Members of Congress are taking steps to make the war on terror permanent — and make the Constitution optional — for future presidents. Only days after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, members are moving to relieve presidents of any need for approval from Congress — or anyone — in committing troops in the fight against terror. The bill would take the “The Authorization for Use of Military Force” passed after 9-11 (and used to justify two almost ten years of worldwide attacks) and extend it to allow military operations against any “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.”
While some members are still objecting to the third undeclared war in Libya (launched with no authority from Congress), other members want to give away any semblance of checks and balances on presidents in waging such operations. James Madison be banned.
The bill, approved last week by the House Armed Services Committee and heading for the floor this month, would replace the limiting language referencing Al Qaeda and the Taliban with the open-end phrase “forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” After the rollback on standing by federal courts, it is not clear who would have standing to challenge a president’s claim of “hostilities.” The bill would also violate international law by allowing the detention of “belligerents” until the “termination of hostilities.”
The architect of this measure is committee chairman, Howard McKeon of California. Only 30 members have publicly signed a letter in protest to McKeon’s bill.
It is the latest radical change in the careful balance struck by the Framers in our Constitution. Members are continuing the trend toward the concentration of power in the president — a model expressly rejected by the Framers. During the constitutional convention and ratification conventions, the Framers repeatedly warned against giving a president this type of unchecked authority. Yet, the love for all-powerful leader seems to rest like a dormant virus in even free societies. Madison believed that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition” and created the tripartite system to have each branch jealously guarded its own constitutional power. He did not anticipate so many members eager to surrender power to an ultimate leader.
No free nation can long exist as a nation engaged in a permanent and ill-defined war. This bill itself present a clear and present danger to our constitutional values.
Source: NY Times
Jonathan Turley
This seems to my untrained mind to be unconstitutional. I assume I am a member of the majority here. My question is, on
standing to challenge. It it necessary to have “standing” to challenge in all cases in fed courts? Can a fed court address the issue of constitutionality on its own without action from an outside party?
Buddha,
You may want to educate the electorate first with some simple public shaming first.
You’ll never win a prosecution for an attack against the constitution like this without a jury that understands the nature of the attack.
Blouise: “If this bill makes it out of the House and out of the Senate then the only recourse left is a Presidential veto.”
You were being funny; right Blouise.
Obama turning down power? That is hysterical.
Bob,
It’s essentially an act of war by Congress against the American people. Howard McKeon and everyone who signs on for his treason should be put in shackles and frogmarched out of the House. “hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these
ColoniesStates; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the presentKing of Great BritainU.S. House of Representatives, Senate and Supreme Court is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”Let’s start by arresting McKeon.
Dennis Kucinich signed Conyers’ letter to McKeon … here’s a link to the letter:
http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=News.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=dbcf5e36-19b9-b4b1-12ba-bcb567a5c402
If this bill makes it out of the House and out of the Senate then the only recourse left is a Presidential veto.
This type of action taken against the U.S. constitution is infinitely more harmful than any terrorist attack.
Impeachment wouldn’t be sufficient here; this is criminal.
“The principle of the separation of the powers of government is fundamental to the very existence of constitutional government as established in the United States. The division of governmental powers into executive, legislative, and judicial represents probably the most important principle of government declaring and guaranteeing the liberties of the people. It prevents the exercise of autocratic power, is a matter of fundamental necessity, and is essential to the maintenance of a republican form of government. In short, this division of power provision serves to create a governmental structure “resistant to the forces of tyranny.”
“Although there may be a blending of powers in certain respects, in a broad sense the safety of our institutions depends in no small degree on the strict observance of the independence of the several departments. Each constitutes a check or balance upon the exercise of its power by any other department, and, accordingly, a concentration of power in the hands of one person or class is prevented, and a commingling of essentially different powers in the same hands is precluded.” (Departmental Separation of Governmental Powers, Importance and Purpose of Principle, 16A Am Jur 2d CONSTITUTIONAL LAW §247)
See Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.
The warsters who drafted this legislation are engaged in hostilities against the United States!
Like I say, our government is a wartocracy.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/05/government-of-momcom-wartocracy.html
John Marshall: “[Congress has] no more right to decline the exercise of [power] which is given, than to usurp that [power] which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the constitution.” Cohens v. Virginia.
J.F.K.: “What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.”
According to the PNAC report, “The American peace has proven itself peaceful, stable, and durable. Yet no moment in international politics can be frozen in time: even a global Pax Americana will not preserve itself.” To preserve this “American peace” through the 21st century, the PNAC report concludes that the global order “must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Canadian Eh!
Good dog! Sadly, welcome to our world … Considering how you, our neighbors to the north, are being treated at the border, I don’t blame you and your fellow Cannucks for staying the hell out of here … I wish I could stay the hell out of here.
