting.

That is certainly not the "very least" of the possibilities.

[Overlander]

i don’t think he knows the definition of friend

He cries for attention.

[JKLivin]

Pledging fealty is kinda like friendship.

[jfish26]

Only if you don't have any real friends.

[JKLivin]

Only if you don't have any real friends.

Wealthy, powerful people rarely do.

[KUTradition]

narcissists rarely do

[Overlander]

Psych must have a lot of friends

[KUTradition]

funniest thing i’ve read all day

[JKLivin]

Psych must have a lot of friends

Sick burn, bruh! Work in a dick reference, and we're right on track.

[KUTradition]

truth hurts

[Overlander]

Psych must have a lot of friends

Sick burn, bruh! Work in a dick reference, and we're right on track.

Did you just ask for more dick?

[JKLivin]

Psych must have a lot of friends

Sick burn, bruh! Work in a dick reference, and we're right on track.

Did you just ask for more dick?

Nope. Just opened the door for you to be who you are. And you walked right through it.

[Overlander]

Sick burn, bruh! Work in a dick reference, and we're right on track.

Did you just ask for more dick?

Nope. Just opened the door for you to be who you are. And you walked right through it.

I did?