Horowitz: McConnell’s shocking betrayal of the midterm mandate

Americans could literally be drowning in a morass of a physical, cultural, and economic flood, but McConnell and the GOP elites would toss the last remaining lifeline to Ukraine. Not only are Americans placed last, they simply don’t matter to American politicians in both parties.

We are facing the nightmare scenario in which our own government is an enemy of the people. Our government officials orchestrate a cartel invasion of the country with millions crossing our border. They induce one life-altering catastrophic policy after another from COVID, attack our energy and food, groom a generation of children with gender-bending, and genetically engineer Americans like pieces of software. To top it off, they are unleashing 87,000 IRS agents upon us and sending the FBI to persecute political opponents. Yet not only won’t Senate Republicans hold up the budget bill until these grievances are redressed through defunding mechanisms and policy changes, they are actually adding new funding for Ukraine – the catalyst for the energy crisis – and more resettlement of unvetted Afghan refugees.

In other words, the only anomalous policy provisions added to what was supposed to be a stopgap bill pertain to spending money on foreigners, not Americans. To add insult to injury, they are strategically timing the expiration of the CR for Dec.16 during the lame-duck session, so that the defeated members can lock in an entire year of spending and possibly tack on transformational policies, undercutting the leverage of a future Republican Congress.

Typically, a stopgap bill places spending levels on autopilot unless it is peppered with “anomalies” to address specific expenditures. It appears that the only anomalies in this bill are for foreign entities. The bill provides an additional $12.3 billion in spending for Ukraine, with no understanding of what we are getting for our investment aside from an energy crisis. American taxpayers have become Zelenskyy’s private piggy bank. And Congress is doing this at a time when the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged. Don’t our leaders want any answers as to who was involved before we send a blank check to that part of the world?

Then there are the Afghan refugees. The bill allows a $3 billion transfer for the State Department to resettle more Afghans. Both the DOD and DHS inspector generals have identified known terrorists who have been evacuated to the U.S. When questioned by the IG’s office, CBP officials rebuffed the request to “immediately” identify all the Afghans in the U.S., provide proper proof of vetting, and then develop a contingency plan for vetting in future emergency evacuations.

Specifically, the DOD IG’s report stated that they “could not locate some Afghan evacuees when attempting to report derogatory information to the DoD and U.S. government agencies supporting CONUS [Continental United States] safe havens."

How could Republicans sign off on even more funding for refugees without demanding policy changes on security? Sure, the bill does throw $15 million at the FBI for vetting, but fails to specify a plan to do that. One has to wonder if that funding will go toward surveilling political enemies.

Here is the list of the 22 Republicans, including McConnell, who voted for cloture on Tuesday:

• Blunt, Roy (Mo.)
• Boozman (Ark.)
• Capito (W. Va.)
• Cassidy (La.)
• Collins, S. (Maine)
• Cornyn (Texas)
• Cotton (Ark.)
• Ernst (Iowa)
• Graham (S.C.)
• Grassley (Iowa)
• Hyde-Smith (Miss.)
• Kennedy (La.)
• McConnell (Ky.)
• Moran (Kan.)
• Murkowski (Alaska)
• Portman (Ohio)
• Romney (Utah)
• Shelby (Ala.)
• Sullivan (Alaska)
• Tillis (N.C.)
• Wicker (Miss.)
• Young, T. (Ind.)

What is shocking is how Republicans wouldn’t even fight against the hiring of IRS agents, which is probably the most unpopular policy of the Biden administration. They are instead touting a stand-alone bill they plan to introduce next year that will transfer funding from the new IRS agents to border security. But absent a plan to fight for this in the actual budget bill, it is nothing but a distraction. Kevin McCarthy hasn’t even joined the Freedom Caucus in calling for the budget bill to expire early next year so that a House GOP majority can rewrite the budget for the remainder of the fiscal year.

So, what will change next year? Perhaps someone can convince Mitch McConnell to send the IRS and FBI agents to Ukraine and spare us the persecution. After all, if he won’t do it for the sake of American rights, maybe the allure of fighting for Ukraine will make him do the right thing for the wrong reason.