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Dear John,
This year has brought plenty of dark times. We’ve documented many of them. But we also want to look back on the remarkable moments of organizing that represent our way out of this mess.
Just this week, we’re watching as Congress passed the first trillion-dollar Pentagon and war budget since World War II [[link removed]] - in a year where the majority in Congress has decimated food stamps and Medicaid during an ongoing affordability crisis.
The bill adds an additional $8 billion in Pentagon funding the Trump administration didn't ask for. That would be more than enough to restore SNAP benefits to the 2.4 million people [[link removed]] expected to go hungry due to new SNAP limits from the Big Bad Bill that have already taken effect.
The $1 trillion budget will enable even more deadly and misguided Pentagon spending. This week, Hanna Homestead made a list of ten of the worst Pentagon wastes of money this year [[link removed]] , from the Big Bad Bill to the new golden nameplates for the “Department of War.”
And Alliyah Lusuegro writes about how, ten years after the Paris Agreement promised a better era for climate change [[link removed]] , the U.S. seems to have no shortage of money to buy U.S.-made weapons for other countries’ militaries, while we’ve slashed global climate spending down to nothing.
Times are dark. But this year, NPP also contributed to remarkable acts of organizing, resistance, and love, from clergy submitting to arrest at the U.S. Capitol in May [[link removed]] to protest the Big Bad Bill, to the tireless advocacy of our partners at Detention Watch Network [[link removed]] .
That’s the spirit we’ll bring with us into 2026, and we are grateful you’ll be there with us.
In solidarity,
Alliyah, Hanna and Lindsay
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TRADEOFF: WEAPONS GRANTS VS. GLOBAL CLIMATE AID
Since 2015, the United States has spent $79 billion [[link removed]] in taxpayer dollars on Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which subsidizes foreign militaries to buy U.S.-made weapons, versus just $2 billion [[link removed]] on the Green Climate Fund, the international fund to address climate change.
On the ten-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement, U.S. policymakers should rebalance foreign aid priorities and commit to providing a fair share of international climate finance [[link removed]] , not subsidizing corporations profiting from endless war and climate collapse.
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Photo courtesy of picryl [[link removed]]
10 EXAMPLES OF MAGA’S MILITARIZED EXCESS IN 2025
Congress has just passed the first step toward a disastrous $1 trillion war budget [[link removed]] - a bonanza for weapons and prison contractors – and the highest military budget since World War II.
The bill culminates a year of hyper-militarized spending. While the MAGA regime boosted investment in the war machine to historic highs, it simultaneously made devastating cuts to social services [[link removed]] that, without further action, will negatively impact American lives for decades to come.
And then there’s Congress. As the first year of Trump’s second term comes to a close, here are ten examples of excessive, wasteful, inhumane, and unstrategic militarized spending [[link removed]] that Congress authorized in 2025 - from commandeering the military for mass deportations, to putting up golden plaques on the Pentagon.
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Photo courtesy of Feleecia Guillen
A WORLDWIDE CALL FOR DEMILITARIZATION AND CLIMATE INVESTMENT
Every year, nations convene for the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) to negotiate world climate policies. Our colleague Feleecia Guillen attended this year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and distributed a National Priorities Project pamphlet highlighting the intersections between climate crisis and militarism [[link removed]] , focusing on fossil fuel use, the key actors involved, and government spending.
Throughout the gathering, movements and civil society made a strong, unmistakable call for demilitarization. Their demands included: holding the Pentagon accountable for its role in global wars and for being the world’s largest institutional polluter, protecting Indigenous lands, decolonizing daily practices and dominant systems, and redirecting resources back into people and communities.
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“Even as we see rising authoritarianism in our streets and in our policies, the people in New Mexico are organizing to resist that agenda… What’s missing isn't technology, it's quite literally political will. And that’s what we’re building in our communities. We refuse to be sacrificed. We refuse to be silenced.”
– Feleecia Guillen, Institute for Policy Studies New Mexico Fellow,
speaking at COP30 in Brazil
Watch her full speech here [[link removed]] beginning at 7:10.
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READ/ WATCH/ LISTEN
The Clock Is Ticking: Invest in the Planet, Not the Pentagon [[link removed]]
Alliyah Lusuegro, OtherWords
Despite a $1 trillion Pentagon budget, our veterans are being neglected [[link removed]]
Ben Freeman and William D. Hartung, The Tribune Content Agency
Asking the Right Questions When Lawless US Officials Go on a Murder Spree [[link removed]]
Phyllis Bennis and Khury Petersen-Smith, Common Dreams
Cutting this much red tape, Santa comes early to weapons industry [[link removed]]
Julia Gledhill, Responsible Statecraft
The War on Terror Set the Stage for Deadly Caribbean Boat Strikes [[link removed]]
Elizabeth Beavers, Inkstick
Chicagoans Grill AT&T for Facilitating ICE Terror [[link removed]]
James Baratta, The American Prospect
LISTEN: Converting the War Economy [[link removed]]
Things That Go Boom
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