Can Crony Capitalism Win Wars?

South China Morning Post

My husband is writing the next viral country song: "Try building hypersonic weapons in a country with subpar science." 

It may need some wordsmithing, but his concept is solid.

He was inspired after I showed him this tweet of the article above along with a selection of the comments:

https://twitter.com/thonwingp/status/1690904183195770881

"Inept H1B imports" refers to a special visa designation oft used by tech corporations to hire from outside the U.S. based on their claim that they can't find anyone in country who will accept low wages has the skills to do the job. (I'm not sure why Quaternion Group calls such workers inept -- could he do their jobs?) 

I would argue that the military-industrial industry is more likely to be brought to its knees by the poisoned seeds it contains within: crony capitalism.

When the head of your military has just resigned his seat on the board of Raytheon, you know he has friends in high places who expect him to scratch their back in return for having scratched his. White House, ditto. And then Congress multiplies this problem several hundred fold. For the past few years it has passed a Pentagon budget higher than what the Pentagon itself requested.

Try that in a small town.

Rep. Adam Smith chairs the House Armed Services Committee and is making a name for himself sharing opinion pieces like this:

The U.S. Department of Defense has spent tens of billions of dollars over the last 25 years on weapons systems that simply have failed to deliver as planned. These systems have wound up way over budget and have been either delivered exceptionally late or canceled outright after the DoD spent billions of dollars on them. Many of the programs that survive to completion, after long delays and cost overruns, have not delivered the capabilities initially desired and promised.

Not for the first time I'm reflecting on the role of late stage capitalism in defunding and privatizing public education. 

Finding the best math and science students and giving them all the free education they desire is what countries like Russia and China do. Here's what the U.S. does:

And, I'll just leave this artifact of reverse brain drain here:

From the International Business Times:

In April, Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, conveyed to CNN that "submarines are one area where the United States retains unchallenged superiority over China."

But now it's being reported that a prestigious science journal in China published a study suggesting that existing technology could be used to successfully detect U.S. nuclear submarines. If it pans out, this could significantly affect U.S. military dominance of the world's oceans. 

And that would be a game changer, indeed.

Empires Eat Children -- Change My Mind

This is a really depressing post, so let's get to it before the longest, darkest day of the year is upon us a week from now.

What got me started down this dark path is the news that presumed CIA spook Anne Sacoolas failed to appear for trial in the UK after she killed teenager Harry Dunn. The victim was doing nothing wrong, simply riding his motorcycle along on the road near RAF Croughton, used by the Pentagon as a spying outpost. 

Sacoolas, with typical imperial hubris, was driving on the wrong side of the road. 

Probably a simple tragic accident but Sacoolas turned it to a real crime by fleeing the country. It has taken Dunn's family three years to have their day in court but they were denied the opportunity to see justice: Sacoolas was acquitted of driving dangerously, convicted of driving carelessly, and received a paltry 8 month sentence which she will not have to serve if she kills no other kids in the coming year. Even if she did, the UK appears unable and/or unwilling to have her extradited to face charges.

Left to right: Anne Sacoolas & Harry Dunn

Her attorney's explanation for Sacoolas' failure to appear in court and hasty departure from the country following the accident: "diplomatic immunity." According to Sky News:

The court heard that she had been advised by American officials not to fly to the UK, as her return "could place significant US interests at risk".

If one of Sacoolas' own three children is murdered someday, I'm sure she will understand that U.S. interests will receive higher priority than bringing the family some justice.

Okay, so one evil lady and her enabling government. What's the other evidence for my claim?

JROTC students on parade

How about the news -- being treated as a blockbuster exposé  -- that teenagers in places like Detroit, Michigan (i.e. low income with a high proportion of students who are Black or otherwise of color) are enrolled in JROTC programs without their consent. Told if they ask that this Pentagon program requiring them to wear military uniforms and be shouted at by military personnel posing as "teachers" is mandatory. Which is a lie, but if your guidance counselor in 9th grade won't change your schedule after you request it, becomes a de facto truth.

I know you will be shocked to learn that the textbooks used in middle school and high school JROTC programs paint a rosy picture of the U.S. worldwide empire of military bases. And the intentions behind them.

