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Dear John,
Did you see the nightmare vision for the country that now-former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy floated on Friday? (No, we’re not talking about visions of a government shutdown.)
The far-right plan, which the House voted down on Friday, would have cut funding for domestic and international programs by as much as 30 percent [[link removed]] , gutting everything from food and nutrition programs for needy families, to food and drug safety inspections for everyone.
What did this nihillistic plan protect? Only programs that promote and support militarism - the military, homeland security, and veterans’ programs. It also required funding for the far-right dream of a border wall.
Those programs already make up more than 62 percent [[link removed]] of the federal discretionary budget.
The plan failed, and McCarthy lost the Speaker’s seat. Instead, the plan that passed [[link removed]] will keep the government open for 45 days with funding at current levels (phew!)
But McCarthy’s vision could become a recurring nightmare. The deal that passed keeps the government open only through November 17, and the nihilist bloc in Congress is raring to go.
What we really need is a mirror image of that dark vision: a budget that pumps up funding for health care, anti-poverty programs, diplomacy and more, while stopping our destructive reliance on the military, deportations, and the exploitation of our troops in unjust wars.
The debate over the federal budget is on. Check out our recently updated budget trade-offs calculator [[link removed]] to see what our world could look like if we invested in people instead of militarism.
In solidarity,
Lindsay, Ashik, Alliyah, & the NPP team
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TRADEOFF: TEACHERS VS. NUKES
The House majority are continuing to push for major cuts to domestic programs, which could have devastating impacts for families and communities. Among other things, these cuts would slash funding for schools with low-income students [[link removed]] .
The proposed cuts would impact 26 million students in schools that teach low-income students, by forcing a reduction of up to 226,000 teachers, aides or other key staff .
That would amount to about $22 billion in cuts to education — meanwhile, they’ve greenlighted more than that for nuclear weapons.
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DEFUND HATE DAY OF ACTION!
While the government was busy potentially shutting down, so too were advocates calling for a nationwide shutdown of detention centers.
On September 15, the Defund Hate Campaign [[link removed]] held its National Day of Action [[link removed]] . The campaign is demanding that the Biden administration enact their early promise of a more humane and just immigration system. Community members and supporters marched, painted, danced, and delivered speeches. In Washington DC, NPP joined a rally in front of the White House [[link removed]] to demand a shutdown of immigrant detention centers and cuts to funding for deportations and detentions.
View the National Day of Action Toolkit here [[link removed]] . Watch clips of the in-person actions here [[link removed]] . Be a part of the hundreds of people signing the petition here [[link removed]] .
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MISSING: ONE PLANE, VALUED $135 MILLION
The military still hasn’t explained the cause for a crash landing by an F-35 fighter jet [[link removed]] that landed in South Carolina, or why it took more than a day to locate the plane’s remains. Even weirder, the plane’s pilot, who safely ejected before the crash, parachuted into a suburban backyard and used the homeowner’s phone to call 911 (guess the pilot’s $400,000 helmet [[link removed]] doesn’t include cell service?)
This isn’t what we’d expect from a “fifth generation” (read:super-advanced), $135-million-per-pop [[link removed]] jet fighter belonging to the most powerful military on earth. Then again, this is the same plane that has spontaneously caught fire [[link removed]] at least three times and has a history of dangerous crashes [[link removed]] .
Read more: How much did the average taxpayer give to Lockeed Martin [[link removed]] ?
“The Wall Street Journal says that the Pentagon has about $5 billion left in its coffers for Ukraine, that is, until some accounting error finds an F-35 in a couch cushion or something.”
— Tommy Vietor, Pod Save the World episode 365 [[link removed]]
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RECOMMENDED LINKS
Over 80 percent of four-star retirees are employed in defense industry [[link removed]]
Missy Ryan, The Washington Post
Cluster Bombs Are as Outdated as War [[link removed]]
Khury-Petersen Smith, YES! Magazine
There Can Be No Global Security Without Climate Solutions [[link removed]]
Lindsay Koshgarian and Alliyah Lusuegro, Truthout
The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the “Little Crappy Ship” [[link removed]]
Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica
Uninvited and Unaccountable: How CBP Policed George Floyd Protests [[link removed]]
Prem Thakker, The Intercept
Pentagon’s Budget is So Bloated That It Needs an AI Program to Navigate It [[link removed]]
Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept
US flouts international law with Pacific military claims [[link removed]]
Edward Hunt, Responsible Statecraft
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