Defunding America’s Wars at Home and Abroad

William D. Hartung

Think of it as a war system that’s been coming home for years. The murder of George Floyd has finally shone a spotlight on the need to defund local police departments and find alternatives that provide more genuine safety and security. The same sort of spotlight needs soon to be shone on the American military machine and the wildly well-funded damage it’s been doing for almost 19 years across the Greater Middle East and Africa.

Distorted funding priorities aren’t the only driving force behind police violence against communities of color, but shifting such resources away from policing and to areas like jobs, education, housing, and restorative justice could be an important part of the solution. And any effort to boost spending on social programs should include massive cuts to the Pentagon’s bloated budget. In short, it’s time to defund our wars, both at home and abroad.

The High Cost of Police and Prisons

In most states and localities, spending on police and prisons outweighs what the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., once described as “programs of social uplift.” The numbers are staggering. In some jurisdictions, police alone can account for up to 40% of local budgets, leaving little room for other priorities. In New York City, for instance, funding the police department’s operations and compensation costs more than $10 billion yearly — more, that is, than the federal government spends on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, more than $100 billion annually goes into policing.

Now, add to that another figure: what it costs to hold roughly two million (yes 2,000,000!) Americans in prisons and jails — roughly $120 billion a year. Like policing, in other words, incarceration is big business in this country in 2020. After all, prison populations have grown by nearly 700% since 1972, driven in significant part by the “war on drugs,” a so-called war that has disproportionately targeted people of color.

The Elephant in the Room: Pentagon Spending

In addition to the police and prisons, the other major source of American militarized spending is, of course, the Pentagon. That department, along with related activities like nuclear weapons funding at the Department of Energy, now gobbles up at least $750 billion per year. That’s more than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined.

Just as prisons and policing consume a startling proportion of state and local budgets, the Pentagon accounts for more than half of the federal government’s discretionary budget and that includes most government functions other than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As Ashik Siddique of the National Priorities Project has noted, the Trump administration’s latest budget proposal “prioritizes brute force and militarization over diplomatic and humanitarian solutions to pressing societal crises” in a particularly striking way. “Just about every non-militarized department funded by the discretionary budget,” he adds, “is on the chopping block, including all those that focus on reducing poverty and meeting human needs like education, housing, labor, health, energy, and transportation.”

Spending on the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border and the deportation of immigrants through agencies like ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Customs and Border Protection totals another $24 billion annually. That puts U.S. spending on police, prisons, and the Pentagon at nearly $1 trillion per year and that doesn’t even include the soaring budgets of other parts of the American national security state like the Department of Homeland Security ($92 billion) and the Veterans Administration ($243 billion — a cost of past wars). Back in May 2019, Mandy Smithberger of the Project on Government Oversight and I had already estimated that the full national security budget, including the Pentagon, was approximately $1.25 trillion a year and that estimate, of course, didn’t even include the police and the prison system!

Another way of looking at the problem is to focus on just how much of the federal budget goes to the Pentagon and other militarized activities, including federal prisons, immigration enforcement, and veterans benefits. An analysis by the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies puts this figure at $887 billion, or more than 64% of the federal discretionary budget including public health, education, environmental protection, job training, energy development, housing, transportation, scientific research, and more.

Making the Connection: The 1033 Program

Ever since images of the police deploying armored vehicles against peaceful demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, hit the national airwaves in 2014, the Pentagon’s program for supplying “surplus” military equipment to local police departments has been a news item. It’s also gotten intermittent attention in Congress and the Executive Branch.

Since 1997, the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, as it’s called, has channeled to 8,000 separate law enforcement agencies more than $7.4 billion in surplus equipment, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles of the kind used on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with rifles, ammunition, grenade launchers, and night-vision devices. As Brian Barrett has pointed out at Wired, “Local law enforcement responding to even nonviolent protests has often looked more like the U.S. Armed Forces.” Political scientist Ryan Welch co-authored a 2017 study suggesting, when it came to police departments equipped in such a fashion, “that officers with military hardware and mindsets will resort to violence more often and more quickly.”

Under the circumstances and given who’s providing the equipment, you won’t be surprised to learn that the 1033 program also suffers from lax oversight. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) created a fake law enforcement agency and was able to acquire $1.2 million worth of equipment through the program, including night-vision goggles and simulated M-16A2 rifles. The request was approved within a week of the GAO’s application.

The Obama administration finally implemented some reforms in the wake of Ferguson, banning the transfer of tracked vehicles, grenade launchers, and weaponized aircraft, among other things, while requiring police departments to supply more detailed rationales describing their need for specific equipment. But such modest efforts — and they proved modest indeed – were promptly chucked out when Donald Trump took office. And the Trump administration changes quickly had a discernible effect. In 2019, the 1033 program had one of its biggest years ever, with about 15,750 military items transferred to law enforcement, a figure exceeded only in 2012, in the Obama years, when 17,000 such items were distributed.

As noted, the mere possession of military equipment has been shown to stoke the ever stronger “warrior culture” that now characterizes so many police departments, as evidenced by the use of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams armed with military weaponry for routine drug enforcement activities. It’s hardly just SWAT teams, though. The weaponry and related items provided under the 1033 program are widely employed by ordinary police forces. NBC News, for instance, reported that armored vehicles were used at least 29 times in response to Black Lives Matter protests organized since the murder of George Floyd, including in major urban areas like Philadelphia and Cincinnati. NBC has also determined that more than 1,100 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles have been distributed to local law enforcement agencies under the MRAP program, going to communities large and small, including Sanford, Maine, population 20,000, and Moundsville, West Virginia, population 8,400.

A report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has similarly documented the use of Pentagon-supplied equipment in no-knock home invasions, including driving up to people’s houses in just such armored vehicles to launch the raids. The ACLU concluded that “the militarization of American policing is evident in the training that police officers receive, which encourages them to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies, as well as in the equipment they use, such as battering rams, flashbang grenades, and APCs [Armored Personnel Carriers].”

Who Benefits?

