How many people, let alone senators, could actually have read the 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion—with a “T”—spending bill rocketing its way through Congress before the Christmas break?
Not even the best student in the history of Evelyn Wood’s speed reading school, I would wager.
But what does it matter? It’s not about the contents anyway. It’s about ignoring them (see end) while spending as much as possible before the bell rings and a new group of legislators comes in to—maybe, perhaps—put a halt to this madness.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared this a victory for the Republicans, bragging that, for once, defense spending appears to outweigh domestic spending.
Of course, the Senate Minority Leader doesn’t say much about how that spending will be disbursed, joining forces, as he so often does, with the Democrats who have gone gung-ho Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Nor does he seem to care how this mammoth spending bill will affect the continued runaway inflation, countermanding, it would seem, the Federal Reserve as it continues to raise interest rates
Excuse me for being more than somewhat skeptical, and not just because McConnell et al. (25 GOP senators!) are doing President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) dirty work while betraying their voters at an almost obscene level. And we thought they were our representatives. (Well, maybe by now, we didn’t.)
Speaking of Ukraine–Russia, I have visited that region several times, both during the Soviet era and after, and the whiff, more like the stench, of corruption on both sides is everywhere. We got more than a glimpse of it during one of the endless Trump impeachment hearings when our own government scalawags lied through their teeth about the doings in Ukraine. And then who can forget our current president forcing the firing—in six hours—of the Ukrainian investigator looking into the corruption at a company his son worked for: Burisma?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is supposed to be some kind of secular saint, at least according to Time magazine, which anointed him Man of the Year, but the man has already outlawed opposition parties and is turning Ukraine into a one-party state. I suspect he and Putin might be described as something closer to what Shakespeare called “from tyrant duke to tyrant brother.”
I’m not saying we should cut off all military aid to Ukraine. After all, the Iranian mullahs seem now to be thoroughly in Russia’s corner, providing Putin’s forces with drones. (Isn’t it rather amazing, not to mention disturbing, Iran is now outdoing Russia in drone technology?)
But we should parcel out our cash carefully—otherwise, we are simply financing oligarchs and giving yet more power to our own woke Pentagon.
But that may be the least of the ills of this legislation, hard as that is to believe.
The 25 GOP senators are betraying their voters on a far greater level.
Before continuing, I will stop here to single out Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), longtime presidential hopefuls both, admired by many of us, who voted for this atrocity. Gentlemen, we thought we knew you. This is a massive betrayal.
Betrayal and atrocity are big words. Allow me to explain.
According to NBC, this legislation will grant a huge increase of $569.6 million over fiscal 2022 to, of all government agencies, the FBI! (I hate to use exclamation points, but it seemed called for here.)
The money will be used in part on “efforts to investigate extremist violence and domestic terrorism.”
Twenty-five GOP senators, including Cotton and Rubio, voted for that. Can you imagine what the GOP voters of Arkansas and Florida would have said if polled about that?
That’s the same FBI that has been exposed in recent Twitter emails, as if we didn’t know all along, seeking to control our elections and, more importantly, our minds, via social media and beyond.
I would bet that most, if not all, of the so-called extremist groups that would be investigated would barely exist without FBI infiltration. The GOP senators voted for that.
I take it back. Betrayal and atrocity may be too weak for those senators. I don’t like to use obscenity, even in novels (except in dialogue) and I am well aware the Epoch Times abjures it, so I will just put it this way:
The 25 GOP senators voted to continue Jan. 6, 2021, for the rest of our lives. … and quite probably beyond.
Don’t let any of them do it. For those who aren’t retiring, just vote them out. Every one.
