Every year since 1970s, the State Department has published a document called "World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers." You probably haven't read it, but it is interesting. It's a detailed accounting of global arms sales, what weapons were sold and where they wound up after they were. The U.S. government published this report in the interest of transparency and then continued to publish it through multiple politically charged scandals and conflicts that would include through Iran Contra, two separate wars in Iraq and all 20 years that we occupied Afghanistan. A report like this would be especially useful to have right now and would be critical to have as the Biden administration sends billions in high-tech military equipment every month to corrupt oligarchs in Eastern Europe.

Where are all of those weapons systems going? We should know the answer to that, but we don't know because this year, for the very first time in half a century, the Biden administration has stopped releasing that information. They never explained why they stopped. They just stopped and no one pushed them. Now you'd think this would be a scandal. If there's one thing the news media exists to do, it's to fight for the release of relevant government records because in a democracy, you have a right to know what is being done in your name, but not anymore. That information is classified, Mr. Citizen, so you don't get to find out where those billions of dollars of weapons that you're paying for are going. Who's getting them? What are they doing with them? You don't get to know.