We have been discussing the growing concerns over President Barack Obama’s series of unilateral actions in ordering agencies not to enforce law, effectively rewriting laws, and moving hundreds of millions of dollars from appropriated purposes to areas of his choosing. One of the greatest concerns has been his unchecked authority asserted in the national security area. I previously represented members of Congress in challenging Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war without a declaration from Congress. In the case, President Obama insisted that he alone determines what is a war and therefore when he needs a declaration. Since the court would not recognize standing to challenge the war, it left Obama free to engage in war operations in any country of his choosing. As with his approach in Libya, Syria and other combat operations, President Obama declared this week that he does not need any approval or even consultation with Congress if he decides to commit us again to war again in Iraq.
As in the past, Democrats are not just silent but actually applauding the circumvention of Congress — a precedent that will likely come back to haunt them if the next president is a Republican. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said that the President does not need congressional approval to do go back into combat and then matter-of-factly that in their brief conversation, the President “did not give us an array of actions he was planning to take.”
While we do not expect combat troops on the ground, the White House appears to be exploring an intervention with air power and possible special forces. The White House simply told Congress and the public to trust their uber president: “Any action that he might contemplate when it comes to … the use of military force will be to deal with the immediate and medium-term threat posed by ISIL.”
I recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. Obama has repeatedly suspended provisions of the health care law and made unilateral changes that were previously rejected by Congress. He has also moved hundreds of millions from one part of the Act to other parts without congressional approval. Now, his administration is reportedly changing key provisions of the ACA to potentially make billions of dollars available to the insurance industry in a move that was never debated, let alone approved, by the legislative branch. I just ran another column this month listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority.
This week I debated the head of the Brennan Center at New York University on Obama’s unilateral actions and the dangers that they pose on the PBS program Newshour. While my co-guest repeatedly insisted that he is “not troubled” by the concentration of authority in the presidency, I again believe that Democrats will long regret that they support the rise of this uber presidency:
Still no luck in getting my content post to show up!
Chalibi is the US choice for Iraqi president! (see nakedcapitalism or Democracy Now).
He was the choice of the USG/entity all along. He is guy helping providing the CIA cover for their own false information. Yes, this USG/entity cares about freedom, democracy, truth and justice.
USG/entity always has money for weapons, war and cruelty. It never has money for anything that makes a country actually work. No one seems to question where the money shows up for a drone strike by Mr. Peace Prize on both Iraq, the Syria. Why isn’t there even a question as to where the money will come from? Meanwhile, social security offices are closed to save money.
Where is American pragmatism? Why aren’t people acknowledging that there are ethical choices being made here, very bad choices? Why are people accepting this as if it makes sense? Watching your nation kill at home and around the planet? Why do US citizens that we say nothing except this is the “other” party’s fault? No objection to the behavior? Why not? We are watching this nation go down in flames. Yet, it is justified by Democrats and Republicans alike. I find that shameful. To care so little about justice and the lives of others. We must do better as citizens.
ST, Thanks for taking the time to tell me what has worked for you. I appreciate that. It was very kind!
Nick wrote “I saw a story on CNN about medical cannabis”
Forget the medical part. Come to Colorado where it’s legal for adults!
Saucy, just curious, do you see a potential candidate that you would vote for 2016?
Nick wrote “Obama tried to use the Chicago Machine way of doing business on a world stage”
I don’t think that’s right. The first Mayor Daley was corrupt as heck, but the city ran relatively smoothly. Of course, he did have that incident at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Obama’s problems are, as you said, arrogance and incompetence. He promised a lot of things which have not come to fruition, but two of my favorites are recognizing the Armenian Genocide and eliminating Scientology’s tax exempt status. The former may have been his ignorance of NATO realities, i.e. Turkey would have had an Islamic cow. The latter is difficult to understand, given that SCOTUS gave him a perfect precedent. But then the U.S. government made a deal with the sect in 1993 (see URL below). All Obama had to do was play hardball tactics with Scientology.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/essays/nytimes.html
He traveled to Berlin to wrap himself in the mantle of JFK during his campaign, but he never understood what that entailed.
Obama’s biggest laugh was his “red line” on Syria. It is Leadership 101 that one does not bluff in international matters. Both Russia and China were paying rapt attention.
He asked the countries in the South China Sea to stop squabbling, when the real issue is China declaring that the entire South China Sea belongs to it, in violation of every international convention on the planet.
He proved himself to be a deer in the headlights after Putin annexed Crimea. He should have traveled, unannounced, to one of the Baltic Countries and made a speech ending with — I am Estonian, I am Latvian, I am Lithuanian — in those languages, of course, showing those NATO countries that Putin will not be allowed to pull the same nonsense there.
