SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
pentagon
'Outrageous': Pentagon Secretly Working to Divert Billions From National Institutes of Health
"These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Sep 04, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Department of Defense is reportedly working to divert billions of dollars in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health to bolster the Pentagon's budget as the administration wages a costly, destructive, and open-ended war on Iran.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top House Democratic appropriator, revealed late Thursday that the Pentagon—without notifying lawmakers or the public—signed an interagency agreement that could give the Defense Department "access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research."
Under the deal, which the Trump administration disclosed to Congress under pressure from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, the Pentagon would pull funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose annual budget is around $7 billion. It is unclear whether NIH has signed the agreement.
"This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous. The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately,” DeLauro said in a statement. “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense. It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price."
"Circumventing Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases—and directing those funds to the Department of Defense—is beyond the pale," DeLauro added. "DoD already has programs, funded by Congress, to research and develop medical countermeasures to chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, and does not need NIH funding to do so. The administration must provide Congress with a full accounting of how this interagency agreement was developed and exactly how much taxpayer money it is trying to transfer to DoD.”
Military spending accounts for roughly half of the federal discretionary budget, but the Pentagon in recent months has said it is facing a cash shortfall in large part due to the illegal war on Iran. The Pentagon has said publicly that the Iran war has cost the US around $37.5 billion so far, though the agency—which has never passed an independent audit—has not released a full accounting of the conflict, and experts say the figure is likely a gross undercount.
On top of pursuing an annual military budget exceeding $1.1 trillion, the Trump administration is pushing lawmakers to approve a $67 billion supplemental funding package to cover some of the Iran war's costs.
"Trump chose to start a costly war with Iran after giving billionaires and big corporations trillions of dollars in tax breaks—and now wants American patients to unknowingly foot the Defense Department’s bills," Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement Thursday. "Not a single dollar Congress appropriated for life-saving disease research should go into the bumbling hands of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for any claimed purpose."
A Trump administration spokesperson told The Hill that the Pentagon-NIH deal would "enable nimble multi-agency resources to collaboratively respond to public health emergencies, such as the recent Ebola outbreak."
Dach argued that no one should take the Trump administration "at its word about the military research they supposedly plan to fund with taxpayer money that was meant to find cures for diseases here at home."
"Given Secretary Hegseth’s history of lying through his teeth about our national security and the fact this budgetary sleight of hand was reluctantly revealed to Congress, would anyone be surprised if these raided NIH funds were actually intended to buy more bombs?" Dach asked. "This backroom deal at the expense of public health needs to be revoked immediately, followed by a serious congressional investigation into the extent of and motives behind the Trump administration’s taxpayer money shell game.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Senate Democrats' top appropriator, also called for the immediate termination of the agreement.
“As if canceling lifesaving medical research and clinical trials and firing cancer researchers en masse were not bad enough, the Trump administration is now trying to rob NIH of billions of dollars that Congress provided for medical research so that it can pad the Pentagon’s budget," said Murray. "We cannot allow this administration to shred patients’ hopes of new, lifesaving cures and treatments so that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth can secretively fund their own priorities in defiance of Congress."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Impeach Pete Hegseth. Do It Today.
Hegseth is the most incompetent person in the Trump regime — with the exception of Trump himself — and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and the world.
Sep 03, 2026
The latest casualty of Pete Hegseth’s disastrous tenure as Secretary of “War” is Dan Driscoll, who resigned Monday as Secretary of the Army after repeatedly clashing with the Heg.
Driscoll isn’t a liberal in lion’s clothing. He’s an old friend of JD Vance from Yale Law days. He resigned because of his concerns that Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to modernize and adapt to the 21st century battlefield environment — where drone warfare is becoming increasingly important — by firing or pushing out leaders spearheading those efforts.
A defense official in Europe told CNN that even though Hegseth talks about technology reform, he’s focusing instead on “muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone.”
Hegseth’s tenure has been disastrous from the moment he walked into the Pentagon. Even if Trump were capable of hearing sound advice, Hegseth hasn’t come close to giving it to him. Instead, he’s been pursuing grievances about DEI, promoting testosterone, and denigrating or firing women and Black officers.
The Army now has no Senate-confirmed secretary or chief of staff (George’s replacement, General Christopher LaNeve, so far doesn’t have the votes to be confirmed).
The Iran war, meanwhile, is requiring the ongoing deployment of 19 warships, air-defense units, fighter squadrons and paratroopers across the region — straining service members and their families and creating a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Washington Post reports that multiple senior military leaders — those still left, that is — have warned Hegseth that the United States cannot indefinitely extend military operations against Iran. Even the chief of naval operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle (who campaigned for the job by signaling agreement with Hegseth’s culture-war obsessions), told Hegseth that the Navy cannot “sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict because there is no anticipated end date.”
Hegseth’s response? He castigated the media for revealing classified information.
I’ve known many other defense secretaries, starting with Cap Weinberger, who served as defense secretary under Reagan. I can say without fear of contradiction that Pete Hegseth is the stupidest and least qualified of them all.
Hegseth’s incompetence and determination to suck up to Trump helped launch the war against Iran in the first place.
Among the regime’s senior officials, Hegseth was the only one who supported Trump’s fantasies of a quick victory. Marco Rubio was against the war as was JD Vance; even then–Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Trump that a war with Iran was not winnable.
Since then, Hegseth has lied his way through more than six months of Pentagon and Iran war mayhem.
At a press briefing in March, Hegseth complained about a CNN report that the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz. “Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth told reporters, adding — even as the strait’s blockage was proving to be Iran’s most powerful leverage in the war — we “don’t need to worry about it.” It was a false and insulting claim to an American public that deserved to know what the Trump regime was planning to do about soaring prices at the gas pump, directly due to that blockage.
He also denied that the U.S. bombed the school where some 175 children were killed — a claim belied by mounting evidence that the U.S. did bomb the school. Hegseth’s further insistence that the U.S. “never targets civilians” was refuted by the U.S. military’s killing of over 200 people on small boats in the Caribbean without evidence they were “narcoterrorists” rather than civilians.
Hegseth then lied about the severity of Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf that disrupted logistical support for American forces, leading to the deprivations suffered by the crew of the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Hegseth evidently believes that his job is to cheerlead and defend Trump with absurd claims like “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” and “we will show no quarter for our enemies.” (“No quarter” means kill everyone and take no prisoners, which is a war crime.)
In the days leading up to the U.S. attack on Iran, Hegseth spent his time criticizing “wokeness” at American universities and forcing Scouting America to abandon programs aimed at promoting diversity.
Last year, he didn’t just mistakenly share the military’s plans with the editor of The Atlantic; we now know he shared them with a second Signal group, including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
John Ullyot, who resigned as Pentagon spokesman, said Hegseth had brought “total chaos” to the Pentagon and that the Pentagon “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Hegseth dismisses war crimes, pooh-poohs the rules of engagement, and projects unequivocal belligerence at a time when the United States is rapidly losing whatever moral standing it once had in the world.
Pete Hegseth is the most incompetent person in the Trump regime — with the exception of Trump himself — and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and the world. If Trump won’t fire him, Democrats should impeach him when (hopefully) they take over the House next January, and two-thirds of the Senate should convict him.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hegseth Quietly Extends Middle East Troop Deployments Into 2027 as Iran War Drags On
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth previously echoed President Donald Trump's claim that the Iran war, launched in late February, would be over quickly.
Sep 03, 2026
The Pentagon has reportedly extended Middle East deployments of American troops, fighter squadrons, and warships into next year as the deadly, expensive, and deeply unpopular Iran war drags on with no end in sight.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth—who, like President Donald Trump, insisted the Iran assault would be over swiftly—has decided that the US military will maintain a "presence of 50,000 troops in the region in part to give the president flexibility on next steps." The Pentagon "could also keep elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in the Middle East well into 2027," the Journal added, citing a letter that military leaders sent to families.
The Journal also reported that Trump, who has falsely called Iran a "dead" country, is "having discussions with senior aides about whether to declare the Iran war over," even as the bombings continue, American troops remain in the region, and the administration ratchets up economic sanctions.
" Trump administration seems to excel at bombing schools and weddings," Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote on Wednesday. "Winning the illegal and unnecessary war with Iran—not so much."
Hegseth has reportedly backed a plan that would involve "periodic" bombings of Iran in an attempt to keep ship traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategy that analysts say would lead to a "permanent state of war."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued earlier this week that Trump appeared to be leaning toward "maintaining a low-level conflict until the midterms—neither securing a diplomatic deal nor allowing the situation to deteriorate into full-scale war."
"Iranian officials say, both publicly and privately, that they expect the U.S. and Israel to resume the war after the midterms regardless of the impact of the D-Day sanctions," Parsi wrote. "Regional diplomats have largely reached the same conclusion. If sanctions weaken Iran over time while the global economy recovers and adjusts to the new reality in the Strait, a prolonged pause will work against Tehran. Iran may therefore decide to escalate dramatically, taking full advantage of Trump’s perceived vulnerability in the run-up to the elections."
Thousands of Iranians—including hundreds of children—and at least 18 US servicemembers have been killed during the war so far, and the conflict has cost the average American household $1,200 in extra costs as gas prices remain at record levels. Trump has said he doesn't "think about Americans’ financial situation" when he makes decisions pertaining to the Iran war.
The war is fueling the Trump administration's push for a record $1.5 trillion in military spending for the coming fiscal year—a budget demand that has intensified concerns of a "forever war" against Iran.
" Washington is betting that sustained military and economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to retreat," the National Iranian American Council wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. "Iran appears to be betting that it can survive long enough to force Washington to do the same. For ordinary Iranians, American servicemembers, and civilians across the region, the danger is that testing those two assumptions will require a much longer and more destructive war."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Ugly, Un-American Attack on Our Free Press': Stars & Stripes Journalists Fired for Saying They Had Independence
"It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press," said ouster journalist Lara Korte.
Aug 22, 2026
Correspondent Lara Korte, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and publisher Max Lederer were fired from their posts at Stars and Stripes on Friday, in the latest attack on press freedom by President Donald Trump and members of his administration—this time targeting the paper that provides daily news to U.S. service members worldwide.
"I consider it a great privilege to live alongside members of the military and share their stories," said Korte in a social media post following her ouster. "It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press."
Korte said she was "informed that the Department of Defense is firing me for insubordination after I told a CBS reporter that I work for Stars and Stripes—not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policymaker."
Slavin explained that he and Korte were fired specifically over an interview they gave earlier this year with CBS News, in which they said they were independent of the Pentagon and the White House and that they would resist any effort to censor the news military members receive. Even though the military publication operates within the US Department of Defense, it has always enjoyed editorial independence.
Editor in Chief of Stars and Stripes Erik Slavin speaks out after he was fired by the Pentagon today: "They said that I was insubordinate for responding to a hypothetical about censorship and saying it was a red line... I reaffirmed what the law says, what the DOD regs say, which… pic.twitter.com/KrBwY4gTug
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 22, 2026
“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies,” he said in a statement Friday.
Press freedom advocates slammed the move by the DoD.
"Today's firings are an ugly, un-American attack on our free press," said the free speech group Fire in a statement. "America's brave service members swore an oath to defend the Constitution. They deserve the free and independent press our Founders fought for 250 years ago, not Pravda-style propaganda. The United States is uniquely committed to freedom of the press, and has been since our founding. Accepting censorship means losing our national identity."
Speaking with the Associated Press, Slavin said his firing for insubordination was for saying in the CBS interview "that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line” for him.
“We need to be able to provide independent news to service members,” he had told CBS in July. “If we can’t do that, if we were turned into something other than that, if we were public relations? Yeah, that’s the foxhole.”
- YouTube
According to reporting by Stars and Stripes, Lederer was also fired Friday, though he had announced his retirement earlier this week, on Tuesday.
In a letter to the outlet's staff, later posted online, Lederer explained, “It has become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of value and mission of the Stars & Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction of the leadership of the Department of Defense."
Replacing Lederer as the new publisher of Stars and Stripes is Capt. William Urban, a longtime public relations officer and communications specialist inside the US military with no professional experience in the field of journalism.
Urban previously served, as he explained in a memo to newspaper staff on Friday, as a "spokesman for some of the hardest Public Affairs assignments in the Navy and Department of War for more than 20 years."
"Does repeatedly being at the center of a media firestorm qualify me to help lead Stars and Stripes?" Urban asked in his letter. "No, but it is not a bad place to start."
Apparently, a public relations expert is exactly what The Pentagon, under the leadership of Secretary of State Pete Hegseth and President Trump, has been looking for.
Earlier this week, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Secretary Hegseth about their concerns over the "shakeup" at Stars and Stripes, represented by Lederer's retirement announcement and the news that Urban would replace him.
“The placement of an active-duty Public Affairs officer in the senior leadership of an organization whose credibility depends on its independence from the military chain of command raises serious questions,” the Senators wrote in a letter.
“For generations, American servicemembers, particularly those stationed overseas and in combat zones, have relied on Stars and Stripes for credible and independent news," the Senators added. "That trust depends on preserving a clear separation between independent journalism and the Department’s public affairs apparatus. At this critical moment of leadership transition, that independence must not be compromised.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Tell Us Where That Money Is Going': Sanders Bill Would Penalize Pentagon for Failing Audits
"We have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only major federal agency that has never passed an independent audit."
Jul 30, 2026
Bipartisan legislation reintroduced Thursday by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley would impose budgetary penalties on the US Department of Defense for failing to pass a complete and independent audit.
If enacted, the Audit the Pentagon Act would withhold 2% of the budget of any Defense Department office that fails to achieve a clean audit, and the funds would be returned to the US Treasury.
The Pentagon has failed eight consecutive audits without any consequences, as lawmakers from both parties continue to approve massive budget increases each year. For fiscal year 2027, the Trump administration is seeking $1.5 trillion in total military spending as it wages war against Iran with no end in sight.
“The Pentagon has been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement on Thursday. “Year after year, the Pentagon fails an audit, and year after year, Congress hands it another blank check."
"At a moment when the administration has dragged us into an unconstitutional war with Iran and is demanding the largest military budget in our history to pay for it, the Pentagon still cannot tell us where trillions of dollars have gone," Sanders added. "We have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only major federal agency that has never passed an independent audit.”
The Audit the Pentagon Act has 10 Senate co-sponsors so far: Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
The latest version of the bill, which was first introduced in 2021, comes as the Trump administration is seeking tens of billions of dollars in funding for the Iran war, which Congress never authorized. Experts have warned for months that the Pentagon is not being transparent about the war's financial cost, which is likely to be far higher than the department's official estimate of $37.5 billion.
“You have the largest agency in terms of discretionary spending for eight years in a row unable to explain and defend the funding that they have, and we have seen enormous examples of waste and fraud,” Sanders told NBC News in an interview. “Tell us where that money is going, period.”
In a press release, Sanders' office highlighted several examples of what it described as "waste and fraud" at the Pentagon:
- Almost $141 billion spent on a Northrop Grumman ballistic missile project that was supposed to cost $77 billion, and which is seven years behind schedule;
- More than $126 billion spent on a General Dynamics submarine program which has run $17 billion over cost. The per-sub cost has nearly doubled since 2019;
- More than $12 billion spent on one missile battery from Leidos and Dynetics that the Pentagon can’t even confirm works; and
- More than $6 billion spent over 16 years on a Raytheon project to build a GPS system. The Pentagon cancelled the project in April due to “insurmountable” problems with its product.
Earlier this month, a version of the Audit the Pentagon Act was attached to the House's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Senate Democratic caucus blocked the upper chamber's version of the NDAA earlier this month over President Donald Trump's illegal Iran war.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Picturing Armageddon: US Government Responses to Nuclear War Movies
A feature film based on Annie Jacobson’s terrifying non-fiction book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is now in pre-production with Dune director Denis Villeneuve at the helm. Looking back at how previous films about nuclear Armageddon have been received may give us a glimpse of how the current administration will respond to it.
Jul 25, 2026
In the recent Netflix movie, A House of Dynamite, an intercontinental ballistic missile of unknown origin is detected streaking across the Pacific on a course that, in less than 20 minutes, will turn Chicago to ash. Efforts to shoot the missile down fail, as the ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, miss their target and, as the seconds count down, the president, played by Idris Elba, has only seven minutes to decide how to respond. The consequences of his decision, which the film leaves open, could mean the end of human civilization and even most life on Earth.
What was the official response to the film? A week before it streamed, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) produced a memo attacking the film’s credibility. America’s GBIs, they said, are much more accurate than portrayed in the movie, with a 100% success rate. (The Center for Arms control puts that figure at 55% in carefully controlled tests.) And an article published by the West Point-based Modern War Institute argues that the film’s premise is flawed since no adversary would launch just a single missile at the United States.
It was also judged illogical that the president’s choices were limited to “surrender” or “suicide”—the latter meaning all-out nuclear war. The country could absorb the loss (meaning the 10 million inhabitants of Chicago) and respond only after the missile’s source had been determined. Finally, as the MDA memo helpfully pointed out, the plot of A House of Dynamite is “fictional” and “intended for the entertainment of the audience.” In other words, it’s just another disaster movie.
These themes are not new to governmental pronouncements on films about nuclear war. In the 1959 feature On the Beach, Gregory Peck plays the captain of a submarine that is America’s last surviving naval vessel as it docks in Melbourne, Australia after the entire Northern Hemisphere has been wiped out in a nuclear war—and a cloud of deadly radioactive fallout is inexorably making its way south. After a brief stay and with the inevitability of death by radiation poisoning, the crew votes to return to the US and die at home.
