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If you think we spend too much on our military as it is (more that the next eight countries combined), you might be shocked to hear President Trump has asked for an increase in military spending by 10%, or $54 billion. Where is all this money going to come from? What will it be used for? Since Republicans are not known for wanting to raise taxes, the money has to come from cuts to other allocations in the budget.
On the chopping block are funds that would go to the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal programs -- agencies that serve the needs of the American public.
If Donald Trump really wants to take an "America First" approach, why is he slashing our domestic budget and putting money into a war machine that only continues to inflame tensions around the world? We engage in wars that never seem to end, are tax dollars are squandered, innocent lives are lost in the process and these military interventions are certainly not making us more safe at home.
We are involved in military operations all over the world. Many of these conflicts are not easily summarized, but let's take a look at some of America's conflicts and where they stand, through the prism of this proposed military spending increase.
Iraq
What did we get out of invading Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. For that, we lost almost 4,500 American lives, and over 30,000 were wounded. We don't keep track of the Iraqis we killed, but the estimates.
Major combat operations ended in 2011, but our service members still get killed there and for the Iraqi people, the war rages on. Under Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, sectarian violence was minimized. When we removed him it exploded, and the unintended consequence is that we unleashed sectarian violence.
Another unanticipated result of our invasion of Iraq was the creation of ISIS. It was at the US prison in Iraq called Camp Bucca where embittered Sunni prisoners, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created ISIS. Now we are spending billions trying to defeat the very force we helped to create.
Afghanistan
We invaded in late 2001 and are still there. It is America's longest war, and there is no end in sight. We removed the Taliban government, eventually killed Osama bin Laden -- found in "allied" Pakistan -- and set up a government that is at least officially friendly toward us, but there is now a resurgence of the Taliban.
For that, we lost 2,300 service members with about 17,600 wounded. It is not uncommon for our service members to be killed by Afghan soldiers who are supposed to be working with us. Again, this is all paid for by the United States taxpayer. And the bill is about the shoot up even more, with the Trump administration sending another 4,000 troops to join in this endless war.
Syria
Syria has been reduced to ruins by not only us, but also by Russia, ISIS, the Syrian government and other warring factions within and without. The Trump administration's recent cruise missile attack on the Assad regime forces, followed by the U.S. shooting of a Syrian fighter jet and Iranian drones, puts the U.S. military at even greater risk of direct confrontation not only with Assad but Iran and Russia. The number of Syrians killed, wounded and forced to flee their homes is astronomical, while the idea of a political solution seems more and more remote.
Lost Blood and Treasure
The National Priorities Project, using information obtained from the United States budget, has drawn some conclusions about how much we pay for these wars. We pay $615,482 per hour for ongoing operations against ISIS. Afghanistan costs us $4 million per hour (without counting the new troops being sent there), and the remaining operations in Iraq cost us $117,000.00 per hour. It has concluded we pay $8.36 million per hour for all the wars since 2001.
What else could we do with all that money? The National Priorities Project illustrates how it could be spent to help our own people and our own economy:
The list goes on.
Americans are tired of war, yet Donald Trump's budget sends an unfortunate but clear message. He is willing to cut funds that help the poor, protect the environment, and promote the arts -- things that generally keep us happy and safe -- in order to fund a never-ending, ever-growing war machine. He's taking money from Meals on Wheels to buy billion-dollar bombers.
Fortunately, Trump's budget is only a request. Congress has to approve it, and even though the president enjoys a Republican-majority House and Senate, it does not mean his budget will go through. Yes, Congress members gets pressure from the administration, the Pentagon and the companies that profit from making weapons. But they also get pressure from their constituents, who are demanding that our money goes to community needs, not down a black hole of endless war. You can sign a petition to Congress here. Let's see who they listen to.
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If you think we spend too much on our military as it is (more that the next eight countries combined), you might be shocked to hear President Trump has asked for an increase in military spending by 10%, or $54 billion. Where is all this money going to come from? What will it be used for? Since Republicans are not known for wanting to raise taxes, the money has to come from cuts to other allocations in the budget.
On the chopping block are funds that would go to the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal programs -- agencies that serve the needs of the American public.
If Donald Trump really wants to take an "America First" approach, why is he slashing our domestic budget and putting money into a war machine that only continues to inflame tensions around the world? We engage in wars that never seem to end, are tax dollars are squandered, innocent lives are lost in the process and these military interventions are certainly not making us more safe at home.
We are involved in military operations all over the world. Many of these conflicts are not easily summarized, but let's take a look at some of America's conflicts and where they stand, through the prism of this proposed military spending increase.