He’s spent most of his political capital trying to create special rights for LGBTs. That may or may not be something worthy of a president’s efforts, but given that unemployment has raged during his entire time in office — U6 remains over 12% — he should have spent his time improving the lot of the average American.
Overuse of any good thing can be destructive, that includes drugs, drink and medical marijuana. I think it’s very important that docs prescribe the stuff after getting MUCH documentation of the illness it will be used for. For those who truly need it they should have access to it.
leej, I thought of you the other day. I saw a story on CNN about medical cannabis. It is encouraging how so many people have come along. I think you know Dr. Gupta has come on board as has your girl, Hillary when she was doing her book tour this week. There are still those who mock it and mock people who use it for medicinal purposes, but they are becoming marginalized. Anything new in your home state?
Bigguy, Cultists will be blaming Bush for everything from our horseshit economy to the foreign policy disaster until they die. Bush is responsible for the Obamacare website according to the cultists.
Eric, Thanks much. If I haven’t said so already, you are a welcomed addition here. How did you find this blog? I often thought a place where people can say what brought them here would be edifying to our host and fellow commenters.
The country and especially the Republicans should insist on formal congressional approval as putting our boys in harms way without the their approval will once again have them not accepting responsibility for seeing it through, and truly supporting our troops. Blaming Bush for this mess seven years later gets old. Put congress on record sand repeal these laws peiiting too easy exec action, too easily abused.
Nick Spinelli: “I have searched but found no information that we have an SOF agreement w/ Iraq for these troops we’re sending in.”
My comment unpacking the legal question is 1 of 2 comments that I’ve tried re-re-re-posting in this thread without success.
For now, if you’d like an opinion on the issue, you can read a version of the comment here (2nd part): http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-fall-of-mosul.html .
Thanks Sling, logged out then logged back in . Posted again but got message just simply saying comment could not be posted. Then when went to try again to see what would happen says looks like you already said that., Weird. maybe somehow it got caught in the spam folder.
The pretext reason for bugging out of Iraq in 2011 was we had no Status of Forces Agreement. That was BS but that was Obama’s ostensible reason. I have searched but found no information that we have an SOF agreement w/ Iraq for these troops we’re sending in. I voted for Obama in 2008. He promised many things, but up there was he would help rekindle good relations around the globe. What he did was crap on our allies, and kiss up to our enemies, only to get, as one might expect, get b!tch slapped by them. Obama tried to use the Chicago Machine way of doing business on a world stage. If Carter had been given a second term even he would have done better than this narcissistic, incompetent President.
Jill +
Starting a few months ago I had posts suddenly start to disapper into the ether.
Load a page. Use the comment link in that page to sign in to WordPress ( for the first time since starting up the browser )
If I simply post the comment then …. it’s gorn!!! My wonderful prose. My incisive remarks…Poofed!
.
By happenstance, I discovered that if I reloaded the blog page after signing into my WordPress account, and then typed, the comment would get posted.
I take it further now. I close the browser tab and pull up the page again from the email link or a copy/paste of teh URL – rather than simply clicking the refresh icon.
I didn’t dig into it further. I put it down to my browser operating in paranoid mode – blocks trackers, third party cookies, has fits if pages redirect to other pages, etc.
The browser is hopping from blog to WordPress and back to blog for the sign-in. I put the issue down to my browser-paranoia tripping up part of that process.
(comp was down since yesterday so don;t know if someone else posted this::Three days after the attacks of September 11th, Congress with only one dissenting vote approved a joint resolution entitled “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” In part, it says:
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
In Jan 2014, H.R. 3852: To repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.but they took no action. They could have bothered to act on this. Don’t go after the President for saying he has the authority, it was given to him by the congress.
Some lawmakers were outraged when Obama launched military action in Libya in 2011 with minimal consultation with Congress and no formal authorization from Capitol Hill.
They had ample time to act on the bill but chose not to.
SWM is right http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2014/06/obama_doesnt_need_congress_ok.html
And again the professor uses as his proof words like “reportedly” and “potentially” and the phrase “appears to be” That is gossip and speculation, not action or words from him indicating he would take action(s)
(Took the help comment so thght would try with the link without the http
(tried to post twice but did not take comment,, only had one link. Help. Thanks.
Jill, I empathize. The odd thing is that other of my comments have posted with no problem in the same thread before, during, and since comments I’ve re-re-posted that haven’t shown up. I can’t tell the difference. Darren Smith informed me that posts with more than 2 links are auto-flagged, but beyond that, what gets filtered out and what gets through is as much a mystery to the mods as it is to us guests.
I agree Jill, certain people tend to direct every thread about baseball, then scold others on different threads for not staying on topic. I get your frustration. Hopefully the topic actually does get discussed at some point, which it’s been done here. We could discuss those anti war protests. It was darn disappointing in the Wisconsin protests when at first they weren’t getting any TV coverage.
This light Paul. 💡