It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories. Listeners take charge of the netwaves, voicing their views on issues and events of the day or about matters they believe warrant further discussion and debate.

Add your own unique flavor to this full-bodied intellectual soup. Call 888-874-4888 to free your mind!

When Defense Secretary James Mattis advised President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval before ordering the April 13 military strikes on alleged chemical weapons production sites in Syria, his concerns were summarily dismissed.

Mattis tried to tell the president that the War Powers Act (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973) obligated a president to apprise Congress (the people) that the United States military imminently would be involved in armed conflict; the reasons; how long it is expected to last; and the resources needed.

Trump saw no need to obey either the letter or spirit of the law as commander in chief. Moreover, he invited Britain and France to participate in the April 1 attacks.

Leid Stories asks: Is Trump a law unto himself?

Way more callers than time yesterday, so, as promised, we return to the topic to hear their views.

Six days ago, U.S., French and British forces jointly conducted air strikes in war-torn Syria, supposedly to “cripple its chemical-weapons program.” The United States and its allies have said that President Bashar al-Assad is using chemical weapons consistently to attack and wipe out areas that strongly oppose his regime. But international agencies dispatched to Syria to investigate have found no evidence of these claims.

President Donald Trump did not seek the advice and consent of Congress for his military action, an act of war, and now, post facto, is having administration officials do damage control.

On Leid Stories we’ve been discussing the ramifications of Trump’s—and his allies’—summary action, and the remarkable fact

Leid Stories listeners broach the troublesome and challenging question once again, taking recent developments into account.

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, proudly relayed a message from President Donald Trump: U.S., British and French forces earlier that morning had launched airstrikes that “crippled Syria’s chemical-weapons program,” and the U.S was “locked and loaded” to strike again.

The Security Council was meeting to de-escalate a situation that had become a crisis. The early-morning strikes were in retaliation for an April 7 chemical attack in Douma, a city outside Damascus, in which more than 40 people were killed. But Trump and his allies say Syria illegally maintains a chemical-weapons program as a hedge against rebel groups in the war-torn country.

The airstrikes over the weekend have broadened and deepened East-West tensions, and most particularly with Russia, which has shown extraordinary restraint. But make no mistake about it, we’re still on the brink of war.

It’s the best open forum on the planet, our “gathering place for the exchange of information, opinions and ideas.” Let’s hear what you’re thinking about this week’s developments or any other subject or issue you consider worthy of further consideration and debate.

Call in (888-874-4888) and add your voice to the mix.

Leid Stories follows up on two controversial police killings—the killing of Stephon Clark, 22, by two Sacramento Police Department officers on March 8, and the killing of Saheed Vassell, 34, by four New York Police Department officers in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn on April 4.

The families of both men contacted well-known civil-rights leader the Rev. Alfred Sharpton in their time of grief and he and noted attorney Benjamin Crump are once again teamed up as advisors helping the grieving families deal with the complexities of the unexpected tragedies in their lives and the expected resistance of the local police departments to fully cooperate in the families’ independent probes.

Leid Stories says the time has come for key players in tragedies like these to change their tactics with respect to dealing with police killings.

An administration still not yet fully formed and functional, and with a revolving door almost off its hinges. Nepotism, cronyism and corruption abound under an inexperienced leader whose ego needs supplant the needs of a nation that worries about the constant threat of war, an uncertain future, the rising tide of hatred, and the emergence of a fascistic national mindset that is meant to redefine what it means to be American. And everywhere, the constant is chaos and crisis—President Donald Trump’s natural—and preferred—habitat.

Leid Stories says we cannot function “normally” as a nation when the leader has shown time and again that he isn’t.  

Special Counsel Robert Muller’s hardball legal tactics in sanctioning an FBI raid yesterday on the office of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael D. Cohen, has set off a legal bomb that could blow several federal probes apart.

Muller, using broad authority as special counsel investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and related matters, made a referral to federal prosecutors in Manhattan who then obtained a search warrant to collect certain documents and information from Cohen’s office. There is wide speculation that Muller is looking into whether Cohen was Trump’s go-between for arranging hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels for keeping quiet about her alleged relationship with Trump.

But other issues have come to light as a result of the raid. Of particular interest are large donations presidential candidates Trump and Hillary Clinton received through their respective foundations from Ukrainian steel mogul Victor Pinchuk.

Charles, who has been unraveling the mysteries and operations of The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on Leid Stories, walks us through the impact of Muller’s raid and the Trump-Clinton Ukrainian connection.

Leid Stories discusses the myriad ways in which we are compelled to, and even choose to, accept the excesses of government in what we are told is a “democratic” society.