Jeff Field

[Jeff Field @JeffField18]

Fact- Treason is punishable by death under United States federal law.
Fact- The U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 3) strictly limits treason to two specific acts:
• Levying war against the United States, or
• Adhering to their enemies by giving them aid and comfort.

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

Power does not rest in the Congress. It does not rest in the courts. It does not even rest in the imperial presidency. It rests in the hands of Wall Street financiers, Silicon Valley, private equity firms, the fossil fuel industry, the predatory health care and pharmaceutical giants, agribusinesses and, most of all, the war industry.

No mainstream politician, including Bernie Sanders, dares utter a word against our entrenched militarism. If you do, you end up like Ralph Nader, who was turned into a pariah by a compliant media and our corporate-indentured political parties. Nader spoke the truth. He paid for his honesty.

We are about to witness the largest increase in war spending in American history with a proposed $1.5 trillion budget. The average taxpayer already shells out over $4,000 a year to the war industry as consumer and environmental agencies are dismantled, health care and education are defunded and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are slashed.

The new Pentagon budget will hand $58.5 billion to artificial intelligence and military command-and-control centers and see the effective merging of the United States and Israeli military industrial complexes. Seventy-four percent of the increase in the proposed $1.5 trillion budget will go to private contractors, including those who are building massive data centers on military bases.

None of this is good for us or good for the planet. The Pentagon, powered by the fossil fuel industry, is the world’s largest institutional polluter, emitting an estimated 66 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2024.

Americans, meanwhile, struggle with rising prices — nearly 30 percent of people go into debt to buy groceries. An estimated 114,174. Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance or inadequate health care while a single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and reduce annual health expenditures by $1.04 trillion, or nearly 20 percent. Twenty-five percent of Americans are functionally unemployed. The minimum wage remains frozen, despite Democratic Party promises to raise it, at $ 7.25 an hour.

The elites use war not only for personal enrichment, but to stifle class conflict.

War, as W.E.B. Du Bois said, diverts the poor from their real interests. It funnels national frustrations into the “heroic” battle against a common enemy. The nationalist cant, with its endemic racism, seduces those who are alienated or on the margins of society into feeling they suddenly belong. It entices them to sacrifice themselves for a “noble” cause. They become the architects of their own enslavement. They march like sheep into war’s purgatory.

By the time they wake up, it is too late. They are cast aside, as so many of our veterans have painfully discovered, like human refuse.

But as a tactic to consolidate power and enrich the billionaire class, it is unbeatable.

Wars will only be curtailed, if not halted, when we nationalize the weapons industry and dramatically reduce the military budget. Until then, nothing, absolutely nothing, will change.

Indeed, things will only get worse.

No one in Congress — or any other branch of government — will do this for us.

The masters of war sitting in the boardrooms of Boeing, General Dynamics or Northrop Grumman are not praying for peace in the Middle East or coexistence with China and Russia. The generals — who build their careers by orchestrating wars and post military careers enriching themselves working for defense contractors — are not seeking a cessation of global conflicts. They are seeking hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars and government debt to fuel the self-defeating cycle of endless war.

The corporate vultures — especially the war makers — are, as I write, descending on Congress. They are meeting with Democratic Party leaders and holding out promises of millions in cash. They will corrupt, neutralize and compromise most. They will destroy the careers of the very few who refuse to do their bidding.

They hold the real power. They have no intention of surrendering it.

The manufacturing of weapons systems and the waging of war are the chief activities of the U.S. government. It is no longer one among other means of advancing the national interest. War and violence are how we speak to the rest of the world.

The “shadow world,” — as the author Andrew Feinstein calls it in his book on the global arms trade — is defined by staggering levels of corruption, deception and senseless death. It is lawless and unregulated. Its criminal activities, cannibalization of national budgets and secrecy are sanctified in the name of “national security.”

Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Airbus, Rheinmetall and ThyssenKrupp, along with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Exxon, are the state.

We, including our political class, are the vassals.

Read my my full column, 'The Enemy at Home' on Substack at the link below:

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

We have detected speed restrictions on Starshield on our Ukrainian territory – in the temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine. The speed limit is back at 161 kilometers per hour – that’s 100 miles per hour.

This directly affects our ability to intercept Russian jet-powered “shahed” drones. These drones come from those areas, and because of the speed restrictions, we simply cannot catch up with them in time.

Near the frontline, we cannot use our aircraft. Only drone interceptors can operate there. And without the speed we need, shooting down these “shaheds” becomes much harder.

This means more Russian strikes get through, and more of our people are killed by Russia. We are trying to get the details from the American side, but so far, we know very little.

If someone in America is making decisions that basically treat Ukrainian territory as if it is not Ukrainian, then this tells us where things are going. We need to be clear and never recognize Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory in any way.

From an address at the 9th European Political Community Summit. (3/3)

[Shaun King @shaunking]

Not ONE person in the entire government has stood up to Trump like Abdul. Not one.

[Anmol @Anmold2uv]

just finished Chemotherapy. I would be happy if you wish me Health and Long Life 🙏🙏

[Saif @diol2n]

هذا المقطع متداول بشكل كبير بسبب الفضيحه التي حصلت فيه:

أثناء زيارة وزير الدفاع الامريكي بيت هيغسيث وزوجته وعدد من كبار مساعديه لقبر الجندي المجهول في مقبرة أرلينغتون في يوم المحاوبين القدامى، بدأ بعض أفراد المجموعة بالحديث والضحك، وهنا حدث ما لم يتوقعوه:

أوقف أحد جنود حرس الشرف دوريته، واستدار نحوهم وصرخ بصوت حازم مطالبًا الجميع بالتزام الصمت والاحترام!

