 almost 100 actually right now. We'll be taking a close look at the military budget. We also expect to hear from Barber Lee at some point during the hour. I did receive a message from her legislative director saying that she's on the floor and they're voting and so they hope and anticipate they will join us by phone at some point. So we'll just remain fluid and flexible. In the meantime, we're very excited to hear from Elizabeth Beavers. She's with Public Citizen advising Public Citizen with their People Over Pentagon project and our own Carly Town, a national co-director of Code Pink, on our Cut the Pentagon project, which is a relatively new project. So let's start with some updates. Hania, you want to update us on one of the campaigns you're working on? Yeah, absolutely. So as a part of Roots section, which I'm very pleased to announce that I've joined their team for quite some time now. We've launched a campaign. This was in May in opposition to Rom Emmanual's nomination to be the ambassador to Japan. And unfortunately, we found out that he was nominated, in fact, in August. And so in mid-May, Roots section circulated a statement to our partner coalitions, which were very happy that so many signed on to. But we have been standing in opposition to this nomination. We think that his behavior as a mayor of Chicago cannot be erased or should be erased or ignored. And we feel that at a time when the Democratic Party leadership has joined with the most Americans in asserting that Black Lives Matter, this nomination would be very tone deaf. So just to kind of give you all a quick background, while Emmanuel was a mayor of Chicago on top of closing so many public schools and mental health facilities, his administration, when he was up for re-election for 13 months, suppressed a horrific dash camp video showing the death of Laquan McDonald, who was an African-American teenager that had been shot 16 times by the Chicago police officer as he was walking away from the police officer. So this campaign has been ongoing for the past few months. It's gained some media attention, but we are also hosting an event in Washington, D.C., which will be joined by our partners at Code Pink. And I will share some of our initiatives with you here. But what's really important and what is really necessary and critical is that we all call our Congress members to pressure the Biden administration to revisit this choice of Emmanuel being highlighted in this prestigious position. So yeah, I encourage everyone to take action. I'll share some links with you in the chat and I'll pass it back to Marcy or Medea. Sure. Medea, I know you've been very busy lately. Tell us what you're up to. Well, today is International Peace Day, so it's nice to be with peacemakers. We had a walk through, a walk of shame in New York City from BlackRock, visiting other places, ending up at the UN to be calling for peace. And I don't know how many of you got a chance to listen to Biden. He was singing our song talking about the need for relentless diplomacy. He focused a lot on that issues like bombs and bullets cannot fight COVID-19. He talked about the climate quite a lot and said the US would be a leader on climate. He also talked about the citizen discontent around the world as if this were happening all over the world and not here in the United States. And a number of things that were good words, but can we really equate them to the deeds at home and in our foreign policies? So if anybody else listened and wants to chat a little bit about that, that would be great. Remember, you can introduce yourselves in the chat. I also wanted to give an update on an idea for a campaign around Afghanistan that I haven't even had a chance to talk to my colleagues at Code Pink about. And that's because I'm here at the United Nations and had a meeting today with some people who are working on issues that are now moving from trying to get people out of Afghanistan to how are we going to help the people who remain? And one of the big issues, as you know, is pushing the Taliban to be opening up schools. They've already opened up the elementary schools and the colleges to women and girls. And the high school, it seems like is going to happen soon as well. But then the issue becomes how are they going to pay the teachers because their money is frozen in the United States and in other European capitals, as well as the pressure that the US has put on the IMF and the World Bank not to release money. So there is not money to pay these teachers. So we are talking about a campaign called Pay the Afghan Teachers. And I'm going to need Marcy's help and any other teachers. We'd like to get teachers from the US talking to teachers in Afghanistan and pushing that message and need some people to do some research too. So if anybody's interested in helping on this, what I think is a fantastic campaign, I see Marcy's hand up. Yay. You can contact me Medea at codepink.org. And let's work on this together and free up some of those funds to pay the Afghan teachers. I think you're on mute. There we go. I said, I think that's a terrific idea, great campaign. We should get the National Education Association behind it and have teacher leaders speaking out from every city pay the teachers in Afghanistan. I mean, this is insane, right? To announce that we're withdrawing, it's over, the war is over. But we're not going to give you your money. Oh, and announcing that the Taliban, you have to show us that you're going to be different this time by allowing girls to go to school. And then when they do, we're not going to pay the teachers. Because we haven't changed, right? Yeah. Exactly. Okay, well, we look forward to hearing more about that campaign. And if you're interested, by all means, what should they email you Medea or what? Yes, Carly just put it in the chat Medea at codepink.org. I think it'd be a very exciting campaign. So let's get a group of volunteers working on this. Thank you. Terrific. Thank you. So I just received a call from Barbara Lee's legislative director. He said she's trying to find a place to give us a call because it's very noisy on the house floor. So I anticipate she will be with us at some point. In the meantime, I thank you for your patience. And we have an exciting lineup with both Elizabeth and Carly. Right now, the Congress is debating the National Defense Authorization Act, the amendments. I think there were hundreds of amendments. Some of them will be attached. Some of them won't be. And Elizabeth can certainly give us more insight on that to that process and what people will actually be voting on. So, Medea, why don't you go ahead and introduce Elizabeth Bevers. If Barbara Lee joins us, we'll cut away and then come back. Wonderful. Well, we're delighted to have Elizabeth. She advises public citizen on its people over the Pentagon Project, which has been brilliant on this issue of how do we cut the Pentagon budget? Before that, she was an associate policy director for the Indivisible Project and was the senior campaigner on national security and human rights for the U.S. section of Amnesty International. She's also a member of the North Carolina State Bar and managed the militarism and civil liberties program at the Friends Committee on National Legislation and is a senior