Stir it up and vanish

I checked my records – in the thirteen years of this blog the only previous time I posted on December 24 was in 2013 when a lot of state bans on same-sex marriage were challenged and overturned. Prior to this year on Christmas Eve I would be at the church warming up the bell choir, then leading them during the service. Going back to 1980 I missed only a couple services. I also played bells at the Christmas eve services while in middle and high school. This year I and the other ringers recorded our part in the service last Friday. We each had our own well spaced table and our own bells. We wore masks. And we were glad we could play a second take. And a third. So I’m home this evening. I watched my church’s online service, mostly to see my bell choir. Because the service was posted this afternoon I could watch the bells a second time. I woke up this morning and glanced at the bedside clock. It was dark. Oh goody, the power was out. The battery run clock said it was 7:30. The house wasn’t real cold, so I figured the power hadn’t been off long. I lit candles (sunrise hadn’t happened yet), then called the electric company. Thankfully, the voice said power would be restored by 11:30. An update call said the problem was caused by downed trees. There was rain and snow last night with wind. I bundled up and settled in to read for a while. Thankfully the electricity was back on before 10:15. At about 10:45 the electric company called again. If I was still having problems there is another underlying issue. I should tell them about it through their app (I don’t have a phone to run it on) or their website (and how do I do that if I don’t have electricity to run my computer?). The nasty guy is getting good at stirring things up, resulting in chaos. I don’t have a post (or a series) with a definitive account of what happened in the government over yesterday and today. So I don’t have links to sources and I may get it wrong. Which means I may have to correct things in a day or so. This is what I think happened. Congress, after months of wrangling (otherwise known as inaction), passed three spending bills, which together have about 5000 pages. A lot of other things in there too. The three are defense authorization, general federal budget to last until September, and virus relief. This got done yesterday, the day before Christmas Eve. The nasty guy vetoed the defense authorization, the first time that’s happened in 60 years. He vetoed it because of provisions to rename military bases currently named for Confederate leaders. The nasty guy did nothing with the general budget bill, which means there could be a government shutdown if he doesn’t sign by Monday. The nasty guy said the $600 per person in virus relief aid isn’t enough. It should be $2000. Then he left for Florida. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said $2000 instead of $600? That’s a great idea! She called the House into session to quickly pass it. The GOP shot down the quick method. Pelosi plans on Monday to have the House hold a roll-call vote so people will see which members voted it up or down. If the virus relief bill isn’t signed there will be a whole lot of hurt. In addition to the money there are things like eviction protection that run out next week that this bill would renew. There’s likely enough votes to override the defense authorization bill. That would mean Congress would be busy next week when they would rather be home. After declaring the relief checks should be $2000 instead of $600, is the nasty guy twisting any arms to make it happen? Nope. He’s in Florida with his golf game. After the Republicans and Democrats carefully reached a compromised, in a few words he blew it up. And vanished. I get the feeling this was intentional (while looking good to voters) as another way to make the government fall apart. Jake Sherman of NBC News tweeted:

So let’s recap where we are on Christmas Eve. — Unemployment expires Saturday. — Government funding expires Monday. — House Rs blocked Dem 2k check bill. — Senate R leadership says 2k check bill cant get 60 in the Senate, unlikely to bring it up. — No plan to keep govt open.

Leah McElrath responded:

The REAL “War on Christmas”: