make a cogent argument here. You have one note: reflexive support for anything and everything the President does or says and you seem unable to articulate why you disagree with the above. The President has clearly set precedent. Even if you agree with this, what about future Presidents and the potential for abuse?

oh never mind. As the saying goes.... turnips and blood (or rather the lack thereof)

Seems like the OP could benefit from a little less time spamming DU and more time reading history books.

I await the surly response.

just for you, the BOG. I notice both you and the poster your "+1" failed to provide any intelligent argument re. the OP which is discussing a very serious subject, but sunk to ad hominem attacks.

[font size=3]“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”[/font] ---Senator Obama, 12-20-2007

President Obama is a Reagan republican

It's clear Obama believes ISIS is an actual threat to the United States. He's said as much. Notice there he said actual OR imminent threat and not 'actual imminent threat'. There is a difference.

Al-Qaeda in 1999 was an actual threat to the United States. They weren't an imminent threat, however.

All by itself.

Thank you.

You might need a backup plan.

Other than that, I'd have to see the field.

change parties.

Really?

Really?

and I thought you were on the Conservative side of the Party. Didn't you say you supported the President's stand on fracking and the TPP?

Really, making such an unrealistic BS argument goes beyond the pale.

I am probably more liberal than you. I simply accept the reality and don't make unwarranted demands.

I get frustrated at people that say they are liberal but support the status quo. I wonder if they ever look around at what is happening in this country. H. Clinton stands for everything terrible that has happened to the Democratic party. She is clearly in the pocket of Wall Street. We must have change. Pres Obama promised change but he reigned. And H. Clinton isn't even promising change, and if she did I wouldn't believe her.

Here's some reality for you. Cuomo should have been blown out of the water in New York. The Left BLEW IT. Why, because they could not get organized until it was too fucking late.

Andrew Cuomo should never be governor of New York, but the left in New York simply does not have its shit together enough o a local level to make the difference.

On a national level, we are NEVER going to get the liberal ideal. It simply will not happen. Electoral college politics on a national level simply does not allow that. This is why Barack Hussein Obama is the most liberal president in US history.

What sickens me the most is the failure of liberals to get involved enough on the local level to force the required changes at the state level which plays out at the national level.

Everybody gets all high and mighty about the president, which is really going to be a blend of the elements on a national level so can never be the liberal you want, while failing to push things at the local level to move electoral politics to the left of center position that the nation truly holds on a policy by policy basis.

In my ward, more than 5000 people turned out to vote in 2012 because it was a presidential election.

The next spring when municipal elections were held, I helped elect a very liberal Alderman with a total of 273 votes case in my ward. HE BARELY WON AGAINST A VILE TEABAGGER! In 2012 Obama took this ward 2 to 1. In the municipal election, the alderman who won, who was previously the precinct committeeman for the Democratic Party, won by 27 votes.

Tell me how we are going to be capable of getting state legislatures and governorships in off year elections so we can draw the district lines so that fair elections can happen and an actual representation of the views of the people can control the House of Representatives if we can't even get cpontrol of our municipalities on the most local levels?

WTF was he talking about?

You've got to convince enough people first.

How many would be required to make him do something that helps working people instead of corporations? And how would you suggest we "make" him do something besides sell the nation to right wingers? We voted for him. That didn't work. We didn't vote for him. That didn't work.

Congress passes the legislation. Obama got as much as he could with the Congress he had.

If you want to alter this, I suggest you start at the municipal level where teabbagers hold huge sway. Move up to the representative level of the state legislatures and eventually to the State Senate level. When you can hold both of those, it's time to take over things at the statewide level.

When you can effect change at those levels, then you can control how the federal districts are drawn and begin to effect change on a national level.

What, you didn't know this? How the fuck did you think the extreme right wing was able to gain so much power when they are such a fucking minority in this country?

running.

If US soldiers meet a very specific criteria as defined by the executive. Every other war act is not actually war. It is tortured logic.

DURec

Excellent article, thanks for posting this

i rather suspect it would show that obama is hardly breaking new ground in this regard.

The standard since WW2 has been to get into a limited engagement and then have congress approve "limited" warfare in the conflict we already stuck our nose into. Obama is really just continuing on the standard trajectory in this regard.

Why they passed the buck with the War Powers Act, why they shutdown the government and still earn a paycheck. Congress is to blame for a LOT of our problems.

Congress is doing nothing, the SCOTUS basically works for Wall Street now...so maybe get active in making the other branches of government work too. Obama is pretty much on his on, thankfully he has really smart people around him.

Also, his mother was a genius. Ann Dunham was an economics anthropologist and worked all over the planet...not small companies, huge conglomerates. USAID, Ford Foundation, the ILO, she was a consultant to a lot of global banks. Looks like she passed on her ability to lead.

