Space Force Yes! Baby Nukes No! What Congress Is Sticking in the Pentagon Budget.
Evan Vucci/Associated Press Congress completed its most significant step toward funding the Pentagon for the next year—and it only took close to 21 hours. By 6:53 a.m. this morning, when House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) gaveled his panel out of session, members had resurrected President Trump’s beloved Space Force, blocked the Pentagon…
How US Government Funds Meant to Stop Poaching May Have Ended up Funding Torture
This story was originally published by HuffPost and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The House Natural Resources Committee has launched a bipartisan investigation into whether federal conservation grants support organizations linked to alleged human rights abuses overseas. The probe follows a BuzzFeed News investigation in March that found the World Wide Fund for Nature,…
Controversial State Department Program Backing Trump’s Iran Policy Draws Congressional Scrutiny
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at a closed briefing for House members on Iran on May 21, 2019.Alex Wong/Getty Images House Democrats are investigating the State Department’s use of a program originally set up to counter terrorist disinformation so the Trump administration could fund attacks on critics of the president’s Iran policy. News broke…
Trump’s Second Veto Keeps America Involved in Yemen’s Bloody Civil War
President Donald Trump at the White House on April 15.Andrew Harnik/AP Despite President Donald Trump’s vocal opposition to America’s longstanding wars—”great nations do not fight endless wars,” he said in his State of the Union in February—yesterday he vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have ended US support for the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen, a…
Elizabeth Warren Raises the Pressure on the Military to Take Climate Change Seriously
Spencer Platt/Getty Images Of all the federal agencies in Trump’s Washington, the Department of Defense might be the one least equipped to dismiss climate change given its obvious danger to the safety of coastal bases and troops. But the military’s tendency to prioritize more immediate threats has been a recurring problem, especially when the current…
This Trump Official Mocked Rep. Omar’s Death Threats on Instagram. It Led to More Death Threats.
Lynne PattonKathy Willens/AP Over the weekend, Lynne Patton, a regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the highest-ranking black woman in the Trump administration, used her personal social media account and added to the torrent of death threats that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, has…