Biden’s Ominous Spending Bill
While you’re focused on family and faith this time of year, President Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi (with help from Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell) are jamming a massive omnibus spending bill through Congress. Sadly, this is what “bipartisanship” looks like these days.
It’s called an “omnibus spending bill” because it is a big bill that includes spending on lots of things. But I call it an ominous spending bill because it’s racking up a big $1.7 trillion bill, most of which is additional debt.
Spending money you don’t have causes inflation, which we all know is sky-high right now. Interest rates are going up, the housing industry is getting smashed and the Federal Reserve is planning even more rate hikes.
But liberal Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy isn’t bothered at all about inflation. Murphy dismissed concerns about inflation, telling CNN, “There are some big emergency numbers in this bill. But much of that is going overseas.”
I’m sure that makes you feel better.
Surely, there must be some good things in this massive bill – it’s 4,155 pages long! Well, there’s a small increase in defense spending and a pay raise for the troops. That’s good.
There’s $410 million for additional border security. Oh, wait a minute. . . That’s for border security in the Middle East, not for America’s borders.
The Number One Priority?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today. Later this evening, he will address a joint session of Congress.
The Biden White House is denying that the timing of his visit has anything to do with the horrible omnibus legislation currently under debate in Congress. Give me a break!
Zelensky hasn’t left Ukraine since Russia invaded. Yet he suddenly shows up in Washington just as another $45 billion for Ukraine is up for a vote? Of course, Zelensky is here to make it more difficult for some Republicans to vote against this bill.
You may be all in favor of spending another $45 billion in Ukraine. Mitch McConnell certainly is. Yesterday, McConnell declared:
“Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That’s how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”
Mitch seriously needs to spend some more time in Kentucky. I don’t know many Republicans who would say that of all the challenges confronting the country right now, Ukraine is their number one priority.
But here’s the main point: Our total expenditure in Ukraine will now be at least $100 billion.
When you’re spending $100 billion in a conflict that could very well trip into a nuclear exchange, this deserves to be done in a separate piece of legislation that goes through a normal process so that every congressman and senator is voting up or down on only this specific issue.
President Biden is expected to announce today that he is sending Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine. This is a major escalation, and Russia has threatened to treat the Patriot batteries as “legitimate targets.”
By the way, the Washington Post dropped this bombshell today: “No Conclusive Evidence Russia Is Behind Nord Stream Attack.” But Joe Biden did threaten to “end” the pipeline.
The American people deserve a full and public debate about whether we are going to war with Russia over Ukraine.
A final point: The longest government shutdown in history occurred four years ago and lasted 35 days. The sticking point was a measly $5 billion that President Trump requested for border wall funding.
The $45 billion that we’re stuffing into this omnibus bill, with virtually no debate, to secure Ukraine’s borders is NINE TIMES what Trump wanted to secure America’s borders.
Is anyone in government today putting America first?
Threatening Freedom
Having lost control of Twitter, Democrats are starting to panic about their grip over social media. So, now they are turning their attention to Facebook.
Four congressional Democrats – Reps. Adam Schiff, Cathy Castor, Andre Carson, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – wrote to Facebook recently to warn that it had better keep Donald Trump and so-called “election deniers” off the platform. They claimed that their warning was part of their “ongoing oversight efforts.”
This is just the latest left-wing effort to repeal the First Amendment.
The audacity of elected members of the Congress threatening a private company over what it can and cannot post is outrageous! It’s just another form of government censorship.
Where’s the ACLU? Where’s the “free press”? No one on the left is the least bit concerned about this government censorship because they support it! The intolerant left wants to silence conservatives.
Some say this is all happening because the left just hates Donald Trump. But once the principle is established that a private company can be ordered to censor Trump, on what grounds can we argue that Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence or any other conservative should not be censored? Anyone conservatives nominate is going to be hated by the left.
Some might argue that this is about preventing people from doing something violent. Well, acts of violence are already illegal.
But criticizing the government and being free to debate issues is exactly why there is a First Amendment. The First Amendment was written to protect unpopular speech, especially speech that the government dislikes.
It should be crystal clear by now that the entire progressive movement – academia, the left-wing media, the Democrat Party – is fundamentally un-American because it is at war with the First Amendment. And it’s not just the freedom of speech.
They are at war with the freedom of assembly. Remember how they tried to stop Trump rallies? (Here and here.)
They are at war with the freedom of religion, too. They proved that when they shut down our churches and when they celebrated same-sex marriage at the expense of our religious freedom.
The real threat to democracy – our freedom to speak, to protest, to assemble and to vote in secure elections – is not coming from the right, but from the neo-Marxist left and its allies in Big Government, Big Media and the Deep State.
The Times Slimes Israel
Over the weekend, the New York Times editorial board ran a disgusting column smearing the state of Israel. Here’s the headline: “The Ideal Of Democracy In A Jewish State Is In Jeopardy.”
What’s that all about? Well, Benjamin Netanyahu has been reelected and is forming a conservative government with other conservative parties. That’s what has the New York Times and its left-wing allies so upset.
Responding to the Times editorial, Netanyahu tweeted:
"After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, the New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government."
Great comment, Bibi!
The threat to democracy in Israel and to the Jewish state doesn’t come from Israel’s conservative government. It comes from the Holocaust-denying regime in Iran, from its terrorist proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah and from Palestinian extremists who reject the very idea of any Jewish state!
But there’s a larger issue here you must understand.
Any conservative political leader and governments with conservative leaders all over the world are now being labeled by American neo-Marxists as “threats to democracy.” Anti-American globalists, the advocates of one-world government, are using the same rhetoric.
So, when Hungary tries to secure its borders, the Hungarian prime minister is denounced as a threat to democracy.
When Italy elects a populist leader who proudly declares that she is “a woman, a mother and a Christian,” she’s labeled a threat to democracy.
When the Polish government stands for normalcy and the family, it is labeled a threat to democracy.
When the government of Guatemala stands for the sanctity of life, it is labeled a threat to democracy.
What’s the purpose of all this? It’s to isolate those leaders and to prevent conservative governments from cooperating with each other.
The biggest threat to democracy in the world is the globalist bureaucracy that will subjugate everything in the name of “free trade” and “science” – even as it labels its opponents “threats to democracy.”