You didn’t even know there was a contest, but there was (in my mind). The contest was to come up with the best name for the incoming presidential term. I had suggested that we were going to have three presidents (Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy), so that the administration should be called the TP administration – the country being TP’d, as old Halloween revelers might put it.

And then I heard Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz refer to “Trump and President-elect Musk”.

Tim Snyder had a different idea, as I heard on TV last night. Tim Snyder ignored Ramaswamy and focused on the other two. He determined that Musk appeared to be even more powerful than Trump, so he suggested that the administration was to be the Mump administration. America suffering from a bad case of the Mumps.

I give Snyder the prize.

It’s hard to know what is going to happen now. I admit that I did not stay up until 1 a.m. this morning to see the Senate vote on the continuing resolution that will fund the government until sometime in March. But I do know one thing – March is not too far away. And I also know that sometime – and I have no idea when – we are going to be facing the question of approving an increase in the national debt. I don’t really know what position the Mumps will take on the debt question, and I wonder if they do. As I understand it, the Congressional Budget Office (I think that is who) has determined that an extension of the Trump tax cuts by the Mumps administration would require an approved national debt increase. The Mumps wanted that increase to be approved during the Biden (remember him?) administration, so they wouldn’t have to worry about it, but now they do. So will they still want to abolish any debt limits for the four years of the Mumps? No one really knows.

What we do know is that, while the GOP will control both the House and the Senate, their majorities are so slim that it will matter much more for determining what goes on the floor agendas and who heads the various committees than it does on what legislation will finally be voted on. For example, during the last few days, we have seen that 35-40 Republican members of Congress will vote pretty much against any measures which would increase the financial cost of the government. In other words, unless a spending bill is accompanied by a savings bill, the vote will be “no”. And of course, 35-40 “no” votes is 33-38 more than the Republicans can afford to lose. And then in the Senate, we will have the 60-40 rules, which means that the Republicans can pass nothing (other than through budget reconciliation bills and the like) without winning over 7 or 8 Democrats.

So, what will happen? All we know is that it will be very chaotic. Very chaotic. And it was fascinating, wasn’t it, the departing Senator Mitt Romney voted against the extension package last night? Why would he do this? It wasn’t because he didn’t favor the bill itself. He did. As a “simple protest of the absurd way this is to run government” (his tweet on X).

This brings me to the Washington Commanders (nee Redskins), who have played their home games for the last 27 years at a stadium current called Northwest Stadium in Landover, Prince George’s County, Maryland. Prior to that they played at RFK Stadium in the District on the Anacostia River just east of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. That stadium has barely been used for the past decade and it and the surrounding parking area and the building which serves as the armory for the DC National Guard have been very underutilized. One of the reasons for the lack of activity at the site is that it has been federally owned real estate, managed by the National Park Service, which clearly had better things to busy itself with.

Included in the original extension bill (of 36 hours ago) was a provision to transfer the RFK site from the federal government to the District of Columbia. The District has been having extensive conversations with the new owners of the Commanders about building a new stadium to replace RFK and have the Commanders move back to town. At the same time, the Commanders have been talking to Maryland officials about demolishing Northwest Stadium and rebuilding the site. All seemed cleared for this to take place, but when the second version and third version of the extension bill (24 hours ago, and 12 hours ago) were brought forward, the transfer of RFK was omitted.

This omission was largely due, as I understand it, to a tween that Elon Musk made stating his opposition to spending U.S. taxpayer money on subsidizing the Commanders or the NFL. A fine thought, perhaps, but the trick was that there was no money to be spent by the federal government at all. In fact, a savings, since once the area was transferred to the District, the federal government would not have to pay for security or upkeep. Total ignorance on the part of Musk, or purposeful misinformation?

The transfer had already been approved by the House months ago, so the only thing needed was Senate approval, which is why it was added to the extension bill in the first place. Its omission from the legislative language was certainly a sad day for DC and the Commanders.

But miracles still happen. After the extension bill was approved, at 1:15 a.m., a separate bill was introduced (I am not sure of the exact process) to approve the land transfer and approved unanimously by the Senate by voice vote. This was so far the biggest surprise of the day. Apparently, no one expected that to happen.

Well, Congress is going home, and the next Congress (assuming there is a Speaker elected) will reconvene on, I think it is, January 3. Then, on January 20, the country will experience the beginning of the Mumps pandemic. We can only hope that Mumps, will the assistance of the RFK who is becoming a part of the federal government rather than leaving its control, will not also bring about a resurgence of Measles, COVID, or Polio.