I truly am just about out of patience with the rampant stupidity, fear-mongering and “Corporations are more important than you are, private citizen” bullsh*t coming out of DC. For example … on the way home from work last night, 1010 Wins radio out of NYC ran a story about Congress voting down to strip the oil industry of its welfare (oooo … shocking) … Mitch McConnell proclaimed that taking away corporate welfare for the oil industry will cost jobs and raise the price of oil. After repeating this in my head, I thought, “Hmm. Here is an industry that has net profits of close to $1 trillion dollars in the last decade … how will taking welfare from them cost jobs? And, how will it increase prices since they only sell domestically a fraction of what they produce?”
No, taking away corporate welfare is far too hard. Taking it away may into a fraction of their net profits … can’t have that! It’s much easier and much better to take away a few hundred dollars from a private citizen who relies on government help due to circumstances beyond his or her control. This is the logic in DC …
Stamford Liberal…..
I live in a ” Border city ” and every holiday…and in some cases opportunity, many people that I know have always gone on weekend shopping trips to Syracuse. Every winter many people that I know, and many more that I don’t know have always made Florida a week long necessity, they now frequent Cuba & the Dominican. Now, with our dollar being as high as it is, and American prices being so much lower than Canadian one would think that we Canadians would be rushing across the border to shop ( as in previous years even when our dollar was far llower than yours ). I don’t know anyone who is planning an across broder shopping trip this long weekend. I have heard stories of border officers ( American ) pulling people into their offices and strip / cavity searching Canadian tourists at random as of late. On 2 separate occasion of people who I personally know, both women, 1 at the Detroit crossing, and 1 at Syracuse both were interogated, searched, & strip searched. When these people asked the border guards what they had done they were both told ( separate crossings remember ) ” You’re in our Country now, we don’t need a reason “. They were then both refused entry into the US. There, again, was no reason given to these people.
I’m certainly no economist, but given the current economic state of the US, I have to believe that tourism would be an iimportant asset to the country. I also have to wonder, if your closest neighbors are being treated in this manner, and choosing not to cross the border, how are people from countries across the ocean feeling about touring the US?
Canadian Eh!
“The more I read about American politics the more I believe that members are in need of some strong Psychotropic medications to assist with thier paranoia.”
All the more reason why if I could afford to move out this country I would. The good old U.S.of A. is a shell of its former self and is slowly becoming all that it wasn’t intended to be. This place really, really sucks …
The more I read about American politics the more I believe that members are in need of some strong Psychotropic medications to assist with thier paranoia.
Don’t get me wrong, the events of 911 were an absolute tragedy, one that I hope to never see repeated in any country in the world ever again. Sadly this is just one more example of how Al Qaeda and the Taliban took control and seized the American way of life on that day and for every day thereafter! I don’t believe that it was the Towers or the Pentagon, or the White House under attack that day….they were simply symbolic targets of the American way of life. From everything I’ve read and seen ( Canadians get mostly American tv but for a very few channels )that way of life is gone….probably forever. No amount of invasion, fighting, or killing will ever change that again, in fact it is those actions ( amoung others ) that perpetuate the psychological damage that Al Qaeda and the Taliban started on that sunny September morning.
Don’t think for a moment that undesirables such as peace activists and others who stand for social justice will not be included in the definition of those hostile to the US. Not that I think it’s just fine to kill people overseas, I do not. I just wonder why more people don’t see the final destination of this govt., a complete police state, utterly broken socially by draining enormous funds for the MIC and financial industries taken from the bottom 80 % of the population. Exactly how long does that go on until the well runs dry and it is necessary to put down “rebellion” (meaning protest for food/water/housing/medical care/education etc.)?
I see this nation disintegrating before my eyes. I see people have been primed by the govt. to turn on each other, both left and right. It is difficult to see a way out. Obviously, there is complete collusion by the political elites in the dismantling of the rule of law. This is (and has been) a complete emergency for a long time now.
The people in this nation and around the world deserve so much better than a elite (de)composed of coke snorting death cult members. I looked at an old US coin the other day. It had Liberty with grain and thistle in her hair. I’m not trying to romanticize the past, but jesus, look at what this govt. is. All our money goes into raining death and destruction down on the earth. Our coins should just have drones and missiles and craters on them. That’s the value system of US “leadership”.
There has to be enough people who value life over this death cult, at least I hope so. Only people saying enough, you may not do this insanity any longer, WE CHOOSE LIFE, will have any chance of changing things.
This is a good idea and agree with it.
On one condition and one condition only – that this is written to state that it is only the dolts in Congress who are required to strap on their codpieces, grab their guns and do the actual fighting. No one else but Congress Critters.
Only then would I ever agree to something as illogical and insane as this.
I salute the brave effort of these valiant statesmen to codify policy which has been only tacitly approved until this momentous day. That, my friends, is the sweet, refreshing aroma of transparency in government.
Welcome to the Fascist States of Amerika.
War is peace.
Corporations are double-plus good.
Shut up and do as you’re told.
Do not look at the man behind the curtain.
This whole idea of a unitary executive is both offensive and unconstitutional in the extreme.
Why not just go ahead and appoint a king while you’re at it, Congressional asshats. Or better yet. Use the terminology of the Romans – Dictator for Life.
You have to be kidding me….right….did I pull a Van Winkle…..