By Johnathon Shaffer / Sports Editor and Nathaniel Morris / Staff Writer
During summer break, students get to relax and take a nice long vacation. People can often miss important events that happen in our world as they are on break. No worries if you missed the news over the summer, because our teachers will be giving their insight and opinions on a number of news topics.
There have been changes in the U.S. and its legislation since President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan 20, including the passing of the “Big Beautiful Bill” on the anniversary of Independence Day; a huge sweeping bill that makes many cuts to budgets and spending.
“The parts of the bill that actually passed in the end are mostly tax related, like things like tax cuts, immigration related, like increasing spending for border security, and decreasing domestic spending on things like food assistance and Medicare. It’s still controversial, depending on who you ask, because some people are upset about cuts to things like Medicaid and the snap program, and some people are not happy that it will overall seem to increase the federal deficit,” government teacher Gina Iacobucci said.
Some people have been worried about how long the bill is, but Iacobucci says this is rather common, but frustrating.
“Congress frequently passes huge bills. They’re called omnibus legislation. It’s common for bills to be hundreds of pages long because bills are passed infrequently. So people want to put a bunch of different things in a bill to try to get it passed. … and bills ended up being extremely long, all encompassing bills, which is frustrating for Americans that want to be knowledgeable about government, because how are we supposed to have time to dig through hundreds of pages of legislation and interpret everything without the legal background?” Iacobucci said.
In Washington D.C., Trump has ordered a federal takeover to clean up the crime around D.C. However, it is important to note that Washington D.C. is functionally different from the average state.
“I think it’s important to start by explaining how Washington, D.C functions. Washington, D.C. is not a state. According to the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, clause 17, it gives Congress the authority to govern Washington, D.C.,” Iacobucci said.
With D.C. being under federal control, this permits Trump to be able to take emergency actions to clean up crime. However, this is still very controversial.
“So, for example, if the Trump administration thinks that there’s an emergency situation when it comes to crime rates in D.C., which are very high, but are on the decline, then the president can take police action over DC. It’s a section called Section 740, which gives the president the ability to use the police force for federal purposes in special emergency situations. It’s technically allowed by law, but they might think that the declaration of the emergency is an overreach. Some people might be like, ‘it’s not a bad thing to have more police around to discourage crime,’” Iacobucci said.
On June 6, in downtown Los Angeles, a Home Depot was about to be raided by ICE agents. But, a crowd of angry people forms outside of the building, they are protesting ICE agents. A few hours later, another protest starts. Outside of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and courthouse, an angry group of protesters gather, they start to heckle the police, they retaliate by using tear gas, and batons. This was the first move that kicked off the riots in downtown Los Angeles.
“ICE is doing what they were instructed to do and finding and deporting undocumented immigrants. And people in California and lots of cities over the United States are not happy about this and are trying to impede ICE from being able to do this job because they don’t like it. … But sometimes those actions turn into violent protests. And so in response to mass protests in L.A., Trump deployed the National Guard to LA. and … there’s pushback from the mayor of Los Angeles and also the governor of California about whether Trump should be allowed to do that or not,” Iacobucci said.
On June 22, Trump had ordered the operation to bomb alleged nuclear sites in Iran.
This stems from a complicated web of many other conflicts, including the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
History teacher Chris Story said, “What happened in October, two years ago at this point, when Hamas engaged in that assault into Israel and captured all these hostages, they went on the offensive pretty heavily, and they’re funded or affiliated with Iran. Now we’re going to go after, you know, the head of the snake, if you will, and the US wanted to really make sure that they’re not going to get close to constructing a nuclear program,” Story said.
In order for these hostilities to stop, the US has attempted to negotiate with Iran to broker a deal about Iran’s nuclear programs.
When Iran’s leaders weren’t willing to cooperate, the US decided to strongarm Iran, and bomb their nuclear capabilities.
“When that deadline passed, … the decision was that we’re gonna get involved. I think it was more of a show of force than anything else, … Obviously, I would say the current administration compared to the previous administration has a stronger affiliation with Israel, and Israel is always going to feel threatened by the potential of them having nuclear capabilities,” Story said.
Trump has been questioned for this action very heavily, with some even calling for impeachment, but there are complications with that.
“The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Vietnam War) gave the president a ton of authority over the use of military and military action. … So Vietnam opened the door and then they tried to close the door, recorrect at the end with the War Powers act, which Nixon tried to veto, which didn’t end up working,” Story said. “So the president is commander in chief of the armed forces, so if they use the military for a strike, drone strike, military, whatever, they can, without warning. Obama did it. Republicans cried out, saying that he violated the War Powers act by not consulting Congress, and vice versa with Trump.”
Some people feel that this is not a power the president should be able to have.
“He does (have that power), but I don’t think he should. I feel like, especially in a conflict that can result in war and it costs American lives, it should always be brought forth with Congress because they are the people that represent us, and we shouldn’t throw away our lives without representation of said conflict,” senior and We the People Unit 2 member Conner Flanagan said.