If I'm not shocked it's because as a high school teacher for many years I organized against the presence of military recruiters in the lunch room, their access to students during the school day, and the allegedly mandatory ASFAB test harvesting demographic and knowledge base info on teenagers without parental consent. My state does have JROTC programs also though I never taught at a school that had one.

When you look up groomers in the dictionary what you should see is a military recruiter handing a teenager the gift of a cell phone. But, this word has been hijacked by right-wingers claiming teachers are trying to turn students gay or trans.

Left to right: Prince Andrew, American teen Virginia Giufrre at age 17, & Ghislaine Maxwell

Speaking of groomers, let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein's little black book of contacts none of whom have been outed or charged for actual pedophile crimes. Grooming is a key component of convincing teen girls to have sex with old, powerful men and the currently incarcerated Ghislaine Maxwell was in charge of that operation.

It's generally understood that Epstein (who supposedly committed suicide in prison when the guards fell asleep and the security cameras malfunctioned) and Maxwell worked for Mossad. Israel's international spy agency functions as an integral if secretive part of the U.S. imperial system of coercion. (Though NATO's war against Russia may be weakening this alliance.)

The black book names we do know about, most prominently Prince Andrew of the UK royal family, were only revealed because individual victims like the immensely brave Virginia Giuffre pursued legal action against her rapist. Before Queen Elizabeth II died the monarch had stripped Andrew of his honors and titles, and had UK taxpayers shell out a settlement presumed to be enormous.

Of course teenage girls in nations invaded by imperial troops do not even need to be groomed.

 They can be raped at will, then murdered along with their families to cover up the crimes.

My final piece of evidence: 

the U.S. Congress just voted $858 BILLION for next year's military budget.

Actual figures for 2021. The $858 billion is budgeted for 2023.

Meanwhile, 1 in 6 children in the U.S. are growing up in poverty. 

This makes them the poorest age group of any here in the heart of an empire hungry for cannon fodder.

Masses Demand Medicare For All, The Most Broken Campaign Promise Of Democrats

Today the 600,000+ people in the U.S. who died from COVID won't be marching for Medicare for All. 

Neither will many Democrats in Congress who campaigned on the most popular form of universal health care, a basic human right that people in the U.S. lack. 

My own congressperson Jared Golden co-sponsored M4A legislation last time around. Then he ran for re-election and took campaign contributions from big tech firms looking to expand into the for-profit health care sector. Guess who doesn't support M4A anymore? His rationale: he's heard from constituents that they want to keep their employer-sponsored healthcare. Really? Then why do Mainers call it the Unaffordable Care Act? 

Once you've been sick with your ACA mandated insurance you understand that Obama's deal with the insurance industry to guarantee their profits had nothing to do with providing you with a reasonable standard of care.

The so-called squad of progressive Democrats came under fire this year from lefty organizers who wanted them to withhold their vote to re-elect Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi until she agreed to put M4A to a vote. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, formerly the darling of people who yearn to believe the Democratic Party serves people rather than corporations, has fallen from grace over the "Force the Vote" issue. Progressive types see her coddling Pelosi, whose wealth has grown by hundreds of millions in office, and whose husband just raked in $5 million in profits buying tech stocks Congress was about to regulate. 

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14.6 million people lost their health insurance during the pandemic. Pelosi's response: continue enjoying the gold standard health care she has as a member of Congress while showing off her two refrigerators full of gelato. Together she and her husband have grown obscenely wealthy as she represented the interests of corporations rather than the people, and no one in the squad cares to oppose her. (Note: that's why electing women doesn't solve anything.)

Republicans are just as bad, but they're more honest about it.

It's clear that health care is a top priority for many voters. Inadequate insurance plus major illness is a leading cause of household bankruptcy and home foreclosures. Many of my friends are affluent enough in retirement to live in Mexico part of the year and receive their health care at affordable prices. Many of my friends are low income enough to be on MaineCare, a medicaid expansion program that applies to any children and some adults in my state. Many of my friends can only afford catastrophic health insurance because the premiums for comprehensive coverage are too high for the middle class to handle. 

That's why Democrats continue to run on promising to support M4A. 

A slew of so-called progressive Democrats claimed they supported it while campaiging, and then backpedaled as soon as they were in office.

Thus the marches today in big cities across the nation. Also the widespread campaigns to bring single payer health care at the state level.