Which way will the Trump administration go in response to Nuclear War: A Scenario the movie? If the film is faithful to the book, it should have an even more devastating impact than The Day After.
Two weeks before the film’s worldwide release, the United States Information Agency produced an “Infoguide” stating that the film was “highly fictionalized and contains scientific inaccuracies.” It argued that, because fallout diminishes rapidly, it would only affect countries directly attacked or those nearby. Moreover, shelters and decontamination measures were effective against fallout and, as far away as the Southern Hemisphere, “if any protection at all were needed, an ordinary basement would suffice.” A later Infoguide reporting on the premier noted: “Most critics review [the] film as pure drama and there has been little emphasis on social and political significance.” In other words, no big deal.
Five years later, in 1964, Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, starring Peters Sellers in three different roles, was released. In this dark comedy, a psychotic Air Force General orders the B-52 bombers under his command to attack the Soviet Union, sparking a concerted but unsuccessful effort by the president and his advisers to recall the planes. As a single B-52 gets through and the plane’s pilot rides a nuclear bomb down to its target, it is revealed that the Soviets have a yet-to-be announced “Doomsday Machine” that, upon the country being struck by a nuclear weapon, will automatically trigger the detonation of a massive array of cobalt bombs whose radiation will render the Earth uninhabitable for a century.
Although obviously a farce, the film was panned as “juvenile, offensive, and inaccurate.” As reported in The New Yorker: “An expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies called the events in the film ‘impossible on a dozen counts.’ A former Deputy Secretary of Defense dismissed the idea that someone could authorize the use of a nuclear weapon without the President’s approval: ‘Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth.’” (These assertions are in doubt following the disclosure of the policy of “pre-delegation,” in force at the time, which gave authority to commanders to deploy nuclear weapons in circumstances where the president could not be reached.)
Two decades later, in the feature film Wargames, Matthew Broderick plays a teenager who successfully hacks into the Pentagon’s supercomputer. Unwittingly, he mistakes its nuclear war command and control function for a computer game—and nearly triggers global thermonuclear war.
This time, the government response was quite different. After viewing the film, President Ronald Reagan asked his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff if something like that could really happen. After a review, the president was told that, not only was the premise of the film realistic, “the problem is much worse than you think.” Fifteen months later, National Security Directive NSD-145 was issued, launching a sweeping governmental effort to improve cybersecurity.
Later in 1983, the television movie The Day After, which reached a record-breaking 100 million viewers, was the first American film to attempt a realistic depiction of the aftermath of a nuclear attack on an American city. The story revolves around a doctor, played by Jason Robards, as he tries to deal with the horrific effects of blast, fire, and radiation on the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas—targeted because of its nearby nuclear missile silos.
In this case, the response was mixed. The White House initially discouraged the making of the film. The Pentagon urged—unsuccessfully—to have the script make clear that the Soviets fired first and later refused to allow the filmmakers to use stock footage of real nuclear detonations. Henry Kissinger criticized the film as “simple minded” and in danger of leading the country to “make policy by scaring ourselves to death.” But the film’s graphic portrayal of the effects on the population of an American city could not be dismissed as easily as some of its predecessors, and Reagan wrote in his diary, “It’s very effective & left me greatly depressed.” It has been argued that the film influenced him to soften his Cold War rhetoric and to meet with Mikhael Gorbachev in Iceland in 1986, where the complete abolition of nuclear weapons was discussed. Unfortunately, that meeting ended without agreement; however, a year later, subsequent negotiations led to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which resulted in the elimination of a whole class of nuclear weapons.
Which way will the Trump administration go in response to Nuclear War: A Scenario the movie? If the film is faithful to the book, it should have an even more devastating impact than The Day After. With today’s sophisticated special effects, it will, no doubt, create hyperrealistic imagery and make the absolute absurdity of nuclear war manifest. But will the administration call it unrealistic, inaccurate, alarmist or just fiction, as with On the Beach, Doctor Strangelove, or A House of Dynamite? Or will they see it as a prompt to take this existential threat seriously and move to reduce or eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles?
Regardless of the response, the movie should motivate us all to work to build a constituency for change in order to end the madness and build a saner world.
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Families Struggle to Afford Groceries, House GOP Approves Billions More for Illegal Iran War
"By voting for this budget resolution, Republicans are saying that this war is more important than lowering Americans’ costs."
