Thank you once again for your support for this old blog this year. I am so very grateful for all my readers and truly appreciate those of you who are able to put a few bucks in the kitty. It means everything, especially in tough times like these. So they managed to avoid a shutdown at the last minute and everybody got to go home for Christmas. But their hiccup at the end exposed the glaring fact that the Republican legislative majority is going to be an even worse shitshow than we might have thought. We knew they’d be incompetent and extreme. But I don’t think any of us understood that Elon Musk would be the new leader of the party and would take to his massive platform to threaten Republicans with his massive fortune. But it was entirely predictable that the Freedom Caucus weirdos would just say no. They always do. Apparently, they were finally able to appease President Musk and his assistant Donald Trump with a promise to raise the debt ceiling while simultaneously making massive cuts to the safety net: House Republicans have a new plan for their agenda next year — one that might even satisfy tech billionaire Elon Musk. They claim they’re going to cut $2.5 trillion in government spending, in return for raising the debt ceiling. Specifically, this handshake deal — part of Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to avert a government shutdown — is to cut mandatory spending, which includes major social safety net…