| Dictator-In-cHIEF by Olly Omani
Well dudes, it's been a slow news week in Haven, not helped by me having a little bit of a vacation for part of the week. So we turn to national news.
Before we get to the main story - if any of you have thoughts on gun control, school safety, etc. and want to be featured in next week's issue, hit me up with your ideas about how to make school/mass shootings less prevalent in the U.S. If no one writes in, I might just write an opinion piece, but I'd rather hear from people directly. Whether it's arming teachers or taking ALL the guns away, I want to hear from every side.
And now for news about the Dictator-In-Chief. Here's my issue. China's president evidently just eliminated term limits in China, effectively making him the leader of China until he dies. Here's what our president, who took an oath to protect the Constitution had to say about it: "He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day." - Donald J. Trump
Now, as much as this is bad shit for China, I'm going to be selfish here dudes and just discuss the part that concerns me, us. 'Maybe we'll give that a shot someday'. Our president feels like things like term limits and the constitution and the free press are really just roadblocks in letting him do what he wants. He comes from a job where he was the top, everyone had to do what he said and if anyone gave him shit, he fired them. (Insert Apprentice joke here).
The problem with that is that, at least for right now, we have checks and balances here in this country. Unfortunately, Congress has the majority of their members in the Republican party, and the majority of them would rather be Republicans than Americans, so I'm not expecting too many people to become outraged. Others will just say 'he was joking, clearly he was joking'. But was he? He's attacked the free press. He's ordered politic enemies to be arrested and he has yet to call out Russia publically for cyber attacking out 2016 election, or more recently, for unveiling basically a doomsday weapon.
Our president has given more backlash to black men who kneel during than anthem than he has to Putin and Russia. Oh, and did I mention that the vast majority of Congress voted to impose sanctions on Russia for the 2016 cyber attack? Well, the deadline for the president to sign that has come and gone, and no one's in the street. No one's flipping out.
I guess we're all too busy watching TV and playing on our phones. But these are scary times man. Scary times. Below are some links to national coverage of the stories I've referenced if you want to look into this more.
Remarks about Xi / lifelong president:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remarks/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/04/president-for-life-not-bad-idea-trump-says-china-proposal.html
Russian Sanctions not passed:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-russia-sanctions-trump-no-new-congress-law-election-hacking-intervention-putin-kremlin-a8184866.html
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/1/30/16949878/trump-russia-sanction-list-oligarch-congress
Trump's silence on Russia:
https://www.metro.us/president-trump/putin-shows-missiles-florida-trump-silent
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/us/politics/trump-russia.html
It's time to vote people. Maybe the system -is- rigged now, but it's time to get off our lazy, complacent asses and do something about it. If you've got friends and family elsewhere in the country, get them to the polls.
Mahalo, Havenites.
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