Jul 23, 2026
House Republicans on Wednesday approved a $95 billion budget framework that would pump more money into US President Donald Trump's illegal Iran war and push states to adopt restrictions on voting rights, all while Americans struggle to afford groceries and other necessities.
Every present House Democrat and just three members of the GOP caucus—Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Kevin Kiley of California—voted against the budget measure, which would yet again set in motion the filibuster-proof reconciliation process that the Republican majority has used to ram through tax cuts for the rich, attacks on safety net programs, and other unpopular agenda items.
The new budget blueprint, which is seen as facing tougher prospects in the narrowly Republican-controlled Senate, would provide up to $73 billion in additional funding for the US military, mostly for the Iran war. The measure also includes $10 billion to prod states to adopt voter ID requirements, a top priority of the Trump administration ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Leor Tal, campaign director at the Unrig Our Economy coalition, said in response to Wednesday's vote that "once again, Republicans in Congress chose to put their unnecessary war in Iran over the American people."
"It is unconscionable that any member of Congress would vote to put a cent of taxpayer money towards this war that is raising Americans’ costs and costing servicemembers their lives," said Tal. "By voting for this budget resolution, Republicans are saying that this war is more important than lowering Americans’ costs. It’s time for Republicans in Congress to put an end to this seemingly endless war."
Analysts have placed the financial cost of the Iran war at roughly $1,100 per American household so far, accounting for higher prices for energy, groceries, and other essentials. With families across the country reeling from federal food aid cuts implemented under an earlier Republican budget package, a recent poll found that two-thirds of Americans say they would describe the cost of groceries as unaffordable—up from 45% prior to the US assault on Iran.
The budget measure that House Republicans adopted on Wednesday would do nothing to alleviate the nation's worsening cost-of-living crisis, which Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a hoax perpetrated by his political opponents.
"With grocery bills on the rise and skyrocketing gas prices at the pump, working families are struggling to make ends meet, and Republicans have no plan for them," Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said Wednesday. "Taxpayer dollars should be used to support the American people, not double down on this president’s failed agenda and foreign wars. Congress needs to cut off funding for the war before more Americans are killed, not write a multi-billion-dollar blank check to the Pentagon."
In a separate vote on Wednesday, House Republicans voted to authorize an unprecedented $1.15 trillion military budget for the coming fiscal year. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement that "while millions of Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities, Congress is choosing to authorize over $1 trillion for the Pentagon, once again funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to defense contractors instead of investing in the needs of working people."
"The American people are sick and tired of funding atrocities abroad and want this war with Iran to end," said Omar and Pocan. "Yet year after year, the Pentagon fails its audit with virtually no accountability, while Congress continues to increase military spending. We should be investing in affordable housing, healthcare, education, and good-paying jobs—not bankrolling defense contractors."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Have You Even Heard of RASCOM? A Command for America's Robot Army
Lawmakers are pushing for a new combatant command they say will speed up the military’s uptake of robotic and autonomous systems. Experts warn they are ignoring serious flaws with this approach.
Jul 19, 2026
Even as the Pentagon mulls culling its combatant commands to reduce its bureaucratic bloat, lawmakers are itching to prop up another one — based on robots and AI.
Combatant commands like CENTCOM (Central Command) and AFRICOM (Africa Command) — sprawling military headquarters which oversee operations and activities across their assigned region or function — are notorious for their high operational costs and continued pushes for more responsibilities, including entanglements abroad.
The Department of Defense has weighed paring the commands back in response, floating restructuring plans last December that would reduce their number from 11 to 8. But lawmakers are going in the opposite direction, pushing for a new combatant command they say will speed up the military’s uptake of robotic and autonomous systems.
As experts tell RS, the new command is poised to create more redundancy, waste, and inefficiency — and the mission creep that comes with it — while stifling efforts to deploy such technologies in practice.
Embracing the future of warfare?
Tucked into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027, a provision called section 917 would allow for the creation of a Robotic and Autonomous Systems Command (RASCOM).
By centralizing oversight over autonomous systems, lawmakers hope RASCOM will help the military adopt them as quickly as possible. In particular, they aim to overcome difficulties that have plagued previous procurement efforts.
In a press release, SASC chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) hailed the prospective combatant command as a means to help the military “embrace 21st century warfare.”
RASCOM “would standardize the way the entire armed services use unmanned systems in combat,” Wicker wrote, The armed service branches would be able to set up offices within RASCOM, “ensuring that [they all] adopt the latest systems.”
Runaway bureaucratic bloat
But another combatant command would be at odds with the Pentagon's stated goal of reducing its sprawling bureaucratic overhead.
