Barbara Lee says no wars without congressional approval; Fred Upton disagreesLast week the House passed the 2017 Defense Appropriations bill. As part of the debate, Barbara Lee (D-CA) offered an amendment that would prohibit the use of funds for the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a blanket excuse any president-- Clinton or Trump-- could use to attack anyone, anywhere without seeking constitutionally-mandated congressional approval.
Unless...Right-wing extremists and anti-immigrant fanatics Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Steve King (R-IA) offered two amendments Thursday to prevent undocumented immigrants from serving in the U.S. military. Gosar's amendment was defeated 210-211, 30 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with every single Democrat.
Over the weekend, the NY Times speculated that the "early optimism" in the Clinton camp for an easy landslide win against a Trump campaign weighed down with so much baggage "is evaporating." The hopeless party hacks and mercenary lobbyists who control her dull, utterly conventional campaign have no idea how to fight Trump.
New York's 24th Congressional District-- basically Syracuse plus a chunk of central New York from Oswego to the Finger Lakes to Rochester's eastern suburbs-- turned blue in the '90s. The PVI is D+1 and Obama beat McCain 56-42% and then beat Romney by an even greater margin, 57-41%. The Democratic congressman, Dan Maffei, was a wishy-washy New Dem who never embraced core progressive values and tended to vote with the GOP on crucial roll calls too frequently for grassroots Dems to countenance.