Companies in the military-industrial complex earn billions of dollars selling weapons, as well as building and operating prisons and detention facilities, and supplying the police, while theoretically dealing with problems with deep social and economic roots. Generally speaking, by the time they’re done, those problems have only become deeper and more rooted. Take, for example, giant weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon that profit so splendidly from the sales of weapons systems to Saudi Arabia, weaponry that, in turn, has been used to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Yemen, destroy civilian infrastructure there, and block the provision of desperately needed humanitarian assistance. The result: more than 100,000 deaths in that country and millions more on the brink of famine and disease, including Covid-19.

Such major weapons firms have also been at the front of the line when it comes to benefiting from America’s endless post-9/11 wars. The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates that the United States has spent over $6.4 trillion on just some of those overseas conflicts since 2001. Hundreds of billions of those dollars ended up in the pockets of defense contractors, while problems in the U.S., left far less well funded, only grew.

And by the way, the Pentagon’s regular budget, combined with direct spending on wars, also manages to provide huge benefits to such weapons makers. Almost half of the department’s $750 billion budget goes to them. According to the Federal Procurement Data System’s latest report on the top recipients of government contracts, the five largest U.S. arms makers alone — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics — split well over $100 billion in Pentagon awards among them in 2019. Meanwhile, those same five firms pay their CEOs a total of approximately $100 million per year, with hundreds of millions more going to other top executives and board members.

Meanwhile, in the Trump years, the militarization of the border has become a particularly lucrative business opportunity, with General Atomics, for instance, supplying ever more surveillance drones and General Dynamics supplying an ever more intricate and expensive remote sensor surveillance system. There are also millions to be made running privatized prisons and immigrant detention centers, filling the coffers of firms like CoreCivic and the GEO Group, which have secured record profits in recent years while garnering about half their revenues from those two sources.

Last but not least is the market for even more police equipment. Local forces benefit from grants from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase a wide range of items to supplement the Pentagon’s 1033 program.

The True Bottom Line

Much has been written about America’s failed post-9/11 wars, which have cost trillions of dollars in taxpayer treasure, hundreds of thousands of lives (American and otherwise), and physical and psychological injuries to hundreds of thousands more. They have also propped up sectarian and corrupt regimes that have actually made it easier for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS to form and spread. Think of it as the ultimate boomerang effect, in which violence begets more violence, while allowing overseas terrorist organizations to thrive. As journalist Nick Turse has noted with respect to the militarization of U.S. Africa policy, the growth in American military operations on that continent has proceeded rather strikingly in conjunction with a proliferation of new terrorist groups. Put the best light on them and U.S. counterterror operations there have been ineffective. More likely, they have simply helped spawn further increases in terrorist activities in the region.

All of this has, in turn, been an ongoing disaster for underfunded domestic programs that would actually help ordinary Americans rather than squander their tax dollars on what passes for, but obviously isn’t, “national defense.” In the era of Covid-19, climate change, and an increased focus on longstanding structural racism and anti-black violence, a new approach to “security” is desperately needed, one that privileges not yet more bombs, guns, militarized police forces, and aircraft carriers but public health, environmental protection, and much-needed programs for quality jobs and education in underserved communities.

On the domestic front, particularly in communities of color, police are more often seen as an occupying force than a source of protection (and ever since the 1033 program was initiated, they’ve looked ever more like such a force as well). This has led to calls for defunding the police and seeking other means of providing public safety, including, minimally, not sending police to deal with petty drug offenses, domestic disputes, and problems caused by individuals with mental-health issues. Organizations like the Minneapolis-based Reclaim the Block have put forward proposals for crisis response by institutions other than the police and for community-based programs for resolving disputes and promoting restorative justice.

Shifting Priorities

Sharp reductions in spending on police, prisons, and the Pentagon could free up hundreds of billions of dollars for programs that might begin to fill the gap in spending on public investments in communities of color and elsewhere.

Organizations like the Movement for Black Lives and the Poor People’s Campaign are already demanding these kinds of changes. In its moral budget, a comprehensive proposal for redirecting America’s resources toward addressing poverty and away from war, racism, and ecological destruction, the Poor People’s Campaign calls for a $350 billion annual cut in Pentagon spending — almost half of current levels. Likewise, the platform of the Movement for Black Lives suggested a 50% reduction in Pentagon outlays. And a new youth anti-militarist movement, Dissenters, has called for defunding the armed forces as well as the police.

Ultimately, safety for all Americans will depend on more than just a shift of funding or a reduction in police armaments. After all, George Floyd and Eric Garner — just two of the long list of black Americans to die at the hands of the police — were killed not with high-tech weapons, but with a knee to the throat and a fatal chokehold. Shifting funds from the police to social services, dismantling police forces as they now exist, and creating new institutions to protect communities should be an essential part of any solution in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidency. Similarly, investments in diplomacy, economic assistance, and cultural exchange would be needed in order to help rein in the American war machine which, of course, has been attended to in ways nothing else, from health care to schooling to infrastructure, has been in this century. When it comes to both the police and the Pentagon, the sooner change arrives the better off we’ll all be. It’s long past time to defund America’s wars, both abroad and at home.

The COVID-19 vaccine and the drive for profit

Frank Gaglioti

Last month, Four Corners screened the episode Injection of Hope: The hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine on Australian television. Four Corners is the premier current affairs program for the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and distinguished as their longest-running documentary television program, having first aired on August 19, 1961.

While over 100 laboratories spread across multiple nations are working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the program limits its focus to research conducted by Australia. Still, the program investigates the efforts by developers to ensure that if a vaccine is produced, it can be distributed equitably on an international scale. This is a significant concern, as a majority of the research funding comes from pharmaceutical giants that have an extremely pernicious record in this regard. This is presented as inevitable as no other institutions other than these conglomerates have the necessary capital to fund research into vaccines successfully. It has been estimated that it will take US$2 billion to develop a viable vaccine against the coronavirus.

“It’s very easy to criticize big pharma, but, to be quite blunt, until someone comes up with an alternative, we have to go with what we’ve got,” said University of Queensland Professor (UQ) Ian Frazer, an immunologist.

This is a false paradigm as it completely accepts that governments have almost completely abandoned the responsibility to fund such necessary research, leaving the field to the giant pharmaceutical companies which will seek to exploit any research results ruthlessly.