Iraq
What did we get out of invading Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. For that, we lost almost 4,500 American lives, and over 30,000 were wounded. We don't keep track of the Iraqis we killed, but the estimates.
Major combat operations ended in 2011, but our service members still get killed there and for the Iraqi people, the war rages on. Under Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, sectarian violence was minimized. When we removed him it exploded, and the unintended consequence is that we unleashed sectarian violence.
Another unanticipated result of our invasion of Iraq was the creation of ISIS. It was at the US prison in Iraq called Camp Bucca where embittered Sunni prisoners, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created ISIS. Now we are spending billions trying to defeat the very force we helped to create.
Afghanistan
We invaded in late 2001 and are still there. It is America's longest war, and there is no end in sight. We removed the Taliban government, eventually killed Osama bin Laden -- found in "allied" Pakistan -- and set up a government that is at least officially friendly toward us, but there is now a resurgence of the Taliban.
For that, we lost 2,300 service members with about 17,600 wounded. It is not uncommon for our service members to be killed by Afghan soldiers who are supposed to be working with us. Again, this is all paid for by the United States taxpayer. And the bill is about the shoot up even more, with the Trump administration sending another 4,000 troops to join in this endless war.
Syria
Syria has been reduced to ruins by not only us, but also by Russia, ISIS, the Syrian government and other warring factions within and without. The Trump administration's recent cruise missile attack on the Assad regime forces, followed by the U.S. shooting of a Syrian fighter jet and Iranian drones, puts the U.S. military at even greater risk of direct confrontation not only with Assad but Iran and Russia. The number of Syrians killed, wounded and forced to flee their homes is astronomical, while the idea of a political solution seems more and more remote.
Lost Blood and Treasure
The National Priorities Project, using information obtained from the United States budget, has drawn some conclusions about how much we pay for these wars. We pay $615,482 per hour for ongoing operations against ISIS. Afghanistan costs us $4 million per hour (without counting the new troops being sent there), and the remaining operations in Iraq cost us $117,000.00 per hour. It has concluded we pay $8.36 million per hour for all the wars since 2001.
What else could we do with all that money? The National Priorities Project illustrates how it could be spent to help our own people and our own economy:
The list goes on.
Americans are tired of war, yet Donald Trump's budget sends an unfortunate but clear message. He is willing to cut funds that help the poor, protect the environment, and promote the arts -- things that generally keep us happy and safe -- in order to fund a never-ending, ever-growing war machine. He's taking money from Meals on Wheels to buy billion-dollar bombers.
Fortunately, Trump's budget is only a request. Congress has to approve it, and even though the president enjoys a Republican-majority House and Senate, it does not mean his budget will go through. Yes, Congress members gets pressure from the administration, the Pentagon and the companies that profit from making weapons. But they also get pressure from their constituents, who are demanding that our money goes to community needs, not down a black hole of endless war. You can sign a petition to Congress here. Let's see who they listen to.
If you think we spend too much on our military as it is (more that the next eight countries combined), you might be shocked to hear President Trump has asked for an increase in military spending by 10%, or $54 billion. Where is all this money going to come from? What will it be used for? Since Republicans are not known for wanting to raise taxes, the money has to come from cuts to other allocations in the budget.
On the chopping block are funds that would go to the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal programs -- agencies that serve the needs of the American public.
If Donald Trump really wants to take an "America First" approach, why is he slashing our domestic budget and putting money into a war machine that only continues to inflame tensions around the world? We engage in wars that never seem to end, are tax dollars are squandered, innocent lives are lost in the process and these military interventions are certainly not making us more safe at home.
We are involved in military operations all over the world. Many of these conflicts are not easily summarized, but let's take a look at some of America's conflicts and where they stand, through the prism of this proposed military spending increase.
Iraq
What did we get out of invading Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. For that, we lost almost 4,500 American lives, and over 30,000 were wounded. We don't keep track of the Iraqis we killed, but the estimates.
Major combat operations ended in 2011, but our service members still get killed there and for the Iraqi people, the war rages on. Under Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, sectarian violence was minimized. When we removed him it exploded, and the unintended consequence is that we unleashed sectarian violence.
Another unanticipated result of our invasion of Iraq was the creation of ISIS. It was at the US prison in Iraq called Camp Bucca where embittered Sunni prisoners, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created ISIS. Now we are spending billions trying to defeat the very force we helped to create.
Afghanistan
We invaded in late 2001 and are still there. It is America's longest war, and there is no end in sight. We removed the Taliban government, eventually killed Osama bin Laden -- found in "allied" Pakistan -- and set up a government that is at least officially friendly toward us, but there is now a resurgence of the Taliban.
