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 rest of us to discover the extent of the chicanery.

Ted Cruz is speaking up about what he has discovered (so far). Via Breitbart:

“Deals cut in the dead of night,” Cruz asserted in a Twitter video message this week that summarized some of the provisions in the spending package: Ted and the Omnibus bill (Twitter video screen grab The spending bill the Senate is voting on tomorrow is lobbyist boondoggle that belongs in an ashtray. pic.twitter.com/fa9euZLMYQ — Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) December 19, 2019 The senator said the spending deal benefits the “lobbyists who are bankrupting this country,” and told CBS 11 it represents “lobbyists’ Christmas present.” “While you were with your family, shopping for Christmas, the lobbyists were spending and spending,” Cruz said in his video message. “Nobody’s read it,” Cruz said as he puffed on a cigar. “There isn’t a person alive who has read this piece of garbage.” Cruz called out some of the items in the bill that were included without debate and a separate vote. He noted, for example, the spending deal “extends the Export-Import Bank for seven years.” The bank, which provides loans to promote the foreign purchases of U.S. goods, is “one of the greatest corporate boondoggles – corporate welfare,” the senator asserted. The massive spending bill also raises the tobacco purchasing age to 21. Cruz ridiculed this provision, citing that soldiers can be drafted at age 18, but “God help you if you want to have a smoke.” The senator pointed out the spending bill also “funds government research on gun control.”

You can bet that there are a lot more provisions that would enrage you if you were able to debate and comment on them before passage.

But they’re law now.

This farce has been going on for many years. Ted Cruz and a few others may speak up, but the combined might of the swamp keeps it happening again and again, with no end in sight.