Frazer and his team have developed a “molecular clamp,” a genetically engineered protein like the spike-protein on the COVID-19 virus. COVID-19 is a type of coronavirus, named after the myriad of club-like features all over its surface, giving it the appearance of the sun’s corona in electron micrographs. The virus uses spike-proteins to bind to and gain access to host cells. “Our clamp is sort of like a bulldog clip that holds that together and ensures that the right protein in the right structure is presented to the immune system as a vaccine,” UQ Professor Paul Young, a member of the Covid-19 Vaccine Project, told the ABC.

Briefly, the spike-proteins, classified as “viral fusion proteins,” are excellent candidates for an attack on enveloped viruses as they are the main targets of the protective neutralizing antibodies. For such vaccines, the “pre-fusion” form of the spike-protein is optimal. However, traditional approaches to the recombinant expression of these spike-proteins leads to a premature triggering, which causes the spike-protein to change to its more stable post-fusion form structurally. The molecular clamp allows these recombinant fusion proteins to remain in the pre-fusion form, which is more effective.

Frazer and Young’s work is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a foundation based in Oslo, Norway, organized through donations given by the public, private and philanthropic groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CEPI operates under the motto of “new vaccines for a safer world.” Their stated goals are to finance independent vaccine research projects against emerging infectious diseases. Initially conceived in 2015, CEPI was formally introduced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2017. The Gates Foundation provided US$460 million in capital to launch the venture.

Given the prohibitive costs for vaccine development and cutbacks for such projects by major universities and hospital research programs, several countries, that include Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, have also funded CEPI’s research initiatives.

In Australia, notably, eight positions in biosecurity research were cut in 2014 after the government cut AUD$111 million from the budget of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Such cuts have a devastating impact on the uninterrupted research programs that are critical as emerging opportunistic pandemic infections have become a focus of global concerns. This funding was restored earlier this year when the Australian government provided an extra AUD$220 million to an upgrade of the biosecurity facility. Incredibly, this work will not commence for another two years.

“Funding cuts and the reorganization of funding has been very challenging for us … Basically, scientists in this area, a vaccine manufacturer and virology, in particular, were very dispirited, very disheartened,” Doherty Institute Professor Damien Purcell told the ABC.

According to Jane Halton, who was previously a senior public servant in Australia and now the chair of the CEPI, the group was set up in response to fears of an Ebola outbreak devastating central Africa that could have pandemic potential. It was recognized that a vaccine was urgently needed to protect the population. However, as the virus outbreak became contained and remained restricted to the impoverished communities in the Congo, the funding spigots were quickly closed off. Investors saw no profits forthcoming from such a vaccine development.

Fast-forwarding to the present COVID-19 pandemic, “A group of global health experts, together with some people from the business community, got together to say, well, how can we prevent that kind of thing happening again?”, Halton told the ABC.

The Bill Gates Foundation has expended US$250 million to fight coronavirus. This includes US$150 million for grant funding in Africa and South Asia.

In outlining a US$50 million outlay, Gates stated: “To beat the Covid-19 pandemic the world needs more than breakthrough science. It needs breakthrough generosity. And that’s what we’re seeing today as leaders across the public and private sectors are stepping up to support Gavi—especially Prime Minister (Boris) Johnson.” Gavi is the Vaccine Alliance, a non-profit immunization organization.

Any discussion of Johnson’s “generosity” is extremely misplaced, as he is centrally responsible for the pandemic raging across the UK due to his unabashed herd immunity policy. His government’s investment in underdeveloped countries is only to advance the interests of British imperialism.

Moreover, the massive amounts of money donated by super-rich figures such as Gates are utterly demeaning to the working class and the oppressed masses around the world. Access to a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, if, and when, it is produced, should be a social right and not left to the largesse of wealthy individuals.

In society today, there is a return to the aristocratic principle that reigned before the bourgeois revolutions where social rights such as education, adequate health care, and the right to culture were left to the whim of the aristocracy.

The effect of philanthropy is to undermine government-funded research initiatives in university and hospital laboratories, i.e., public enterprises in the interest of the population for the common good and benefit, a primary tenet of democratic principles. Researchers’ dependence on the super-rich and the pharmaceutical giants, with the accompanying pressures to “warp-speed” a product for consumption, has also led to a situation where crucial safety mechanisms embedded into scientific research are being bypassed for purposes of expediency. These shortcuts with protocols can only lead to concerns over the efficacy and safety of vaccines.

After the development of their candidate COVID-19 vaccine, Oxford University’s research team undertook initial safety testing in animals at a CSIRO facility in Australia. Yet, as soon as the ferrets were inoculated with the experimental treatment, researchers in Britain had already initiated the human phase one trial without waiting for results to guide the next phase.

The Director of Health and Biosecurity of CSIRO, Dr. Rob Grenfell, told ABC, “When Oxford announced that they were starting their phase one trials and we’re thinking, ‘we’ve only just immunized our ferrets.’ I’m going, ‘Wow!’”

On May 26, a laboratory in Melbourne, Australia, began phase one trials on behalf of US researchers Novavax, with the plan to inject 131 volunteers, testing the safety of their vaccine NVX-CoV2373 and evaluating for possible signs of efficacy. Preliminary immunogenicity and safety results are expected in July, at which point the second phase of the vaccine trial can begin in the US and multiple other countries. The US Department of Defense (DoD) is providing $60 million to the biotech company to deliver 10 million doses of its vaccine to the DoD this year even before preliminary phase 1 data was available.

In the most flagrant and possibly hazardous diversion from the safety protocols, some members of the US Congress have proposed so-called “human challenge trials.” This is the deliberate exposure of humans with live COVID-19 virus to fast-track the development of a vaccine.

“That is really going down a path where not many people have gone before. I think that purposely challenging people is going to be quite a difficult thing to accept ethically,” said Professor Purcell.

As the pandemic rages across the planet with now 11 million cases and more than 500,000 deaths, the struggle to develop a vaccine has become an urgent task. But the urgency for the capitalist class is based on profits and economic nationalism. The vaccines will be weaponized for geopolitical purposes, not for the promises to provide such treatments equitably on a global scale.

