From the $1.2 Trillion Spending Bill to the FISA Section 702 Renewal to the $95 Billion Foreign Aid Package, Our Representatives Do Not Represent Our Interests

If you thought that our “elected” leaders cared about the well-being of Americans and were patriotic toward our country, think again. This disdain for us was on full display, as several Democratic lawmakers flew Ukrainian flags in the House of Representatives chamber after approving a $95 billion foreign aid package, and of course, these politicians would never fly the American flag in celebration of our country’s founding or passing of laws that actually benefit American citizens. No, their loyalties lie with the military-industrial complex and empire-building overseas, but hey, at least they tried to disguise their imperial and profit-driven ambitions by claiming to aid the “victim” of an invasion.

None of this should surprise you. In fact, on top of the $95 billion bill that passed this weekend in the House and was approved this week by the Senate (President Joe Biden will almost certainly sign it into law), Congress also greenlit the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 spying on Americans and a recent $1.2 trillion mishmash of spending priorities. This is a common theme in our modern-day “republic” or “democracy,” where Congress is just a bickering and theatrical figurehead that allows for the gradual implementation of the agendas of the elites, billionaires, and bureaucrats by passing general and blank plans to the executive branch to do the actual legislating (creating of policies and regulations).

In fact, in the hundreds of pages contained in many of the most important bills are unrelated items that politicians do not even bother to read about and research, and even if they were willing to take a glance at what they were passing, they would not be given enough time to read the full content anyway. Our system is designed to benefit the rich and powerful over the average citizen, and the sad reality is that most Americans still believe that they have a say in what happens in this country, trusting our elections and two-party corporatist policies. I refer to our form of government as a semi-constitutional bureaucratic oligarchy instead of what we officially call ourselves, which is a constitutional federal republic (or “representative democracy” for those on the left who insist that it is racist to say that we are a republic).

If you still are not convinced by what I am saying, let us explore the last few major pieces of “legislation” in more detail. Roughly one month ago, Congress expedited the $1.2 trillion spending package, which consisted of 1,012 pages, before midnight (on March 23, 2024) to avoid a government shutdown. Of course, politicians utilize the shutdown as an excuse to pass whatever they can in a short period of time, and if you oppose it, you hate America because you want the government to not be able to pay its bills. This is such a disingenuous argument that allows for thousands of unrelated agenda items to squeak by, on the assumption that none of the congressmen will actually examine the entire bill, and it prevents a conversation about the nuances of our current governing structure and genuine debates about every issue that is passing through our government and moving on to the bureaucracy.

This process benefits both Republicans and Democrats because they compromise on their principles to get some of what they each desire, but ultimately, neither party questions the process itself. In the March bill, Republicans got an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention beds and 22,000 border patrol agents to address illegal immigration, a denial of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) so that Palestinians could not be assisted, a guarantee that the Consumer Product Safety Commission would not be permitted to ban gas stoves, and a prohibition against flying “LGBTQ”-related (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, and some other new ones that have popped up recently) flags at American embassies; and Democrats got increased funding for childcare (via Head Start), mental health programs, cancer and Alzheimer’s research, the Department of Defense’s climate change agenda, and an emergency plan for AIDS. Yay, everyone is happy! The government continues to operate unobstructed, and the status quo continues perpetually to benefit the corporations and elites in society. And the best part is that we can keep spending into oblivion without having to worry about the repercussions (let future generations suffer the economic consequences of our irresponsible spending).

In the typical bipartisan manner, the intelligence agencies were able to convince congressmen that spying on Americans is essential for national security and that obtaining a warrant would be too much of burden. Think about what this means. The Fourth Amendment, which prevents the government from conducting unwarranted searches and seizures and protects our privacy, is just a suggestion in the eyes of those who are supposed to represent us. The urgency of renewing this surveillance tool is argued to be that government agencies need the ability to quickly and efficiently spy on foreigners without a warrant, and if Americans get wrapped up in it, so be it. Terrorists might kill Americans, so we need to give up our privacy to prevent this. Not passing Section 702 immediately would bring an apocalypse of terrorism to our soil, of course.

In reality, however, the government has collected this data obtained on foreigners and Americans and kept it stored in databases to be used down the line in investigations unrelated to the purposes of the initial search (agents are required to get a rubber-stamped FISA court warrant to access the data acquired through this process, but such warrants are hardly ever denied and are not difficult to obtain). Additionally, there is evidence that agencies have utilized Section 702 hundreds of thousands of times as a “backdoor” to intentionally surveil Americans and keep us monitored and compliant.

