The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Congratulations to our do-little 118th Congress, which, after weeks of inactivity and chaos, has finally passed funding to keep the U.S. government open until March. It’s no surprise that only 21 percent of the American people approve of its performance. It was 19 percent in September. I’m surprised its favorability rating is that high!

The 11th-hour interference by Trump’s alter ego, Elon Musk, the unelected but de facto president at least for now, is confirmation that we now exist in a strange kind of oligarchy. With Donald Trump acting as his henchman, the unelected billionaire rules by tweet, and the worst Republican lapdogs in Congress are content to refer to themselves as the board of directors whose sole task is to ratify Trump’s and now Musk’s every whim. They were more content to keep Musk happy than to preserve the bipartisan inclusion of supplementary funding for pediatric cancer research. Thank goodness that, at the very last moment, at least there were enough Republicans to assert themselves against the holy duo’s demand that the debt limit be eliminated now so that essential government services could be maintained. For now. They’ve just put off till March dealing with the debt limit, tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and other of Trump’s expensive campaign promises. It will be ugly again in a matter of weeks.

I’m reminded of Oliver Cromwell (I was not there myself), who, when he dissolved “the long Parliament” in 1653 for its corruption and ineffectiveness, said, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately……depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.