I'm involved with both Maine's campaign to pressure Jared Golden to support M4A as well as the campaign to mandate that the legislature enact universal health care by a ballot initiative in 2022. And I support today's rally in Portland which will hear from Jess Falero, an advocate for the unhoused who will eloquently share just how much it sucks to be without housing AND health care.

But here's the reality as I see it: two things need to happen before the U.S. can achieve univeral coverage via M4A.

First, the Pentagon would have to be defunded to afford it. 

The reason we have warfare but not healthcare is that both are enormously expensive and members of Congress would rather keep their bread buttered than help their neighbors who are struggling. (Just yesterday the Senate voted to increase Biden's $715 billion Pentagon budget by another $25 billion to keep the weapons industry lobbyists happy.)

source: https://www.mic.com/articles/167192/general-strike-feb-17-what-will-happen-if-activists-stage-a-nationwide-strike-against-trump

Second, the workers of this nation will need to stage a general strike. 

As we saw from the pandemic, their labor is essential to turning the profits demanded by capitalists. Only withholding that labor would exert enough pressure on our elected officials to bend to the will of the people. 

ANGELA WEISS / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Here's hoping that today's marches display the desperation people feel around health care in this country, and bring together organizers who can make it happen, without being coopted by the Democratic Party.

Planet Burning, Lawsuits Churning, Pentagon Still Turning Toward Climate Destruction

It's another record breaking hot season for the Northern Hemisphere. Despite the fact that the summer solstice just occurred we're seeing Arctic ground temperatures in the 110+ degrees Farenheit range (38+ Celcius), a 1,200 year drought shaping up in the western United States, and spring wildfires in Siberia, Arizona, and New Mexico. Some of these are believed to be "zombie fires" that wintered over under the snow cover in the Arctic, unextinguished.

The lawsuit by young people suing the federal government for inaction on climate, thus depriving them of their constitutional right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," is on appeal with a hearing set for today at 1pm EDT to review oral arguments in Juliana v. United States.

Meanwhile, the state of Massachusetts has seen progress in its lawsuit against petroleum giant Exxon Mobil for knowing the risks of climate crisis yet concealing them from consumers and the general public.

"Greenwashing" similar to that currently engaged in by Hydro-Quebec on behalf of what some in Maine are calling the "Massachusetts extension cord" project currently destroying acres of carbon-sequestering trees to build a giant transmission line. Governor Janet Mills just vetoed a bill to ban foreign entities like HQ and the owner of the line, Iberdrola, from spending on lobbying and advertising campaigns to influence the outcome of citizen referendums; one on the ballot in November threatens the project.

I'm sure investment bankers at Goldman Sachs have made it crystal clear to Mills which side her bread is buttered on.

Source: Brown University, Watson Institute, Costs of War Project

Meanwhile, the biggest polluter on the planet continues largely unchallenged.

In September, Maine will be visited by the super polluting and entirely unnecessary Blue Angels airshow. All these carbon emissions kill only indirectly i.e. these planes don't drop bombs on anyone, and they drop napalm onto the runway in Brunswick only to "entertain." 

Of course all airshows, like the military displays at sporting events that your tax dollars subsidize, are recruiting tools. Along with crushing student debt for postsecondary education, they steer the young people not born to affluence into donning uniform in order to qualify for "free" college.

Why don't the big environmental groups challenge the Pentagon on its non-stop hastening of climate crisis?

Some say its because most of them take money from the corporate owned and operated Democratic Party. Some say its because they dare not appear "unpatriotic" even if that's what it will take to keep Earth liveable for our grandchildren. Some want to stay in their silo of challenging climate crisis without venturing into the much more fraught arena of challenging our militarized, fascistic government that exists mainly to protect the profits of already wealthy corporations.

If embedded video of Veterans for Peace plenary session on the U.S. Military & Climate does not play for you, access it here: https://youtu.be/M_unc1AFbkw

Some say that an annual budget of $778 billion buys a lot of silence from potential opponents.

I notice that in the new guidelines the Biden administration is developing anyone who opposes the life-threatening system of capitalism will now be designated a terrorist.

Sign me up!

Patriarchy Will End In Violent Explosions, Possibly Nuclear

Gender reveal party in Arizona that sparked widespread fires in 2017.