Whether our government spies on us through upstream surveillance (partnerships with telecommunication companies to collect data) or downstream surveillance (demands for companies to hand over information), the United States has become a police and surveillance state, and although we have the illusion of freedom, we have been conditioned to accept the erosion of our liberties over time because of the “grave” threats from terrorists (and viruses and other fantastical enemies that cause irrational fears). We cannot even get our representatives to vote in the affirmative to add amendments to the bill that would require warrants to search Americans (something that is required by the Constitution). Whenever you have Chuck Schumer and Mike Johnson unite on an issue to grant government more power and take away our liberties, you can get a quick glimpse of what the United States government is really all about.  

When Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was asked why he changed his mind on the requirement to obtain a warrant under Section 702 of FISA, he simply said that he had a “confidential intelligence briefing” that persuaded him of the necessity of passing the bill as is and without the warrant requirement. In other words, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA), and perhaps even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), either threatened him or put together a presentation showing misleading evidence of imminent threats to the motherland. Johnson became more concerned with the interests of the unelected bureaucratic agencies than he was with those of Americans, and in the process, he betrayed us and sold out to the deep state. His lack of courage is not uncommon in Washington, though. Politicians are more interested in staying in power, increasing their wealth, and maintaining the status quo than they are doing what is right for the country.

This brings us back to the original statement that congressmen were more concerned with the interests of Ukrainians than those of Americans. In the recent $95 billion foreign aid package, $60.8 billion of it is appropriated toward the Volodymyr Zelensky regime ($13.8 billion of it goes directly into the pockets of defense corporations, while $9 billion is designated as “forgivable loans,” which will certainly never be paid back). The Benjamin Netanyahu regime in Israel, which almost started a hot war between the United States and Iran and initiated World War III by bombing the Iranian city of Isfahan, is all set to receive another $26.4 billion ($5.2 billion of which will include improvements to the Iron Dome, Iron Beam, and David’s Sling defense systems) while Taiwan and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region are slated $8 billion.

Overall, $59 billion of the $95 billion goes to bolster the profits of the defense corporations ($29.5 billion to replenish old stockpiles and $29.5 billion to produce new weapons) so that old weapons can be transferred to other countries. Other minor provisions include: $11.3 billion for the buildup of American troops in Europe, $2.4 billion to battle the Houthis in Yemen and secure American bases in Iraq and Syria, $9 billion in humanitarian aid needed because of the wars (support bombing countries and then send relief after the bombings occur), $98 million to the Department of Energy to produce nuclear isotopes (what, why?), $75 million to secure the border of Middle East countries from drug smugglers, and $390 million to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist nonprofit organizations in defending against terrorism.  

Where is the money for American citizens? No, instead, American taxpayers are forced to funnel their hard-earned money to provoke Russia, Iran, and China and prevent them from challenging the hegemony of the American Empire. Of course, there was no money in the bill to deal with what the Biden administration railed against Republicans for not supporting: the immigration issue. If the president and the lawmakers on his “team” were really so concerned with border security, they would have included it, but no, Democratic politicians will just play games and pretend that they are interested in protecting the border when they really are not. Securing the borders of Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and several other countries is far more important to the establishment (and its Democratic backers).

For those arguing that the government does not have the authority to include a border security bill in with a foreign aid package, the question would become: why did politicians add in a provision to ban a social media platform but they could not do the same thing with the border? Yes, yet another attempt to ban TikTok was snuck into the bill so that it could be passed over to the Senate for easy approval (the Senate is currently sitting on the first TikTok ban that the House passed a few weeks ago). When politicians cannot get what they want, they secretly add such desired items into something that they know cannot possibly fail. Since China hawks and establishment Republicans and Democrats want the application, which is used by 170 million Americans, prohibited in the United States so badly, they will bypass the will of the people and get it through, one way or another. This new ban (see my analysis on TikTok regarding the first successful ban bill) extends the time that ByteDance has to sell TikTok from six months to nine months, with the possibility of a three-month extension (it could be a full year from the time of implementation before the platform is fully banned), but the same bipartisan threat to the First Amendment exists. This ban is really about censorship under the guise of the application being a threat to national security.

The government does not want people talking to each other, and TikTok provides a less-censored platform for Americans to inform each other of the dangers of government policies. We would not want that, right? Who needs free speech? We should just be compliant sheep and obey their every command. Representatives from both parties constantly vote to take away our rights and track and censor us. When will Americans wake up and realize that our government has created a totalitarian state, centered around the destruction of the Constitution and our liberties? They do not care about us, and rather, they want to maintain power for themselves while keeping the bureaucracies and empire-builders happy.

Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.