Midday Open Thread

“Senate Republicans are rallying behind the idea of a clean continuing resolution. It just can’t actually be clean — and it probably can’t address the debt limit,” NOTUS reports. “As House Republicans rose up against Speaker Mike Johnson’s government funding plan, and Democrats suggested they weren’t open to a renegotiation, President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance complicated the matter further Wednesday by demanding that any agreement — even the clean CR that conservatives have been pushing for — would be ‘destructive’ without terminating or extending ‘the Debt Ceiling guillotine.’” “Senate Republicans said they understood Trump’s frustration with the looming debt ceiling, but they suggested there was little power to renegotiate the deal in the next 48 hours, particularly without giving Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer additional concessions.”

Catholic Charities, a social service agency, applied to be exempt from paying the unemployment tax in Wisconsin, based on their affiliation with the Catholic church. This was denied, so Catholic Charities turned the other cheek and sued the state and repeatedly lost, all the way up to the state supreme court:: In light of all that, Catholic Charities applied to the state for an exemption from paying unemployment taxes for its employees.

President Joe Biden endorsed a ban on congressional stock trading in an interview released this week, belatedly weighing in on an issue that has been debated on Capitol Hill for years. Better late than never -- millionaire Congress members have fueled the cynicism of voters for decades. Via the AP: “Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden said. [] It’s unclear what impact Biden’s statement could have, coming only a month before his term ends. The Democratic president spoke to Shakir about his economic legacy, which includes supporting unions, investing in clean energy projects and signing infrastructure.

Monica S. Aswani, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Paul Shafer, Boston University The U. S. has made great progress in getting more people insured since the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014. The share of uninsured Americans ages 18 to 64 fell from 18% before the ACA to 9.5% in 2022.

If what Matt Gaetz says is true, the report the House Ethics Committee plans to release—if it says bad things about him—is vindictive and possibly defamatory.

We need a Milei. Rand Paul is our Milei. And Elon Musk is right behind him.