fellow with Data for Progress and vice president of the National Religious Campaign Against Tortures Board of Directors. So, Elizabeth, you have quite a lot of things going on. We're really so honored that you could take some time to be with us tonight. Thanks so much, Medea. Give me a thumbs up. Can you all hear me? Good. Excellent. Marcy, I'm just going to keep my eye on you and give me a wave if Barbara Lee comes in and I need to shut up for a minute. So, thank you again, Code Pink, for having me. It's so nice to be back. I echo what Medea said. It's really nice to be among peacemakers on this international day of peace. And you all could not have scheduled this better because it looks like tomorrow that Congress is going to start voting on the National Defense Authorization Act. So, it's like you all had a special vision that the rest of us did not have to schedule this absolutely perfectly to do your calling party. So, I'm happy to share what I know. As Medea mentioned, I am an independent strategist. One of my projects, I advise public citizen on the People Over Pentagon campaign, which basically is just trying to get those who consider themselves to be on the political left a lot more comfortable with the idea of not just cutting but slashing the Pentagon budget and not being afraid to ask for what it is that we want with our tax dollars, which is not more war and weapons, but it's more support for human needs and tackling the challenges that we're actually facing that the military could never solve. So, definitely some bad news along the way as this bill has proceeded for just a quick review. You all are, you know, all about this, but so the National Defense Authorization Act is not exactly a spending bill. It's really an authorization policy bill, but it does authorize funds to be appropriated for various military purposes. And so, you all know Congress is very dysfunctional. They don't like to pass many bills anymore. And so, one thing that happens around the NDAA is everyone tries to hang their policy priorities on it because it's one of the few actually moving legislative vehicles. And we've certainly seen that again this year. There were almost 900 amendments that were filed by various members of Congress. And the way it works is the Rules Committee decides which ones of those get a vote. And they have decided that almost 500 of them will get a vote, which is wild and totally bananas. And they just came out that decision late this afternoon. So, we're all reacting together to it. Now, I will say every single one is not going to get an individual vote. Usually, they'll package some of them up into these big on-block amendments they call them. And they'll just knock them out in big groups. But some of them will get individualized, particularly the more controversial ones. They will get individualized ones. So, two amendments that I'm really excited about. Well, I should back up one thing that happened that I think we were all really upset about was the fact that we already were very upset that President Biden requested about $753 billion in military spending in his first presidential request. That is, it came out to about $11 to $13 billion in nominal dollars above the last Trump budget, which is totally inconsistent with the President, who, as Madea was just noting, talks a lot about pivoting to diplomacy and moving away from endless war. That's certainly not consistent with pouring even more money into the Pentagon. So, that was already really high. But then we saw that both the Senate Armed Services Committee and then now the House Armed Services Committee have voted to tack on on top of that another approximately $25 billion that the Pentagon didn't even ask for. The President didn't even ask for. And this is our Democratic-run Congress that we're working with. And so I say all that not to put everybody in a bad mood, but just to be realistic about what we're facing. But this is why it's so important what we're doing. And I, to me, I would say our goal and what I think the message is and what I think is going to happen when they actually vote on these things is, oh, is somebody waving at me? No. So, I think, thank you so much, Elizabeth. We want to come back. Yeah, we'll talk more later. I'll make it beautiful. I think Barbara or Gregory Adams might be with us right now. Gregory, are you there? Barbara, are you there? I saw them. Hi. How are you guys? Good. Good. I apologize. We are working to get the Congresswoman connected in with you guys. We're in the middle of a couple votes here right now on the floor. So, it's a little bit of a hairy situation, but we're working on the technical details and those statistical details right now. But you guys have already heard from Elizabeth Beavers, who is- Well, we're going to hear more from her. But when Barbara comes, we can cut away. No problem. That sounds great. Yeah. Elizabeth knows all the, she's got this whole thing mapped. So, she's the expert on all this. Terrific. Thank you, Gregory. Gregory Adams is the legislative director for Congresswoman Barbara Lee. And as I mentioned earlier, she's on the house floor. They're voting and so she has to cut away and find a quiet place. But continue, Elizabeth. Thank you. Sure thing. Very nice of my friend, Greg Adams, to say it's always a treasure getting to work so closely with the Congresswoman and with her awesome staff. So, what I was going to say is I think the message and I think what we're going to see happen is we are going to see members like our wonderful champions, Barbara Lee, Congresswoman Poke and so many others show that the days of this happening unchallenged are over. We may have not yet gotten to the point where we have built the power that is needed to completely overhaul this system and reverse course, but we're on our way and we're building momentum. And these things aren't just going to sail through without a fight anymore. And so that's why we're really excited about it. If we have a time before the Congresswoman hops on, I'll just highlight two amendments I'm especially excited about and I'm happy to talk about others a little bit later if needed. One is that absolutely egregious increase that the Armed Services Committee added on top of what the administration even asked for. Congresswoman Lee has introduced an amendment that would overturn that and overrule it and get rid of that increase. And then Congresswoman Pocan is leading an amendment and Barbara Lee is on that one as well as a few others to cut 10% across the board of military spending of that authorized high level. So obviously, you know, all of us see this as we'd like to go even further than that. I know for public citizen, we've certainly signed on to cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars. And I think we all know we could do a lot with a lot less and certainly be made much safer for it. But these are two really great starting places and it's a really good way to get members of Congress on the record. And they will go on the record as soon as tomorrow, they're going to have to vote yes or no on both those things. So I'm going to pause there. Before we leave you, I just want to put pink very much supports and signed on to a letter in support of the 10% cut. And that's a 10% cut of the current