And most people probably have no idea.

doesn't amount the offerings left in a squat toilet. 535 of them, and you could count the decent and not corrupt ones on one hand.

Congress is a huge problem. They can't rein themselves in and typically have an overly inflated sense of self worth. When they get elected out, they go on to high paying lobbyist jobs. Congress is the only institution in the US where if you get fired, you get a better paycheck.

They put 100s of thousands of federal employees jobs at risk, waste 26 billion dollars...so that the head GOP moran could read a children's book as a waster.

We must do something about gerrymandering and I think term limits might just be needed. Congress clearly knows it is dysfunctional and forcing the CiC to make all the decisions and then pretending the POTUS is acting unilateral. Makes me sick watching them get away with it year after year.

The only thing they care about is how many vacation days they get.

into empire and congress (both parties) have contributed to this shitting all over the constitution. Why they shirk their own duty when it comes to being the sole authority for declaring war, I don't know.

US Presidents have NEVER used armed force without getting Congress's permission first. NEVER.

Except for several dozen or so exceptions. Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, etc etc.

you and other gung-ho war proponents ignore his own words regarding this.

History did not begin in 2001.

For goodness sakes! He dealt with the Barbary pirates.

Seriously, the armchair hyper-leftists have no concept of history.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

it's still been treated as a joke.

No President has ever acknowledged that it's constitutional.

...had specific language saying that it was an explicit authorization under the War Powers Act. So there's not even that.

So long as the President - any President - goes after people publicly beheading U.S. citizens on camera, they're pre-authorized to attack them - no extra authorization needed.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

And don't get me started on that time he invaded Vietnam!!

Part of the left is just as crazy as a part of the right.

here is an excerpt:

<snip>

The AUMF from 2001 is a declaration of war against al Qaeda and its associated forces. In 2013 ISIS split from al Qaeda and has even attacked al Qaeda’s official franchise in Syria known as al-Nusra Front. Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, after pleading with ISIS to leave Syria to al-Nusra, formally kicked the group out of al Qaeda this year.

I think they are going to get more heat for this implausible interpretation of the 2001 AUMF than they realize,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who served as assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow and research director in public law at the Brookings Institution, said the legal argument was a “very thin reed.”

“If they are relying on the 2001 AUMF for this, then what the president is saying is, essentially: This war, like all wars, must end; we can’t have endless wars; stop me before I sin again,” he added.

Wittes said that he took an expansive view of what would constitute associated forces for the 2001 AUMF. But he observed, “Surely associated forces doesn’t mean forces that are actively hostile and have publicly broken with and been repudiated by al Qaeda. Whatever ‘associated’ means, I don’t think it means that.”

<snip>

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/10/is-obama-s-new-war-against-isis-illegal.html

History did not begin in 2001.

being unavailable to both Assad and ISIS.

that Decade of Fear law, but Obama is challenging all the lawmakers to obey it and enforce it...or repeal it, which those laws should be.

Can not have it both ways is the message he is sending to lawmakers in both parties.

When did war become an exception to the law, in a nation built on the rule of law?

anything about it.

I include both sides, refuse to repeal, even as Republicans good with the tyrannical law call the beneficiary of that law a tyrant.

I heard him say he would welcome it, but I didn't hear him seek it.

Apparently he is seeking funding for training and arming "friendly" extremists in the area and for the Iraqi army, which definitely requires Congressional approval, but air strikes in Syria he still feels he does not.

He said he already has the authority, and that he will inform Congress of his plans, and he said that he wants their approval, but that he doesn't need it to go ahead with his plans.

Haggard giving that address, I think his advisors need to be fired....

[font size=3]“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”[/font] ---Senator Obama, 12-20-2007


With this statement, Senator Obama clearly disputed the Bush Doctrine of Pre-emptive Attacks,
This, one of the few reasons he won my support.
Who coulda guessed The Constitutional Scholar would extend theses extraordinary powers of the Unitary Executive?

I can't help wondering how many gung-ho supporters of this new war will be claiming, a couple of years from now, that they opposed it. And I think we are seeing clearly how much partisan politics plays into supporting military action. If this was a republican president.....

So, your quote proves nothing. And make sure to read his words - he's not saying an actual imminent threat, but an actual OR imminent threat. Which he believes they are - as do many.

President Clinton continued air strikes in Kosovo (and Serbia) for a month after the resolution allowing the strikes failed in the house.
The precedent was set and now Obama will use it.

THIS SUCKS

We are a warmongering nation. Period.

I don't understand why he needed to make a speech committing us right now.
It's an ongoing situation not an immediate emergency and one that doesn't immediately threaten the US.