DoD Secretary Pete Hegseth “has righteously complained about bloat in the GOFO [General and Flag Officers] corps, saying he wants to cut the number of [four-star generals] by 20%," Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told RS. "Another place to park a four-star and his buddies flies in the face of that.”
A new combatant command would also take up work the Pentagon is already doing through its deployment of uncrewed systems across its operation. And, as Jennifer Kavanagh, Defense Priorities’ director of military analysis, tells RS, the administrative structure needed for a new combatant command will “duplicate functions provided elsewhere, including at the leadership level.”
What’s more, combatant commands rarely remain limited to their original missions. Instead, they often push for greater budgets, more responsibilities, and more sway over the direction of U.S. military policy.
“If RASCOM is created, it will face the same institutional incentives to expand its mission,” Gary Sampson, a national security strategist and retired U.S. Marine Corps intelligence and international affairs officer, told RS.
“Just like the Navy pushes for Naval spending and CENTCOM pushes for wars in the Middle East, RASCOM would act as a sales team for robotics and autonomous systems,” Logan predicted, referencing CENTCOM officials’ persistent support for continued U.S. military engagement in the Middle East. “That is the job of companies who manufacture autonomous systems, not the U.S. government.”
Standing up and maintaining another command would also be costly. “This is the last thing the Pentagon needs given its already massive budget,” Kavanagh said.
And, once established, RASCOM may prove difficult to get rid of. As Dan Grazier, who directs the Stimson Center’s National Security reform program, tells RS, “there would be entrenched interests that... have a stake in seeing it continue.”
“Even if the [command’s] headquarters is stood down later, many functions, personnel, and institutional interests tend to persist and migrate elsewhere,” Sampson said.
Throwing a wrench at military preparedness
Beyond concerns over bureaucratic bloat and mission creep, experts observe that RASCOM’s proposed organizational structure could create other operational problems.
For example, most existing combatant commands are organized around geographic missions, or by function. In contrast, RASCOM would be structured around a class of tools.
Brandon Carr, a senior studies associate at the Quincy Institute, tells RS this “logic is well-intentioned” but “likely to be counterproductive.”
“So many future robotic and autonomous systems will become part of an individual service member’s personal equipment,” Carr said. The “technology does not lend itself to a unified command with centralized control.”
To best promote innovation, he said, “robotic and autonomous systems should be integrated and deployed down to the lowest levels of each service.”
Others contend RASCOM’s centralized approach could hinder autonomous systems' use on the battlefield.
David Deptula, the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, wrote last month that a combatant command “would risk centralizing control in a way that makes [autonomous] capabilities less responsive to the commanders who need them most.”
That could create a “seam in command and control” that adversaries would exploit in combat, Deptula wrote. (The Mitchell Institute is financially supported by weapons contractors.)
More broadly, Grazier cautioned against an over-reliance on autonomous systems, warning that adversaries will inevitably look for and leverage their weaknesses.
“We’re spending a crazy amount of money building this robot army. When it’s disrupted [by enemy combatants], our skills to operate without it will have atrophied,” Grazier warned. “We’re actually building in the means of our own defeat.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Disgusting': Hegseth Gloats Over Illegal US Assault on Iranian Infrastructure
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a photo of a surveillance tower at an Iranian port collapsing due to US airstrikes.
Jul 17, 2026
US Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth late Thursday gloatingly posted a photo of an Iranian tower collapsing due to the Trump administration's massive, illegal assault on the Middle East country's infrastructure, including bridges, railways, and power facilities.
The photo Hegseth posted to social media appeared to show the surveillance tower at Iran’s Chabahar Port enveloped in smoke and crumbling to the ground amid US forces' aggressive bombing campaign. Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), called Hegseth's post "disgusting online revelry in the bombardment of Iran and its infrastructure."
The Associated Press reported that US strikes on bridges and other infrastructure in southern Iran overnight into Friday killed at least eight people.
"The highway and railway bridge strikes appeared aimed at cutting off Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port, from roads leading into the Islamic Republic’s central region onward to Tehran, the capital," AP noted.
US strikes, authorized by President Donald Trump, also targeted Iranian power infrastructure amid extreme heat.
The latest wave of US attacks came days after Trump threatened to "knock out all of [Iran's] power plants" and bridges "unless they get to the table and negotiate."
Deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Friday that while "there may be some nominal military use of the bridges," the US attacks "potentially disrupt the movement of goods needed for Iran’s 90 million people."
