Update: Amendment in defense bill to provide accountability with contracts

[PSOL]

The military can’t protect abused children and now this

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https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-military-housing/

[Fuzzy Bear]

What a way to say, "Thank you for your service!".

[Joe Biden 2024]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

[Progressive Pessimist]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

Yes. Tax dollars are meant to be wasted and called fiscal responsibility. Anything else is SOCIALISM *scary music plays*!

[Ban my account ffs!]

What a way to say, "Thank you for your service!".

The way we abuse our military personnel is a disgrace and the Republicans have been a major contributor to it.  Not unlike how they are so concerned for the fetus, but want to gut programs for poor/indigent children.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

What a way to say, "Thank you for your service!".

With a few laudable exceptions (such as the GI Bill), the United States has a long history of abandoning those who have fought on our behalf, be they our allies or our own citizens.

(It's part of the whole 'we were never as great as we like to pretend' thing called accurate history. But we can be better, and try to replicate our best moments instead of our worst. Which is rather the opposite of the reality of Trump and his cult.)

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The military needs that money for helping to kill kids in Yemen.

[PSOL]

Air Force landlord falsified records to boost income, documents show

One of the U.S. military’s largest private-industry landlords falsified maintenance records, Reuters found, helping it secure incentive fees as families awaited repairs. The company’s actions, a former employee said, were akin to “bank robbery at a corporate level.”

Even our army can’t protect their own.

[T'Chenka]

Disgustung. Reminds me the scene in Fahrenheit 11/9 when the Flint, Michigan nurse measuring lead levels in the children who drank the water was told that she was measuring too accurately and that she needed to round down the numbers or she would be let go.

[DrScholl]

You can't scrimp and save when it comes to health. Even if the inspections are costly they need to be done in order to keep people safe.

[MasterJedi]

What a way to say, "Thank you for your service!".

Why of course, we must stand to be patriotic otherwise we hate them but to give them full medical coverage, housing, jobs or anything else is socialism, don't you know by now? The Conservative/Republican way, spew about the love of troops while sh**tting on them when they come back.

[T'Chenka]

What a way to say, "Thank you for your service!".

Why of course, we must stand to be patriotic otherwise we hate them but to give them full medical coverage, housing, jobs or anything else is socialism, don't you know by now? The Conservative/Republican way, spew about the love of troops while sh**tting on them when they come back.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I am convinced more and more that if our government were a person, it would be a cruel, malevolent psychopath.  It would punish you for helping or serving it.  It would bully everyone.  Murder people, including its own family members, with impunity... yet demand criminal accountability for true accidents, citing a lack of one action or another that could have prevented the accident.

It would not have gainful employment and anything it did provide would be haphazard, half-assed, poor quality, over priced, and potentially confiscated in the future for any reason it wished.

It would increasingly try to control its family members and manipulate them, punish them, encourage their isolation and segregation except when keeping people together would cause conflict that it could punish.

Its yard would look like sh**t.. rusted old cars left to rot, a garage on the verge of collapse open to the street for everyone to see... beer bottles and needles all over the place and vicious dogs that randomly, but not necessarily routinely, attack people who come into the yard whether as invited guests or as visitors or uninvited guests.

Others would come by on the street and see this house.. this person... this yard, and in the words of Bette Davis would say

WHAT A DUMP!

[gerritcole]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

Late 2012 is Obama, but dem clowns will still attack trump. Pathetic simply pathetic

[MasterJedi]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

Late 2012 is Obama, but dem clowns will still attack trump. Pathetic simply pathetic

Republicans controlled Congress for almost the whole time since then, Trump has been president since 2016, why did they still do nothing? Besides want to make it illegal to kneel for the anthem? Pathetic, simply pathetic.

[Hollywood]

The military drawdown initiated by Barack Obama in 2011 reduced the occupancy rates developers needed to make renovations.  Occupancy rates dwindled from 90 to 70 percent, which is a huge chunk of revenue.  Obama reduced the Basic Allowance for Housing from 100 to 95 percent of market rates for housing in 2015.  The Obama Administration made these cuts despite warnings in 2009 that private developers would not be able to generate enough revenue to fund construction, make debt payments, and set aside funds for recapitalization.  The Obama administration was warned about diminished quality of military housing.  Despite the clear connection, the article published by Reuters failed to mention it… for some reason.  It’s the one fact they didn’t mention. https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-352

If Congress wanted to help these military families, they could do it today with a single issue bill.  Just like the POS representatives that were elected in 1996, Congress just wants to pass the political football to the private contractors.  They wish Reuters never exposed this mess, because now they have to do their jobs.   Democrats might even be forced to pass a bill, which is something they were trying to avoid.  https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-military-housing/

[Hollywood]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

Late 2012 is Obama, but dem clowns will still attack trump. Pathetic simply pathetic

The information is crystal clear.  Obama administration was warned day one by GAO, and every step he took made the situation worse.  He was warned in 2011, 2013 and 2015, and still he exacerbated the situation. Yet, the Reuters article in my above post goes out of it's way to blame Trump, arguing that construction on the border wall will take money away from the rehabilitation of these homes.  Yeah but you can still fund these homes for military families.  If Democrats want to solve the problem, they could do it today.  As Jon Stewart pointed out a while back, Trumps ready and waiting.  All Congress has to do here is there god damn job. 

[Badger]

So there's millions of dollars to spend on a military parade, but making sure kids aren't poisoned is too pricy?

The parade will make Donald Trump feel grandiose about himself and fuel his ego. He won't care particularly about the lead poisoning levels of military children. That's just a downer!

So sadly, yes.

[PSOL]

As Jon Stewart pointed out a while back, Trumps ready and waiting.  All Congress has to do here is there god damn job. 

They have now done so.

The reforms, included in the yearly National Defense Authorization Act, aim to protect some 200,000 military families living on U.S. bases from health hazards including mold, lead, asbestos and pest infestations. The problems have been detailed by Reuters since last year in a series of investigations, Ambushed at Home.

...

In all, Congress approved more than $300 million in 2020 funding for the measures, including provisions to combat landlord fraud and protect families against retaliation for reporting hazards.

Perhaps the most damming thing here is that oversight and housing quality has been a problem since privatization in the 1990s.