Magicians all use the art of distraction to pull off their tricks. So do lobbyists. While we were all distracted with the ultimately meaningless struggle over the House’s passage of articles of impeachment that will never result in a conviction, even if they are ever transmitted to the Senate, the real business of enriching special interests at the expense of hapless taxpayers proceeded without a hitch. Once again, we’ve been played for suckers. The $1.4 billion trillion federal spending bill that passed the House and Senate and was signed into law Friday is a travesty. Thanks to the usual “pass it or the government shuts down over Christmas” manufactured crisis, there was no time for critics to examine the massive bill and grasp the magnitude of the shakedown of taxpayers. You can be damn sure that the lobbyists who wrote the portions of the bill enriching their clients know exactly what is in them,  but it takes time for the representatives of the...(Read Full Post)