المثير أن الجندي لم يتردد رغم وجود وزير الدفاع أمامه، والأغرب أن البنتاغون خرج لاحقًا ليؤكد أن الجندي تصرف بشكل صحيح

[Dr. Alaa In Gaza 🇵🇸 @2laa_kamal]

They just bombed Al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza.

Sorry to interrupt your scrolling with another Palestinian tragedy. You may now return to pretending you didn’t see this.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

We keep hearing again that Russia supposedly needs security guarantees. Even though no one has attacked Russia for many decades. Since the Second World War, Moscow has not gone through even one decade without starting a war or using military force against another country.

So when the Russians now talk about a security architecture for themselves, or about security guarantees for Russia – they are hardly talking about real security. And peace.

What they really want – is to freely interfere in the affairs of other countries, and to use force whenever they want, and to make sure that no one can support liberty inside Russia because Putin wants to keep his personal power forever and pass on his imperialist and, in many ways, simply fascist views to the next generations.

From a speech at the Danish Folketing. (3/3)

[Adam Mockler @adammocklerr]

The 11 Democrats who didn’t vote on Hegseth’s impeachment:

[Adam Gautier @AdamGautier26]

Ils ont résisté aux bombes, à la faim, à la destruction de leurs maisons.
Aujourd'hui, ils n'ont même plus de toit : juste des tentes. Et la pluie emporte tout.
Le monde les a laissés survivre dans des tentes. Maintenant,il les regarde se noyer.
Honte à ceux qui ferment les yeux.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

Killing kids is bad.
Can we all agree on that?
It’s not complicated.
It’s very black and white.
Killing kids is bad, no matter who or what color or what country they live in.
Killing kids is bad.

So holding people accountable for killing kids is the right thing to do.

The school in Minab Iran should have never been bombed. And it was horrific that it happened.

So yes, impeaching the Secretary of War is not complicated.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

Israel must immediately open all Gaza crossings and let humanitarian aid in, starting with new tents and modular housing, clean water, nutrient-rich food, medicines. If by 9am tomorrow Israel still refuses, any principled leader would send humanitarian vessels to break the siege.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

When I received the second report from our negotiating team after their meetings in Abu Dhabi, they told me that the Russians think and say they have already occupied half of Donbas, which remains under our control. These were military officers, Russian intelligence, and they were serious about it. Our team told them, “We don’t know how you can even say such things. We have video footage, images, other things proving that these areas are under our control.”

This is the problem. Putin lives in a different reality. Of course, he will be sharing with the Americans that he needs one or two months to fully occupy the east of Ukraine. I can draw a picture for him too where I fully occupy Russia. But it’s not true. What was good is that the American side confirmed the Ukrainian assessment of what is happening on the battlefield.

This is why we need to sit and speak at the level of leaders. There are a lot of questions. Like we spoke about the city of Kherson that is divided by the river today. The Russians control one bank, we control the other. But people want to live united on both banks. This is a Ukrainian city. Such issues are sensitive, but we have to speak about them. I think that tomorrow the teams will discuss the possibility of meeting at the level of leaders. I'm not sure that Russia is ready, but we will raise this topic.

From a conversation with journalists.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: The 11 House Democrats who missed the vote that killed Thomas Massie's Hegseth impeachment resolution have all received significant pro-Israel AIPAC money in Congress.

Just seven of them voting against the referral motion would have flipped the 211-204 result.

Haley Stevens (MI): $15.9M
Laura Gillen (NY): $551K
Marilyn Strickland (WA): $371K
Steven Horsford (NV): $214K
Nancy Pelosi (CA): $166K
Julia Brownley (CA): $134K
Brittany Pettersen (CO): $125K
Lou Correa (CA): $80K
Frederica Wilson (FL): $39K
Melanie Stansbury (NM): $28K
Jonathan Jackson (IL): $21K

Haley Stevens is the highest AIPAC recipient in Congress.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

The images of kids submerged in freezing floodwater, in flimsy tents that won't survive another winter, make me SICK.

I think of Primo Levi’s words that every European learns by heart at school - only to forget when entering politics or diplomacy.

The shame of our time.

[Julian Assange @JulianAssange]

The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. #sheshere

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

I’ve seen some of my colleagues say @SecWar Hegseth has been effective and they agree with the war, so they’ll vote not to impeach.

That’s not the question though. The question is whether he committed impeachable acts, and the answer is yes, eight times:
https://t.co/JnrtWL15Sb

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

A vile racist who called Muslims in Congress the ‘jihad squad’ and suggested Ilhan Omar was a suicide bomber is ejected from Congress.

Another great result from the recent great midterms!

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Massie: "I hope Hegseth addresses the 8 articles of impeachment, and doesn‘t get up and misquote the Bible in Quentin Tarantino fashion and do some pull-ups and call everybody fat and gay. I may have just given you half his speech, I don't know."

[🌸 @twaniimals]

Punch grew up and now takes care of a baby monkey😭