Another of those lame-brained gender reveal parties has caused considerable distress and damage, this time in New Hampshire, where an explosion big enough to crack nearby house foundations was set off by the expectant father.

Men have long suffered from womb envy, a disempowered feeling of jealousy at females' superior power to bring life into being. Knowing the science of reproduction, i.e. the role of the male in fertilization, has done little to address this. 

Males raised in our current violent, power-tripping society thrash about killing wantonly and setting off explosions that make other males very wealthy. 

Source: https://iranpress.com/content/37315/has-seen-mass-shootings-the-last-month

The modern proclivity to determine an unborn child's genitalia and then announce it to the world may also be a sort of backlash against the non-binary movement so threatening to traditional order-keepers. (I can remember my Christian fundamentalist grandmother and her peers being horrified when males began growing their hair long in the 60's "because you can't tell the boys from the girls." This always mystified me because I still could.)

This news on damaging property and frightening your neighbors "for fun", while distressing, was much less so than the overnight report from Israeli-occupied Jerusalem. 

Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/23/dozens-of-palestinians-wounded-by-israeli-police-in-jerusalem  Israeli police officers stand next to a burning barricade during clashes with Palestinians [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

From a Jewish human rights activist I follow:

Jewish Supremacists carried out a pogram last night in Jerusalem, hundreds marching the streets chanting “death to Arabs” & assaulting Palestinians >100 wounded.The event was not an aberration, but the logical extension of a racist apartheid state

— Ariel Gold אריאל 🕎 ☮️🔥✡️ (@ArielElyseGold) April 23, 2021

History is doomed to repeat itself, apparently, with fresh victims in every generation. 

Should we be worried that the increasingly violent nation of Israel, a best buddy of the increasingly violent nation of the U.S., has nuclear weapons?

Yes. 

And we should also be worried that the U.S. military tweeted about its renewed commitment to nuclear war under a Democratic administration.

#USSTRATCOM Posture Statement Preview: The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable. We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option. pic.twitter.com/4Oe7xkl05L

— US Strategic Command (@US_Stratcom) April 20, 2021

Notice how it is "an adversary" that is supposedly threatening the nuclear ceasefire of sorts that has existed since Nagasaki. (I say "of sorts" because of the depleted uranium weapons used to this day by the Pentagon in its never-ending air strikes.)

Our least bad option would be to defund the Pentagon immediately. 

This would lead to a halt to encircling and menacing Russia on its European borders, and a halt to menacing China in the South China Sea. Both would significantly reduce the risk of nuclear war as both those nations have nuclear weapons but have not used them.

Defunding the Pentagon would lead to a jobs crisis as every state in the U.S. has deeply embedded building weapons systems into its economy. This could lead to the very welcome development of a Green New Deal conversion to building things we actually need, thus creating even more jobs with federal funding.

Defunding the Pentagon could also lead quickly to the conditions making universal healthcare possible. 

The primary reason people in the U.S. are suffering in poverty without adequate or even any healthcare is that the resources to fund Medicare for All are always given to the Pentagon and its contractors. 

Defunding the Pentagon would also be the model for defunding the violent police departments who appear determined to spark civil war in the U.S. by slaughtering people of color.

Including children and people on the spectrum and people with mental health issues and people with developmental disabilities. Yup, that's who the violent white supremacist regime of Germany slaughtered, too, while focusing their cruelty on Jewish Europeans.

Mark Twain said history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

You know what else rhymes? Live by the bomb, die by the bomb. And that's where the road we're on right now is headed.

Support Public Education With More Than Your Smile

We started back to school in Maine this week. 

My students will begin today, but the adults in my district spent almost all of yesterday in state-mandated trainings: suicide prevention in the morning, and child abuse reporting in the afternoon.

I should be careful what I wish for because, with the addition of a long mid-day staff meeting, I was out of time and had to work long after the contract day just to be ready for tomorrow. (Yes, I worked this summer, too, some of it compensated by a school improvement grant, much of it not.)

When I say I wished for those trainings, it's true. For 20+ years now I've been aware that, despite being trained to teach by an excellent post-graduate program at the University of Southern Maine, I was unprepared for the social work aspect of my job.

Yesterday afternoon we practiced looking at photographs of real homes where children were removed in order to practice providing accurate descriptions of what we witness.