military budget, the Trump military budget. That will be voted on as an amendment. Maybe you could highlight a few more amendments. We do have time. Yes. And thank you. Yes. And then the chat somebody pointed out these are amendments number 40 and number 41. As you're talking to members of Congress, they do all have numbers. And so those are thankfully right next to each other and easy to remember. And just to clarify, so the 10% cut is above the not the current budget, but the authorized top level of the overall NDAA. So that would be that like 780. Oh, really? Okay. I'm sorry. No worries. So a couple of other really interesting ones. Congressman Kana has introduced an amendment that continues to work to prohibit US military support for the Saudi led war in Yemen. There's Congressman Johnson has introduced an amendment that helps put some blocks on the military transferring military property to law enforcement known as the 1033 program that I know you all are well aware of. There's already required a commission to investigate the basically Afghanistan and what happened in Afghanistan. And there's a really great amendment from Congresswoman Omar and several others that would mandate that that commission is not just studying the withdrawal, which everyone's very upset about, but actually the civilian harm of the US occupation over the last 20 years and what sort of human rights abuses have come about because of our presence there. And so I think that's a really important addition. There's there's also Congressman Bowman has introduced an amendment that would withdraw US forces in Syria if Congress doesn't actually authorize their presence. There are like hundreds and hundreds more. I'm looking at my little wish list here. There's Kana has another one that's about payments to civilians who are harmed by US military operations. So I'm going to maybe just pause there. There are several I know several different peace organizations are compiling lists of the ones they're especially excited to see. But just timing wise, they probably are going to start they already have started the dating tonight. They won't start voting on it tonight, but probably as soon as tomorrow. Thank you, Elizabeth. And before we cut away, I wanted to read this is from the Biden White House, their their positions on the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA. I'm looking at this one paragraph, nuclear weapons provision. So I thought maybe I'd read it and we could try to take it apart together. I noticed Jackie Basso is with us and she does a lot of work on nuclear issues. So Jackie, feel free to jump in. Okay, here's what it says. This is the Biden White House. The the administration opposes several provisions in the NDAA that would prejudge the outcome of the nuclear posture review now underway. So my interpretation of that is that there are there are some weapons systems that may be funded that they don't want funded. I'm being optimistic. These include the prohibition on funding for extending the service life of the B 83-1. Is that the current ICBM? I don't know. The restrictions on changing intercontinental ballistic missile alert levels. So right now they're on hair trigger alert, right? The highest alert. So what the what this says to me is that the Biden administration might want to take them off hair trigger alert because in the current NDAA there is a restriction that they can't change that. They also oppose the prohibition on a number of deployed ICBMs and the prohibition on reconverting or retiring W76-2 warheads. So not being entirely familiar with these different warheads. My sense is that they want to have more freedom in writing a nuclear posture review that doesn't necessarily embrace every level of a nuclear rearmament that has been on the table. I'm being optimistic. Anyone else has any thoughts on that? Put them in the chat or let me know or you want to talk about it. So let's move now to Carly and then perhaps Barbara Lee will be joining us later on. We'll just be flexible. All right. Hania, please introduce Carly. Yes, this is Carly. This is so special because I know we met once across from, I believe it was, if I'm not mistaken, Diane Feinstein's office when we held a rally. And so it's an honor to introduce you today. Carly Town is the co-director and lead of CodePink in divest from war and defund the Pentagon programs as well as a team manager and a community outreach personnel. Carly graduated from University of California, San Diego with a degree in critical gender studies and political science. She is now happy to organize in Los Angeles. Carly, do you have any updates for us on the latest cut, the Pentagon budget campaign that is led by CodePink? Please take us through that. Yeah, sure. And please just let me know if Barbara Lee does join us and I need to stop talking. But thank you so much, everyone. It's really great to be here. And thanks to Elizabeth for being on as well. She's definitely an expert. But things we've been talking about today is that we've heard that Congress is debating the National Defense Authorization Act. We know that there's a bipartisan push, like it was said, to increase the Pentagon budget, right? Even after we've officially ended the war in Afghanistan that was not only deadly for innocent civilians, it cost us at least $2 trillion. Politicians still want to draw more money at the U.S. war machine, right? And this is despite the fact that actually our friends at the National Priorities Project found that over the past two decades of the so-called war on terror, the United States has spent $21 trillion on militarization, $21 trillion over the past two decades. And $16 trillion of that went directly into our military. And of that, they found that over $7 trillion went directly to private military contractors, $7 trillion. It's hard to imagine, kind of. And then on top of that, according to the intercept, since the beginning of the war on terror, the top five weapons manufacturers in the United States have just seen their profits soar, right? And they found that if you invested $10,000 in one of these companies in 2001, you'd now be sitting on $100,000, right? So just a huge return on that investment, right? So the war on terror was really great for the CEOs of weapons manufacturers and the military industrial complex. But for the rest of us, everyone else in this room and across the globe, two decades after the beginning of the war on terror, we're really at a crossroads, right? I myself am sitting and coming and calling into you from Los Angeles, California, where we're already facing the deadly effects of climate change. You know, we've seen accelerated, larger and more deadly fires. We also are in the middle of a global pandemic. Is it far really on the line? Oh, sorry, I thought I saw somebody waiting at me. We're good. Okay, cool. We're in the middle of a pandemic. People around the world don't even have access to the vaccine, right? But, you know, despite all that, we have to recognize that this was not an inevitable outcome, right? It was the outcome of a country that puts the profit of these weapons manufacturers over people, refusing to fund universal health care or Green New Deal that would really cost a tiny fraction of the price that we spent over the last two decades and certainly wouldn't kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, right? So this is a moment that we find ourselves in. And this is the moment where we really have to seize on what peace makers have been calling on for the past 20 years, right? We need to cut the Pentagon for people, peace, planet and our future. And this is something that we've been working on since the beginning of Code Pink. We've been in the the streets and halls of Congress using creativity to disrupt war for profit. And that's why we're building a big tent of climate justice organizations, immigrant justice organizations, racial justice organizations to mobilize vigils, marches, sit-ins, teachings, demonstrations, whatever we can imagine we want to enact it, right? And any other kind of direct actions in Washington D.C. and all over the country just to expose war profiteers and war hawks, right? And these would all be aimed at exposing, like I said, the cost of war and militarization, to our society and to all of us. And in this moment, instead of losing hope that our politicians are trying to increase the Pentagon budget, what we have to do, right, is start organizing. And we've already started. So our official campaign launch was on September 12th in front of the White House, where we cut the Pentagon cake and served Ben and Jerry's. Medea was there with our coalition partners at the Institute for Policy Studies, World Beyond War, the People's Forum, Food Not Bombs, many others. This past Sunday, we joined a coalition partner and veteran, Mike Preisner, to disrupt the war criminal George W. Bush in Los Angeles, where people paid $600 to see him speak. But this, you know, these are the kind of events that we're putting on, but we need more people and more events to build this movement. So I'm just here today to talk about that and encourage everyone to go to www.cutthepennegon.com to sign up and join us. You can join as an individual, as an organization, or as both interested in volunteering. Or if you're interested in just contributing your skills to the campaign, we absolutely need you. So go ahead and sign up at the link in the top box. And otherwise, I think we can pause maybe for some questions or hopefully Barbara Lee is here. Sure. I just received another message that she'll be here in a few minutes. So we'll be patient, of course. Meanwhile, let's do our Q&A with Carly Town, one of our national co-directors at Code Pink, and Elizabeth Bieber is advising public citizen on the People Over Pentagon project. So, Elizabeth, what do we have any kind of headcount on how many might support cutting at least 10% of the Pentagon budget? Maybe. There are 85 members still in Congress who voted yes last year. So that's a good place to start. We ended up having 93 in support last year. So that's a good baseline to measure against public citizen put together. And I think Carly has it. She's welcome to share around, or I couldn't share it. Otherwise, we tried to put together the list of like, there's something like 150, 120 members who have voted in support of this, who have signed on to a letter urging a decrease in the Pentagon budget, who have in some way expressed some support. They have never done this all at the same time on the same vehicle. If we could get them to all vote for this, that would be great. So that's a really good place to start. That's the high end. I think I will say my sort of just hack political analysis is it's a little different dynamic this year, right? Because last year was Trump and it was a little easier to, I think for some members to justify opposition in that way, whereas now the White House and Congress are controlled by the same party and that makes the political dynamic a little different. There's also like a lot going on this year. I know that that's such an obvious thing to say, but even just this week, Congress is trying to pass a lot and trying to do a lot. And we're in the middle of trying to do a relief bill and a continuing resolution to fund the government and the infrastructure package. And so it is just a little different dynamic this year in terms of being able to focus really intensely. But I'm still very hopeful we can get close to last year's levels. Thank you. I know that at Code Pink, at least we've had this ongoing discussion, debate over whether or not we want to support amendments or just focus on saying vote no on the military budget. Any thoughts about that, Carly Elizabeth? Sure. I mean, I can hop in just quickly. You know, what Elizabeth said about the numbers of Congress, do we need to push to make sure not only they vote yes again, but also to expand the number of representatives who vote to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% is really important. We're going to be on social media and we have been in front of the White House asking people to call specific Congress members who are potentially moveable on this subject, including members of Congress who signed on to support the legislation from the Poor People's Campaign that they're reconstruction, which actually calls for a 10% cut to the Pentagon budget, right? So they've signed on. Now it's time to really, you know, put their money where their mouth is and actually vote for that, right? But in terms of voting on NDA amendments, you know, some of the debate that we've had in Code Pink, and I think others have is we have these excellent policy amendments that are added to the NDA every year. And then at the end of the day, though, they're tacked on to a bill that will authorize enormous Pentagon spending, right? And then this in this year, $780 billion for the Pentagon budget. And I guess the question for the peace movement and others is, should we be supporting at the end of the day a bill that provides that much money or authorizes that much money from the National Reference Opposition Act? The only thing I'll just add on top, oh, I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say, I think we can safely say we support this amendment without having to commit to saying vote for any of this. Totally. Yeah. That's pretty much what I was going to say, which is several of the organizations I work with, that's their standard position every year is that they engage in a lot of support for various amendments, but they always oppose the underlying bill. And it's a common thing that members of Congress do too. There is a question in the chat. Is there a way to hold anyone accountable for the military budget to make an example of them? I mean, electorally, though there's much sympathy for our position to cut the military budget, I feel that we have the most impact. We would have the most impact if we could make an example of one of these politicians, perhaps a whip for both majority and minority, mansion, Schumer. I know there are a number of primary challenges underway around the country. I don't know of any primary challenges to either one of those or to Jack Reed, the Democratic chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where they voted everyone except Elizabeth Warren to raise the military budget over Biden's proposed budget. So Rhode Island, we're working with Rhode Island and doing our best here. I've got kind of an interesting stat, but that's, I should just say really