The issue is that Obama broke the law in doing this. The fact that he did it for a deserter who may very well turn out to be a collaborator makes it even more disgusting.
Nice attempt at deflection, though.
I assume the signing statement was 1)issued more than 30 days ago and 2)known to Congress. Can you refute one of these assumptions?
Really? In what way does pointing out that Obama broke the law constitute bleating? I’m really curious to hear this explanation.
Well, you certainly would know disgusting.
…except in the threads about in Great Debates and IMHO.
Thanks, mhendo; In my own rather pathetic defense I hadn’t had a chance to read the full article at the time I posted.
Right. This, for me, is a major issue, and a major disappointment of the Obama administration. I have to say, however, that I don’t hear many conservatives bringing up this particular issue, despite what would seem like some rather low-hanging fruit.
I’ll leave it at that; I wasn’'t going to vote for Obama in the next election anyway. :dubious:
I don’t need to.
The law requires that he inform Congress when he’s going to release anyone from Guantanamo, and that he specifically inform Congress of who is going to be released, and assure Congress that those being released will not pose a future threat to the United States.
If his signing statement had named those five prisoners explicitly, provided information about the reasons behind their release, and offered information explaining why they were unlikely to pose a future threat to the US, you might have a point. But it doesn’t, so you don’t.
The signing statement contains no such information. It is a general statement about the problems that Obama has with the law, and a statement that he essentially intends to ignore the law in cases where he feels that it conflicts with the constitutional duties of the President.
As both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General McChrystal have said, any allegations against Bergdahl have nothing to do with how we value US servicemembers who have been captured by the enemy. And I’m thankful for this.
As a veteran, I’m very thankful that guys like General Dempsey are in charge, and not guys with your attitude.
Desertion has been proven? News to me, don’t they have to conduct some sort of trial for that?
Exactly.
What we have are allegations that may or may not turn out to be true. In the meantime, what we KNOW is that we had member of the US military held captive by the enemy, and that man is now home.
If he did something wrong, then that will come out, and he will suffer the appropriate penalties, but the fact that there are some allegations against him does not negate the fact that he was an American soldier held captive.
A law which is unconstitutional on its face is void ab initio. It doesn’t matter if a court has found it unconstitutional before the fact (though of course it matters if a court finds it constitutional at some point.)
It’s already been tried in the court of Republican opinion.
But there is a difference between a law that is unconstitutional on its face, and one that is later found to be unconstitutional. That is, there are plenty of laws that are obeyed over a considerable period of time, under the assumption that they are constitutional, but are later found by the courts to be unconstitutional. Is this law unconstitutional on its face? The legal discussions in numerous media outlets suggest considerable disagreement over whether it’s unconstitutional at all. I would think a law that generates such heated discussion and disagreement among legal experts is unlikely to be unconstitutional on its face.
To be honest, the whole “unconstitutional on its face” issue has always struck me as an odd legal fiction anyway. No law is constitutional or unconstitutional except that someone’s interpretation makes it so. The way that lawyers use the term “unconstitutional on its face” implies that some laws are, or are not, unconstitutional without even the intervening step of human interpretation and analysis.
Try this, moran.
Heard on the news this morning that Bergdahl had done a walk-about similar to his last one on at least two other occasions, once in Washington state, one other time in Afghanistan.
He’d wander off for a couple of hours, and then reappear. If he was repeating that dumb-ass pattern, he possibly just got unlucky this time and ran into some hostiles who captured him. Easy enough to since he hadn’t brought his weapon with him (because of guidance from his CO, apparently).
If that is true, i understand why they did it. The fact that there was a defensible reason for breaking the law, however, does not mean that the law wasn’t broken.
Of course, if they had notified Congress, and Bergdahl was killed as a result, i’m pretty sure i know what the reaction from morons like Clothahump would have been. “Presidential incompetence leads to murder of heroic soldier.”
I hate to sound stupid, but can someone fill me on the specific law he broke? Maybe a link?
I promise to read it. I do not promise to understand it.
From here. It’s in section 1035.
It’s the 30 day requirement that has people in a tizzy. A stupid tizzy but a tizzy nonetheless.
It’s not a stupid tizzy, but it’s fair to judge that the President either acted appropriately given the circumstances, or is not bound by the law since it infringes on his executive powers.
The Senate will ask for explanations, as it has the right to do, and his relations with the Senate will be affected by his level of cooperation with their oversight. Even if they may not have the power to make him give 30 days notice, they certainly have the right to know what went on and why, and if the administration stonewalls them, that will cause problems with both parties. Already the administration has been caught in dissembling, claiming that they’ve been briefing Congress. Jay rockefeller said that the last time they were briefed was 2011.