The program concludes warning of the pitfalls of what Halton calls “vaccine nationalism, where countries basically are not prepared to contribute to the global effort. The best thing we can do at the moment is advocate for that, to advocate that actually if there’s any of this disease anywhere in the world, it’s in nobody’s interest.” However sincere these sentiments may be, they are a utopic outlook under capitalism.

The program of the capitalist class is the immediate return to work, and herd immunity, whether or not a vaccine is developed. The repeated optimism and euphoria for vaccine development in the media serve as publicity stunts to cloud the minds and hearts while providing investors opportunities to cash in early regardless of the benefits these vaccines will or will not provide.

The working class must understand that the race to find a vaccine is being driven by the enormous profits that would be made by any successful candidate and not the well-being of humanity or the eradication of the coronavirus. Hopes that such a treatment would be made available to them is a dubious proposition. Such critical work and lifesaving treatment should be removed from profit incentives.

Pharmaceutical companies must be brought under social ownership. Research must proceed to allow the full cooperation of scientists internationally. This will require the intervention of the working class, placing control of the research facilities under democratic processes where research is conducted for the need of humanity and not the corporate interests of the pharmaceutical giants.

Duterte signs draconian anti-terrorism law in the Philippines

Joseph Santolan

On July 3, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act 11479, known as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, into law. The law grants sweeping police state powers, including the authorization of warrantless wiretapping and surveillance, and warrantless arrests for up to 24 days of anyone accused by a presidentially-appointed commission of “terrorism.”

On Tuesday, July 7, four separate petitions, consolidated into a single case, were filed before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the new law and calling for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on its implementation. The Court has given the executive and legislative branch 10 days to prepare a response.

The Anti-Terrorism Act replaces the Human Security Law of 2007, which was signed by the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The 2007 law authorized warrantless arrests on charges of terrorism for up to three days but obligated the state agency responsible for the arrest to pay legal compensation of up to 500,000 pesos ($US10,000) a day to the detainee in the event that a court deems that they were wrongfully arrested.

The Philippine military and police have long been clamouring for the lifting of these restrictions and for an expansion of their unrestricted powers to arrest and to surveil the population unimpeded by the requirements for evidence or formal charges.

Philippine news agency, Rappler, reported that the impetus behind the 2020 Anti-Terrorism law came from "the generals" who "wanted a 30-day period for warrantless arrests to allow them to conduct their investigation." They made clear that this period of warrantless detention would be used for interrogation and torture, stating that it was not until the "second or third week" that "suspects normally break."

The Anti-Terrorism Law grants to a presidentially-appointed body, known as the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), the authority to designate anyone a 'terrorist.' Anyone deemed a terrorist can be detained for 24 days—14 days extendable by an additional 10. The law removes any legal compensation for wrongful imprisonment. The precise definition of 'terrorism' is thus irrelevant, as no penalty incurs to the state for throwing someone in jail on entirely spurious grounds.

The police and military are likewise free to carry out warrantless surveillance and wiretaps for a period of 90 days—60 extendable by 30—of anyone deemed a terrorist and the law obligates telecommunications companies to turn over all records pertaining to anyone so labelled. Anyone who deletes or destroys material—personal notes, recordings, etc—that the state deems to be evidence will be subject to 10 years imprisonment.

The bank accounts of alleged terrorists can be subject to warrantless investigations and their assets can be frozen for up to six months.

The law defines ‘terrorist’ in the most sweeping terms, including anyone who engages in acts intended to cause death to another person, to cause extensive damage to a government facility or critical infrastructure, or to interfere with the delivery of a critical service, such as transportation.

While the law has a proviso exempting acts of "advocacy, protest and dissent, including the stoppage of work" it immediately mitigates this exemption by stipulating that if such activities "create a serious risk to public safety" they constitute terrorism.

These exemptions are a pretence to the observance of democratic norms that the law is in fact a fundamental attack upon. There is no formal process to review the decisions of the ATC, and there is no penalty imposed for violating the exemptions. The Anti-Terror law gives the state, through the auspices of the ATC, carte blanche to arrest and surveil the population without any democratic or legal constraint.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, summarized the implications of the law, “The new counter terrorism law could have a horrific impact on basic civil liberties, due process, and the rule of law amid the Philippines’ shrinking democratic space,” he said. “The Philippine people are about to face an Anti-Terrorism Council that will be prosecutor, judge, jury, and jailer.”

There is almost no opposition being voiced to the Anti-Terror law in the ruling class. They see the measure as necessary to suppress growing levels of social opposition among the broad masses of the population, who are suffering tremendously under the crisis of the coronavirus and the government's use of this crisis to further crack down on the poorest layers.

The law passed the Senate by a vote of 19-2 and the House by 173 to 31 with 29 abstentions.

That the target of the law is mass dissent was made clear in the repeated statements by the military and the Duterte administration that it was largely "Communists" who opposed the bill. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana stated that those criticising the law were "mostly Reds."

The ATC will be run by the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), a government agency which originated in the era of McCarthyism and which has for more than half a century specialized in persecuting activists, journalists, environmentalists, workers and farmers on the grounds that they were "Communists."

Among the terms of the new law is the provision that "speeches, proclamations or writings deemed to be inciting terrorism" are punishable with 12 years imprisonment. The law's sweeping definition of terrorism would make it possible that someone who advocated for a mass transit strike, to be imprisoned, if such a strike were deemed a "threat to public safety."

The case against the law now before the Supreme Court confronts the precedent established in 2010 when the Court ruled that the 2007 Human Security Law was constitutional, rejecting petitions against it on the grounds that none of the petitioners had been charged under the law.

Duterte broadcast his weekly address to the nation in the early morning of July 8, declaring, "you should not be afraid, if you are not a terrorist." Over the weekend, however, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict published a long list of various legal organizations which it alleged had direct ties to the armed insurgency being carried out by the New Peoples Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The sweeping list targets tens of thousands of activists, union organizers, workers and farmers.

Over the past four years of the Duterte administration, tens of thousands of impoverished Filipinos have been killed by the police and paramilitary organizations, who are conducting, with state sanctioned impunity, a genocidal campaign against the poorest sections of Philippine society on the pretext of a war on drugs. The Anti-Terrorism Act is a significant further step toward the implementation of a police state.