For that, we lost 2,300 service members with about 17,600 wounded. It is not uncommon for our service members to be killed by Afghan soldiers who are supposed to be working with us. Again, this is all paid for by the United States taxpayer. And the bill is about the shoot up even more, with the Trump administration sending another 4,000 troops to join in this endless war.
Syria
Syria has been reduced to ruins by not only us, but also by Russia, ISIS, the Syrian government and other warring factions within and without. The Trump administration's recent cruise missile attack on the Assad regime forces, followed by the U.S. shooting of a Syrian fighter jet and Iranian drones, puts the U.S. military at even greater risk of direct confrontation not only with Assad but Iran and Russia. The number of Syrians killed, wounded and forced to flee their homes is astronomical, while the idea of a political solution seems more and more remote.
Lost Blood and Treasure
The National Priorities Project, using information obtained from the United States budget, has drawn some conclusions about how much we pay for these wars. We pay $615,482 per hour for ongoing operations against ISIS. Afghanistan costs us $4 million per hour (without counting the new troops being sent there), and the remaining operations in Iraq cost us $117,000.00 per hour. It has concluded we pay $8.36 million per hour for all the wars since 2001.
What else could we do with all that money? The National Priorities Project illustrates how it could be spent to help our own people and our own economy:
The list goes on.
Americans are tired of war, yet Donald Trump's budget sends an unfortunate but clear message. He is willing to cut funds that help the poor, protect the environment, and promote the arts -- things that generally keep us happy and safe -- in order to fund a never-ending, ever-growing war machine. He's taking money from Meals on Wheels to buy billion-dollar bombers.
Fortunately, Trump's budget is only a request. Congress has to approve it, and even though the president enjoys a Republican-majority House and Senate, it does not mean his budget will go through. Yes, Congress members gets pressure from the administration, the Pentagon and the companies that profit from making weapons. But they also get pressure from their constituents, who are demanding that our money goes to community needs, not down a black hole of endless war. You can sign a petition to Congress here. Let's see who they listen to.
"Officials in sane and scientific states must band together to report data on their own," said one journalist.
"The censorship begins," said one public health expert as the Trump administration directed federal health agencies to suspend all external communications, like those that have updated people across the U.S. in recent weeks amid outbreaks of Covid-19, influenza, and norovirus.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday evening that administration officials delivered the directive to staff members at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The agencies operate under the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which President Donald Trump has nominated vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead. Kennedy has signaled that if confirmed he would purge the ranks of the FDA and change federal vaccine guidelines, including potentially limiting or eliminating the CDC's program that provides free immunizations to uninsured and underinsured children.
The pause on external communications will be in place for an indeterminate amount of time, according to the Post, and applies to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) compiled by the CDC. The epidemiological record includes "timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations" for healthcare professionals and the public.
During the last year of Trump's first term, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country, HHS officials denounced the MMWR as "hit pieces on the administration" and pushed to delay and prevent the CDC from releasing new information about the pandemic that didn't align with the White House's views.
While changes to the operations and communications of federal health agencies after a new administration enters the White House are "not unprecedented," said epidemiologist Ali Khan, the MMWR "should never go dark."
The health agencies were instructed to halt communications about public health as the news media reported on a so-called "quad-demic" of four viruses that have been circulating for several weeks across the country.
CDC data shows that the spread of influenza A, Covid-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is "high" or "very high," and norovirus cases have been rising in recent weeks.
The country is also facing an "ongoing multi-state outbreak" of the H5N1 avian flu among dairy cattle, with 67 total human cases also reported during the current outbreak.
The CDC had been scheduled to publish three MMWR updates this week on H5N1 when the new directive was announced.
The Post reported that it was unclear whether the ban on external communications would apply to reports of new avian flu cases or foodborne illness outbreaks.
Journalist Jeff Jarvis said Trump's new policy will give way to "forced ignorance on health data" and called on officials "in sane and scientific states" to continue reporting public health information on their own.
The suspension of external communications will apply to website updates and social media posts, advisories that the CDC sends to clinicians about public health incidents, and data releases from the National Center for Health Statistics, according to the Post.
"Asking health agencies to pause all external communications is NOT typical protocol for administration changes," said Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University. "Generally website updates, disease case counts, and other typical day-to-day work continues."
Tran noted that during his first term, Trump officials halted external communications for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.
"In their second term," he said, "they appear to be targeting health agencies too."
