War for Pork

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If the United States ever withdraws from Iraq and the central government collapses, or, god forbid, the country plunges into civil war, who’s going to get blamed? Why, the liberal media, of course, along with various antiwar types who, as Tom Friedman declared, “don’t want the Bush team to succeed.” Because naturally, every morning, Zarqawi and his band of jihadists wake up, depressed and unsure if they can get through the day, moping about until they take their first sip of coffee and see the New York Times front page cheering them on. Then they get “emboldened” and spring to action. That’s why Iraq has so many problems, you know. Surely this sort of stuff isn’t to blame:

Congress, taking advantage of wartime support of national defense spending, is using the military’s budget to steer billions to pet projects that apparently have little to do with Iraq or the ongoing war on terrorism, according to congressional documents, government budget officials, and watchdog groups.

The projects range from an unneeded warship and a seriously flawed cargo plane the Pentagon tried to cancel to millions each for a Mississippi wastewater treatment plant, a Nevada fire training station, and a Texas research hospital, the documents show.

The liberal media made them do it?

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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