blackascoal
The Force is With Me
That's stupid.
yes on the syrian resolution says the congressional peeps
- Thread starter evince
- Start date
That's stupid.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
If Congress Says No, Can Obama Strike?
Among the many questions the Obama administration has been unable or unwilling to answer regarding its plans for military strikes in Syria is what happens if Congress refuses to authorize the use of force.
It’s a question that should be answered before, not after, a vote occurs in Congress, because it will clarify whether lawmakers are now engaged in the binding decision-making process required by the Constitution, or whether they are merely being used to lend an air of domestic legitimacy to military action that would violate international law.
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Even without a strong legal foundation, if the administration decides to proceed with airstrikes, there isn’t much Congress could do to stop it. Beyond impeaching the president or denying funds, both of which would require an unlikely stiffening of spines, Congress could hold hearings, as Senator William Fulbright and the Foreign Relations Committee did in the late 1960s and early ’70s concerning the war in Vietnam. It was at one of those hearings that a 27-year-old Naval lieutenant named John Kerry gave his first congressional testimony, against that ill-begotten war.
In Glennon’s view, it would be “almost unthinkable” in political terms for the president to proceed to attack Syria following the rejection of authorization by Congress. The administration wouldn’t be working so hard to make sure authorization passes if it didn’t recognize that fact. Rand Paul said this morning that he planned to introduce an amendment that would reaffirm Congress’ constitutional authority and the binding nature of its vote, and there are many others in Congress whose calls for authorization last week expressed a similar understanding of the Constitution. The only reason to object to such an amendment is to give the president an escape hatch by which to evade the outcome of the debate. If he has that—what’s the point?
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176034/if-congress-says-no-can-obama-strike#axzz2e2W54IgF
Among the many questions the Obama administration has been unable or unwilling to answer regarding its plans for military strikes in Syria is what happens if Congress refuses to authorize the use of force.
It’s a question that should be answered before, not after, a vote occurs in Congress, because it will clarify whether lawmakers are now engaged in the binding decision-making process required by the Constitution, or whether they are merely being used to lend an air of domestic legitimacy to military action that would violate international law.
---
Even without a strong legal foundation, if the administration decides to proceed with airstrikes, there isn’t much Congress could do to stop it. Beyond impeaching the president or denying funds, both of which would require an unlikely stiffening of spines, Congress could hold hearings, as Senator William Fulbright and the Foreign Relations Committee did in the late 1960s and early ’70s concerning the war in Vietnam. It was at one of those hearings that a 27-year-old Naval lieutenant named John Kerry gave his first congressional testimony, against that ill-begotten war.
In Glennon’s view, it would be “almost unthinkable” in political terms for the president to proceed to attack Syria following the rejection of authorization by Congress. The administration wouldn’t be working so hard to make sure authorization passes if it didn’t recognize that fact. Rand Paul said this morning that he planned to introduce an amendment that would reaffirm Congress’ constitutional authority and the binding nature of its vote, and there are many others in Congress whose calls for authorization last week expressed a similar understanding of the Constitution. The only reason to object to such an amendment is to give the president an escape hatch by which to evade the outcome of the debate. If he has that—what’s the point?
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176034/if-congress-says-no-can-obama-strike#axzz2e2W54IgF
tekkychick
New member
Re the Bush tax cuts - Obama tried to kill them; remember, the house is republican and the senate can filibuster. So a compromise was made and part of the bush tax cuts were cancelled.
Pres Obama has to work with a very hostile house and a fairly hostile senate; he can't do everything he wants to do.
Pres Obama has to work with a very hostile house and a fairly hostile senate; he can't do everything he wants to do.
If Congress doesn't want to get played it should repeal the War Powers Act. Otherwise, this is just pissing in the wind. Obama has free-standing authorization to launch attacks on Syria and Congress can't really do much about it. And that's even if Congress does not pass the authorization to use force.
cawacko
Well-known member
Damn, talk about a woe is me victim mentality. I DON'T HATE YOU DESH. I'm not so sure why the concept of having (political) differences with someone is possible without hating them is so difficult.
Cancel 2020.1
Canceled
Desh has been outed.
A neocon warhawk all along.
A neocon warhawk all along.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
If he has such 'free standing' .. why isn't he bombing Syria right now?
It's because he's boxed himself in a corner and he need Congress to bail him out.
Congress can't stop him from bombing the hell out of Syria .. but if it all goes wrong, as it very well could .. and Congress never authorized the attack, democrats will pay that price .. as they should.
History will have a lot to say about that.
cawacko
Well-known member
You're a smart man. Trust me, you aren't missing anything you haven't already read.
