“The alleged grown-ups get wrapped around the axle preserving the current system and don’t figure out how to support the changes that are beneficial. If there are any.” – Arrias

Arrias summed it up nicely with a phrase that fits a lot of this morning’s situation briefing. Another traveler down this path is Mr. Bill Gertz, a commentator for the Washington Times. Mr. Gertz is a talented of observer of the governmental shenanigans so popular here in Our Nation’s Capital. He is a regular contributor to one of the thematic threads of interest. Bill filed the following observations yesterday on the unintended consequences of the Government Shut Down.

Here is where we insert the obligatory phrase: “But wait! There is more!”

This one reflects that fact that the old Regular Order of identifying funds for the twelve regular appropriations bills is still sort of in progress as other issues, like who might be the next Speaker of the House, have more direct interest in the public space.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but the generational change contains enough of those that it is a bit hard to keep track. The. debate on the Fiscal 2024 Defense Authorization is moving ahead despite the chaos attending the ouster of Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

They may get to that next week, with preliminary plans for a vote of some kind next Wednesday. Meanwhile, there are two bills related to military expenditures still in progress in House and Senate. They will issue from each chamber and then go from to a conference session to provide the final bill. It is advertised to solve growing Chinese threats in the Indo-Pacific region and fund Ukrainian school teacher pensions.

We are not sure how much bipartisan support the latter part contains, but we tend to use emergencies to justify all sorts of things. The Social Wars are plying out in full measure as well. The competing House and Senate bills have provisions dealing with “woke” policies in the Pentagon. Some of these include all the other Diversity, Equity and Inclusion changes imposed on the military establishment.

There is a lot of money at stake here, so the “caveat emptor” provisions are visible on the table. Both bills are worth a smidgin more than $886 Billion in cash spread to fun DoD, Energy and the National Nuclear Security folks.

Prospects? There may actually be a vote on defense matters some-time around Thanksgiving. Add in a new Speaker- Jordan or Scalise have been mentioned as candidates- and there will be a distinct sizzle to the discussions. Plus, all the other assorted social issues are lumped into the mix, almost all of them heavily laden with emotion.

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had an equally busy week, aside from personally adding to the confusion with a pull on the fire alarm during budget discussions. The image leaps out from cartoonist Mike Ramirez, whose literary and visual art appears in the Cowboy State Daily.

We are letting our merry chapeaux slide a little bit to one side, since we are not sure where we are tilting at the moment. The War Within Defense about issues that seemingly have little to do with kinetic conflict. But we will shout about who is supposed to pay for all this stuff, none of which appears to have a direct relation to Defense or the capability to wage wars.

We will see how this plays out. We know the people on the Hill can simply declare the who thing to be another emergency and bundle it all into a “Continuing Resolution.” That would wrap everything into a single all-purpose bit of legislation they can pass without being actually responsible for what they were voting for.

And that “we are a little short on recruiting” this month? We can always bring back The Draft. That would add forced conscription to what our grandchildren are going to have to deal with. But the War in Defense currently in progress should produce plenty of amusement in the 40-odd days until the Budget becomes a crisis again.

We will have to do something about that in a few weeks, but we will have to let it simmer for a while first to get the right flavor, you know?

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com