“Thanks to a bill approved as part of the package that ended the federal shutdown, intoxicating hemp products will be federally prohibited as of November 13, 2026, a year after President Donald Trump signed the legislation. Unless Congress intervenes, that ban will put an end to a $28 billion industry that offers psychoactive beverages, edibles, flower, and vape cartridges to consumers in dozens of states.”
It is not normal for the justice department or the FBI to release the internal files of an investigation. Such files have lots of speculations and falsehoods in them, and releasing them can falsely destroy people’s reputations.
A small Republican rebellion helped get Congress to pass the order for Trump to release the Epstein files. Trump tried to stop the order, and once it was clear Trump was going to lose, he said he now supports it, and many Republican Congressmen who were going to vote against it, slavishly then voted for it once their dear leader gave them permission. Trump can release the Epstein files without Congress’s order, so if he really wanted to, he could just do it.
“The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing to federal programs. And those three measures are some of the easiest to rally around — including money for veterans programs, food aid, assistance for farmers and the operations of Congress itself.
Together, they represent only about 10 percent of the roughly $1.8 trillion Congress doles out each year to federal agencies. Under the deal, everything else is funded on a temporary basis through Jan. 30 at levels first set by Congress in March 2024, when Joe Biden was president.
That leaves behind major open decisions about the vast majority of discretionary dollars — including for the military and public health programs — along with the stickiest policy issues. It doesn’t help that House and Senate leaders still haven’t agreed on an overall total for fiscal 2026 spending, amid GOP divisions over how deeply to cut.”
Multiple high level military men have stepped down as the Trump administration appears to murder suspected drug traffickers. The administration showed their intel justifying the strikes only to some Republican Congressmen rather than to members of both parties, so Congress as a whole can’t even analyze the justifications.
“Senate Republicans will block a Democratic bill that would keep federal food aid flowing to 42 million Americans as they try to build pressure to reopen the government, Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday.
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Thune separately told reporters that if the Senate starts “going down the road of … take care of this group or that group … it just begs the larger question, how long is this going to drag on?”
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Democrats and even privately some Republican lawmakers argue the Trump administration has the legal authority to tap a $5 billion contingency fund, or other USDA funds, to ensure SNAP benefits keep flowing during the shutdown. Dozens of Democratic governors and attorneys general have sued the administration over its decision not to tap those funds.”
“The ongoing federal shutdown could cost the U.S. economy between $7 billion and $14 billion, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”
“The plaintiffs are disputing the Trump administration’s statements that it doesn’t have the legal authority to use the $5 billion it has in emergency funds to pay for at least part of SNAP, which requires more than $8 billion to pay for November benefits. They also argue that USDA could tap Section 32 funds, which it did to tide over the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, to fully fund SNAP next month.”