July, 29 2024, 02:55pm EDT
“Vance Profits, We Pay the Price:” 150 young people occupy JD Vance’s office
8 arrested as Vance staff close the door on working class young people sharing their stories
This morning, 150 young people occupied the hallway outside J.D. Vance’s Washington D.C. office to share their stories about how the broken economy and climate change are impacting them and their families. The protest highlighted Vance's change of tune on climate following donation of nearly $300,000 from oil and gas-linked PACs and donors during his 2022 campaign, suddenly calling it a hoax.
They held banners saying, “Vance Profits, We Pay The Price,” “Billionaires Own JD Vance” and “Vance Stop Killing Green Jobs”. Young people denounced JD Vance’s plans to kill green jobs by dismantling policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided $500 million to upgrade a steel plant in Vance’s hometown. That grant created jobs and helped keep the plant open. This was the first protest at J.D. Vance’s office since he became the Vice Presidential nominee.
“I was willing to get arrested today because my future and our country shouldn’t be for sale,” said Takeira Bell, 21. “JD Vance is willing to sell our futures to the highest bidder. He will kill green jobs, give tax breaks to billionaires, and deny that there is a climate crisis just to keep the campaign contributions flowing. Today, we showed up to tell him, ‘We won’t let you sell out our families to the highest bidder.”
As recently as 2020, Vance spoke about climate change as a serious threat, even saying natural gas “isn’t exactly the sort of thing that’s gonna take us to a clean energy future.” Since running for Senate and receiving nearly $300,000 during his 2022 campaign from oil and gas-linked PACs and donors, he’s made a 180 on his climate positions.
“JD Vance says he is a champion of the working class. In practice, he’s a champion of whoever wrote him the biggest check.” said Sunrise Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay. “He used to talk about how we were facing a climate crisis. Then oil and gas donors and Donald Trump offered him hundreds of thousands of dollars and a chance to be Vice President, and he totally changed his tune. Who knows what JD Vance will support the next time a billionaire comes knocking.”
“As a young person who grew up in Montana, I am deeply passionate about pursuing a career in wildland firefighting so I can actively serve my community and ecosystems. To hear that JD Vance wants to cut green jobs like these that are already underfunded is a direct attack on working class front line workers and an insult to my generation” said Carly Bryant, 18.
This protest comes as Sunrise members prepare to go to the DNC Headquarters in DC later in the day to urge VP Harris to put forward a plan to fight for young, working class people that can confront the false promises from right-wing politicians like Vance.
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
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Despite 100% Pentagon Audit Failure Rate, House Passes $883.7 Billion NDAA
"Instead of fighting the rising cost of healthcare, gas, or groceries, this Congress prioritized rewarding the wealthy and well-connected military-industrial complex," said Defense Spending Reduction Caucus co-chairs.
Dec 11, 2024
Despite the Pentagon's repeated failures to pass audits and various alarming policies, 81 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with 200 Republicans on Wednesday to advance a $883.7 billion annual defense package.
The Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, unveiled by congressional negotiators this past Saturday, still needs approval from the Senate, which is expected to vote next week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he plans to vote no and spoke out against the military-industrial complex.
The push to pass the NDAA comes as this congressional session winds down and after the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced last month that it had failed yet another audit—which several lawmakers highlighted after the Wednesday vote.
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairs and co-founders of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement, "Time and time again, Congress seems to be able to find the funds necessary to line the pockets of defense contractors while neglecting the problems everyday Americans face here at home."
"Instead of fighting the rising cost of healthcare, gas, or groceries, this Congress prioritized rewarding the wealthy and well-connected military-industrial complex with even more unaccountable funds," they continued. "After a seventh failed audit in a row, it's disappointing that our amendment to hold the Pentagon accountable by penalizing the DOD's budget by 0.5% for each failed audit was stripped out of the final bill. It's time Congress demanded accountability from the Pentagon."
"While we're glad many of the poison pill riders that were included in the House-passed version were ultimately removed from the final bill, the bill does include a ban on access to medically necessary healthcare for transgender children of service members, which will force service members to choose between serving their country and getting their children the care they need," the pair noted. "The final bill also failed to expand coverage for fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), for service members regardless of whether their infertility is service-connected."
Several of the 124 House Democrats who voted against the NDAA cited those "culture war" policies, in addition to concerns about how the Pentagon spends massive amounts of money that could go toward improving lives across the country.
"Once again, Congress has passed a massive military authorization bill that prioritizes endless military spending over the critical needs of American families. This year's NDAA designates $900 billion for military spending," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), noting the audit failures. "While I recognize the long-overdue 14.5% raise for our lowest-ranking enlisted personnel is important, this bill remains flawed. The bloated military budget continues to take away crucial funding from programs that could help millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet."
Taking aim at the GOP's push to deny gender-affirming care through TRICARE, the congresswoman said that "I cannot support a bill that continues unnecessary military spending while also attacking the rights and healthcare of transgender youth, and for that reason, I voted NO."
As Omar, a leading critic of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, also pointed out: "The NDAA includes a provision that blocks the Pentagon from using data on casualties and deaths from the Gaza Ministry of Health or any sources relying on those statistics. This is an alarming erasure of the suffering of the Palestinian people, ignoring the human toll of ongoing violence."
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Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who voted against the NDAA, directed attention to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set to be run by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who also opposed the NDAA, wrote in a Tuesday opinion piece for MSNBC that he looks forward to working with DOGE "to reduce waste and fraud at the Pentagon, while strongly opposing any cuts to programs likeSocial Security, Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
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"Another area where we can work with DOGE is reducing the billions being spent to maintain excess military property and facilities domestically and abroad," he suggested. "Finally, DOGE can also cut the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile program."
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The Massachusetts Democrat introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, explaining that for much of U.S. history, corporations reinvested more than half of their profits back into their companies, working in the interest of employees, customers, business partners, and shareholders.
In the 1980s, said Warren corporations began placing the latter group above all, adopting "the belief that their only legitimate and legal purpose was 'maximizing shareholder value.'"
That view was further cemented in 1997 when the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group that represents chief executives across the country, declared that the "principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners."
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