u/Ok_Focus_4975

How many billions is the grifter-in-charge taking of our tax money to fund this war? How many of our serviceman have died? How many injured? For what? So he can manipulate the stock market every Sunday night? And meanwhile healthcare costs just going up and up and up and up. And he is trying to force seniors into Medicare Advantage (HMO-like Medicare).

We are a Visibility Brigade in Bucks County,PA. One of our members is Ukrainian and we make sure to amplify messages of support for Ukraine and contribute as we can. Last Saturday we focused on our main message - a reminder to continue to support Ukraine. Conversations focused on donating for sky defense and calling congress re importance of Ukraine victory for us and Europe. I hope this is an appropriate post.

Citizens Bank talks a lot about doing what is right and building strong communities. What they don't talk about is that they help finance for-profit prison companies so they get the cash they need to lock more people away in ICE detention.
People who have not committed a crime and who are abiding by our sometimes decades long process to become a citizen. People who have worked here for years. People who don’t remember any other home. You have heard the stories that come out of the facilities run by CoreCivic and The GEO Group. 911 dispatchers flooded with calls. Severe medical neglect. Children locked up for months on end. Rancid food. Being denied the right to speak to a lawyer. Lights left on 24/7. Overcrowded conditions. But even as the heartbreaking stories pour out of ICE detention centers, Citizens Bank keeps pouring money into them. 

Saturday was a national protest day for the De-Ice Citizens campaign and protesters were outside the branch on Stony Hill Road raising awareness.

The Big Beautiful Bill “defunded”* Planned Parenthood for a year; now, GOP leaders are pushing to use their budget reconciliation bill to make the defunding permanent. The consequences of the GOP's targeting of Planned Parenthood have already been devastating: patients across the country have fewer options for life-saving care like cancer screenings, birth control, and STI testing and treatment. Already fewer people are seeking care with some health centers seeing a decrease of 40% for some visit types.

*The GOP “plan” is to block federal Medicaid payments to organizations affiliated with abortion services from receiving Medicaid reimbursement for NON-ABORTION healthcare services. Under Medicaid law, patients are generally supposed to be able to obtain care from ANY qualified provider they choose willing to participate. The GOP bill seeks to remove that choice from women and to drive Planned Parenthood out of business. They want to take away a woman’s right to choose EVEN in states that support a woman’s right to choose.

1.8 Billion of OUR Tax Dollars for A Trump Slush Fund. Proud Boys and other people who attacked our Capital are already counting the money. This is outrageous! Even Republicans have had enough.

Inexplicably deciding racism is no longer a thing, the majority GOP Supreme Court has decided no need to safeguard people of color’s right to vote under the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments. So here we are. All of the voting rights won during the Civil Rights Movement being undone, white people creating maps in Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and maybe Georgia to ensure their black brothers and sisters’ votes are diluted. Black Communities can organize all they want- the GOP can just change the map to ensure that community’s citizens are split up. They just split up Memphis. GOP “leaders” believe they are entitled to power regardless of fair representation - this is not democracy. It is Minority rule. Power based on controlling a map as opposed to belonging to the people. And given the harm being done to Black voters and the silencing of Black voices- it is all baked in the terrible sin of racism.
New Maps - Same Old Immoral Confederacy.

Folks came out to protest on Saturday against this autocratic grifting administration. In case u didn’t hear, cost of living rise is outstripping wage growth. But our President is focused on insider deals to his sons and cronies, a war no one wanted with a shifting purpose of the day and where the cost is being hidden from us, celebrating racist gerrymandering, spending billions on making DC tacky and Sun King levels of self-aggrandizement. Let them eat cake or maybe “good for the but not for me” seems to be their operating ethos. Speak out.

Please read: 2025–2026 data shows that the top 1% of U.S. households hold a massive wealth advantage, averaging roughly $38 million in net worth and annual incomes over $730,000. In contrast, the bottom 50% hold only about 1.5% to 2.5% of total wealth, with average household wealth estimated around $60,000 and annual incomes around $20,000.  Kent, A.  The State of US Household Wealth. (June 23, 2025.)  https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/june/the-state-of-us-household-wealth.  Wealth concentration is extreme and accelerating; billionaire wealth is growing faster than everyone else.   We’re moving from a society where people get ahead by working to one where people get ahead by inheriting.  And because wealth grows faster than wages (lower taxes than income, passed down with no taxation of gains) - inequality doesn’t just persist — it compounds across generations.  What this means is a system where who your parents are matters more than anything else. No meritocracy. This concentration of wealth leads to major consequences - all of which we are watching with this administration - 1.  it weakens democracy (wealths buys political influence, top jobs, freedom from justice undermining the rule of law); 2. it starves governments of funding for healthcare, education and climate action;  3.  it fuels global instability and resentment and 4. it locks in inequality across generations.  Speak out.  

Citizens Bank provides billions of loans to for-profit companies that run private detention centers used by ICE; other large banks have pulled back but not Citizens. It claims they perform their best when they “do more for . . . our communities.” The companies - GEO Group and CoreCivic - have been repeatedly linked to medical neglect, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, overcrowding, sleep deprivation, abuse of detainees and violations of civil rights. When a bank provides capital to companies that make profit by dehumanization of human beings, it is not community investment - it is harming communities and bringing shame to the people who work there. “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” . Citizens cannot wash its hand of the consequence of its decision. It is wrong. We are a country built by immigrants and they help all of us by helping prop up Social Security and Medicare. In fact, Penn Wharton estimated undocumented immigrants paid about 24 billion in Social Security taxes in 2024 despite being ineligible for benefits.