quickly, Public Citizen does not engage in electoral work and we're a non-political organization. So just on behalf of myself, Elizabeth, just an observation of the 93 members who voted and supported this 10% cut last year, none of them lost reelection. Some of them left Congress by other means like they went to the Senate or they just didn't run, but they all won reelection. So that's kind of an interesting political stat that we looked into. Yeah, you know, I say like elections are where you say that you're disappointed with someone. And so I think for constituents of the district or the state where a member is in who consistently champions an increase to the Pentagon budget, that's a really interesting way to put on pressure and make clear that that's why you're doing it. Because I think that sometimes an issue like this can get lost in broader reasons why someone is getting political pushback and highlighting that like this is why, this is where the anger is coming from is a really key part of that. Can I ask a question? Sure, sure. So when it comes to things like the reconciliation bill, the progressives have a lot of clout because the Republicans are going to vote against it. But in this case, you have almost all the Republicans that will vote for this, right? And I know there have been a sprinkling of Republicans in the past who have voted against the NDAA. What do you suspect it will be this time around? And what are the Republican reasons for opposing? I don't know, Carly, do you want to take a stab at that or do you want me to? I think you probably have more knowledge on that. Yeah, well, the political dynamics are very strange and for like a lot of opposite reasons, right? Like I think that a congressional leadership is walking this tightrope where they could sort of bleed support out both ends of the ideological spectrum. They could bleed out progressive support for a lot of the reasons we're talking about, they could also bleed out moderate and conservative support because the bill doesn't go far enough or doesn't have enough military spending or good amendments that we think are good, get supported and it changes the calculus. So they're actually doing a really kind of fine balancing act. And I think the amendment of fight is going to determine a lot about where that math falls. And it's not, I don't think it's too likely that we see a lot of Republicans defect. Right now they're signaling that if spending levels stay where they are, then they might stay on. But I don't know, there's some wildcards out there. So we'll see all that to say that like it's very delicate and sort of one different factor can lean things in a different direction. One wildcard might be my understanding is there's an amendment to expand the selective service to include women to require young women to sign up with selective service by the when they're 18. And there are some Republicans who oppose this. I was just reading the Biden administration's position on the NDA. And from what I read, it sounds like they support the expansion of selective service to include women, but there are some Republicans who oppose that. So that could be a wildcard. There's a question from Henry Norr. Why push to cut merely 10% what would we actually lose by cutting 90% leaving 10% Well, I was going to say, I mean, you know, of course we support that, right? I mean, we want to cut as much as the Pentagon budget as possible. And actually Representative Robert Lee has has introduced a House resolution 476 to cut the Pentagon budget by $350 billion. Unfortunately, only five members of Congress have co-sponsored that, right? So at this point, I think it's really important that we push our members to vote for a concrete amendment to the NDA to cut the Pentagon by 10%, grow the number of representatives that voted for it last year, really build our movement like Elizabeth talked about. And like I said, when we were talking about our cut the Pentagon campaign, right? This is why we need to build a movement to actually organize against such a large Pentagon budget. And there's another interesting question that came up in the chat. Speaking of movements, Carly, is there a solidarity movement with the environmental advocates and peace activists to combat military industrial complex? If any of you could address that? Well, so I can say as part of our People Over Pentagon campaign, that's part of what we're trying to do is build solidarity among different sectors to lean in together and asking for different budget priorities. We had a number of environmental justice groups sign our letter in support of cutting the Pentagon budget as part of this NDA fight. We had a sunrise movement, Friends of the Earth, several folks, and then we had like immigrant rights groups like United We Dream. So we really are trying to build that cross-sectoral movement to show how the way we spend our money is everyone's issue. It doesn't matter what issue you focus on, it's all of ours. And I wanted to also add that I'm involved with the Veterans for Peace, Climate, and Militarism group, terrific group. And they have taken their proposed resolution to track the greenhouse gas emissions of all military projects to Congresswoman Barber Lee, and she's interested in introducing this resolution. And I believe that the organization will be building a coalition to support such a resolution. So that's I was going to say the exact same thing, Marcy, because yeah, I had a lovely chat with them last week and they caught me up on some of the really cool work that you all are doing. It's awesome. And so I did want to note that there is one NDA amendment on lowering DOD's greenhouse gas emissions. And I believe it's Mondair Jones who introduced that one, and it is getting a vote. So I mean, as we know, another group I work with a lot is the Cost of War Project at Brown University, and they have produced incredible research showing. I mean, the Department of Defense is the greatest industrial producer of greenhouse gases on the entire planet. So being anti-war is a climate justice issue. And I love seeing everybody make those connections. So I just want to point out to everybody on the call the enormous, enormous gap between what the public wants and what Congress and the White House are giving us. And the fact that only five Congress people have signed on to that bill to cut the Pentagon budget by 350 billion, it shows that even the squad, I think Ilhan Omar is the only one in the squad that has signed on to that, that we have so much work to do to translate this support among the public for cutting the Pentagon budget to the Congress. And just like many of us say, you can't be progressive on everything, but let's say Palestine and call yourself a progressive Congressperson, you can't be progressive on everything but cutting the Pentagon. And that has to be something that, you know, at least with this 10%, once we look at the final numbers, we have to go after every member, let's start with the progressive caucus and really go after those who call themselves progressive and wouldn't even support the 10% cut. Excellent points. Is there a bill number or I think you said 40 or 41, Elizabeth, for the 10% cut, you know the number of that amendment? The 40, is the 10% cut and 41 overturns the $25 