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Writer's pictureLinda Curtis

Guns or Butter

Updated: Jul 14, 2023


Video of US Rep. Michael McCall on KVUE-TV

So there I was minding my own business doing what the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA) asked of me. I called my two US Senators, Cornyn and Cruz, and my Congressman, Michael McCall, to ask them to support local meat production by small producers by sponsoring the Prime Act as part of the Farm Bill, H.R. 2814/S.907. Hint: Please make your own calls or send your own email asap!


Anyway, I got a nice staffer in Rep. McCall's office, who took my request. McCall chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. So I asked her what he was doing about cluster bombs being sent to Ukraine and the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to stop them. She didn't wait to hear where I stood on it and blurted how supportive Rep. McCall is of sending the banned bombs -- by most NATO countries. In fact, they're already on their way.


Sen. Cornyn's office's very nice staffer also took down my request for support of the Prime Act. But, on military spending, his take was that we needed to tackle "entitlements", Social Security, and Medicare. No mention of the well-known and documented bloated unaccountable Pentagon spending. :(


Is the US Congress Even Thinking About Guns or Butter?


The good news is that members of Congress on the right and left -- still a minority -- surprisingly worked together. The amendments to stop the shipments of cluster bombs to any country or just to Ukraine failed but the votes were substantial. There is also ample time to amend the National Defense Authorization Act.


We link to this just published article by independent journalist, Lee Fang, that explains how partisan division was manipulated to stop this left-right coalition, for now.


The kicker on cluster munitions, blurted by the President


President Biden also blurted the truth. The reason these munitions are being sent to Ukraine is "we're running out of ammunition." Remember, Professor John Mearsheimer warned us about this in his paper we released last week. The professor believes it will take years for the US to catch up to Russia's stockpile of weapons used in "wars of attrition."

This Wall Street Journal article criticizing Biden's blurt shows you where the big money behind the throne wants Biden to go. Will any of these people have to worry about their social security checks or stepping on a cluster bomb?

This is a bonafide escalation, folks with this year's military budget approaching $1 trillion. Call your member of Congress and Senators. Find all your reps here. Tell them the jig is up on guns or butter. Tell them you want butter not bombs and don't forget to ask them to sponsor the Prime Act.

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Deep dive reading:

We sent you Professor Mearsheimer's paper last week, "Darkness Ahead in Ukraine." The professor mentions that US and Brittain cannot easily "catch up," to Russia, which is well set for a war of attrition.


Question for our comments section below:

Did any member of Congress as you how they should vote on continued spending on the war in Ukraine?

 
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We've laid some heavy articles on you in our last two email alerts. We hope you can get back to them in our LIV News Section, especially our article, "Climate Hawks and Peace Doves."

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