I got my education from listening to him lecture us on what he would do as president. But I guess I missed the day when he covered the “oops” amendment.
So He would know for sure then that 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?
It’s ok though. He also knows it’s a lack of leadership that causes Congress to raise the Federal debt limit. He knows lots of stuff.
I wonder if he’ll say the same thing when our debt blasts through $14.3 trillion in the next few months. I wonder what excuses people will make for him then.
The President’s ability to tell the armed forces to shoot things is not limited to threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. He can tell people to shoot anything he wants. For example, pirates. Or he can outlaw Russia. It’s all within his power.
I’m not seeing the problem here. Why are you ranting about it being unconstitutional? You don’t like it, fine, but it’s perfectly in his enumerated powers.
Geez, John, I thought you were better than ElvisLives. Don’t tell me you’re sinking to his level and just ignoring shit you don’t like, like he does in gun control debates.
Wow, how sweet of you to say. Thank you. That made my day. 
Sarah, is that you?
I never took you for a “talking points” guy, John. You should be ashamed.
I apologize, Tom, I seem to have overlooked this post. (This forum’s “go to first unread post” feature works like shit.)
The author did not mention what Obama cited as his legal authority. But we know that Obama has to provide Congress with what he feels is his legal authority, in writing, within 48 hours of troop deployment, so clearly that’s been done. So far, I haven’t heard any member of Congress come out and declare that the Presidents legal reasoning is faulty. And though I can’t be certain, of course, I’m fairly confident that if he had faulty legal reasoning, we’d have heard about it from John Boehner by now.
The bottom line is, the WPA gives him the authority to engage the troops first, outline his legal reasoning second, then wait for Congress to approve or disapprove. If they approve, they give him the statutory authority to continue. If not, they can decide whether or not to pursue impeachment. In the meantime, the President still has that 90 day window within which he can continue, even without the permission of Congress, and even if they ultimately reject his legal reasoning.
OK. Now I know you’re joking. Only Sarah Palin can outlaw Russia, because she can see it from her front porch. Everyone knows that!!
Well, if you argument consists of name calling, I don’t think you should be telling people they should be ashamed of themselves.
I stand by what I said in context. I was responding to claims that Obama allegedly was unable to get Congressional approval because there was no time. He’s partly to blame for waiting until the absolute last minute before realizing he might want to act.
You want to argue with me over any topic, and I’m game. You want to retreat into the realm of name calling and smear tactics, then I’m not interested.
Well, apparently we will soon be doing more than acting as the tactical air force for the Libyan rebels. It’s not enough that we coordinate air strikes with the rebels and engage their enemies from the air.
No, now our humanitarian mission may quite possibly include supplying whatever arms we feel they need.
After all, our humanitarian mission to prevent civilian casualties has “failed to dislodge government forces from around key contested towns”.
Thank goodness we’re not getting into the Libyan civil war any deeper.
Awww, aren’t you just precious when you get called out. Not to mention hilarious when you have a temper tantrum over being called “Sarah”. “Name-calling” you say? Grow the fuck up. Your feigned offense at being spoken to rudely is obnoxious, given that you started the nastiness with this gem:
Now I know you’re Little Miss Sarah, constantly offended and whining about everything.
I’m in the Pit. I don’t have to be nice to someone who hasn’t been nice to me. Deal with it.
John, when Shayna tells you you’re getting simplistic and bombastic and hysterical … ya know?
The only person I’ve seen getting hysterical in this thread is Shayna.
That’s the first post I’ve seen here from you that isn’t.
You call that a temper tantrum? That’s pure GD material, baby. You should learn the difference between being offended and being uninterested in childish games.
It’ll be tough, but I think I’ll manage. I’ve got a session with my therapist later this afternoon, so she’ll be able to help me with the emotional trauma.
John, you’re really disappointing me. You don’t remember what I’m talking about?
I thought you had a better grasp of history and irony than that. What’s wrong with you? This is about fighting ignorance, not making partisan goals.
Your maturity, decorum, and civility are a beacon to us all, John.
I am not myself a pacifist, although I happen to respect it as a perfectly rational and honest belief, but one of the things about anti-killing for fun and profit folk, such as quakers or Jehovah’s Witnesses, is that they will — at length if you can’t avoid them — explain the rationale behind opposing each conflict so as to leave no room for the arguments of warmongers.
It would be kind of silly for an organization called Antiwar to simply put up a webpage saying ‘Wars Are Bad’ and leave it at that.
More Right-Wing anti-Obama Rethuglian Propaganda from the Capitalist Roader Running Dog Michael Moore’s site:
President Barack Obama announced his latest peace-through-bombs initiative last week – joining ongoing U.S. conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – by declaring he could not “stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and … where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.”
Within 24 hours of the announcement, more than 110 U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians – as missiles, even the “smart” kind, are wont to do. According to The New York Times, allied warplanes with “brutal efficiency” bombed “tanks, missile launches and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles.”
…
If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though – as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies – there’s an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the U.S. and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators. After all, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi reaped the benefits from Western nations all too eager to cozy up to and rehabilitate the image of a dictator with oil, with those denouncing him today as a murderous tyrant just a matter of weeks ago selling him the very arms his regime has been using to suppress the rebellion against it.
In 2009 alone, European governments – including Britain and France – sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. And before it started calling for regime change, the Obama administration was working to provide the Libyan dictator another $77 million in weapons, on top of the $17 million it provided in 2009 and the $46 million the Bush administration provided in 2008.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink — Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs
To be utterly fair, Obama’s selling Gaddafi $77 million in advanced weaponry would not improve his very minor league army, and certainly not against the United States Forces, which would be matching a slow tiny six-year-old against a 200lb 18-yr-old bully in the world’s playground, but was meant merely to help the Colonel maintain internal security.
The rebels have retaken one of the cities. How are we not directly involved with the war ? We are helping pick winners and losers .
If we are turning it over to NATO, they will help the rebels fight Gadaffy.
There is a story today about the West arming the rebels. You can not avoid the truth, the West is directly involved in a civil war.
And perhaps you’d be well-served by learning the difference between real name-calling (in the Pit, no less), and pointing out that your prior reputation was perceived to be above falling for, and using, absurd talking points that make you sound like a Sarah Palin shill. “Dithered”? Really, John? “Dithered.” GMAFB. So yeah, when you act like a sheep, you can expect to be called a sheep. If that’s a childish game to you, so be it.
That’s good to hear, because I worry about you and the affect the kool-aid has had on your formerly-intelligent brain. I wish you well.
You and I are whores, Shayna. John is a courtesan.
LOL! Seriously, where is the point system when you need it?!
+1!
And for the record, I’d rather be a whore in your court than a courtesan in John’s any day of the year. 