billion increase that was added in committee. So the amendment, and then correct me if I'm wrong, the NDEA is a blueprint or it's an authorization, but is there still room to veer from that? For example, if it funds all these new nuclear weapons, can those be scrapped? Yeah, so the budget process is very complicated, but at the end of the day it is appropriations and not authorization that sets the money. So for policy amendments, typically the NDEA will kind of roll the day on that depending on what it is, but on actual spending levels it is appropriations that determines that. And so what we're trying to do here is, the appropriations process is a total mess this year. It's really unlikely defense appropriations will get its own solo voter will probably be packaged in with some other bills. And so a lot of it's going to come down to negotiations and leadership decisions. And so what we don't want is for them all to be working with this exact same high number in every possible military bill that's put forward. So that's why it is important and very significant this year, because sometimes when we fight these things on the NDEA, it's more symbolic because the number is already done and it's decided, but it's not decided for this year. And so that's why a really strong showing on these cut amendments is really important as they go into those negotiations. Yes, thank you. Somebody wrote, where is Pocans Bill to move 1% to COVID relief? What's happening with that? Do we know? I can answer that. Yeah, we've been talking to his staff and they're actually going to introduce that formally sometime after the NDEA votes. So you can look out for it soon. We do have on our website, you can go and actually ask your representative to co-sponsor the bill. There's already quite a few signatories. I'm not, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but I can post in the chat for people. Other questions? Anyone have another question? Well, somebody asked, how did we get to this point where there is such this huge disconnect? And they wrote, you know, is it money? And of course, money is a big part of it in several different ways, one meaning the amount of money that the lobbyists spend on the campaigns of these people. And Carly, you might want to talk about that because you've done some great webinars on that. Yeah, sure. I mean, like you said, you know, following the money in several different ways. I mean, number one would be campaign contributions from these military contractors to our representatives. Our friends at the Security Policy Reform Institute, Stephen Summler, actually did a really excellent study about the correlation between members of Congress who take these high numbers of campaign contributions from these companies, and their votes on the NDEA every year. And of course, we all know what happened, but he showed very clearly that there is a positive correlation, a very strong positive correlation between members who take those campaign contributions and voting for these enormous military budgets every year. But, you know, another element that's really important as well is we just did a webinar with David Moore from Sludge, which is an investigative magazine. And he looked at the personal stocks that our representatives hold in these companies. So, as these companies valuations increase, so to do our representatives own, you know, personal wealth, right? So, there are a multitude of ways in which our representatives are enmeshed in the military industrial complex. We've started to address it in one way. We do actually have a pledge codethink.org slash divest. Congress where you can ask your representative to stop taking campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers. It's a really good way to start a conversation with your representative and bring this research to them, right? We don't want them bought and sold by the same companies that they vote to give funding to every year. Thank you, Carly. Gregory Adams is Congresswoman Barbara Lee's legislative director. And while we're waiting for Barbara Lee, Gregory has offered to come on and talk to us about what they're working on, their strategy, and so forth. So, Gregory, the mic is yours. Thanks so much, Marcy. And I can mention a couple things that we're working on over here. I think you guys know well that my boss has been working for years to try to end our endless wars and get us back to a situation where we are always leading with military force in our relations around the world and really trying to emphasize diplomacy and development as the key elements of U.S. foreign policy. So, you guys are all aware of her famous vote in 2001. She's, of course, been working on repealing both the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. We reached a milestone in June when we were able to get 2002 passed through the House by a substantial margin, including 49 Republican votes, which was even more than I had expected. And we're working with Senator Cain over in the Senate to see if we can get it done on that side of the building. It's already moved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And so we're continuing to try to find opportunities to get that to President Biden's desk. The big prize, of course, is repealing the 2001 AUMF. And so we are working to build a coalition that can make sure we get that done. I think the first task is to try to bring together the Democratic caucus to make sure that both progressives and moderates are comfortable with the path forward and also engaging with Republicans, because ultimately, if this is going to be a durable solution, we've got to build the broadest coalition possible. As you know, Barbara Lee throughout her career has always been driven by principle. She has been willing to say unpopular things and do unpopular things. But she's also been willing to find allies wherever they exist. One of the things she nags me about all the time, she's constantly sharing with me press releases from, say, National Taxpayers Union or the Concerned Veterans of America or R Street, you know, groups that are more affiliated with Republicans, but they support ending wars and cutting Pentagon spending because she knows that to get this done, you know, we can't build in litmus tests. We can't wait for only pure allies to come along. We've got to be willing to work with anyone that we can find to build the broadest coalition possible. So she's been working to do that. She's got an ally in Chairman Meeks of the Foreign Affairs Committee, an ally in Chairman McGovern of the Rules Committee, and even an ally in Chairman Schiff of the Intel Committee. And we've been working together to try to establish some base principles that any new AUMF needs to follow, that it needs to be time bound, needs to be geographically bound, it needs to have a clear mission and achievable goals, and it has to respond to congressional oversight. Congress has been asleep at the switch for 20 years on our current AUMFs. A lot of members have just been afraid to take these votes. And so we need to make sure that we never again give a blank check for war the way we did in 2001. That anything we do going forward has much more oversight. As the Constitution intends and as the American people have said time and time again, they want. So that's where we spend a lot of our time. Obviously cutting the Pentagon budget and Carly and Elizabeth have already mentioned some of the things we're working on in terms of trying to draw a contrast between the threats that Americans face in their everyday lives, like COVID, climate change, economic inequality, systemic racism, domestic terrorism, and where we actually spend our money. Aircraft carriers aren't protecting us from climate change or COVID. And so being able to draw those contrasts and really make people grapple with what the Pentagon budget looks like is an important task. Elizabeth mentioned the Veterans for Peace resolution. Marcy, you mentioned it too, the Veterans for Peace resolution about the greenhouse gas emissions from the military. That's one where we're hoping to really be able to work with Veterans for Peace to build a intersectional coalition with a lot of the climate groups to try to broaden our tent. It always has to be about broadening our tent because on defense spending on the floor, as you guys have seen, when we take just straight votes on this stuff, we just haven't been able to muster the numbers so far to get there because even though the American public broadly opposes runaway Pentagon spending, they have a lot of kitchen table issues that they confront and it's really hard to mobilize a mass coalition on this. So being able to talk to people about the issues that they care about and be able to link that to runaway Pentagon spending and why constant investment in the defense budget actually makes it harder to address these other issues. That's really key to building the kind of coalition we need to actually win on these issues and really make big cuts in the budget. So that's what we're trying to do with this $25 billion amendment that we're offering tomorrow. I know you guys are all aware of it. We've discussed it, but it's really an effort to try to go out and build the broadest coalition possible, get a really powerful vote so we can start to get people to take notice of us and realize that they need to grapple with the fact that members of Congress won't continue voting ad nauseam for these runaway increases in the budget. So I run on enough. I'm actually an opponent of the filibuster, so I'll stop talking. Well, thank you, Gregory, and we are going to have an action in a minute in which we call and write our representatives asking them to support the 10% cut. I don't know if there's a similar corollary in the Senate. I know Bernie Sanders did last time introduce something like that. So maybe you can clarify on that. Also, it sounds like these efforts to repeal both AUMFs are a separate legislation, not amendments attached to the NDA. I was hoping that we would ask Barbara Lee about this, and maybe we will. I don't know if she's on the floor. We're waiting for her, but since you work so closely Yeah, I can answer that really quick, Marcy. So we had a great vote in June on repealing the 2002 AUMF, and after the fall of Kabul and everything, we've already had the vote. It's passed the house by voting on it again on NDA. You always run the risk that you get a weaker vote than you did last time. And then the headlines start being, oh, opponents of the war are losing steam. So we have a super strong vote. We had like 263 members vote to repeal the 2002 AUMF. It's moving over on the Senate side. There's no reason really at this point to risk another vote on it, especially when it's already over on the Senate. And we can already try to work with Senator Cain to get something done. Gregory, I wanted to ask you about her role as the chair of the subcommittee on foreign operations, which oversees a lot of aid. Can you tell us anything about getting aid, unfreezing the assets, the 9.5 billion in assets of Afghan money and U.S. banks or money for Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine? Go for it. Hey, apologies, Marcy. The boss was just calling me on the other line trying to figure out how to get on the Zoom because she's now out of votes. Here he is. I think she just, I think she's here. B. Lee's got to be Barbara Lee, right? Barbara, can you hear us? Barbara? Yeah, hi. This is Barbara. I'm sitting in the car. How are you? Can you hear me? Yes, you're very clear. Thank you for joining us. Gosh, this has been quite a day. Just so many changes on my schedule. And you see, we've just just finished voting. So I'm sitting in the car, but I wanted to call and check in and just say hello and thank you so much for everything that you all are doing for peace and security throughout, not only America, but throughout the world. Thank you, Barbara. And, you know, one of the areas of concern, of great concern at CodePink and with other organizations is this trajectory that we seem to be on, moving toward war preparedness against China, sending missiles to Taiwan, declaring Taiwan the defense of Taiwan a national priority. Just further militarization of the South China Sea. I know that President Biden said he signed an agreement with Putin saying he doesn't want a first strike, that nuclear weapons should never be used first and so forth. But what can we do in the face of this huge push from the military industrial complex to turn the tide on China? Yeah, well, that's a biggie, but I think we have to, one is have our position and alternative and what we believe in place and organize around and in members districts. I mean, what are we talking about? The military budget, the 10% reduction. I mean, you see what's going on now. We can't even get, well, we got 90 some votes last time because you all to reduce defense spending by 10%. So it's the policies that are taking place. So we have to know what we think is a policy that leads to peace and security, but also what what we think that we need to do in terms of the funding priorities of the of the National Defense Authorization Act. And that involves what you all do and that's mobilize in members districts. That's it's a political struggle, quite frankly. And Biden administration, while I listened very closely to his speech today at the United Nations, and I thought it was a good speech. He talked about rebalancing our, you know, defense development, you know, humanitarian and diplomatic strategies using the military option only when necessary as the last option. But then on the other end, the funding, when you look at the budget that I have is 62 billion and the defense budget is 700 close to 740 billion. So I don't know, we have to figure that out. But I do agree that we're going in the wrong direction. But yet the White House, I believe has put us has set a framework for reverse court, reverse in course. And so I'm not sure how you all see that, because they're saying the right things, but doing kind of additional militarization of our foreign policy in many ways, foreign and trade policy. Yeah, I, you know, I have to wonder if there are dissident voices in the Biden administration on this. If there are people who disagree with this within the budget. Yeah. No, I'm not sure. I really don't know. Yeah. But all I know is we're working very hard to try to reprogram a lot of this money and up the budgets for what we know makes sense in terms of peace, in terms of demilitarization, in terms of de-nuclearization, and