| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Congress Asleep
00:03:04
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| Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report. | |
| Congress Asleep as Biden makes war on Yemen. | |
| Late last week, President Biden started a new U.S. war on the tiny country of Yemen. | |
| U.S. warships and fighter jets launched more than 100 missiles at the country in a massive escalation that the administration bizarrely claimed would de-escalate tensions in the Red Sea. | |
| Taking the U.S. to war without a congressional declaration of war is a grave crime against the Constitution. | |
| Not only did Biden show no interest in coming to Congress for a war declaration, he didn't even ask for authorization. | |
| Together with Washington's reliable junior partner in war, the UK, Biden attacked Yemen. | |
| It seems the U.S. administration consulted more with the UK government than with the U.S. Congress on the attacks. | |
| But that's not really the worst part. | |
| Far from taking action against this illegal war by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn't even see fit to criticize the administration. | |
| On the contrary, congressional leadership in both bodies actually applauded President Biden for brazenly violating U.S. law. | |
| House Speaker Mike Johnson not only praised the illegal move, he urged the president to go further and confront Iran. | |
| He said, This action by the U.S. and British forces is long overdue, and we must hope these operations indicate a true shift in the Biden administration's approach to Iran and its proxies that are engaging in such evil and wreaking such havoc. | |
| To their credit, several members of Biden's own party joined with a handful of Republican colleagues to denounce a U.S. president taking the country to war without the authority to do so. | |
| California Rep Kahana was one of the first Democrats to criticize Biden's war-making, stating, The president's strikes in Yemen are unconstitutional. | |
| For over a month, he consulted an international coalition to plan them, but never came to Congress to seek authorization as required by Article I of the Constitution. | |
| The framers of the Constitution gave war-making powers to Congress because they understood that leaving such power in the hands of one person was a recipe for disaster. | |
| The role of the president is to make the case for a war declaration. | |
| Congress deliberates and either authorizes or refuses the proposed action. | |
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Yemen's Resilience
00:01:10
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| Washington has obviously not learned the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and all the other failed U.S. interventions over the past 20 years. | |
| Why do we keep losing wars? | |
| Because we do not go into wars according to the U.S. Constitution. | |
| This war will be no different. | |
| The Houthis in Yemen withstood years of attacks from the Saudis using the latest U.S. weaponry and came out on top. | |
| In short, it was never our war, but now with this attack, Biden has made it our war. | |
| So, we are left with the strange and sad spectacle of Congress asleep at the wheel as a Defense Secretary launches military strikes from his hospital bed in the service of a president clearly not in his prime. | |
| All this in pursuit of a policy that makes no sense and is leading the U.S. closer to a major war in the Middle East that will only harm, not serve, the U.S. national interests. | |