The only reason I can think for him to make a public announcement right now is to try and convince undecided voters that the Democrats can be hawkish also.
They seem to think that the majority of the electorate are right wing hawks and they want to convince them to vote Democratic.

It seems to me the whole logic of wooing more conservatives is futile.
They might do better actively wooing liberals to vote Democratic but they always focus on grabbing the conservative votes, but I guess I don't know what I'm talking about so I might as well shut up and focus on the Kardashians.

Obama has been a master at taking the blow out of the blowhard hawks.

The election is coming up and with cheney et al on the airwaves castigating Obama and Dems for being soft on the 'terrorists', this move by Obama has a large political undertone.

I am just pleased as can be that so many DUers are speaking out against more war and more bombs. But then that is what has made DU a great place for it's entirety.

Fuck the warmongers!

"when the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer then every job looks like a nail"

The U.S. has lost it's talent of encouraging non-violent ideological change for the good. Those in government, who are failures at diplomacy and taking the moral high ground, repeatedly resort to the only method that knuckle-draggers know---violent overthrow and waging war.

He worked for W and is trying to make W look good, but I think that he makes some good points that all presidents should keep in mind.

Going to war without obtaining the people's consent through a congressional resolution is really outside what our founders envisioned in spirit if not in legal technicality.

Many of us have seen the results of unpopular wars: disrespect for those who fought, spiraling defense budgets, loss of trust in any part of our government and deepening divisions within the country.

When President Obama took office, he wanted to avoid military actions that lacked the support of the people and those that once had that support but had expanded so far beyond that original support that the original war had become something totally different.

I hope that our President has looked within himself to the early days of his administration and is convinced that what he proposes to do now comports with the ideas that brought him to the White House in the beginning.

Is this what the debate has devolved into? An examination of executive minutiae? Is this DU or a law school?

The long and the short of it is that Congress can promote or stop the President's authority anytime they want.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

They can cut off all funding, even shut down the government since that's what the House wants to do, but they seem extraordinarily quiet right about now.

Are they cowed? Or are they okay with Obama taking all the political risks?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

1) leave us out of this;

2) hey, how about cutting us a piece of the action?

eom

Congress has avoided it's duty on war making powers with gusto since the fifties at least. So now it's Obama's fault he's going in as commander in chief without their specific permission? If anybody but the current GOP were in charge of the House, it would not be controversial.

...was done under this guy.



Yet what Obama is doing is "unprecedented"?

Congress can vote to go or not to go to war. The President still has 60 days of War Powers Act..plus an extra 30 days - beyond election day.

Dear ...

I’d like to take this moment to implore you NOT to embroil us in another unnecessary conflict in the Middle East.

Sure, I know you’re getting lots of pressure from the right wing and the media, but remember that the right wing is in the pocket of companies that will make money by keeping us on a war footing and the media thrives on generating controversy because it’s good for ratings.

Now, here’s why ISIS should NOT be your priority:
1. Right now, there are at least 30 Fortune 500 companies that are NOT paying any US income tax because of loopholes in the tax code you haven’t had the courage to close. This is a FAR greater threat to the American people than ISIS.

2. Because of policies put in place as a result of corporate lobbying, dozens of low quality ‘colleges’ are charging our children an arm and a leg for tuition, and aggregate student debt has exceeded $1.2 trillion. This is a FAR greater threat to the American people than ISIS.

3. Corporate-backed right wing politicians keep talking about cutting Social Security. You have been spending illegally out of the Social Security Trust Fund for decades now, and keeping this nation on a war footing, complete with massive, unnecessary, obscene levels of war spending will do nothing but HURT the American people. This is a FAR greater threat to Americans than ISIS.

4. Because this nation has been on a war footing from 2001 until now, we have plenty of capacity to spy on the American people illegally and overturn what is left of the Bill of Rights, but you have allowed the nation’s infrastructure to deteriorate. It MUST be upgraded to keep us competitive in a global economy, and the degraded infrastructure is a FAR greater threat to the American people than ISIS.

PLEASE, I implore you – think about future generations of Americans. Fix the tax code. Make college affordable to even the poorest among us. Don’t make any more cuts to programs that help Americans. Don’t touch Social Security. And upgrade our infrastructure. DON’T get us involved in another meaningless war in the Middle East.

Don’t. Please.

Sincerely,
My name

Maybe if we ALL write...

Airstrikes in Iraq -- already happening. Airstrikes in Syria -- possibly at some unspecified future point in time. Coalition of the willing -- That's all they talked about in Wales. Authorizing training for Syrian insurgents -- will ask Congress first for permission. God Bless America.

And that was about it.