India takes economic reprisals against China as border frictions continue

Deepal Jayasekera & Keith Jones

New Delhi has responded to the bloodiest border clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers since 1967 by taking economic reprisals against Beijing. The measures, coupled with a military build-up on both sides of the mountainous disputed border region, underscore that the danger of a catastrophic war between the two nuclear-armed rivals remains very real.

The violent clash occurred on June 15 in the Galwan Valley, where Indian-held Ladakh abuts Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin. It left 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of their Chinese counterparts dead.

On June 29, India responded by banning 59 apps made by Chinese-based companies, including several such as TikTok and US Browser with more than 100 million users. The prohibition was justified with claims that the apps were involved in “activities which are prejudicial to [the] sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order.”

Emphasizing that the app ban is part of New Delhi’s geopolitical offensive against Beijing, Indian Law, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad characterized it as “a digital strike” against China at a rally held by the ruling Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal on July 2. Inciting anti-China chauvinism still further, Prasad warned, “If somebody casts an evil eye on India, we will give a befitting reply.”

The following day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a “surprise” visit to Ladakh with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane. They met with senior military officers at a forward position in Nimu.

Without directly naming China, Modi used his highly publicized visit to whip up anti-Chinese chauvinism. In an address to troops, he said that the “era of expansionism is over” and “history is witness that such forces have been wiped out, or have been forced to turn around.” Taking an indirect jab at Beijing, he added that the “enemies of India have seen the fire and fury of our forces,” and warned that “India’s commitment to peace should not be seen as its weakness.”

Although several rounds of talks between military and diplomatic personnel have been held, both New Delhi and Beijing have increased their military presence in the Ladakh/Aksai Chin region and beyond. Thousands of troops, artillery guns, tanks and fighter planes have been deployed at multiple locations along the 3,488 kilometre/2167 mile long disputed border.

A military official told the Hindu yesterday that Indian and Chinese forces have implemented a “disengagement” plan in several places including the Galwan Valley. Chinese troops have retreated 2 kilometres and Indian troops 1.5 kilometres from the June 15 clash site. However, the official warned that this could not serve as a “permanent solution” to the dispute, since India is adamant that the entire Galwan Valley is rightfully hers. In this regard, it is important to remember that the June 15 clash occurred during what was supposed to be a “de-escalation” initiated after a series of violent but non-lethal border clashes dating back to May 5.

The decades-long Sino-Indian border dispute is rooted in the neighbours’ competing geostrategic interests. However, it has taken on vastly greater significance as a result of US imperialism’s ever-escalating drive to strategically encircle China and thwart its emergence as a competitor in high-value-added and high-tech economic sectors—a drive which has been accompanied by aggressive efforts by Washington to harness India to its strategic agenda.

The Indo-US “global strategic partnership” that the previous Congress Party-led government struck with the George W. Bush administration in 2006 has been taken to a qualitatively higher level during the last six years of BJP government. Under Modi, India has emerged as a frontline state in the US military-strategic offensive against China. New Delhi has signed a basing agreement with Washington, throwing open its air and naval bases for the latter’s military, and joined a series of anti-China bilateral and multilateral strategic partnerships and security dialogues with the US and its principal Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia.

In return for India’s ever closer integration into the US war drive against China, Washington has granted New Delhi a series of strategic favours, including securing India access to civilian nuclear fuel and technology, enabling it to focus its indigenous nuclear program on developing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. India has also been designated by the US as a “major defence partner,” which allows New Delhi to purchase high-tech US weapons systems available only to Washington’s closest partners. These developments have encouraged the Indian ruling elite to take a more aggressive stance in its dealings with China and its historic arch-rival, Pakistan.

At the same time, the American political establishment enthusiastically encourages India’s rivalry against China, calculating that an escalation will further integrate India into Washington’s military-strategic offensive.

Whatever the immediate fate of the border dispute and the avowals from both New Delhi and Beijing that they want to de-escalate, the crisis is being exploited by the Indian elite to whip up hostility against China so as to overcome popular opposition to an even closer partnership with US imperialism.

In this, the Congress Party is playing a particularly foul role. Senior party leaders have repeatedly attacked Modi from the right for purportedly failing to stand up firmly enough to Beijing, and the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee’s International Department, Manesh Tiwari, has called for India to make the Quad—a US-led anti-China grouping—the “nucleus” of a “pan-Asian strategic framework.”

An editorial in the July 2 Hindustan Times titled “The great Indian strategic debate: Chinese aggression has resolved it in favour of India-US ties” argued that China’s border “aggression” has “now answered the question” whether China’s behaviour is a result of India-US proximity, or vice versa. It went on to state, “Whether India desires it or not, it will end up as one of the frontline states which will have to step up to contain Chinese power, not because of a third power, but because its own interests are at stake. This will mean India has no choice but to deepen its partnerships with other countries, particularly the US.”

A remark made by Modi during his visit to Ladakh is highly significant in this regard. According to press accounts, he said, “Indian soldiers had a long history of bravery and competence in global military campaigns, including in the two World Wars.”

Indian soldiers fought in the two imperialist world wars of the 20th century, as part of the British Indian Army and to uphold the interest of the British Empire, including India’s continued subjugation to Britain. That Modi chooses to celebrate this and cite it as evidence of Indian soldiers’ competence in “global military campaigns” underscores the readiness of his government and the Indian bourgeoisie as a whole to serve as satraps for US imperialism as it charts course for a catastrophic war with China.

When border tensions flared between India and China in May, Washington quickly rushed to signal its support for India, denouncing Chinese aggression and tying it to the South China Sea dispute. This has only escalated since the June 15 border clashes, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US officials repeatedly railing against Beijing.

Last Wednesday, White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany reported Trump as having said “China’s aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with the larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world.”
Pompeo, meanwhile, has applauded India’s ban on Chinese apps, branding them as “appendages of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.” He added that New Delhi’s “clean app approach will boost India’s sovereignty and boost integrity and national security.”