"Trump doesn't care, but military commanders, who could face prosecution, should," Roth added.
https://t.co/jZlSVRePRC pic.twitter.com/Nj5o0oiphH
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) July 17, 2026
NIAC said Friday that "the distinction between military and civilian infrastructure has become increasingly blurred," as "bridges, ports, airports, railways, power networks, and communications facilities sustain civilian life and economic activity, even if they at times are used for military purposes."
"Their destruction produces civilian casualties, isolates communities, interrupts emergency services, restricts food and fuel distribution, and leaves civilians without electricity during extreme summer heat," the group added. "As the campaign expands, the humanitarian consequences are therefore likely to grow even if Washington continues to classify the targets as militarily relevant."
On Thursday, NIAC released a report detailing the "civilian catastrophe" inflicted by the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began in late February. Estimates indicate that the civilian death toll from the war on Iran could be over 2,000—including hundreds of children, a majority of them killed in a US strike on an elementary school in Minab on the first day of the war.
Additionally, millions of Iranians have been displaced by the US-Israeli bombardment and more than 125,000 "civilian units"—including residential housing—have been damaged or destroyed," NIAC observed in its report.
"The evidence compiled in this report, independently corroborated across UN agencies, human rights organizations, and satellite analysis, points to a pattern of harm to civilians, homes, schools, and medical infrastructure that warrants urgent international attention," NIAC said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'End This Illegal War': Senate Dems Set to Block Trump Military Budget Over Renewed Iran Assault
"Simply throwing more money at an out-of-control military operation is not strategy," said Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
Jul 14, 2026
Senate Democrats appeared set to block President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's sprawling, $1.15 trillion annual military policy bill in a procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday after the White House formally notified lawmakers of an extension of its illegal Iran war.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she would oppose advancing the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) unless lawmakers agree to attach her amendment prohibiting any of the bill's funds from going toward the war on Iran. Duckworth said in a statement that "simply throwing more money at an out-of-control military operation is not strategy. It’s a recipe for a forever war."
“The Senate cannot authorize $1.14 trillion in defense spending—the largest defense budget ever proposed in our nation’s history—for Donald Trump to continue his illegal and disastrous war that Americans do not want," Duckworth added. "The stakes couldn’t be higher, and I cannot support a defense authorization bill that doesn’t include my amendment to end this illegal war."
The procedural vote on the NDAA is scheduled for 2:40 pm ET, and it needs 60 votes to advance—requiring the support of some Senate Democrats.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who spearheaded earlier efforts to halt Trump's Iran war using the War Powers Act, told reporters on Monday that "it’ll probably be hard to get there this week," referring to the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the NDAA. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who is seen as a critical swing vote, said Monday that she's "undecided" on the legislation.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he would vote no, calling the NDAA "essentially an Iran war authorization bill."
"A totally unprecedented 50% increase in spending to fund the war without any meaningful restraints," Murphy wrote on social media.
Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war advocacy organization, said Monday that no senator who has supported legislative efforts to end the Iran war should back additional funding for the military as long as the illegal conflict continues.
"The ceasefire has collapsed, US bombs are falling on Iran again, and oil prices are climbing... all after Americans were told this war was over," the group wrote in a new petition urging lawmakers to "defend the Constitution, stop the Iran war, and vote NO on the NDAA."
"Congress has additional leverage to force compliance: the power of the purse," the petition continued. "If members block the NDAA... and reject any Iran war supplemental—Trump cannot ignore them."
In addition to the $1.15 trillion NDAA, the Trump administration is pushing for at least $67 billion in supplemental Pentagon funding to "address urgent needs related to" the Iran war, which is now in its fourth month despite the president's insistence in late March that it would be over "within two to three weeks."
Late last week, Trump formally notified Congress of new "strikes against targets within Iran," insisting the attacks were "consistent with" the War Powers Act.
Critics accused the president, who has never sought congressional authorization for the war, of cynically trying to restart the 1973 law's 60-day clock after declaring the ceasefire with Iran "over." The War Powers Act requires "automatic termination of the use of US forces engaged in hostilities 60 days after the president has reported (or was required to report) on the use of force."
"Any assertion by the Trump administration that he gets 60 more days to act without Congress has no foundation in law," said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who on Monday unveiled a new war powers resolution aimed at ending the president's assault on Iran.
"By forcing a new vote to end this war, we make it clear that Congress insists on the removal of troops from the region barring an authorization of force accompanied by a truly viable strategy—both of which have been lacking," Schiff added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy