
When will it end?
According to the polls, the overarching driving force behind Trump’s win was anger toward “elites.” Donald Trump’s election is a tremendous challenge for freedom. But like most challenges, it’s also an opportunity. We may have never had this much bipartisan, cross-ideological, popular support for wresting power away from government.
As Jeffrey Tucker put it, “Everyone underestimated the vulnerability of the status quo.” The existing power structures are weak. It’s time to hit them with everything we’ve got.
In case you need a refresher on how powerful our government has become, Donald Trump now commands:
September 28, 2016 -Today, Congressman Dan Kildee secured a pathway forward for federal funding to address the drinking water health crisis in Flint, Michigan through an amendment in the House’s Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).
The Michigan delegation, with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had pushed hard to add emergency assistance to Flint as part of the pending negotiations over the must-pass Continuing Resolution.
There’s a movement afoot in Congress to stop U.S. military support for the Saudi war in Yemen.
On September 8, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Al Franken (D-MN) introduced a bipartisan resolution, SJ Res 39, to disapprove the $1.15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia notified to Congress on August 8. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich joined SJ Res 39 as a co-sponsor on September 13.
A Senate vote on this resolution is currently expected this week, as early as Tuesday. A broad coalition of human rights and peace advocates, including Oxfam, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Win Without War coalition (of which Just Foreign Policy is a member) is lobbying senators to vote in favor of the resolution of disapproval. Some of these groups sent a joint letter to Congress urging rejection of the arms deal.
«We’re not focused on the former al-Nusra Front [al-Qaeda in Syria]. We’re focused on Daesh [ISIS]. And that’s what we’re fighting and that’s where therefore we look and where we target». US Defense Department press briefing, 16 August 2016.
Central to America’s war against terrorism was al-Qaeda as being the specific target, but, on August 16th, a US Defense Department spokesperson said that al-Qaeda is no longer an enemy of the United States at all, and that only ISIS is America’s enemy in the war against terrorism. However, Congress never authorized anything but al-Qaeda to be the enemy in the war against terrorism. Consequently, President Obama is now violating the law by his no longer targeting al-Qaeda at all, and he is also ignoring the law by his targeting ISIS (as he has long been doing) without requesting a new authorization from Congress to do so – an authorization that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress would be virtually certain to grant immediately.
The cryptic hacker Guccifer 2.0 continues to pour forth a diverse stream of ever evolving democratic party leaks. After revealing the party’s favoring of Hillary Clinton, emails now disclose messages from the alcohol lobby. Give you one guess what about–opposition to cannabis reform.
Mary Jane’s medical and recreational success in Colorado has opened up the airwaves to all sorts of debate. Even those pushing to peel the plant’s schedule 1 status away were curious if it could integrate into society. Driving laws came into immediate question, and how to detect and handle stoned drivers.