In a 300-119 vote, the House has approved the newest annual military spending bill, pumping another $585 billion into the Pentagon for assorted wars, including the newest war against ISIS.
The bill also includes an extension of the authorization for the Pentagon to train and arm “moderate” Syrian rebel factions, which was supposed to expire on December 11. The bill will extend the deadline through 2016.
House Democrats sought to add provisions defining the scope of the ISIS war, but failed to get that out of the committee. The bill includes some funding the the war, but no specific authorizations.
The Senate is expected to bring the vote up next week and it is largely expected to pass, though Senate Republicans are complaining about the many unrelated provisions crammed into the vote.
Republican complaints likely stem from the fact that their pet projects didn't get included this time around. Usually, at the end of legislative sessions both parties participate in creating "Christmas tree" bills (because everyone gets to hang their piece of pork on it) around some major piece of legislation. Evidently, the repubs got cut out, or limited, in the process this year. But they won't complain very loudly because there will still be lots of pork for all in the defense budget (the unclassified part), and there's more pork for all in the classified part that we – the US public – will never get to see: funds for NSA, CIA, and other intelligence agencies, as well as funds for DARPA "black projects", and…other things. With both classified and unclassified sections included, total cost to US taxpayers will exceed $1 trillion.
Islamic State — Empire in reverse
The way our Empire works is, we supply the weapons and backup support that dictator nations need to enslave their population, and they in return supply our corporate rich with an overabundance of cheep labor, natural resources at a fraction of their true value and the US dollar as always is the currency of exchange.
Comes now the Islamic state to work in exactly the reverse, as it arms and empowers militants to overthrow dictators, saves Muslims from economical slavery by Western nations and uses gold as the currency of exchange.
How about them apples?
Mostly right but there's also a good argument to be made about politicians being afraid to step forward with any kind of antiwar initiative. There's no indication that the cycle of violence can be broken. Both abroad and domestically as in the killing of black people by police. Now read some history of how it happened in Nazi Germany!
As long as one side can blame the other in the domestic politics game there will be no antiwar progress made. It's only a convenient ruse that's going to be played by both sides because they all fear stepping forward to make it happen.
When they all come to the understanding that to stop killing them over there will stop 'them' from wanting to kill Americans over here, progress will be made. Not until!!