There is strong bipartisan support within the US ruling elite for the Trump administration using the border crisis to strengthen Washington’s strategic partnership with New Delhi against Beijing. In recent weeks, more than a dozen US Congress members, Republican and Democrat alike, have expressed their support for India resisting purported Chinese “aggression.”

Under conditions of stepped up military and diplomatic provocations by Washington against China, including naval exercises in the South China Sea, Beijing has responded cautiously to India’s economic reprisals. Last Thursday, Chinese Commerce Ministry Spokesman Gao Feng issued a statement on India’s banning of Chinese apps that said, “China has not taken any restrictive and discriminatory measures against Indian products and services,” and accused India of violating World Trade Organization rules.

At the same time, China has moved to assert its territorial claims in the region against Bhutan, a tiny landlocked state that India has traditionally treated as a protectorate. Responding to questions about China’s recent attempt to block the UN Development Program’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) from providing funding for the Sakteng wildlife sanctuary on the grounds that it related to “disputed” territory, a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry statement said, “The boundary between China and Bhutan has never been delimited. There have been disputes over the eastern, central and western sectors for a long time.”

To appreciate the explosive potential of such an assertion, it is worth recalling the military stand-off that occurred between India and China for over two months in 2017 due to a still unresolved territorial dispute between China and Bhutan over the Doklam plateau, a remote unpopulated Himalayan ridge.

UK set to ban Huawei from 5G network

Nick Beams

The global economic war initiated by the US against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has gone up another notch. The British government is now virtually certain to reverse its January decision to allow the corporation to have some limited participation in Britain’s 5G mobile phone network.

The key factor in the about-turn, after months of denunciations of the UK decision by Washington, was the move by the Trump administration in May to ban the use of US software in Huawei’s operating systems.

Previously the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had concluded that the alleged security concerns raised by the US could be allayed so long as Huawei was excluded from critical networks.

However, following the US ban on the use of American software, the GCHQ is reported to have reversed its decision, advising that including Huawei would carry risks that could not be controlled.

The US has continually alleged either that Huawei functions as an espionage mechanism for the Chinese government or that it would be required to do so under Chinese law.

Both Huawei and another Chinese high-tech firm ZTE have denied enabling Beijing to conduct espionage, and the US has never published any evidence they have done so. Washington has continually insisted, however, that they could be forced to hand over data if that was demanded by the Chinese government and therefore must be excluded from the telecommunications networks of all US allies.

The rank hypocrisy of these assertions is evidenced by the fact that the major instigator of global spying and hacking operations is the US itself. As Huawei officials have previously pointed out, one of the main reasons for the US actions against the company is that, unlike American corporations, it provides no “backdoors” to US intelligence agencies.

The drive against Huawei is part of a series of actions by the US to intensify global economic, political and military pressure against China. At the same time, Washington has maintained its pressure on allies such as Britain to fall into line, which now appears to have worked.

In a comment published in the Financial Times over the weekend, the former head of the British spy agency MI6, John Sawers, set out the claims which will be employed to reverse the January decision on Huawei as he sought to portray China as an aggressor.

“The last six months,” he wrote, “have revealed more about China under President Xi Jinping than the previous six years. China is overplaying its hand and giving Western leaders no option but to stand up to it.”

In January, he wrote, the UK had found what he said was a “reasonable balance” in limiting Huawei’s role in Britain’s 5G network, but that US sanctions on China had “shifted the parameters” on its potential involvement in British telecoms.

The latest US sanctions—the ban on the sale of software as well as the designation of Huawei and ZTE as national security threats—mean that “reliable non-Chinese suppliers can no longer work with the company. UK intelligence services can therefore no longer provide the needed assurances that Chinese-made equipment is still safe to use in the UK’s telecoms network.”

Sawers made clear the Huawei decision is part of the wider agenda for action against China and pointed to the need for “new leadership in the US that would help create a common front that includes Japan, South Korea, and India, as well as the US, EU, UK, Canada and Australia.”

The reference to “new leadership” is based on the recognition that such a common front, all the major powers, would proceed even further under a Biden presidency, as key sections of the military and intelligence agencies, for which the Democrats speak, are coming to regard Trump as being too “soft” on China.

These views were articulated in an article published in Defense One earlier this month in which it said the 2017 US National Security Strategy, focusing on “great power competition” with stronger measures against China, would be pursued “much more robustly” under a Biden administration.

A decision to ban Huawei in the UK will prove very costly, potentially running into billions of dollars and will be less efficient.

When the Johnson government initially gave approval for Huawei in January, the Financial Times reported it had repeatedly asked Washington if it could provide alternative technology, but to no avail.

“We have been asking for almost a year, but there has been no answer at all,” one unnamed official told the FT.

The increase in costs arises from the fact that 5G does not replace the existing 4G network but is based on it. Huawei is deeply involved in the UK 4G network, and its technology is not compatible with other systems. This means telecom companies will have to spend large amounts of money to reconfigure their already existing systems, a process that will slow down the rollout of 5G.

But such economic considerations are being dispensed with in favour of geostrategic objectives in which increasingly aggressive measures against China are front and center.

This push is backed by a significant section of the Conservative Party. Even before the latest US sanctions, leading Tories had been threatening an “insurgency” against any decision to include Huawei in the 5G system.

Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, one of the leaders of the Conservatives’ 59-member Huawei Interest Group, warned, “Unless the government now really takes a firm lead, they will find that Parliament leads dramatically.”

At a virtual press conference on Monday, China’s Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming denounced the impending decision, saying it would damage Chinese trust in the UK and undermine any belief that Britain could carry out a foreign policy independent of the US. Banning Huawei would send out a “very bad message to other Chinese businesses,” he added.

He said China wanted to be a “friend and partner,” but “if you want to make China a hostile country, you will have to bear the consequences.”

The ambassador then made an appeal to British imperialist interests and the personal motivations of Johnson, who fancies himself as a modern-day Winston Churchill and would like nothing so much as a revival of the “glory days” of the British Empire.

“If you dance to the tune of other countries,” he said, “how can you call yourselves Great Britain?”

Bombing of Turkey’s Watiya base escalates Franco-Italian proxy war in Libya

Alex Lantier

Even as COVID-19 spreads, the decade-long civil war between rival imperialist-backed warlords triggered by the 2011 NATO war in Libya is spiraling out of control.