"Even if it turns out to be structured to avoid antitrust law enforcement, it plainly will concentrate power in a small number of corporate hands," said Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday highlighted a new private-sector initiative to invest as much as $500 billion over four years into developing infrastructure to support artificial intelligence, starting with a raft of power-intensive data centers in Texas. The move drew swift criticism from one watchdog group on antitrust and environmental grounds.
The initiative, Stargate, is a joint venture of the tech firms OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. Trump hosted the leaders of those companies—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son—at the White House to announce the initiative just one day after he signed an executive order rolling back a Biden-era executive order implemented in 2023 that sought to put safeguards on AI.
"I think this will be the most important project of this era," said Altman, according to the Washington Post. "We wouldn't be able to do this without you, Mr. President," he added, though both the Post and and the Associated Press noted that the creation of the partnership predated Trump's return to the White House.
Biden's 2023 executive order on AI placed safety obligations on AI developers and called on federal agencies to examine the technology's risks. But Biden, too, was interested in boosting AI infrastructure development. Right before he departed, in early mid-January, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to identify government sites that could be leased to private companies for the construction of AI data centers.
Environmental groups and tech advocacy groups have long advocated for greater safeguards on AI, pointing to the technology's potential impact on the climate emergency.
The average query in the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT requires 10 times the amount of energy a Google search needs, and "in that difference lies a coming sea change in how the U.S., Europe, and the world at large will consume power—and how much that will cost," according to a 2024 analysis published by the investment firm Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs analysts believe that AI will represent about 19% of data center power demand by 2028.
AI infrastructure is also water intensive. Global AI demand is projected to require more water extraction in a year than the country of Denmark by 2027, according to one study.
"The alarming surge in these centers' energy demand is on track to extend the fossil fuel era... [and] it is already increasing costs for some consumers and threatens to bring about a larger affordability crisis, while lining the pockets of Big Tech billionaires," said Karen Orenstein, a director at the environmental group Friends of the Earth, following Biden's January executive order. "For the sake of our planet and its people, we need to rein in Big Tech and regulate AI," she said.
Meanwhile, the joint venture to build out AI infrastructure has also drawn scrutiny from one watchdog group over concerns of corporate concentration.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said Wednesday that "the new Stargate plan—at minimum—raises massive antitrust concerns. Even if it turns out to be structured to avoid antitrust law enforcement, it plainly will concentrate power in a small number of corporate hands."
"Absent a commitment to bring on new, renewable energy to power an even greater spike in AI power demand, the Stargate build out threatens to worsen the rush to climate catastrophe and to drive up consumer electric bills," he added.
Another observer, Jeffrey Westling of the American Action Forum, remarked on the timing of the announcement.
"Interesting to wait to announce this until the Trump Admin. Assuming its all private investment, maybe they were worried about FTC/DOJ antitrust scrutiny?" he wrote on X Tuesday.
"All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said during his address at an annual gathering of global elites on Wednesday that the world's addiction to fossil fuels has become an all-consuming "Frankenstein monster" imperiling hopes of a livable future.
"All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master. We just endured the hottest year and the hottest decade in history," Guterres said to the audience gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"A number of financial institutions and industries are backtracking on climate commitments," Guterres continued. "Here at Davos, I want to say loudly and clearly: It is short-sighted. And paradoxically, it is selfish and also self-defeating. You are on the wrong side of history. You are on the wrong side of science. And you are on the wrong side of consumers who are looking for more sustainability, not less. This warning certainly also applies to the fossil fuel industry and advertising, lobbying, and PR companies who are aiding, abetting, and greenwashing."
"Global heating is racing forward—we cannot afford to move backward," he added.
Guterres' remarks came as President Donald Trump, a fervent ally of the fossil fuel industry, took office in the U.S.—the largest historical emitter—and moved immediately to expand oil and gas production, which was already at record levels.
The U.S. is among a number of rich nations working to build out fossil fuel infrastructure and ramp up production in the face of runaway warming and worsening climate destruction across the globe.
Intensifying climate chaos—and global elites' disproportionate contributions to the planetary crisis—spurred several protests inside and near the Davos forum this week, with activists demanding higher taxes on the mega-rich and a rapid, just transition to renewable energy.
A climate protester calls for taxes on the rich during the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland on January 21, 2025. (Photo: Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"It is more than obvious that the super-rich must pay their fair share," Clara Thompson, a Greenpeace spokesperson in Davos, said earlier this week. "Especially when they are among the largest contributors to the climate crisis."
"It shouldn't be the people, already struggling to make ends meet, who have to foot the bill and suffer the consequences of worsening climate impacts," Thompson added. "The scarcity narrative is simply not true—there is enough money to fund a just and green future for all but it is just in the wrong pockets."