Glancing at a bedroom with a shelf of children's books, a bureau with the drawers missing, and a mattress you wouldn't let your dog sleep on you might be likely to comment: drug addicts live here.

I teach in Somerset County, the largest, poorest county in Maine and the source of more child abuse referrals than any of the other 15 counties.

In 2018 Child Protective Services received nearly 50,000 calls which resulted in around 25,000 documented reports of neglect or abuse in our state.

Drug addiction, depression and other mental health conditions, obesity, suicide: these are the diseases of despair that characterize the poorest parts of our state. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are both the cause and the effect. 

Our next round of professional development will be on creating trauma-sensitive classrooms and schools that support students with high ACEs. Not on how to best teach reading, writing, mathematics or geography. Not on how to engage and motivate students in learning activities.

Rather, how to make school bearable, maybe even productive, for a child suffering from PTSD.

Lots of teachers are found on crowdsourced funding sites pleading for money to do their jobs.

Progressive news site Maine Beacon reported yesterday that teachers in Maine spend millions of dollars out of pocket each year to provide basic supplies to students. That sometimes means paper and books, but it also can mean shoes, snow pants and snacks.

"That teachers subsidize schools should come as no surprise. In some districts, teachers are increasingly called on to serve as first responders when it comes to children's basis needs," wrote Emma García, an economist for EPI. “That generosity extends to filling the gap when schools, districts, and states don’t provide all the needed educational goods. And for teachers in high-poverty schools, filling the gap is costlier.”

Meanwhile, News Center Maine reported that General Dynamics is staffing up to build six more carbon-belching war ships at their Bath Iron Works plant. Maine needs good paying, full-benefit jobs, and BIW is the biggest employer in our state.

Tragically, the money wasted building weapons of mass destruction will hasten climate emergency and produce far fewer jobs than building, say, public transportation would produce.

Congress is still voting for the biggest Pentagon budgets ever, well over 50% of the discretionary budget each and every year.




If embedded video does not work for you, use this link: Back to School 2019 - Thank You from Maine Department of Education.


All of Maine's congressional delegation appeared in this "have a wonderful school year" video produced by our new Commissioner of Education.

Pender Makin and her communications staff no doubt thought that after eight years of teacher bashing by our former governor, an infusion of optimism and support was warranted. 

Too bad those in Congress don't put their money where their smile is. 

They continue to lavishly fund the Pentagon at the expense of education, Medicare for All, or conversion of the military-industrial problem. This is true whether they have R, D or I after their name.

The children in my school don't have much of a voice in government. General Dynamics with its campaign contributions and super PACs does. What's wrong with this picture?

Stench From The Camps Is The Defining Smell Of U.S. Government Rotting

Palestinian child being evicted, and not for the first time, by apartheid-state Israel in 2018. Yesterday Israel was admonished by the UN for demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes.
(Image by UNRWA/Lara Jonasdottir)

Sometimes the news is so sad, so troubling, and so bizarre that my feelings about current events are best expressed in a digest of what I've been reading.

So, here goes for the final week of a very hot and very ugly July with dollops of fierce kindness and (probably unfounded) optimism.

Trending on Twitter July 18 after the demagogue with bad hair had a crowd in South Carolina chanting "send her back" about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

 Omar has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for 16 years, which is longer than the demagogue's current wife. Stochastic terrorism is the demagogue's specialty. Indeed, two police officers in Louisiana were fired this week after posting and liking on Facebook that someone should use one of America's 300,000+ guns on another member of "the Squad" whom the demagogue loves to target, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It would take an week of posts to list all the threats of violence against the four women of color who make up the Squad.

Note the asymmetry on Twitter, the demagogue's presumed home court: 134,000 versus 39,800.

(My eternal optimism was deflated by a convo with my youngest who explained that Area 51 is a morally vacant millennial joke -- not a metaphor about storming government facilities to free "aliens" being held captive as I had hoped.)

Speaking of so-called aliens being held captive, here is a long post from an immigration lawyer who is doing a difficult job in worsening times:

Then, for some dark comic relief, a letter from my "representative" in Congress who this week represented General Dynamics, not me, when he voted to authorize $733 billion in Pentagon funding for 2020. His statement on the vote is predictable, while his expressed views on justice for Palestinians makes him sound like a poorly informed middle school student.