On July 5, unidentified warplanes bombed al-Watiya airbase, which Italian-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) forces recently retook from French-backed Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar. The attack damaged hangars and destroyed military equipment from Turkey, which is coordinating its support for the GNA with Italy. LNA official Khaled al Mahjoub told Al Arabiya that “other attacks similar to the one on the base will soon be carried out. ... We are in a real war with Turkey, which has oil ambitions in Libya.”

Turkish military sources told Spanish news site Atalayar the raid included “nine precision air strikes against Turkish air defense systems,” which wounded several Turkish intelligence officials. They added that the attacks were “successful” and left “three radars completely destroyed.” However, Atalayar refuted reports that MiG-29 or Su-24 jets Moscow has given the LNA carried out the strikes, saying that it was the work of French-made Rafale jets.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and France itself all field Rafales, support the LNA, and could have bombed al-Watiya. On June 21, Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi threatened to intervene in Libya against Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s office reacted to the strike by tweeting that Turkey would escalate operations in Libya, attacking the coastal city of Sirte and Al Jufra, Libya’s largest airbase, both located in central Libya and held by LNA forces. It cited control of oil supply lines and Russian support for the LNA to justify its intervention.

The bombing of al-Watiya, barely 150km from Tripoli, followed visits by Turkish and Italian officials. It came only a few hours after Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar concluded a trip to Tripoli, during which he proclaimed, “Turkish sovereignty and our return, after the withdrawal of our ancestors, to return forever in Libya.” This apparently referred to the Turkish Ottoman Empire’s control over Libya, until Italy seized Libya and held it as a colony from 1911 until 1943 and its defeat during World War II.

On June 24, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio visited Tripoli, after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Ankara and amid joint Turkish-Italian naval drills. In Tripoli, he said the war was central to Rome’s strategic interests, calling Libya “a priority for our foreign policy and national security.”

The strike on al-Watiya has revealed the bitter divisions among the NATO imperialist powers, as well as between the regional powers, over the division of the spoils from the 2011 war.

Amid revolutionary uprisings of the working class in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Paris, London and Washington pushed NATO to bomb Libya and arm Islamist and tribal militias to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Berlin declined to join the war, and the belligerent powers ran roughshod over initial Turkish objections. Western media and petty-bourgeois pseudo-left groups like France’s New Anti-capitalist Party claimed it was a humanitarian war to protect Libyan protesters, but it was an imperialist rape of Libya.

It set the stage not only for the ongoing proxy war in Syria between Russia and NATO, which sent to Syria many Islamist proxy militias it had mobilized in Libya, but for a ruthless struggle to carve up Libya and its massive oil reserves.

Thousands have died in fighting between rival militias unleashed by the 2011 war, and the coronavirus pandemic is now ravaging Libya. The number of cases doubled in the last two weeks of June, to 713, and now stands at 1,117. Only 269 have recovered while 34 have died, as the disease spreads across a country whose health and industrial infrastructure have been shattered by a decade of bloodshed.

This month, the International Rescue Committee reported: “This year Libya has recorded the highest number of attacks on health facilities of any country in the world. Just yesterday, an ambulance was hit by an airstrike, severely damaging the vehicle and the health facility close by. Last week two doctors were killed by a mine that exploded under a body they were moving from a hospital. With Libya’s health system already on its knees, continued attacks such as these are making it even harder for medical teams in the country to respond to the pandemic.”

The NATO powers are not bringing medical and humanitarian aid, however, but plundering Libya and threatening to escalate the fighting into an all-out regional war. Several regional powers play a major role—with Turkey and Algeria backing the GNA, and Egypt and the UAE backing the LNA. Moscow has also intervened to back the LNA against the Islamist-dominated GNA. However, a decisive aspect of the conflict is between major oil corporations like France’s Total and Italy’s ENI.

On July 3, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency wrote that the GNA is “advancing on Sirte, the gateway to the east of the country and oil fields.” It called Sirte “crucial” for two reasons: “First, Sirte has significant economic value as a gateway to Libya’s oil crescent region, consisting of vital ports such as al-Zuweytinah, Ra’s Lanuf, Marsa al Brega, and as-Sidr, which reportedly supplies 60 percent of Libya’s oil exports. Secondly, it is a strategic city that could enable the GNA to take control of the Libyan coastline from the capital to the west and Benghazi to the east.”

ENI dominates the oilfields in GNA-held northwestern Libya. But many of the oil reserves and refineries in the “oil crescent” region are held by Total and LNA militias in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi, the center of the NATO-backed revolt against Gaddafi, and in the Fezzan. This region in southern Libya borders two former French colonies, Niger and Tchad, that Paris exerts control over as part of its so-called war on terror in Mali and the Sahel.

Conflicts between the NATO imperialist powers are increasingly evident. Commenting on French support for Haftar, Tarek Megerisi of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the Financial Times: “France has different interests to Germany and Italy in Libya, and it has moved to protect these interests. It has security interests in the Sahel and a wider security partnership that it is building with the United Arab Emirates—and in which Egypt is a big part.”

Dorothée Schmid of the French Institute on International Relations (IFRI) said there is “strategic panic” in Paris at Haftar’s recently suffered reverses. She pointed to growing chaos and uncertainty in NATO: “France is rather isolated in this affair, and everyone is waiting for the American elections.”

The only way to avert a further escalation is a mobilization of the working class in Africa and the Middle East, resuming the struggles launched a decade ago, and the unification of these struggles with growing strikes and protests in America and Europe in a socialist anti-war movement. Absent a revolutionary intervention of the working class, the ruling elites are all sliding towards war.

Naval tensions continue to grow in the Mediterranean. France withdrew from NATO operations in the Mediterranean on July 1, protesting that a Turkish warship allegedly threatened to fire on a French frigate as it tried to inspect a merchant ship bound for Libya. Egypt has for its part reportedly acquired a Russian “Bastion” coastal defense battery amid reports that Turkey intends to set up a naval base in the Libyan city of Misrata.

