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The creatures that lurk through the corridors of power in Washington DC have refined corruption to the point where almost anything goes and almost no one is ever held accountable. Traditionally, Congressmen reward their various constituencies by inserting riders into larger pieces of legislation that grant money, exemptions or favors to certain groups or individuals. It is sometimes referred to as "pork." The recent bloated
omnibus spending bills totaling $1.4 trillion, which passed through Congress and were signed off on by President Donald Trump, were for the shameless denizens of Capitol Hill a gold mine. The process was so corrupt that even some Senators like Ted Cruz joked that "Christmas came early in Washington. While you were with your family, while you were shopping for Christmas, the lobbyists were spending and spending. I present to you, the massive omnibus bill that Congress is voting on."
And no one is more corrupt in Congress than some of those at the top of the food chain, where the Speaker and the Minority leader in the House and the Majority and Minority leaders in the Senate have the final say on what gets cut and what remains. The lugubrious Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is one of the most adept at milking the system to buy his continued reelection in a state where he is actually not very popular, with an approval rating of only 37%. Within the current spending bill
he has managed to include more than $1 billion worth of federal spending and tax breaks for some choice constituencies among the Kentucky voters. A tax break for the state's whisky distillers alone came to a projected $426 million for 2020 and there were also breaks for the state's thoroughbred horse industry as well as hundreds of millions of dollars more for new federal construction.
One can only wish that politicians would actually commit themselves to doing good for the American people,
but the sad reality is that they spend so much time raising and distributing money that they only respond to constituents with the deepest pockets or those who make the most noise. Rarely does anyone actually read the bills that are being voted on. Part of the omnibus spending bills was the $738 billion dollar defense policy component, and, as in the case of the larger amounts intended to keep the federal government funded, the devil is frequently found in the details.
Comment: The incredible thing about the American Empire is how successful it has been despite being so wrong about so much for so long.
How is that possible?
Under normal circumstances, if a business or family were to make decisions based on information that is directly orthogonal to truth, they'd fail.
Yet when the giant behemoth known as the US govt does this, systematically, it somehow eventually wins...
even when it loses on that specific issue!
The only idea we can suggest is that the US, in its advanced state of entropy (at the level of beliefs/information), is somehow 'willed' or 'directed' by a foreign entity - and not necessarily one of this world - and that this 'alignment with some higher power' somehow staves off the manifestation of its entropy at the level of material things...
Now, for many Americans, that's a no-brainer. They would say, "Of course! God/Providence is on our side!" But that can't be the case because God without Truth is
not 'the one true God'...
See also:
Merry Christmas in Syria: Liberated from terror by Russia, oldest Christian country celebrates birth of Jesus
Comment: Does it look like these Iraqis are "dancing in the streets" for freedom, "thankful that General Soleimani is no more"? That's what Pompeo would have the world think.
Either he's a liar, or such an idiot that he believes his own propaganda: Here was the scene in Tehran today:
And in Kashmir: In case there's any doubt just how allied Iraq and Iran are, here's the Iraqi PM side-by-side with the new commander of the Iraqi PMU:
The US can send another million troops to Iraq if it wants, but it has already lost the battle for hearts and minds.
See also: