Congress Just Voted To Let Trump Spend $1.4 Trillion, Much Of It On His Wasteful Corrupt Crap... And The Media Barely Said A Word About It

On Tuesday, the House voted on two bills-- basically an omnibus spending package, the annual last minute crappy spending bill ($1.4 trillion this time) that is always rumored to be, if unpassed, a harbinger of the end of the world. This time, because Trump said he wouldn't sign an overall bill, it was split between a domestic package (misleadingly named the National Law Enforcement Museum Commemorative Coin Act) and a military package (misleadingly named the (the DHS Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act). This is so people trying to figure out how their members of Congress voted, will never be able to find out. One thing about Pelosi (D) and McCarthy (R)-- they have always hated democracy. The domestic version passed 297 to 120, which saw 218 Democrats voting yes, along with 79 Republicans. Only 7 Democrats voted against it (along with112 Republicans).

The other half was more controversial for progressives. It passed 280-138 and I was very, very proud to see so many progressives just say no. Finally!

There were 75 Democrats who stood up to House leadership and voted no. Among them... these two dozen:

• AOC (NY)
• Ted Lieu (CA)
• Pramila Jayapal (WA)
• Ro Khanna (CA)
• Barbara Lee (CA)
• Jan Shakowsky (IL)
• Andy Levin (MI)
• Rashida Tlaib (MI)
• Jamie Raskin (MD)
• Joe Neguse (CO)
• Deb Haaland (NM)
• Chuy Garcia (IL)
• Ilham Omar (MN)
• Steve Cohen (TN)
• Jimmy Gomez (CA)
• Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ)
• Nanette Barragán (CA)
• Raul Grijalva (AZ)
• Ayanna Pressley (MA)
• Judy Chu (CA)
• Al Lowenthal (CA)
• Jim McGovern (MA)
• Jared Huffman (CA)
• Mark DeSaulnier (CA)

Almost all the worthless freshmen stuck with the leadership on this, as did most of the Blue Dogs and New Dems. As did 130 Republicans, 62 voting no. Ted Lieu (D-CA) told us, when discussing the military bill, he "voted against this spending bill because I don't think it did enough to reign in the President's ability to transfer money to fund his stupid wall and other anti-immigrant practices. This is a balance of power issue. Congress has the power of the purse, the executive is supposed to execute the law, including our spending priorities."

Andy Levin explained his two votes-- one for and one against-- to his southeast Michigan constituents. Levin authored two amendments, a funding increase to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and an amendment barring assistance to the Haitian armed forces.

Right after the vote, he wrote that he was proud to vote for the domestic priorities and international assistance funding package that includes so many wins for Macomb and Oakland Counties. The package includes my request to increase funding for CSFP, an essential nutrition assistance program for vulnerable seniors, and, for the first time in more than two decades, the House has allocated funding for gun violence research. The package also includes funding increases for some of my top priorities in Congress, including worker protection agencies and programs, life-saving medical research at the National Institutes of Health, Pell Grants that make college more accessible to low income families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a guarantee that those funds will be available in case of a government shutdown, increased funding for Registered Apprenticeship Programs, and more."

He also wrote that "Despite the many victories in the package, I wish there were more. I regret that my amendment to shift funds to the Department of Education watchdog agency was not included. Betsy DeVos has abandoned her duty to stand up for students and follow the law, and now more than ever, we must make sure our oversight agencies are fully equipped. There were also many important provisions included in the military spending package, like increased funding for research into the health effects of PFAS and PFOA exposure, a pay raise for federal employees, preservation of the 6-day postal service, and security assistance for Israel. However, the package allocates exorbitant funds for military spending and fails to place guard rails on the Department of Homeland Security, which has abused past funding with the intention of building the President’s wasteful and ineffective border wall. As a Member of Congress, I am charged to be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars and a check on the Executive Branch. To meet those responsibilities, I voted against the military spending package."

I asked some of the 2020 congressional candidates how they would have voted. After Chicagoland Blue Dog voted yes on both, his progressive opponent, Marie Newman said, "I will say something positive about this bill: it restores funding of gun violence prevention research. However, it also, enables the ongoing inhumanity at the border and empowers the building of a ridiculous wall. I am disappointed by several things in this spending bill. My opponent is supportive of the wall, so it is easy to see why he so quickly voted yes."

Another Blue Dog, Tom O'Halleran (AZ), voted yes on both. His progressive opponent, Eva Putzova explained that "Our military spending is out of control and I would have not supported an additional $22 billion that goes straight into the pockets of private contractors. This not only translates into more willingness to engage in conflicts militarily but also has an incredibly detrimental impact on climate change. When my opponent takes money from the arms industry I’m not surprised he also legislates in their interest."

Most active duty service members seem to understand that Trump's policies reflected in the military spending bill are not to help them in any way. A brand new poll for the Military Times shows that Trump's approval in underwater among members of the Armed Forces.

When asked specifically about Trump’s handling of military issues, nearly 48 percent of the troops surveyed said they had an unfavorable view of that part of his job, compared to 44 percent who believe he has handled that task well. That marks a significant drop from the 2018 Military Times poll, when 59 percent said they were happy with his handling of military issues, against 20 percent who had an unfavorable view.

...Some of the shift in military sentiments could be linked to the firing of Mattis, who a year after his dismissal still enjoys an exceptionally high-- 86 percent-- favorability rating among all service members in the poll.

Trump’s replacement for Mattis, current Defense Secretary Mark Esper, does not inspire strong feelings one way or the other. Esper drew a 24 percent approval rating from troops and a 20 percent disapproval rating, with 56 percent saying they have no strong opinion of the Pentagon leader.

...When asked about Trump’s decision to use military construction funds to build his controversial southern border wall, 59 percent said they disapprove of his decision. More than half rated current U.S. relations with “traditional allies” like NATO as poor.

...Troops were split evenly on the ongoing impeachment proceedings in Congress. In the poll, 47 percent said they back the impeachment, 46 percent said they were opposed. That’s roughly the same breakdown as the rest of the American public.

Feaver called that an interesting and potentially problematic finding, given that Trump will still be commander in chief if he is impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.

“I’m sure senior leaders won’t be happy seeing that half of them wanted him impeached, given the efforts to keep troops out of politics," Feaver said.

More than three-fourths of troops surveyed said they believe the military community has become more polarized in recent years, with about 40 percent saying they have seen significantly more division in the ranks.

Democratic socialist Heidi Sloan, who's in a tough campaign against wealthy and ethics-challenged used car salesman Roger Williams (R-TX), told us that, unlike him, she would have voted against the military funding bill as it now stands. "Once again our representatives have missed an opportunity to fight back against Trump's racist, wasteful border wall. It's no surprise that my opponent Roger Williams welcomed yet another increase in military spending, making the biggest chunk of our government budget even bigger while our veterans often lack decent housing and healthcare at home. I would have voted no on this bill in solidarity with the Progressive and Hispanic Caucuses, the immigrant community, and the working class. Our people deserve to be prioritized over military contractors and a racist's pet project."

Rachel Ventura, a member of the Will County Board, is running for Congress to represent a Chicagoland district held by New Dem Bill Foster, who voted for both bills. Ventura told us she wouldn't have. "I would have voted 'no' on the massive, $1.4 trillion dollar spending bill that included funding for Trump’s border wall, a ballooning pentagon budget that never seems to stop growing, and unchecked abuses in the detention centers at our southern border. If nobody has asked the all important first question about this $1.4 trillion spending bill, let me be the first; 'how are you going to pay for it?' Why is it when it comes to defense funding, wall building or the funding of private prisons on our southern border that we always have money. When it comes to climate or healthcare legislation Republicans and corporate Democrats always balk and ask how it would be paid for. Today I have an answer. The misguided $1.4 trillion spending bill is the best place to start cutting if we want to fund the priorities that most Americans have, healthcare, renewable energy and good paying jobs. As a future member of the progressive caucus I would have voted against funding Donald Trump’s radical agenda and stood with other progressive caucus members and the Hispanic Caucus. This blank check to Donald Trump allows him to continue with human rights abuses at the southern border by locking kids in cages and separating them from their families. Just last week we saw the video of a child dying in custody at the border. The fact that an additional $22 billion was added to our defense budget is unbelievable and reflects the misguided priorities of the current congressman. I understand that a government shutdown may have been the potential outcome, but I would argue that we could have maintained the diet-budget agreement, or the sequestration caps."

The Omnibus Could Have Been Worse, But That's Not A Reason To Celebrate It

Paul Ryan sold the Omnibus by promising the radicals in his conference a much harsher attitude-- complete with much harsher actions against working families-- next year, which is-- buried beneath the silken, inspiring tones-- trumpeted in the very slick video he released yesterday (above). It looks like every member of the Freedom Caucus voted NO anyway, even if it was just a carefully choreographed little dance that was done for the sake of whomever is taken in by this kind of bullshit. Interestingly, of the last 2 omnibus bills, Boehner actually got more Republicans on board than Ryan managed to yesterday (162 and 166) to his 150. Ryan's folly passed 316-113 and more Democrats (166) than Republicans (150) voted for it. That was swell of Pelosi. This is what she instructed her troops to vote for, according to the bearded Ryan:

1. Repeals the antiquated oil export ban. This provision would end the 1975 ban on the export of American oil. Domestic energy production is booming in the United States, and lifting the ban will help create jobs, grow our economy, and promote greater exploration of our natural resources.

2. Increases resources for our military. The arbitrary spending cuts in the sequester have depleted the resources our armed forces need to carry out their mission. This bill restores funding for our military to ensure our troops can confront today’s challenges and defeat ISIL.

3. Strengthens the Visa Waiver Program to protect the homeland. The Visa Waiver Program presents one of the most urgent threats to our homeland from radical Islamic terrorism. This agreement includes the House-passed bill to tighten the security requirements under the program. It would also deny visa waiver status to any individual who has traveled to certain terrorist hotspots, including Syria and Iraq, in the last five years.

4. Prohibits new funding for Obamacare. The bill contains no new funding for Obamacare and continues to prevent a taxpayer bailout of Obamacare’s risk corridor program.

5. Prevents the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to American soil. The bill prohibits funds from being used to transfer terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States, and prohibits the construction or acquisition of a facility in the U.S. to house detainees.

6. Blocks EPA overreach. The bill contains no funding for new or expanded EPA programs, holding the agency to its lowest funding levels since 2008 and its lowest staffing levels since 1989.

7. Reins in the IRS. The IRS continues to act with impunity against the interests of hardworking taxpayers. This bill freezes most IRS operations and maintains budget cuts necessary to ensure this agency roots out wasteful spending and redirects resources to serving the American people. In addition, the tax extenders package also includes a measure to prohibit the IRS from unfairly imposing the gift tax on contributions to non-profit groups, which have historically been exempt, to encourage donations to these important organizations.

8. Maintains strong protections for life. 'The bill maintains important pro-life provisions, including the Hyde Amendment, and prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion. It also includes a ban on FDA approval for genetically modifying human embryos and cuts funding for a program involved in abortion-related activities, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), by 7 percent.

9. Honors our commitment to our veterans. The bill ensures our veterans receive their much-deserved health benefits, speeds up VA claims processing, prioritizes modernizing the VA’s electronic health care record system, and tightens oversight of construction projects.

10. Provides critical health care benefits for 9/11 first responders. More than 30,000 first responders continue to suffer from injuries or illnesses sustained during the 9/11 attacks. The bill contains a bipartisan measure to permanently reauthorize critical health care benefits for these brave men and women-- and it does so in a fiscally responsible way.

11. Repeals harmful labeling requirements on American meat. The bill repeals mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) requirements, ensuring that our economy does not suffer more than $1 billion in trade penalties.

Oh, and domestic spying... somehow Ryan forgot to mention that one, although Justin Amash has been screaming about it all week... at the top of his lungs. No one really believes most politicians on the far right have believed in the Constitution since slavery was abolished but they like making noises about it when it suits their purposes. Jenna McLaughlin, writing for The Intercept outlined how Ryan's Omnibus will push the whole Orwellian Big Brother World to new and dangerous heights. Yes, much worse than we thought it would be, too.

The legislation the House passed on Friday morning is a thinly-disguised surveillance bill that would give companies pathways they don’t need to share user data related to cyber threats with the government-- while allowing the government to use that information for any purpose, with almost no privacy protections.

Because Speaker of the House Paul Ryan slipped the provision into the massive government omnibus spending bill that had to pass-- or else the entire government would have shut down-- it was doomed to become law. (This post has been updated to reflect the vote, which was 316 to 113.)

The text of the bill-- now knowns as the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, formerly known as CISA-- wasn’t released until shortly after midnight Wednesday morning, giving members of Congress essentially no time to do anything about it.

The bill removes a restriction on direct information sharing with the National Security Agency and the Pentagon; eliminates a restriction on the government’s use of that information for surveillance activities; allows law enforcement to use the information to prosecute any and all crimes; and leaves it up to the individual agencies to scrub personally identifying information when they feel like it.

...The House Homeland Security Committee chaired by Rep. McCaul, R-Tex., had proposed a series of privacy protections from a previous House version of the cyber bill, but they were stricken from the new version that emerged from the Speaker’s office.

“The bill is all the worst parts” of the different cyber security bills negotiated in recent months, Nathan White, senior legislative manager for Access Now, told The Intercept. “It was negotiated in secret…it’s a sneaky process they’ve used.”

Because of the last-minute timing, members of Congress “are not even going to know what they’re passing,” White said. “We don’t have time to get an informed vote, they’re pulling a fast one on the Senate.”

And the White House is reportedly on board. According to a leaked document published by Dustin Volz of Reuters, titled “Summary administration priorities for CISA”, the White House’s priorities line up with the new version of the bill-- despite the fact that the administration threatened a veto over very similar legislation in 2013.

According to several technologists, information sharing isn’t a real solution to preventing cyberattacks. The best defense is better cyber hygiene. “When you’ve got an epidemic, the answer is you should be washing your hands every time you use the bathroom. It’s just not a sexy thing to say,” Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation told The Intercept last January following President Obama’s State of the Union address, which focused heavily on cybersecurity.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., warned that the bill would “accomplish little more than increased unwarranted surveillance of US persons, sharing private information with prosecutors, and feeding the NSA dragnet.”

“This ‘cybersecurity’ bill was a bad bill when it passed the Senate and it is an even worse bill today,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “Americans deserve policies that protect both their security and their liberty. This bill fails on both counts. Cybersecurity experts say CISA will do little to prevent major hacks and privacy advocates know that this bill lacks real, meaningful privacy protections,” Wyden wrote in a press release.

Overall, there was never much hope among the conservative groups. “We certainly would have liked more time to bring this issue to the attention of libertarians and conservatives. Unfortunately, the way the final bill was conferenced-- keeping Chairman McCaul out of any substantive discussions and disregarding many of his concerns around the reconciliation process-- moved it quicker than we anticipated,” wrote Ryan Hagemann of the Niskanen Center in an e-mail to The Intercept.

The Democratic leadership hacks backing Ryan on the Omnibus said thing similar to what Harry Reid tweeted this morning: "Our omnibus goals were: roll back sequester, parity in funding for Pentagon and middle class, and keep off poison pill riders. We did that." Sure, sure... it was a great Democratic victory, just like a deranged Rush Limbaugh claimed Thursday. David Dayen, writing for the Fiscal Times reminds us not to weep for Wall Street... the banksters were well-taken care of by the policticians they've bought. He reminds us that "Bank lobbyists had a giant wish list of riders to attach to the must-pass package. They hoped to roll back Dodd-Frank regulations, deliver a mortal blow to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allow investment advisors to continue to rip off their clients, and much more. None of that panned out." But remember, that isn't the right frame this should be used to examine how well the banksters are doing in the Paul Ryan Congress.

We’re talking about whether or not to roll back regulations, not about whether the current regulations are adequate or if they need to be strengthened. As William Cohan reports in Politico, bankers are simply not worried that this will shift anytime soon, regardless of who wins the White House next year [since they discount the chance of Bernie overcoming the Wall Street-funded Clinton Machine]. Banks are doing just fine at preventing additional regulation, even if they occasionally lose on deregulation (and not all the time: A highway bill rider allows more banks to take a “rural lender” designation and avoid mortgage rules).

Second, people are ignoring all the wins in the year-end package for Wall Street. For example, lifting the oil export ban bails out the domestic oil industry, which has been on the verge of collapse for a year, with falling prices and a massive domestic oversupply. Opening a new revenue source for these companies tosses them a lifeline — as well as their financiers.

Oil exploration company defaults are a big part of the crackup in high-yield junk bonds. “Almost a quarter of that stuff is in the energy sector,” said Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform. While federal regulators did admirable work in forcing banks to stop issuing these risky corporate loans, banks still helped to arrange and distribute the bond deals. They’re part of the underwriting pipeline, and when investors get nervous and pull out, banks can get stuck with some exposure.

It’s one of the effects of Glass-Steagall repeal, actually: Megabanks’ role as dealers distributing securities means that they can face a hit when the music stops. But lifting the oil export ban bails them out.

There are also gifts for banks in the other half of this year-end deal, the so-called “tax extenders.” That makes permanent something called the “active financing exception,” which allows corporations to avoid taxes on earned financial income, like dividends or interest, if those profits are deemed to be earned offshore. The biggest beneficiaries of this are Wall Street banks, and their accountants have all sorts of tricks to claim that financial profits were earned overseas. This permanent tax break effectively legalizes offshore tax havens.

Another tax extender loophole eliminates capital gains taxes on startup buyouts. This makes acquisitions of small startup companies much more attractive, and mergers and acquisitions happen to be a huge Wall Street profit center, as the banks organize and underwrite the deals.

...Finally, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gave banks a huge windfall yesterday when it finalized margin rules for derivatives trades. The initial version of this rule would have forced banks to post billions of dollars in up-front collateral for these trades. Now, when the deals are between affiliates of the same global parent, only one side has to post collateral.

As Americans for Financial Reform explained in a letter opposing the rule, collateral requirements “provide a buffer against the kind of rapid unanticipated changes in exposures that can occur during situations of financial stress.” But their opposition, as well as Elizabeth Warren’s, did not stop the CFTC.

This will make it harder to unwind systemically important financial institutions if they run into trouble, as a subsidiary with uncollateralized exposures cannot be sold off to avoid failure. This can spread through and threaten the entire financial system, as it did in 2008. “The lack of initial margin… creates a ticking time bomb,” said Better Markets CEO Dennis Kelleher in a statement condemning the CTFC’s action.

Federal lobbying records show that Goldman Sachs and Citigroup were among the biggest companies pushing for this margin rule. And they got what they wanted. So while the idea that banks have no clout in Washington makes for a good story, it is lacking in any factual basis. On a list of winners and losers in our political system, the general public still falls far below Wall Street executives.

Zoe Lofgren who was complain so bitterly about domestic spying, voted against the package. So did some of the best progressives in Congress, like Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Mark Pocan and Ted Lieu. Others weighed it differently and went along. One of the progressives with the best record, Donna Edwards, explained in a letter to Maryland constituents why she bit the bullet and voted YES.

Today’s omnibus legislation is a bipartisan compromise, and is therefore far from perfect. It is certainly not the bill I would have written, as I am deeply concerned that it ends the ban on crude oil exports, includes the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), provides no financial assistance for Puerto Rico, and further erodes disclosure on political spending requirements.

However, it does accomplish several important tasks for Maryland and the American people. Namely, it avoids another disastrous Republican government shutdown right before the holidays, makes vital investments for working families, ensures federal employees receive a long-overdue pay increase, and provides critical funding for numerous projects in Maryland. The package includes almost none of the horrendous new policy riders Republicans threatened to include that would have devastated women’s access to health and reproductive care, environmental protections, and net neutrality. The bill also avoids a litany of giveaways to numerous Republican special interests.

I continue to hold out hope that Republicans will end their ongoing practice of creating one manufactured crisis after another and work with Democrats to create jobs, strengthen the middle class, and invest in America’s future.

Yeah... it could have been worse. Is there a solution? Of course: electing fewer conservatives and more progressives. You can help do that here. Funny how the DNC managed to so thoroughly distract progressives from much Omnibus analysis and action with Clinton's and Wasserman Schultz's nasty little attack on Bernie's campaign early yesterday morning.

And The Real Paul Ryan Has Now Stood Up-- Freedom Caucus Impotent To Do A Thing

The new Gallup poll that asks how satisfied respondents are with Congress found that just 17% of Democrats and 15% of Republicans approved the job Congress is doing. It's been a long slide since 2001 when a narrow majority of Americans actually thought Congress was doing a decent job. "In the past, " writes Gallup's Jeff Jones, "partisans may have been happy just to have their party in control of Congress, but now it appears Republicans take little solace in their party's majority status if it does not produce results in the form of passing legislation they favor. Republicans' poor ratings of Congress are a major reason for the institution's lower overall approval rating. Former Speaker Boehner was the target of much of the party's frustration, leading to his resignation this fall. Now new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will attempt to move the GOP agenda forward. Unlike Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, Republicans view Ryan positively overall. How long that positive view will last remains to be seen, especially considering that the Republicans' chances for seeing their favored legislation become law remain very slim as long as a Democratic president is in office."

Regardless of the new beard, I'd say Ryan's approval rating among Republicans started dropping big time Wednesday when GOP voters got a look at the Omnibus he is pushing through the House. So the Liberty Caucus, which was already screwed over by Ryan in how he negotiated the deal behind closed doors and then just dumped it on them without giving them the time they needed to study it adequately (which, I presume, has something to do with Amash's opposition even if all he talked about was how Ryan sneaked in unconstitutional domestic spying provisions.) But it was Rush Limbaugh who was the first to articulate Republican rage over Ryan's horribly flawed Omnibus. "The country," he announced on his Hate Talk broadcast yesterday, "was just sold down the river again by your very Republican Party." And then he started getting madder a and madder. Obviously, he's playing fast and loose with the facts but what he says on Thursday is what Republicans parrot all weekend. He was yelling about "stabs in the back" the way the Nazis were before they came to power in the 1930s.

I have a headline here from the Washington Times: White House Declares Total Victory Over GOP in Budget Battle. That headline's a misnomer. There was never a battle. None of this was opposed. The Republican Party didn't stand up to any of it, and the die has been cast for a long time on this. I know many of you are dispirited, depressed, angry, combination of all of that. But, folks, there was no other way this could go. Because two years ago when the Republican Party declared they would never do anything that would shut down the government and they would not impeach Obama, there were no obstacles in Obama's way and there were no obstacles in the way of the Democrat Party.

When you surrender the power of the purse-- and that's the primary power the House of Representatives has. Not a penny of money can be spent in this country by this government without the House of Representatives authorizing it. Obama can spend all he wants, but if the House doesn't give him the mechanism, he can't spend any of it. But the Republicans squandered that. They gave up the power of the purse. The reason they did that is because for some inexplicable reason, they are literally paranoid and scared to death of even being accused of doing something that would shut down the government.

So to avoid even the accusation that they were going to or would ever even think of shutting down the government, they signaled that whatever Obama wanted to spend, he would get, because they figured that had less damage to them politically than the allegation that they were shutting down the government. So, very simply, ever since the Republican Party became the party of keeping the government open at all costs, we get bills like this. There's simply no stopping the Democrats. There's no mechanism. Every constitutional mechanism found in the power of the purse, Separation of Powers, the Republican Party years ago gave it away, in total fear of the media.

Now, there's also a factor that needs to be mentioned, too, and that is that many Republican donors want every bit of this money spent, and they have donated voluminously to key Republicans in order to get the money spent. So it's not all Republican fears. It's not all Republican caving. A lot of it is Republican fealty and loyalty to some of their donors. Some people today looking at this, and this is 2,009 pages. It's said to be a spending bill. Among the things that it does, it fully funds Obamacare. It fully funds Planned Parenthood. That, to me, is unforgivable, with everything now known about what goes on behind closed doors at Planned Parenthood, and that the federal government, led by a Republican Party, sees fit to pay for it. It is beyond comprehension, and it is a total squandering of moral authority to fully fund the butchery at Planned Parenthood. This spending bill fully pays for Obama's refugee plans, fully. This spending bill, this budget bill quadruples the number of visas Obama wants for foreign workers. This is even a slap at American union workers. Not the leaders. The union leaders seem to be in favor of it, but blue-collar people, known as working people, have been sold down the river along with everybody else here.

This spending bill even fully pays for every dime asked for by Obama on all of this idiocy that's tied up into climate change. Everything Obama wanted, everything he asked for, he got. You go down the list of things, it's there.

And this is causing some people to wonder if they just dreamed all that stuff about Boehner resigning. And then other people are wondering if they even dreamed all that stuff about the Republicans winning the largest number of seats they've had in Congress since the Civil War. We had two midterm elections in 2010 and 2014, which were landslide victories for the Republican Party. The Democrat Party lost over a thousand seats nationwide in just those two elections. People went to the polls in droves wanting exactly what was rubber-stamped last night (or what will be) stopped.

And instead they showed up in record numbers and they it turned out and they just defeated Democrats down the ballot. In the process, they elected Republicans to stop this. And now the Republicans have the largest number of seats in the House they've had in Congress since the Civil War. And it hasn't made any difference at all.  It is as though Nancy Pelosi is still running the House and Harry Reid is still running the Senate. "Betrayed" is not even the word here. What has happened here is worse than betrayal. Betrayal is pretty bad, but it's worse than that.

This was out-and-out, in-our-face lying, from the campaigns to individual statements made about the philosophical approach Republicans had to all this spending. There is no Republican Party! You know, we don't even need a Republican Party if they're gonna do this. You know, just elect Democrats, disband the Republican Party, and let the Democrats run it, because that's what's happening anyway. And these same Republican leaders doing this can't, for the life of them, figure out why Donald Trump has all the support that he has? They really can't figure this out?

Repeated stabs in the back like this-- which have been going on for years-- combined with Obama's policy destruction of this country, is what has given rise to Donald Trump. If Donald Trump didn't exist and if the Republican Party actually does want to win someday, they'd have to invent him. It's just mind-boggling when you figure out everything that has been granted Obama. All the money, the tax increases, the Cadillac plans in Obamacare. All kinds of punitive things in Obamacare, delayed yet again so that people will not be made aware of the pain and suffering Obamacare's gonna cause.

This budget even gives Obamacare cover by delaying some of the most harsh aspects of it. And the reason for that is, delay the harsh aspects and you prevent people from learning what they are, at the same time you get more years for the tentacles of Obamacare to deeply weave themselves into the fabric of society, making repeal of the thing more politically difficult. So you could also say that the Republican budget bill actually improves the odds of Obamacare surviving and growing. You have to look long and hard for this whole thing to find any opposition to anything the Democrat Party wants.

Jeff Sessions, senator from Alabama, is calling this a betrayal, fully funding the Obama immigration agenda, the climate change agenda, increasing foreign workers.  He said, "This is why Trump is now triumphing here and probably will win. The voters have come to believe that their own party's elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests, but-- as with this legislation and fast tracking the president's international trade deal-- Republican voters would not be wrong to conclude that their own Republican leaders are hostile to them, just as Democrat leaders are hostile to Republican voters."

And as Sessions points out, "This legislation represents a further disenfranchisement of the American voter." Clearly! In the last two midterm elections, the American electorate has stood up and loudly stated, 'No. We don't want this. Stop this." It didn't matter. It's so bad that over at Slate.com they're making excuses for Paul Ryan. I think in some places in the left-wing media, they can't believe the scope of the betrayal. They're feeling a little guilty at how easy this has been. They're feeling a little guilty here. I'm joking, of course. But one of the Salon.com columnists said, "Hey, you know, you guys need to cut Ryan some slack. He was left with a huge mess and not much time to fix it."

Isn't that what they always said with Boehner? "He was left with a huge mess"? Isn't that what they always say about Obama? "He was left with a huge mess. Man, it was much worse than he even knew. Nobody told him the truth." It seems to be a constant refrain and excuse. "According to Sessions, the American people elected Republicans to the majority in Congress in 2014 as a rejection of the Obama administration's immigration policies," and any number of other things. "'That loyalty has been repaid with betrayal,' he said... Sessions added, 'As feared, the effect is to fund the president’s entire immigration agenda.'"

"Planned Parenthood Unscathed in Spending Bill," from a very happy and cheering TheHill.com. "Planned Parenthood is praising Democrats in Congress after the spending bill released early Wednesday morning spared the organization from cuts. As expected, the spending bill does not defund Planned Parenthood, a clear deal-breaker for Democrats, but the absence of spending cuts is still noteworthy given the intensity of the push to defund the group..." There was never any intensity to... It's what we now know.

There wasn't any intensity to defund. All there was is just a bunch of words, just a bunch of people standing up saying they were going to. This wouldn't stand. They were gonna lead an effort to defund it. But nobody ever meant it. "Planned Parenthood Vice President Dana Singiser praised congressional Democrats on Wednesday for 'holding the line against these harmful policy riders and cuts to key women's health programs.'" Also from TheHill.com, another reporter cheering as well. "Funds for Obama Climate Deal Survive." They were never threatened, never in peril. There wasn't a battle."Secret Deal Quadruples Foreign Workers-- Chamber of Commerce Backs Guest Worker Program." Translation: More cheap labor will eagerly be brought into the country under a visa program or they will be employed. "Hey, why not, Rush? The unemployment's rate's 5%. We got plenty of room for foreign workers." Right. That, to me... All this Republican campaign stuff going on obfuscating or clouding this a little bit, but that really is the news of the last 12 to 18 hours.

Sanctuary cities, fully funded. All Mideast immigration programs, fully funded. All these things that have been exploited by terrorists. Sanctuary cities, fully funded. All refugees, fully funded. The release of criminal aliens, fully funded. Everything!

The Democrat leftist wet dream has just been paid for.

Not exactly. The bill that passed the House yesterday, the Tax Extenders crap, which was, in political reality, Part 1 of the Ryan Compromise Limbaugh is crying about, had every Freedom Caucus clown on board except Justin Amash. And 77 mostly corrupt conservative Democrats, like Patrick Murphy, Gwen Graham, Donald Norcross, Sean Patrick Maloney, Tammy Duckworth, John Delaney, Collin Peterson, Ann Kirkpatrick, Joe Crowley, etc. joined the Republicans to pass it. Donna Edwards explained why they were terribly wrong to do so:

Once again, Republicans forced a last-minute deal with this tax extenders package that is awful fiscal policy for the nation and is a holiday giveaway to their corporate friends’ interests. Yes, this package makes the child tax credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent, all of which I support to help working families’ make ends meet and reduce poverty. However, these family-focused tax credits should all be indexed to inflation to come close to meeting future needs.

When taken in totality this unpaid-for package will cost an estimated $803 billion, including interest, over the next decade, with sixty percent of the tax cuts going to corporate special interests. The costs of making many of these extenders permanent is expected to add approximately $2 trillion to the debt and deficits over the next 20 years. While Republicans send billions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations, they have forced massive cuts to discretionary spending, threatening the government’s ability to invest in and protect the American people. This legislation makes things even worse, and is simply unacceptable.

By permanently extending many of the tax policies without offsetting their cost, Congress is reducing the “revenue baseline for the future. This would make it less costly, and therefore easier, to reduce tax rates in the future as part of a revenue-neutral, comprehensive tax overhaul and would likely increase pressure to cut spending in order to reduce future debts and deficits. We need more revenue coming into the federal government, not less, to fund critical investments in education, health care, research, security, and infrastructure. I urge President Obama to veto this legislation, so Congress can work on fair, comprehensive tax reform that helps working families in Maryland and across the country move ahead.

Of course the Freedom Caucus or Liberty Caucus or whatever those phonies are calling themselves this week, know that uncomfortable feeling in their butts is Ryan's dick-- and no one doubts that had Boehner presented this budget-- his head would have been mounted on a trophy plaque at Tortilla Flats by now. Instead, it looks like they're all going to give him a carefully choreographed pass-- even after Heritage called on them to vote NO, laying out all their reasons and ending with an ominous: "Heritage Action opposes the omnibus spending bill and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard." David Brat, the one who was unhappy that Eric Cantor wasn't pure enough, was praising Ryan out of one side of his mouth and saying that "The end product here is just cleaning the barn; it’s a disaster; we’re breaking our pledge on the budget caps to the American people, we’ve lost fiscal discipline, and we’re throwing it all on the next generation" out of the other side.

Matt Salmon, may actually have enjoyed by screwed by Ryan. "Paul," he told the media, "made some pretty sustainable commitments about things we’ll do next year: a major overhaul of our tax system, welfare reform, replacing Obamacare. These are major things. If we do those things and define clearly what we stand for, that’s the best we can hope for." He also postured for his base supporters, snarling about vetting standards for Syrian refugees being dropped from the bill at Pelosi's insistence. Gee, you can see why Rush has gone even more insane than usual! Ted Cruz wrote an OpEd for Politico about why he'd like to shut down the government again instead of voting for Ryan's omnibus. It's an endless, naive litany of Hate Talk Radio complaints about democracy under Obama aimed straight at the far right fringe of Republican primary voters.

[I]n a tactic that will go mostly unnoticed, this government funding deal was once again negotiated behind closed doors, and then, like several recent “must-pass” bills, will be rammed through the Senate in no time with limited debate and no floor amendments via a parliamentary mechanism called a "privileged message." A privileged message is a tool that has been abused by Congressional leadership to circumvent committees of jurisdiction and bypass regular order of business to expedite legislation for immediate final passage.

Leadership is employing this tactic to pass a one-trillion-dollar-plus spending bill at the last minute in a matter of days without giving the American people a chance to debate whether it advances their ideals or their best interests. It’s all or nothing. Take it or leave it. They will countenance no debate on whether we should continue to fund Obamacare, or Planned Parenthood, or the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal. There’s one light switch to fund the government, and we can turn it either on or off.

This morning, Ryan's Omnibus passed the House 316-113, with Ryan getting the majority of the majority he had been sweating about. 150 Republicans voted for it and 95 Republicans voted NO. I was more concerned that even more Democrats voted for this ugly bill than Republicans did! 166 Democrats voted YES and just 18 voted NO, although the 18 included some of the best Democrats in Congress, like Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Mark Pocan, Xavier Becerra and Ted Lieu. More on this mañana.

How Fast Can Paul Ryan And Mitch McConnell Undermine The Paris Climate Agreement?

The Omnibus budget is going to look very ugly under the deft hand of Paul Ryan. And there's only so much Pelosi, Reid and even Obama can do to stop it. Oh, if the Republicans try to re-institutionalize slavery or abolish Medicare or Social Security, I'm sure Obama will veto it, but Ryan knows how far he can push it without triggering a veto and a debate about who's fault it was. Supposedly the House will vote on it Friday, again, giving Members no time to study it and figure out what's in it. Here's a summary-- just in-- of the Senate version.

In terms of the compromises that went into it, Ryan coyly told the media that "Democrats won some, they lost some; we won some, we lost some." Apparently Ryan isn't putting any nonsense into the bill about refugees. Instead, he is eager to serve the interests of his allies at Big Oil. At Salon yesterday, David Dayen wrote about the irony of what Ryan and his mob of climate change deniers plan to do to undermine the Paris agreements on climate change. He predicts that the first thing the GOP passes after the Paris agreement will be an omnibus giving oil companies outrageous and unnecessary financial incentives to spew more carbon into the atmosphere. "What," he asks, "if the first item the President signs into law after the climate accords assures the very spike in drilling that scientists believe we cannot afford within our carbon budget?"

That appears to be the likely result of an end-of-the-year deal in Congress. Republican insistence and Democratic acquiescence has paved the way for Washington to lift a 40 year-old ban on oil exports, which will not only aid a hurting domestic oil industry, but which would increase carbon pollution in the United States, and probably around the world.

Lifting the oil export ban, put in place after the 1973 OPEC embargo to conserve supplies at home, has become among the most high-profile riders to the omnibus spending package, and the culmination of a massive lobbying campaign. It’s the usual story: Lawmakers besotted with campaign cash leading the charge; strategically placed op-eds by trade group chieftains in Capitol Hill journals; official-seeming “independent” research studies promoting the idea; think tanks like the Brookings Institution taking over $1 million dollars a year from the oil industry and suddenly endorsing their top priority (one of nine think tanks on board with lifting the ban); TV ads and bus signs popping up all over D.C.; in summary, a blitz, with industry and the recipients of its largesse alike endorsing repeal of the ban as a job-creating, investment-boosting, economy-saving miracle.

In reality this is a bailout, no different than the one for banks in 2008. Oil prices are hovering around $35 a barrel, the lowest in seven years, amid a global over-supply. Producers who borrowed large sums of money to buy drilling equipment and hire personnel in boom areas like the North Dakota Bakken shale, under expectations of $100 a barrel oil, are finding that their yield isn’t bringing back as much money as they thought. That is leading to a wave of defaults and bankruptcies, which are expected to increase. You’re seeing this play out in a crash in high-yield junk bonds, many of which are filled with energy-related debt.

Lifting the export ban would reverse this precipitous drop. The Energy Information Association estimates that domestic oil producers would gain at least $25 billion in additional annual sales by 2025 if the ban were lifted. Meanwhile, industry claims that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created if we repeal the ban don’t have many facts backing them up. Energy companies are producing far more drilling with less workers; it’s not certain they would hire anyone back if they drilled more to chase global profits.

But everyone agrees that lifting the ban will incentivize more drilling, given the additional markets and profits available for the finished product. That’s precisely what leaders around the world went to Paris to prevent: a rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the increased energy use to ship U.S. oil around the world, rather than keeping it at home, would emit more carbon as well. The extra carbon use, the Center for American Progress theorized earlier this year, would equal 135 coal-fired power plants.

For two years, industry lobbyists and their friends in Congress have pushed for repealing the export ban. The omnibus offered an opportunity. It became one of many riders, unrelated policy changes stuffed into the budget bill in the hopes that it could be carried along into law like a stowaway on a ship.

Democrats have tried to bargain, using an export ban repeal coveted by Republicans to mitigate the damage from the rest of the riders. In exchange for repeal, they want a permanent renewal of production tax credits for wind and solar energy, for starters. They have asked for a renewal of the Land Water Conservation Fund, which helps pay for protected areas like national parks. They want compensation for domestic oil refiners, who would lose a lot of business if oil producers can export. And other environmental riders, like rollbacks of regulations on power plant emissions and clean water, would have to get cut out of the final deal.

But that leaves the carbon-intensifying oil export ban repeal itself. And most Democrats have accepted that as the price to pay for keeping all that other stuff out of a year-end deal, which includes the omnibus and a series of tax breaks. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said last week she could envision a final package with the lifting of the export ban. And though they’re formally opposed to repeal, White House press secretary Josh Earnest wouldn’t threaten a veto over the provision.

Indeed, over the past year, the White House has quietly allowed limited crude exports to Mexico, suggesting their opposition isn’t all that strong. Several former Administration officials are also promoting lifting the export ban.

Most environmental groups don’t think that bailing out domestic oil companies and pushing them to drill more is worth any trade. “Continued investment in renewable electricity must not come at the cost of the very climate gains we hope to achieve from their expansion,” eighteen groups wrote earlier this month. “We need to reduce all fossil fuel use, not expand oil production and consumption.”

Michael Brune of the Sierra Club, one of the few remaining groups not bought off in this debate, highlighted the extreme irony of a celebratory climate deal happening precisely while Congress negotiates to expand carbon pollution. “Democratic Senators should know that if they vote with Exxon on this measure, the rest of us won’t forget,” Brune wrote.

As of Monday afternoon Tuesday evening, we don’t yet know the full details of the massive, complex year-end spending and tax deal. Notice how congressional leadership does this; it prevents the kind of debate that gives citizens in a democracy and say whatsoever. In fact, according to many Members of Congress, it guarantees that they gave any say-so either. But we do now know that it includes lifting the oil export ban, which means a dysfunctional, self-serving/bribed Congress has, in Dayen's words, "responded to a global movement to save the planet by putting it in more peril. Preventing climate disaster always seems to have this 'two steps forward, two steps backward' quality to it. But it’s rapidly becoming too late to lose ground, whether Congress understands that or not." What, the GOP debate last night didn't make you feel there are better days ahead?