I found a kernel of hope: “no funds in this act will be used to support or justify torture."
no funds will be spent to prevent any state’s medical marijuana initiatives.
Thank you Congr. Rohrbacher
$961 million to destroy our chemical weapons. Who was it, exactly, who convinced our government to pay billions to develop weapons we now find deplorable?
CIA retirement funding. Wouldn’t it be great to amend out the retirement benefits of Trump hater John Brennan and Congressional dissembler James Clapper?
o $1m for the Cultural Antiquities Task Force
o $6.25m for the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation
o $20m for Countering Foreign State Propaganda
o $12m for Countering State Disinformation and Pressure
o $2.579m for Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe
o $15m to USAID for promoting international higher education between universities
o $2.696bn for International Disaster Assistance
o $51m to promote International Family Planning and Reproductive Health
o $7m promoting International Conservation
o $10m for UN Environmental Programs
o $218m for Promoting Democracy Development in Europe (yep..the birthplace of democracy needs promoting)
o $25m for International Religious Freedom
o $10m for disadvantaged Egyptian Students
o $20m for Middle East Partnership Initiative Scholarship Program
o $12m in military funding for Vietnam
o $3.5m in nutrition assistance to Laos
o $15m in Developmental assistance to China
o $10m for Women LEOs in Afghanistan
sounds good —but — privacy advocates fear that NSA still does back-door targeting of US persons.
Courageous Senator Wyden has asked how many US persons caught up in supposedly foreign data base.
sounds good but . . . haven’t we been back in Iraq at war against new foes without any new congressional authorization?
sec. 8103: none of the funds may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act
wonder why the party that talks about the rule of law, doesn’t obey the rule of law?
Page 365:
Overseas contingency operations. aka military slush fund that circumvents budget caps.
All told, we’ve spent over a trillion dollars in this budget busting category.
I found it! I found it! Border security, what President Trump wanted!
no . . .wait a minute section says Defense can spend what funds it determines to enhance the border security of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia
Page 392 sec 9007: no $ shall be spent “for the permanent stationing of US forces in Afghanistan”
Wonder what they meant by permanent? Some might argue that after 16 years we approaching the definition of permanent.
Bad news is the $ won’t go to reduce the $21 trillion debt. The $ will be instead be spent elsewhere by the Federal government.
Wonder if anyone would notice if we had no Dept of Energy
Put oversight of nuclear waste in DOD and let supply & demand be our Energy policy
Do you think Lois Lerner knew about this part of the law before she targeted Tea Party groups?
$9 billion for Govt Services Admin that oversees federal properties
Fed government spends $1.7 billion a year to maintain 770,000 empty buildings while continuing to buy new properties.
Govt Acctbility Office says govt continues to hold more property than it needs.
No matter. . .this year the big spenders still give GSA big $
Post Office gets $58 million but only if it promises not to close down small, underutilized, money-losing post offices.
No $ for the President to request FBI background report on any individual.
If we had amendments, this would be a good place to add no $ for partisan hacks in the Intel community to unmask any American without a judicial warrant.
Good amendment here. It would be to also protect forced disclosure of metadata, ie phone #’s and identities of the phone callers.
Thanks for sticking with me.