For nearly a year, the Obama Administration has waged a high-intensity air campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, killing thousands of Iraqis and Syrians, including many civilians. Now they’re finally asking for retroactive authorization from Congress, as mandated by the Constitution, for doing what they’ve already done. So much for a nation of laws.
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Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Bare bones and bottom lines and all that shit? IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER.
The U.S. presiduncy is now wholly-corporate-owned and bankster -controlled, just as with the current dip-wad-pretending(not very convincingly)-to-be-a-progressive-negro-brand of leader.
Anyway, want to know about a seismic event that will derail most anything political? Just follow the U.S. dollar tanking as the world’s reserve currency. In other words, follow the money. Yeah, the ‘Pugs have a “clown-car,” and the Dem’s Bozo-limo is supposed to look more professional? Maybe so, but what if it does? We’re all still letting a perpetual war-crimes clown brand of neo-fascist pretend to run the show as its poster-politician.
You know, when “hope-against-hope” is all you got left, you really do got nothing left but uncommonly hard times for the 99%.
DanD
Wups, I thought I was posting this on the Presidential Campaign thread. In a way, it still fits.
D
Now Ted, once again you’re being far too critical of Mr Obama ; one would almost think you have something against him ! After all, Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution says :
«The Congress shall have Power To …
…
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;»
I inadvertently posted the above before finishing ; I meant to add that Section 8 nowhere mandates that the Congress must utilise that Power before the fact or that retroactive exercise is prohibited. Why if Mr Obama so wishes – and the Congress agrees – he could put matters to right any time before leaving office on 20 January 2017 and make all the unconstitutional wars in which the US has engaged without congressional authorisation legal by submitting, in his neat lawyerly way, a request for retroactive authorisation. After all, this is the 21st century and even politics is supposed to be «innovative»
Henri
PS : There is, of course, that minor matter of Article VI of the US Constitution:
«…
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
…» and the fact that the US as a signer of the UNO Charter, which provides, specific measures in Chapters VI and VII as to how conflicts are to be dealt with, is bound by these rules, but let us not confuse the issue further….