Bleeding America Dry

 

 

This is why we can’t have nice things like medicine, education or clean water.

Trump’s Generals Fatten the Pentagon

 

Buying the Presidency

Political Ad Spending to Hit $11.4B in 2016

Bribery

Corruption

Plutocracy

Oligarchy

Malfeasance

Betrayal

Fraud

Kakistocracy

Organized Crime

Political advertising is expected to reach a record $11.4 billion in 2016, up 20% from the previous presidential election year, according to a new report from Borrell Associates.

US Empire: 800 Bases Around the World

Why does the US have 800 military bases around the world?

This is according to American University professor David Vine in his forthcoming book Base Nation, in which he seeks to quantify the financial, environmental, and human costs of keeping these bases open.

Vanity Spending

“Vanity capital” is the new metric for narcissism, and analysts say its value worldwide is greater than Germany’s GDP

Whether $4.5 trillion is an accurate measure of how much people spend on purchases motivated in some way by vanity is debatable. But in the age of the selfie, it seems a safe bet that the number, whatever it may be, is growing.

$8.5 Trillion Unaccounted for at Pentagon

These nickels and dimes add up. Can anyone look at that number and just go on with their lives of servitude without comment?

$8,500,000,000,000

Missing. Stolen. Unaccounted. Disappeared. Gone.

$8.5 Trillion Unaccounted for, Why Should Congress Increase the Defense Budget?

Rethug House Targets Elderly and Sick

Republican budget plan slashes Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps

Republican-controlled House of Representatives and US Senate went on record this week approving budget resolutions that would eviscerate basic social programs on which tens of millions of elderly, poor and sick Americans depend.

…the cuts proposed are far beyond anything ever enacted by an American government: $5.5 trillion over 10 years in the House budget, $5.1 trillion over 10 years in the Senate budget. Pell grants, job training and housing programs are all targeted. But the biggest cuts come in so-called entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps.

They’ve opted for a strategy of open evil. Cuts to the infinite war budgets are nowhere in sight. The collapse of America seems assured at this rate, a society of ignorant, hate-filled, mindless, sick and desperate imperial killers.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

…And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (killed for his activism)

Shit’s fucked up.

Corrupting Your Mind

See what big business spends to win American minds

One ad at a time…

Of $3.4 billion in contracts reported by the 144 trade groups from 2008 through 2012, more than $1.2 billion, or 37 percent, went toward advertising, public relations and marketing services, more than any other category. The second-highest total, $682.2 million, or 20 percent of the total, was directed toward legal, lobbying and government affairs.

Infinite War Spending

“War is the Health of the State”
-Randolph Bourne

‘Long-Term Blank Check for War Spending’

“$554 billion overall in Pentagon spending—in keeping with the trajectory of a country that spends more on the military than the next 11 countries combined…  Buried within the budget is $64 billion in military funding from what is called the Overseas Contingency Operations.”

James Risen Exposes Military Industrial Complex

David Swanson reviews the new expose by James Risen, who is being persecuted by CIA and Obama for telling the truth.

The root of the problem, as Risen sees it, is that the military and the homeland security complex have been given more money than they can reasonably figure out what to do with. So, they unreasonably figure out what to do with it. This is compounded, Risen writes, by fear so extreme that people don’t want to say no to anything that might possibly work even in their wildest dreams — or what Dick Cheney called the obligation to invest in anything with a 1% chance. Risen told Democracy Now that military spending reminded him of the Wall Street banks. In his book he argues that the big war profiteers have been deemed too big to fail.

Rule by the worst

 

Say it loud: This is what kakistocracy looks like.

 

HR 347 Just Criminalized Protest Against Government Officials – in blatant, knowing, flagrant violation of the First Amendment

“For one thing, the law makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest. Period. It is a federal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. For another, it’s almost impossible to predict what constitutes “disorderly or disruptive conduct” or what sorts of conduct authorities deem to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.””

 

EPA report: methane from fracking contaminated wells near Dimock, Pa., but agency says the water’s safe to drink.

“methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.”

“This presentation represents one [on-scene coordinator’s] thoughts regarding 12 samples and was not shared with the public because it was a preliminary evaluation that requires additional assessment in order to ascertain its quality and validity,” said EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson.”

“The issue here is, why wasn’t EPA interested in following up on this to understand it better?”

The Important Things We DONT Have Money For And The Crazy Things We DO Have Money For

…Large numbers of federal employees have been hit with mandatory furloughs in 2013 due to the sequester…

…but somehow the federal government is able to spend tens of millions of dollars to fill our skies with surveillance drones.

The U.S. government is so broke that it has had to borrow more than a trillion dollars from China…

…but somehow we have plenty of money to help “modernize China’s energy grid”.

The U.S. Congress has cut $60,000,000 for schools on Indian reservations across the country…

…but somehow the IRS is able to pay out $70,000,000 in bonuses to their workers.

DARPA to Genetically Engineer Humans by Adding a 47th Chromosome?

“A human artificial chromosome (HAC) is a microchromosome that can act as a new chromosome in a population of human cells. That is, instead of 46 chromosomes, the cell could have 47 with the 47th being very small, roughly 6-10 megabases in size, and able to carry new genes introduced by human researchers.”

US developing mind reading

 

Another $37Bn Down the Rathole

 

 

U.S. Navy leaders were warned last year that a $37 billion program to build Littoral Combat Ships can’t meet its promised mission because the vessels are too lightly manned and armed, according to a confidential report.”  –Bloomberg

 

That infinite vacuum, The Pentagon, guzzles billions like cheap beer while the assholes in Congress want to cut food and medicine to senior citizens who paid into Social Security their whole lives.

Is anyone okay with this?  What is the matter with this madhouse?

 

 

 

It’s Your Social Security They’re Stealing

“Sign our letter against Medicare and Social Security cuts”

SIGN THE PETITION: NO CUTS, PERIOD.

Obama’s grand betrayal, grand theft is aimed at you and your family. If you don’t stand up for your own interests — really, what the hell good are you?

 

“END THE WARS.” -Congressman Alan Grayson