in terms of domestic spending here at home. So Barbara, you mentioned, I think that your committee or your budget is about $60 billion. Is that right? Yeah, $62 billion. That's for foreign aid. Basically foreign aid, embassy security, development assistance, global help is for humanitarian assistance for the non-defense related international accounts. Right. So we've had a number of people ask us about what you can do, what your committee can do to, for example, unfreeze the $9.5 billion that's frozen, that's Afghan assets frozen in U.S. banks, pressure the IMF, the World Bank to make loans to Afghanistan. Supposedly this war is over and kids can't even go to school because they're getting paid. You know, what's happening with that? What about Latin America, Palestine? Yeah. And that's mostly a treasury. And so I'm not sure how you weigh in right now. I can talk to Maxine. That's her committee. But it's the Treasury Department that has to do all of this. And we can certainly try to support efforts. Who here in Congress has taken the lead on that? Do you know? That's a question to Gregory. Yeah, we need to find out who, because it's strictly a treasury for the most part. Yeah, that's a question really, I think, for financial services and the Treasury subcommittee. But we'll definitely find out. We'll find out. Yeah, and I'll also make a call. We should all make a call to Maxine Waters often. Yeah, so that's not under my committee. You know, what's under my committee for Afghanistan, of course, is the humanitarian assistance, the money for women and children, for a lot of what we're trying to figure out now, how do you get the money into the NGOs in Afghanistan for development and humanitarian assistance, and of course security, especially for women and children. So the funding for all of those education, healthcare, whatever we're going to do in Afghanistan, that comes through my committee and how we're going to do it and with whom in terms of the NGOs, in terms of because we're not going to deal strictly with the Taliban and the government. So it's very, very complicated right now, but we're working on it. And for me, out of my subcommittee, it's a priority. Terrific. So Medea, do you want to share with Barbara the campaign you mentioned earlier and see if that's something that her committee could tackle? Well, yeah, you just said it's not your committee Congresswoman. I think she said that Afghanistan humanitarian aid was her committee. But humanitarian aid is and we just in the continuing resolution bumped it up and we're going to try to I don't know if we're going to do a supplemental, but we're putting additional resources into it where it's going to go. We have to I don't know at this point. Yeah, we were talking to people in Afghanistan who said that while the Taliban is being pressured to let women and girls back in school and they seem to be doing that, there's not money to pay the teachers. And so we talked about a campaign to get money to in some some way however it can be done and we talked to someone in the State Department today and of course they said where there's a will there's a way we need to feel the pressure to do it to pay the Afghan teachers. Yeah, but how do you pay them? Do they have a how does that money flow? Do they have a suggestion on that? Well, they said there's money. There's IMF money. There's World Bank money. There's the frozen assets in the New York banks. And then of course there's UNICEF that works with the schools and that could be more humanitarian aid. But of course, you know, when you have a whole school system of entire country, it's hard to do that through the UN or the NGOs. We would love to follow up with you on that as we learn more all of us, you know about please do. Yep. Yeah, we're trying to figure that out also. So I think, you know, well, we've been working together for many years. So we'll work together on this also. Thank you. Also, I wanted to ask you about I know you have to go but one last question about the progressives and their power in Congress, you know, you got how many people I don't 94 members of this Congressional caucus you got 22 or so in your House defense spending caucus that you co-chair with Mark O'Kan. Is there a way to leverage that power? Well, I think we are. We're not getting everything we want, but we certainly are leveraging and getting more than what we have in the past because of the numbers and because of how we're organized. And I think you've heard us speak Pelosi say over and over and over again in terms of the two bills that build back better and the infrastructure bill that we're going to do them together, even though there's some descent and you know, members who don't believe that should happen. But I think when you look at a lot of the funding, many of the proposals on Medicare, we've got to we're using our power and our leverage. We made a lot of progress, but a lot more we must make. And again, it boils down to politics, a lot of our moderate Democrats. Can you can you hold on one second, please? Hold on one second. Sure. Marcy, if she has time, could we ask why only four other members of Congress have supported the bill to cut $350 billion? I think we probably know the answer. Well, I don't know if it's just something they're not pushing because they're pushing the more possible, the 10% Elizabeth. Okay, I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Oh, yes. Yes, we can hear you now. Yes, you're there. We hear you. I'm sorry. I'm okay. I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Yes. Congresswoman, I wanted to know on the 350 billion cut, we know it's symbolic, but it's important to be drawing a line there. Why only four other members of Congress have signed that? And is that something we should be pushing them on? Or is it more important just to focus on the 10%? Well, I think both, if they won't sign the 350, ask them for the 10% I mean, I think the 350 is where we got to get to. But that's like, we're talking about eliminating poverty, will reduce it by the child tax credit, but we've got to move to eliminate it. So I think it's not one or the other. It's like, let's go for the 350. If you can't do that, let's go for the 10%. We'll get there eventually. Congresswoman, Robert Lee, it's great to have you with us. If people have thoughts on something that they want to see happen that could be under the purview of your committee, what's the best way to communicate them? Sure. You know my staff, Gregory's on the line, my alleged director, Gregory Adams, he's available to take your ideas and have discussions with you and get them to me. And I'm always around. As you know, Medea, I'm here there in Yonder all the time. And we're so glad you are. Okay, really nice being with you. Sorry. I was sorry. I was like, okay. Oh, we understand. Okay, okay. All right. Okay. Bye-bye. And next, we're going to go to our capital calling party or emailing parties. So please, we have 171 people with us on the call. Please stay for the action. It's 6.05. We've been on for an hour, but we do want to make sure that we tell our representatives to vote for this 10% cut. I want to thank you, Elizabeth, and thank you. If you want to unmute and thank our guests, please do. Woo-hoo. Thank you! Thank you! Super information.