By Jake Johnson/Common Dreams
The mainstream media seems to have decided that the worst part about President Donald Trump signing this 2019 National Defense Authorization Act was his failure to acknowledge that it is named after Sen. John McCain.
“Trump snubs John McCain during bill signing intended to honor him,” NBC News complained in a headline that was repeated almost verbatim in Business Insider, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, Bloomberg and many other major news outlets.
can’t think of anything that better sums up the moral bankruptcy and cliquishness of DC media than the uniform meltdown over a $717B defense bill–one that codifies funding for Saudis massacre of Yemeni children–not being properly credited to McCain as if thats the goddamn problem pic.twitter.com/UXU3bZ6RbN
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) August 14, 2018
Predictably, Congress’s bipartisan support – the bill was supported by 40 Democrats in the Senate and 139 Democrats in the House – for and Trump’s subsequent signature of one of the largest military spending bills in American history was not met with the usual consternation and hand-wringing from pundits about how the U.S. can afford such funding.
Trump recently approved nearly $1 trillion/year for the US military. It’s the most since height of Iraq War, & 17% of fed budget.
Bloomberg’s story below is about how Trump did not mention McCain’s name while signing the bill … which is, uh, one anglehttps://t.co/u6XMV4VXDv
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) August 13, 2018
But, as The Intercept’s Alex Emmons has noted, the $82 billion military spending increase alone authorized by the 2019 NDAA could easily pay for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ free public college plan, which is estimated to cost $47 billion a year.
In a column last month, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi posed the simple question corporate media outlets never deign to ask when it comes to spending on the Pentagon, new nuclear weapons, and shiny fighter jets: “Can You Think of Any Other Ways to Spend $716 Billion?”
“The ease with which this massive spending increase passed exposes all the howling we always get from think-tanks and the press whenever any ambitious social program is proposed. It’s all bunk – all of it,” Taibbi concluded. “Ask experts how much it would cost to make higher education at public colleges and universities free, and you’ll get some big numbers. You will also hear strident opposition in Op-Ed pages to how ‘unrealistic’ the idea is, even though most free-ed proposals would fit easily into an $80 billion-per-year outlay. Nobody ever calls massive increases in military spending ‘unrealistic.’ Not even when Donald Trump wants them.”
At the bill signing Monday at Fort Drum in upstate New York/Carolyn Kaster, AP
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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How did our local outlets do?
Tribune: Trump Signs Bill Named For Sen. McCain, Doesn’t Mention Him.
President Trump signed a $716 billion defense policy bill named for Sen. John McCain. In remarks before the bill signing, he made no mention of the Arizona senator. https://t.co/75b6p0921N pic.twitter.com/74Ibz28Iu8
— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) August 13, 2018
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Sun-Times: Trump Doesn’t Mention Sen. McCain After Signing Bill Named For Him.
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ABC7 Chicago: Trump Signs Defense Authorization Bill, Doesn’t Say John McCain’s Name.
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WGN-TV: Trump Signs $716B Defense Bill Named For Sen. McCain, Doesn’t Mention Him In Remarks.
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WBBM Radio: Trump Signs Bill Named For Sen. McCain, Doesn’t Mention Him.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on August 16, 2018