While You Were Sleeping
Worst Congress Ever Tacks Insult onto Injury…
By Louis M. Manzo January 2, 2021
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Halleluiah!
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Happy New Year, America. The COVID-19 Omnibus Bill has passed Congress.
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Totaling approximately $2.3T, the vast majority of the Congresses’ spending spree had little to do with COVID-19. The appropriations measure might more accurately be described as the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas,’ as over the holiday season, members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate descended upon Washington, DC like Grinches upon Whoville.
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And, like the unwitting Who population of the Dr. Seuss classic, the American people shortly became the plundered. Congress cobbled together a more than 5500-page omnibus spending bill which none of them read. This type of bill packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill that can be passed with only one vote in each house. The dirtier the deed, the quicker that it be done.
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Congress has been working on COVID-19 relief since last March. In all that time, the life savings and the stockpile on kitchen pantry shelves of fellow Americans diminished, as lines at foodbanks and unemployment offices lengthened. Still, these factors were not impetus enough for Congress to act sooner. That should tell you a whole lot about what the people you send to DC, to represent you, actually think about you.
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Recently, House speaker Nancy Pelosi confessed that some of the delay was purposeful—not to allow President Trump to share in any credit for delivering relief checks for American families before election day 2020. At a paltry $600 per American, who the hell in their right mind would want credit for such an insult?
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But the main reason this legislation had yet to advance was because both Democrat and Republican members of Congress were taking advantage of the crisis to help their special interest benefactors. Lobbyists, who act as middlemen for those benefactors, worked tirelessly in making sure the clients that they represented all got a piece of the free money Congress was about to hand out.
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The real drop-dead date for the legislation became the timeframe for when unemployment benefits for millions of Americans would runout. And, up until that time, the Grinches stuffed more pork into the legislation than could be found in the breakfast blue plate special of any greasy spoon, roadside diner.
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The rip-offs that were funded could never be advocated for in a standalone piece of legislation, mainly because that is just how terrible they are—no elected official would attach their name to them. But, like the cloak of darkness, an emergency appropriations measure affords the perfect environs for mischievous pols to hide their dirty work. The COVID-19 Bill provided these cowards with the cover to maintain their anonymity, all the while they squandered the money of the American people on junk.
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Some of the ‘visions of sugarplums’ funded under the guise of COVID-19 relief were hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid to Afghanistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Venezuela, and the Ukraine; just to name a few. The monies were for everything from gender related issues, democracy programs, and refugee support.
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There were monies for illegal immigrants who were frozen out of the last relief package. There was more than a hundred million for combating wildlife poaching—it would be cheaper to arm the wildlife and have them trained to shoot back at the poachers. Millions for ‘internet freedom’ programs in closed societies—just keep out Facebook and Twitter. Even a law tied into prohibiting the Post Office from delivering e-cigarettes—just toss them in with the regular mail.
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Ironically, despite some in Congress objecting to funding the construction of border walls in the United States, they had no trouble funding the same type border walls, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, for foreign countries. Monies for pet projects such as climate control, solar and windmill energy, and assistance to fracking industries also found their ways into the same bill. Nothing like a pork-barrel spending bill to help cement Congressional unity.
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So, while your Senators and Representatives sat in the same elective body where giants like Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, and Adams once held sway; today’s pols diminished themselves to the level of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In the sacred chamber where laws that once lifted our Nation in areas of Civil Rights and Homesteading were crafted, where declarations of wars were debated and effected, and where initiatives like the New Deal and the Contract with America were memorialized; this Congress produced Three Card Monty.
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The COVID-19 bill should have extended unemployment benefits, provided realistic relief to American families, and offered support to industries walloped by the pandemic and the ludicrous shutdowns imposed on them by tyrannical State governments. PERIOD!
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After the spoils were divvied up, the few remaining crumbs—$600 per American—was all that was left for “We the People.” Shows you how quickly it took the pols, now collecting six-figure checks, to fall so far out-of-touch with the American people they represent. We are just the excuse for them to spend money on their suitors—lobbyist and special interests.
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The Congress knows they can get away with this crap. That’s because while the institution they’ve destroyed rates a deplorable favorability ranking from the American people; typically, people in the Districts and States generally like their own representatives. That’s the result of the highly paid for constituent messaging you receive from them—reports that tell you how wonderful they are and how they’ve got your back. Junk mail is a more apt description for their PR propaganda.
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Some Americans are waking up. They’ve called their Representative’s and Senator’s offices to express their just outrage. You can see it is having an effect. Efforts were made to increase the paltry $600 per American to a paltry $2000—considering the hundreds of millions being lavished on undeserving causes amid the National crisis.
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But the attempts to remedy the insult delivered to Americans is all theater. Both sides are insincere. Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell continue lobbing volleys of legislation back and forth from the House to the Senate—a tennis match with only one sure loser: the American people. This Congress will expire before they throw the American people a bone.
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But you are supposed to believe the last-minute attempt to stuff additional monies into the empty pockets of fellow Americans is genuine. Sure, it’s as real as hen’s teeth. Like November’s election, the fix is in—Senate President Mitch McConnell, navigating the legislative cure like the captain of the Titanic, would not post a standalone bill to make the increased relief for Americans a fait accompli.
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Instead, McConnell laced the bill with two poison pill measures destined to doom it. Over the years, McConnell has administered more poison pills than a veterinarian. In this instance, he tied the relief money to passing legislation stripping high tech social media sites—such as Twitter and Facebook—from liability protection; and legislation establishing an investigation of voting fraud in the 2020 Presidential election. Those measures went over with the DEMs like a crucifix to a vampire.
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Of course, Pelosi couldn’t stand for this. Facebook and Twitter, in the tank big time for Joe Biden, helped the DEM cause by censoring stories about the FBI investigation of Hunter Biden. They prevented any word of the alleged crime from being posted before the election.
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Pelosi also can’t allow for an investigation of election fraud in the past Presidential election. God forbid that the American people find out what forensic audits of Dominion election machines and mail-in ballots would expose. Screw the extra relief monies for Americans.
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So, the American people remain right where they started before the COVID-19 legislation was conceived—least in the hearts of their federal legislators. Perhaps, before the pandemic is over, Dominion Voting Systems will develop an ATM machine that produces money like their election machines produce votes—out of thin air. Everyone will lineup for that.
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If it does happen, maybe then the American people will get their just due.
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Until then, Americans will persevere on their own through the pandemic. Whether or not Americans can survive Congress is a whole other story.
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