Exhibit K: Fill & Download for Free

Oh boy, are you in for a treat! Several ones, even. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Are you sitting down? Sit! Good boy!We'll start with Brad Mehldau, a jazz pianist and composer from Florida. He does a better Radiohead than they themselves.Exhibit A: "Exit Music (for a Film)"Exhibit B: "Paranoid Android"Then, there's Mehldau doing Nick Drake.Exhibit C: "Things Behind the Sun"Exhibit D: "River Man"And finally, how about some Paul Simon?Exhibit E: "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"So far, so good? Wait, there's more! Next up is Yaron Herman, a French/Israeli jazz pianist and composer. He's down with Nirvana.Exhibit F: "Heart-Shaped Box"And also with Britney Spears.Exhibit G: "Toxic".Or how about an old 1980s classic by Sting?Exhibit H: "Fragile"One more? Check out his interpretation of Björk.Exhibit I: "Isobel"Satisfied? Or do you have room for one more? Last one for tonight, OK? The third artist I want to promote is Lynne Arriale, a jazz pianist and composer from Wisconsin. She's into even older songs, e.g. by The Beatles.Exhibit J: "Come Together"Or how about this one, made famous by Nina Simone?Exhibit K: "Feeling Good"for which I don't have a video, but a Spotify link: Feeling Good.I hope you feel good now. I know I do.

No, and neither do any member of Congress.This is another example of lobbyists writing legislation, and Congressional leaders waiting to the last minute to present it for prompt passage. The bill is reported to be of the 5,600 page variety (Obamacare was about 2,000 with 20,000 pages of regulations stacked from floor to ceiling to the height of an NBA center).Senators and Representatives were given less than half a day to peruse the bill and vote for it. Even the summary of the bill couldn’t be read or understood in that brief time period.What did these lobbyists insert into the last second mess? Here’s a start.Exhibit A: "Of the funds appropriated under title III of the Act that are made available for assistance for Pakistan, not less than $15,000,000 shall be made available for democracy programs and not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available for gender programs." Yep. $10 million. For gender programs. In Pakistan.Exhibit B: Funds for "Resource Study of Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot." That riot occurred in (checks notes) 1908.Exhibit C: "Statement Of Policy Regarding The Succession Or Reincarnation Of The Dalai Lama." We'll just leave that one there.Exhibit E: Another $40 million will be allocated "for the necessary expenses for the operation, maintenance and security" of The Kennedy Center, which received $25 million in another COVID-19 relief bill earlier this year. Also in a related story, the Kennedy Center has been closed.Exhibits F, G, H, I, J: $86 million for assistance to Cambodia; $130 million to Nepal, $135 million to Burma, $453 million to Ukraine, $700 million to Sudan.Exhibit K: The bill creates a Women's History Museum and an American Latino Museum as part of the Smithsonian. Overall, the Smithsonian gets (checks notes again) $1 billion.Congress's 5,593-page porky 'relief' bill is essence of the swampHere is Trump’s take on the bill. Not nearly enough for individuals and businesses in trouble due to the pandemic, way too much for other stuff.“It’s called the COVID Relief Bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID,” Trump said. “This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment. $25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan, $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. $40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which is not even open for business. $1 billion for the Smithsonian and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art. Likewise, these facilities are essentially not open.”“I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple,” he said. “I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package.”Let’s not forget the $35 billion for green energy projects.And it’s not just what’s in these bills, It’s how the funds are allocated on the state level. In March each prisoner was sent $1200.IRS Must Pay $100 Million Worth Of $1,200 Stimulus Checks, Judge Orders In Prisoners’ LawsuitOf course, there is much needed help in the current stimulus bill. But this is what happens when Covid help get’s buried in a litany of pet projects of varying lobbying groups.Just another example of a Pelosi, “Let’s vote for this so we can find out what’s in it” maneuver which basically cedes the way for lobbyists to get their way.

House Republicans aren’t against increasing stimulus. What they are against is the aspects of the bill that have nothing to do with financial support for American workers and businesses.Republicans dislike that the entire bill is 5,600 pages (Obamacare was 2,000) and that they had less than half a day to “read” it before the vote put forth by Pelosi. It’s not the stimulus part, it’s the bloat that all the rest of the bill contains.“It’s called the COVID Relief Bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID,” Trump said. “This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment. $25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan, $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. $40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which is not even open for business. $1 billion for the Smithsonian and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art. Likewise, these facilities are essentially not open.”As before, Congress had to vote for it before they could find out what was in it, a la Pelosi’s famous comment while ramming through the Obamacare vote.As with every bill these days, the 5,600 pages were written by lobbyists. They then just hand the thing over to Pelosi to put it to vote. No one on Congress has much of a clue what is in the thing outside of the standaHow does $86 million for assistance to Cambodia; $130 million to Nepal, $135 million to Burma, $453 million to Ukraine, $700 million to Sudan help US workers and small business owners?The $900 billion stimulus package COVID-19 "relief" bill is exactly what one would expect from a dysfunctional, tone-deaf Congress: a pork-filled cluster filled with anything and everything that has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic or relief.And in the swampiest thing ever, the bill, which is combined with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill, is 5,593 pages long, or 5,583 pages too many, was given to lawmakers six hours before a vote to review what exactly is in it (hint: more pork than a Tyson Foods plant).It harkens back to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) once explaining that a bill needed to be passed in order to find out what was in it. In a related story, our government is broken.The top-line from the bill says a mere $600 per adult and $600 per child goes to those eligible, which is half of what adults received in another relief package passed earlier this year (the per-child payment was $500). Not hard to see that this amount is hardly enough to keep those struggling from staying out of poverty.So where is the rest of the $1.4 trillion going?Glad you asked.Exhibit A: "Of the funds appropriated under title III of the Act that are made available for assistance for Pakistan, not less than $15,000,000 shall be made available for democracy programs and not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available for gender programs." Yep. $10 million. For gender programs. In Pakistan.Exhibit B: Funds for "Resource Study of Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot." That riot occurred in (checks notes) 1908.Exhibit C: "Statement Of Policy Regarding The Succession Or Reincarnation Of The Dalai Lama." We'll just leave that one there.Exhibit D: There's actually a commission tasked with educating “consumers about the dangers associated with using or storing portable fuel containers for flammable liquids near an open flame."Exhibit E: Another $40 million will be allocated "for the necessary expenses for the operation, maintenance and security" of The Kennedy Center, which received $25 million in another COVID-19 relief bill earlier this year. Also in a related story, the Kennedy Center has been closed.Exhibits F, G, H, I, J: $86 million for assistance to Cambodia; $130 million to Nepal, $135 million to Burma, $453 million to Ukraine, $700 million to Sudan.Exhibit K: The bill creates a Women's History Museum and an American Latino Museum as part of the Smithsonian. Overall, the Smithsonian gets (checks notes again) $1 billion.You get the idea. It's the oldest trick in Washington: Take a bill that symbolically is overwhelmingly supported by the American people on its title alone (COVID-19 relief for those struggling due to the pandemic). Then attach every pet project possible, in this case by combining it with an omnibus spending bill, and away we go.Then there's the gall of Pelosi, who politicized this process in stalling negotiations since the summer with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin until after the election to ensure her party’s presidential nominee got past the finish line. Congress's 5,593-page porky 'relief' bill is essence of the swamp