Finally

     It shouldn't have taken until almost literally the 11th hour but, as the bromide goes, better late than never. At 2:46 this afternoon, the House then the US Senate passed a stopgap spending bill that'll keep the government open for another 45 days or until November 17. All that's required now is President Biden's signature.

     As Leader Schumer said, it shouldn't have taken McCarthy all these weeks to reach across the aisle and the deal that Democrats had been not so patiently waiting him to offer, especially after McCarthy tentatively agreed to a deal with President Biden way back last summer.

     Leader Schumer also said that there were no 30% cuts across the board to health care, food aid to children, no cuts to the SSA and not one of the scores of poison pill amendments Republicans had put in survived. In short, "MAGA Republicans won nothing." Our CR is safe for another month and a half.

     So, now what? Well, tonight's 11th hour vote in the bicameral congress, with broad bipartisan support, was a stinging slap in the face to Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and every MAGA lunatic who were foaming at the mouth and slavering to shut down the government. Yes, they were all bitch-slapped but none harder than Donald Trump.

     In his delusion that he's still president and calling the shots, Trump's increasingly strident demands to shut down the government, to not just take the economy hostage but to shoot and kill it, were all for naught. Of course, Trump was quite willing to see two million servicemembers go without paychecks and for food and housing assistance to millions more disappear so Jack Smith's investigation would get defunded (it's not that easy nor simple).

     Yes, come Monday, McCarthy still faces the very real threat of expulsion with Gaetz balefully warning him as recently as yesterday that he was ready to pull the trigger on him as well as the economy. With the jubilant spirit spreading throughout Capitol Hill right now, it'd be real entertaining to see Gaetz get away with pulling off a vacate vote considering the partisan support McCarthy got in passing the spending bill.

     There's no aid to Ukraine but that'll be a fight for another day or 45 of them.

     The better angels won today. Let's hope they keep building on that come next month and November.