Calling the war in Ukraine “unprovoked” is as much a lie as saying Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was behind 9/11. Calling the war in Ukraine “unprovoked” is as much a lie as General Westmoreland’s claims that the war in Vietnam was going well. Calling the war in Ukraine “unprovoked” is as […]
Adam Smith
Playing Russian Roulette in Ukraine
Four recent articles have similar, frightening messages about the risk of nuclear escalation in Ukraine. My member of Congress, Rep. Adam Smith (no relation), is playing a large role in sustaining that risk. The first article, Putin flirts again with grim prospect of nuclear war – this time he might mean it, by Pjotr Sauer […]
Report and photos of May 21 Town Hall with Rep. Adam Smith in SeaTac
On April 21, 2022 Rep. Adam Smith held his first in-person town hall meeting in two years. The location was an elementary school in SeaTac, WA, a working class and multi-ethnic suburb to the southeast of Seattle. After presenting Congressional art awards to three local K12 students, Rep. Smith spent fifteen minutes giving an overview […]
Worried about anti-Asian violence? The U.S. is preparing for war with China.
Despite losing disastrously in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the U.S. is actively preparing for war with China, a technologically advanced nation with four times our population. And it’s planning to fight it in China’s own backyard: the South China Sea. Donald Trump ramped up the racist rhetoric against China (“Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu”). But […]
Geniuses!
The House of Representatives just voted to give the Pentagon $741,000,000,000. We are in the middle of a global pandemic that has infected over 15 million Americans and will kill more than 300,000 people in this country before the year is out. Our representatives have prioritized money for weapons manufacturers and endless war over providing […]
Rep. Adam Smith and the 2021 NDAA
(update 2020-07-10) Rep. Adam Smith (D -CD09 WA), Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is continuing his mostly hawkish management of the Pentagon with the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA raises the base Pentagon budget to $740.5 billion (versus $738 this for the 2020 budget). It restricts President Trump’s ability to withdraw troops […]
How much does the U.S. spend on the military? A least 24% of the federal budget.
Rep. Adam Smith said in a town hall meeting with Indivisible Saturday (June 19) that 15% of federal spending goes to the military. I looked at the CBO’s data on federal spending at The Federal Budget in 2019: An Infographic. For 2019 it says that $676 billion was spent on “Defense” and that total federal […]
Report on Rep. Adam Smith Town Hall about NDAA (Jan 25, 2020)
On Jan 25 in Tukwila, Rep. Adam Smith gave a town hall to discuss the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA has been widely criticized by anti-war and progressive groups for compromising away too many progressive amendments and for raising Pentagon spending to $738 billion. As Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, […]
Disastrous NDAA: “near complete capitulation”
The National Defense Authorization Act bill negotiated by Rep. Adam Smith and passed by the House Dec 11, 2019 (377 to 48) was an almost total sellout to the the MIC and the Republicans. The NY Times article House Passes $738 Billion Military Bill With Space Force and Parental Leave says: Mr. Trump appeared to […]
The Dems caved in on important NDAA amendments
(Revised 2019-12-10) Democratic negotiators have agreed on a NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) that omits all or most of the progressive anti-war amendments they had proposed earlier this year. The version passed by the House of Representatives this summer had amendments for restricting participation in Saudi Arabia’s war with Yemen, withdrawing the Authorization for Military […]