US billionaires, politicians cash in on “small business” loan program

Jacob Crosse

After resisting lawsuits by 11 media organizations, including the Washington Post, ProPublica and the New York Times, the US Treasury and Small Business Administration (SBA) on Monday released an 18-page report providing information on the 660,000 recipients of over $521.5 billion in funds distributed through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

In a statement announcing the release of the data, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin commented: “Today’s release of loan data strikes the appropriate balance of providing the American people with transparency, while protecting sensitive payroll and personal income information of small businesses, sole proprietors, and independent contractors.”

The limited “transparency” gives some insight into the grotesque levels of corruption and self-dealing carried out by politicians, corporate heads and well-connected individuals who took advantage of the program, which was presented as a lifeline to small businesses and employees hit by the COVID-19 lockdown. Among the members of Congress linked to businesses that received low interest, forgivable loans was Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House.

While it is true that thousands of businesses have been able to make use of the loan program to stay afloat, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 3.3 million, or nearly 22 percent, of US small businesses closed their doors permanently between February and April of this year.

The SBA report claimed that the program “saved” an estimated 51 million jobs. Under the PPP, loans can be turned into grants if more than 60 percent of the loan is used for payroll. What Mnuchin neglected to mention at his Monday press conference is that nearly 90,000 companies either left the job retention question on the loan application blank or reported retaining zero jobs in the dataset.

President Trump signed a bill on Saturday extending until August 8 the corporate-government slush fund, with an estimated $132 billion left in its coffers, after the House and Senate voted unanimously for the extension. The day before, Congress adjourned until July 20 without taking any action to extend the federal $600 weekly unemployment supplement, which has kept millions of workers and their families in their homes and able to afford basic necessities and is set to expire on July 25.

The PPP was established as part of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. That legislation, which was passed unanimously in the Senate and by a near-majority voice vote in the House, launched the program, which got underway in early April with $349 billion in funding.

These funds were depleted in less than two weeks, and Congress moved quickly to approve another $310 billion in funding despite widespread reports of abuse and fraud. In the first round of the program, sports teams, restaurant and hotel chains, and other billion-dollar businesses collected millions of dollars in loans, while small “mom and pop” businesses were frozen out. Wall Street banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America took in billions in loan processing fees.

The SBA and Treasury information released by Mnuchin on Monday includes the names of all the organizations that received PPP loans of $150,000 or more, as well as some data, but not the names, of those that received less than $150,000.

Mnuchin attempted to shield the fact that nearly three-fourths of the total loan dollars went to companies and businesses requesting more than $150,000. He said, “The average loan size is approximately $100,000, demonstrating that the program is serving the smallest of businesses.” The SBA report notes that the average loan amount was $107,000.

The release of the report revealed that of the 4,885,388 loans approved, 86.5 percent were for less than $150,000. However, those loans accounted for only 27.2 percent of the money distributed. An Associated Press report concluded that nearly half of all PPP support for major industries was utilized by the health care, professional, construction and manufacturing sectors. Four states, California, Texas, New York and Florida, accounted for one-third of all loans approved.

A large majority of the loans approved, 3,262,529, or roughly 66.8 percent, were for under $50,000, yet they made up only 11.2 percent of the total dollar amount. The distribution was geared toward large borrowers, with nearly 22 percent of the loan amount issued to borrowers requesting between $350,000 and $1,000,000. And while loans between $1 and $5 million made up only 1.6 percent of the total, they accounted for 28.3 percent of the total dollar amount.

Multimillionaires, businesses connected to the Trump family, governors of at least eight states as well as members of Congress from both parties received loans anywhere from $150,000 to $10 million. Political organizations such as the Ohio Democratic Party and the Black Republican Caucus in Florida got at least $150,000 each, while the Florida Democratic Party Building Fund and the Women’s National Republican Club of New York received at least $350,000.

The Ayn Rand Institute, named for the libertarian arch reactionary, was approved for a PPP loan between $350,000 and $1,000,000. The Catholic Church also got in on the action, with the Archdiocese of New York receiving a loan between $5 and $10 million. Catholic charities of the archdioceses of San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York and Boston all received loans valued at more than $2 million.

The Associated Press reported that as much as $273 million was loaned out to over 100 companies that are owned or operated by donors to the Trump campaign. Of the businesses approved, only eight had to wait until early May, after the second round of funding was approved by Congress, to receive their loans. Trump supporters who run these companies have contributed at least $11.1 million since May 2015 to Trump’s campaign committee, the Republican National Committee or the America First Action super PAC that has been endorsed by Trump.

A Forbes report found that at least 44 companies backed by 15 billionaires received loans. This includes billionaire clothes designer, potential presidential candidate and rapper Kanye West and Hobby Lobby founder David Green, worth an estimated $7.9 billion. Green’s son chairs the board of the Washington, D.C.-based museum known as “The Museum of the Bible,” which received a PPP loan of between $2 million and $5 million supposedly to retain 249 jobs.

The richest person in the state of West Virginia, Governor Jim Justice, with a reported net worth of $1.2 billion, also made generous use of the program. Companies owned by the Justice family received at least $11.1 million from the federal relief program. Of those companies, four, including the inherited luxury resort Greenbrier Hotel and coal companies such as Blackstone Energy Ltd., Bluestone Coke, LLC and Justice Energy Company Inc., took out millions in loans yet reported retaining zero jobs. The largest loan in the state, between $5 million and $10 million, went to Justice’s luxury membership club, the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, while Justice’s Greenbrier Sporting Club took out a loan worth between $1 million and $2 million, while reportedly retaining only 120 jobs.

In addition to Justice, businesses linked to Republican governors Mike DeWine of Ohio, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Tate Reeves of Mississippi received loans. Businesses tied to Democratic governors Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gavin Newsom of California and Ralph Northam of Virginia also received loans.

Monday’s report also revealed that Republican Representatives Kevin Hern and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania were loan recipients.

Democratic Party House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was also on the gravy train. Paul Pelosi is an investor in the firm EDI Associates, which received a loan of between $350,000 and $1,000,000.

Previous disclosures had revealed that Republican Representatives Roger Williams of Texas and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, as well as Democratic Representatives Susie Lee of Nevada and Debbie Mucarsel Powell of Florida, were connected to businesses that received PPP loans.