#defund us military

[politijohn]

Source

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[callese]

[sapphia]

tumblr telling everyone to not vote for kamala over israel like the US election decides the war and kamala herself is netanyahu. meanwhile netanyahu is sitting around the negotiating table trying to draw out the talks and so he can use them as an opportunity to massacre more palestinians.

eagle eyed focus on the real issue as always, guys 👍

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday that would require the Pentagon to return a portion of its enormous and ever-growing budget to the Treasury Department if it fails another audit in the coming fiscal year.

The Audit the Pentagon Act, an updated version of legislation first introduced in 2021, comes amid mounting concerns over rampant price gouging by military contractors and other forms of waste and abuse at an agency that's set to receive at least $842 billion for fiscal year 2024.

"The Pentagon and the military-industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement as he unveiled the bill alongside Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

"If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively," said Sanders, "we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit."

In December, the Pentagon flunked its fifth consecutive audit, unable to account for more than 60% of its $3.5 trillion in total assets.

But congressional appropriators appear largely unphased as they prepare to raise the agency's budget to record levels, with some working to increase it beyond the topline set by the recently approved debt ceiling agreement. Watchdogs have warned that the deal includes a loophole that hawkish lawmakers could use to further inflate the Pentagon budget under the guise of aiding Ukraine.

Late Wednesday, following a lengthy markup session, the House Armed Services Committee passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which proposes a total military budget of $886 billion. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) was the only committee member to vote no.

A huge chunk of the Pentagon's budget for next year is likely to go to profitable private contractors, which make a killing charging the federal government exorbitant sums for weapons and miscellaneous items, from toilet seats to ashtrays to coffee makers.

"Defense contractors are lining their pockets with taxpayer money while the Pentagon fails time and time again to pass an independent audit. It's a broken system," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a co-sponsor of the new bill. "We need to compel the Department of Defense to take fraud and mismanagement seriously—and we need Congress to stop inflating our nation's near-trillion-dollar defense budget."

"Putting the wants of contractors over the needs of our communities," he added, "isn't going to make our country any safer."

If passed, the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would force every component of the Defense Department that fails an audit in fiscal year 2024 to return 1% of its budget to the Treasury Department.

A fact sheet released by Sanders' office argues that "the need for this audit is clear," pointing to a Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq report estimating that "$31-60 billion had been lost to fraud and waste."

"Separately, the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that the Pentagon could not account for $45 billion in funding for reconstruction projects," the fact sheet notes. "A recent Ernst & Young audit of the Defense Logistics Agency found that it could not properly account for some $800 million in construction projects. CBS News recently reported that defense contractors were routinely overcharging the Pentagon—and the American taxpayer—by nearly 40-50%, and sometimes as high as 4,451%."

Further examples of the Pentagon's waste and accounting failures abound.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the Pentagon can't account for F-35 parts worth millions of dollars.

Earlier this week, as The Washington Post reported, the Pentagon said it "uncovered a significant accounting error that led it to overvalue the amount of military equipment it sent to Ukraine since Russia's invasion last year—by $6.2 billion."

"The 'valuation errors,' as a Pentagon spokeswoman put it, will allow the Pentagon to send more weapons to Ukraine now before going to Congress to request more money," the Post noted.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee and a supporter of the Audit the Pentagon Act, said Wednesday that "taxpayers can't keep writing blank checks—they deserve long-overdue transparency from the Pentagon about wasteful defense spending."

"If the Department of Defense cannot conduct a clean audit, as required by law," said Wyden, "Congress should impose tough financial consequences to hold the Pentagon accountable for mismanaging taxpayer money."

[thoughtportal]

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code pink

[callmey1]

So we’ve been learning about foreign aid programs in class like USAID, and this stood out to me, so figured I should compile this here: The USA is going to spend $42.8 Billion on foreign aid next year. That sounds like a lot of money right? Well a lot of people would agree, opinion polls show that US citizens generally think foreign aid spending is around 25% of the annual national budget. In reality, the spending is less than 1%. For reference, with those numbers, that means people think the annual budget would be $171.2 Billion, which is a LOT of money, but the department of defense’s annual budget in the US is $2.02 TRILLION. WITH A T. Let that sink in. That means that the DEFENSE spending of the government every year is 472 times what the average person thought that the TOTAL annual budget for the government was. This is insane, we are spending a ludicrous amount of money on the military, which is mostly used for unnecessary expenses, like the $177 million jets. We don’t even use the military either. We refuse to use this 2 trillion dollar per year organization to help aid countries suffering from genocides and wars. This money that could go to helping the poor, or paying off the national debt at the very least.

I don’t know how to tag this well, so I’ll do my best and tag this if you know relevant tags. Sources below, 2 .gov and 1 .edu that is politically fairly neutral and commonly accepted as credible.

[nando161mando]

Infact each of us are paying hundreds of dollars to fund the military every year.

[goldentailedmermaids]

Free Palestine, now and forever! From the river to the sea!

[transrevolutions]

I remember a time during high school when I asked the military recruitment guy if he knew about the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay and he looked at me, dead serious, and said "what's that?"

I see two options. A, he genuinely doesn't know what it is and the military propaganda machine's been keeping him in the dark, or B, he does know what it is but he's not allowed to talk about it to potential recruits for fear of scaring them off. and um. both are very bad.

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[small-lil-ducky]

Just saw my first real space force ad today (terrible fucking name). They know exactly what they're doing trying to appeal to trekkie nerds.

They're gonna be so fucking disappointed when they sign up and their whole job is just moderating satellites and inventing new warcrimes 16 hours straight.

This whole new division is just reformatting functions that the air force already fucking does. What a waste of money.

[callese]

[angie-da-spoof]

Stop consuming

Credits the tick tock account from this video, couldn't find them so here's the video I saw them in, 2nd vid in the compilation. https://youtu.be/jvmgzJamuvI?t=28 I'm basically restating what they're saying in the vid so the idea is not mine. You may continue~

What I am doing is not enough, I'm realizing far too late. Simply posting and reblogging about Palestine isn't doing anything. We need actually take action. It is going to make us uncomfortable, we will have to stop buying, stop consuming and feeding into the fascist and capitalist pig that is the USA. Because giving money to the US is giving money to Israel. So here is what you can do:

Things you can stop doing:

Cancel your subscriptions. Amazon, Cotco wholesale, Sam's club, Walmart, nike, Best Buy, Doordash Dash pass, anything honestly. The ones I listed are huge cash cows for the US and the most widely used but aren't even scathing the surface.

Stop buying things, just straight up. This one is hard, because we need to buy things to stay alive (this is NOT a good thing btw). Of course groceries are a huge issue, but I assume we can all say that eating is a good thing and we should continue doing it. What I mean is anything that is not a necessity should not be bought.

Things you can start doing:

Share with your neighbors/anyone close. Start a home garden to share with your community, start sharing with the people around you. (Introverts, I'm sorry, but this is something you've got to try.) Building community is really important because then you are able to support each other much easier while supporting yourself too. Try to do this if possible.

Start doing BuyNothing. This one is easy to do as it only requires you to download the app. It's a real neat app that connects people and allows us to share freely with each other, no cost, no expectation for anything in return. Just simple giving.

If you still need to buy to live you could do boycotts. I'm sure we all heard of the Starbucks boycott and that it was actually making a dent. We need to do that for other things too. Any company that you've heard is supporting or funding Israel (which is most of them) should immediately be boycotted against.

The basic gist is stop consuming as much as possible, build a community, because as we do we are giving to the massive military machine that is the US military. We are giving into the thing that we seek to destroy. So the best way to stop it from doing anything? Stop giving it fuel. Shut it down. Take away its source of energy. Every. dollar. counts. Sure you're not obligated to do all of these things but at least start with canceling your subscriptions. Amazon isn't even that great anyway.

Sorry for terrible wording and whatnot it's very late (1 am lol) but this just needed to be put out there. Tell me if I missed anything and feel free to criticize I am always willing to learn more.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Rep. Jim McGovern, a leading anti-hunger lawmaker in the House, expressed anger Tuesday that the debt ceiling legislation negotiated by Republicans and the Biden administration targets food benefits for older adults while doing nothing to raise taxes on the wealthy or rein in military spending.

During a House Rules Committee hearing on the bill, McGovern (D-Mass.)—the panel's top Democrat—slammed his Republican colleagues for claiming to care about the deficit but refusing to look to the Department of Defense, a paragon of wasteful spending and fraud, for savings. The White House and Republicans ultimately agreed to increase military spending for the coming fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Republicans rejected White House proposals to close tax loopholes exploited by the rich.

Instead, McGovern said Tuesday, the GOP insists Congress has to "cut funding that helps the most vulnerable in this country."

"Give me a goddamn break," he added.

McGovern voiced particular alarm over the bill's expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements to include adults between the ages of 50 and 54, a Republican demand. Analysts and campaigners say the change, which would sunset in 2030, could put hundreds of thousands of older adults at risk of losing food aid.

White House officials and President Joe Biden himself have defended the new requirements by pointing to the legislation's proposed expansion of SNAP benefits for veterans, kids leaving foster care, and people experiencing housing insecurity.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Biden brushed aside progressives' warnings that the bill could cause some people to go hungry, calling such concerns "ridiculous."

McGovern pushed back during Tuesday's hearing, saying that "improving benefits for some does not justify putting 700,000 older adults at risk of losing critical, lifesaving food benefits."

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an assessment late Tuesday that concludes the debt ceiling bill, titled the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, would lead to roughly 78,000 people gaining SNAP benefits "in an average month, on net (an increase of about 0.2% in the total number of people receiving SNAP benefits)."

But observers cautioned that the CBO's estimate hinges on ensuring that vulnerable people, particularly those who are homeless, are aware they are exempt from SNAP work requirements and able to navigate the program's bureaucracy.

"This is HIGHLY theoretical," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote of the CBO analysis. "There's no funding to identify eligible people without benefits or to help them apply or find the necessary documentation. I obviously haven't seen the model but it seems like wishful thinking to me."

"How are we exactly a) informing homeless individuals that 1 of the 2 work requirements for SNAP [has] been lifted, b) helping them collect and submit the documents that prove they meet the income test, and so on?" Dayen asked.

After a nearly six-hour hearing, the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee voted Tuesday to send the debt ceiling legislation to the full House for a vote, which could come as soon as Wednesday evening.

McGovern and every other Democrat on the panel voted no.

Ahead of Tuesday's committee vote, McGovern called the latest standoff over the debt ceiling an "all-time high in recklessness and stupidity" and said Republicans "manufactured" a "crisis that risks the full faith and credit of the United States."

"Republicans are unfit to govern," said McGovern, one of the lawmakers who—to no avail—urged Biden to use his 14th Amendment authority to unilaterally avert a debt ceiling catastrophe.

"This bill could have been a lot more awful than it is," McGovern added. "I didn't come to Congress to hurt people. And when I listen to my Republican friends, what is clear to me is that we don't share the same values."