To say that Golden is in AIPAC's back pocket so soon in his maiden voyage as an elected official would be disappointing except that I expected no better. After all, he ran as a Democrat and veteran bragging about his role in U.S. wars of aggression against Israel's foes.Is the fact that the Pentagon's bloated budget and insatiable appetite for petroleum are causing a climate emergency lost on him? No reply on that topic of my communications with him. Nor any meaningful response to the humanitarian disaster of brown babies and children being held in U.S. concentration camps.

Photo credit: USA Today

The stench from the camps is the defining smell of our times.It has become ever more necessary to hold your nose while attending to the media circus of which candidate will get the Democratic Party nomination.I'll bet you that, no matter who else is running, the oligarchs will keep the demagogue with bad hair in office by hook or by crook. They find 8-year terms much more convenient than taking on a whole other group of Katie Johnsons and Stormy Daniels to pay off, hush up, etc. every four years.Of course I'm praying he goes down with Jeffrey Epstein. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Maine's Congressional Delegation Fails Climate Crisis Again, Votes For 'Writing Huge Checks To Boeing & Lockheed'

Jason Rawn at today's news conference in Portland, singing about flooding already underway 

Three dozen people came together to call for conversion of the Bath Iron Works shipyard to build solutions to climate emergency, but Maine's congressional delegation was nowhere to be found. Despite numerous invitations to Rep. Chellie Pingree (1st District) and Rep. Jared Golden (2nd District), not even a staffer for either politician put in an appearance.

Both Pingree and Golden had just voted for the most gargantuan Pentagon budget ever, $733 billion worth.

Their courageous colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan accurately described the appropriations bill as "huge checks being written to Boeing and Lockheed Martin."

Some of those huge checks are for General Dynamics, too, which could explain why Pingree, Golden, Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Angus King stayed away from our Conversion Campaign presser in Portland this morning.

All four will no doubt again be the guests of General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works, tomorrow at a celebration for the Arleigh Burke Guided Missile Destroyer Daniel Inouye.

Another carbon belching war ship the U.S. doesn't need, a weapon system allegedly built to address national security while ignoring the real security emergency facing us all: catastrophic climate change.

Dozens of us will be in the streets in front of the shipyard hoping to be glimpsed by our congressional delegation being whisked through the gates in limousines with tinted windows.

Green Party USA two-time presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein will be out in the streets with us after speaking today about the kind of representation that the people of the U.S. and especially the workers at BIW deserve. So will my husband and I and many of the speakers from today's news conference.

I'll have the full line up of speakers and excerpts of their remarks soon when video of the conference is posted.

Hope to see you at 8am on Washington Street near the north gate of BIW in Bath tomorrow, Saturday June 22, 2019.

A press release with more info on the event may be found here.

You Okay With Over Half Your Discretionary Tax Dollars Going To The Pentagon? ('Cause CEOs Need New Yachts)

Or to put it another way,

Weapons are the US's #1 industrial export.  When weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is your global marketing strategy for that product line?


The good folks at National Priorities Project have done our federal budget homework for us again.

Tax receipt: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/average/2018/us/receipt/

Full Tax Day analysis and fact sheets: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2019/tax-day-2019/

Here are a few of their sample tweets for April 15, 2019. They are basing their calculations on federal taxes paid in 2018 covering the year 2017:

Average annual U.S. tax bill for public housing: $9.79. We can afford more. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average taxpayer paid $225 to military contractor Lockheed Martin, but only $9.79 for public housing.  #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average tax bill for welfare (TANF) is just $6.50 per month. Military contractors take $144 per month.  #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average taxpayer last year paid $180 for all diplomacy and foreign aid, compared to almost nineteen times as much — $3,395 – for the Pentagon and military. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

President Trump wants to eliminate the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, which costs the average taxpayer just $16.32 per year. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

Meanwhile, corporate fat cats (like "defense" contractors) are paying less and less of their fair share.

Join individuals and groups calling for conversion of General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard to address climate change. Sponsoring organizations include Americans Who Tell the Truth, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Durham Quaker Meeting, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Island Peace & Justice, Maine Natural Guard, Maine Veterans for Peace, Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center, Midcoast Peace & Justice Group, Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, 350 Maine and Peninsula Peace & Justice.