I don't care if she went to college or not but I will say the irony of her complaining the most of the board holding a debating competition is so rich because she could clearly use the lessons taught in debate class.
I'm just telling you how it is and what Congress ought to do if it doesn't want presidents to launch military strikes without its say so.
cawacko
Well-known member
I'm not trying to back Republicans by saying this but you are right about Obama backing himself into a corner. At first he was all set to go without Congressional approval. Then when Britain says no Obama turns to Congress for approval while still stating he doesn't need Congress's approval. If Congress does say no and he goes ahead and bombs anyway I don't think it unreasonable for many Americans to think "what the hell was that about?"
I think it's highly unlikely that Obama would go ahead if Congress doesn't give him authorization. And I think it wasn't simply the UK situation that resulted in Obama going to Congress. I think Biden, Kerry and Hagel (former longtime Senators) all urged him to do it.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Obama's Middle-Class Tax Flip After a decade of bashing by Democrats, the Bush tax cuts get strange new respect.
That proposition simply cannot be reconciled with President Obama's latest position, which is that America's middle class will find itself hammered if Congress doesn't extend President Bush's middle-class tax cuts.
Here's how President Obama put it during a recent White House event with a group of middle-class Americans: Unless Congress acts, he said, "starting Jan. 1, every family in America will see their taxes automatically go up."
He went on: "A typical middle-class family of four would see its income taxes go up by $2,200. That's $2,200 out of people's pockets. That means less money for buying groceries, less money for filling prescriptions, less money for buying diapers. It means a tougher choice between paying the rent and paying tuition. And middle-class families just can't afford that now."
To emphasize that these cuts are a big deal, he asked people to "tell members of Congress what a $2,000 tax hike would mean to you." He is now taking his message on the road, telling a group of Michigan auto workers on Monday that the end of the Bush cut would be "a hit you cannot afford to take."
In any honest universe, this would be news. President Obama says the middle class benefits mightily from the Bush tax cuts and cannot afford to see them expire. Which provokes a question: Where has our press corps been these past 10 years?
For most of that time, Democrats have been hollering that the only people to benefit from the Bush tax cuts were Bill Gates, Wall Street bankers, and the guy with the top hat and monocle who appears on our Monopoly sets. Now the same press that accepted, approved and amplified the "Bush tax cuts for the wealthy" trope leaves unchallenged a president who today tells us, oh, by the way, those Bush tax cuts are vital for America's middle class—and claims that the opposition to middle-class tax cuts proposed and put into law mainly by Republicans comes from . . . Republicans.
Perhaps the American people will accept this new Obama story line. If so, it will be because after years of assailing the GOP as the party of the plutocracy, this is the first time the American people have heard Mr. Obama or any Democrat in the party leadership concede that the Bush tax cuts benefited anyone save the über-wealthy. For the original complaint that Mr. Bush's tax cuts favored the rich over the middle class has morphed into the orthodoxy we know today: Tax cuts for the rich came at the expense of the middle class.
more
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171401043696178.html
That's not a position he was pushed into .. he is championing the Bush tax cuts.
Obama is a fraud and a liar.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Absolutely.
Obama is bumbling through this like a drunken sailor .. drunk with power. He played his hand before he knew what his cards were.
Now, Congress needs to back him for the US to 'save face.'
Fuck that. The face of the American people isn't on this pig, Obama's is. It's his face that needs saving, not the American people, not the British people, not the world.
canceled.2021.1
#AMERICAISDEAD
Or it could b that Obama is merely playing to the midterms. If he doesn't get his way he merely cries GOP obstruction.
He says "see they have a white guy authority based on flawed intelligence, here I a black guy can't get the same love"
Now the miscalculation I think he is making is that his base is turning on him. It was one thing for him to make democrats walk the plank for unpopular Obamacare, but this cuts to the heart of what many libs are.
He is making them not only vote against his constituents buy their own core beliefs. That is a tough sell.
Why do they have to be loyal to him? He is finished after this.
Personally I don't think he gives two shits about the Syrians and neither does Desh
Poor baby. Why do you hate our system of checks and balances?
Wait a second...didn't he have majorities in both houses of Congress for a while?
Cancel 2016.11
Darla
Well, he'd be really effing stupid if he did.
But I think he's going to get the authorization. There will be a lot of kabuki, for the suckers, but in the end...they're going to do it.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I don't disagree with that .. but it's become such a gotcha' gimmick, I don't expect them to change anytime soon.
Obama and democrats will pay the price with or without congressional approval.