Was gonna help out with links, but Jack Balkin's place is over to the left and that is a great start
Sample post titles on the subject:
"The 1980 OLC Opinion on the Constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution" ...JB
"Life in a constitutional dictatorship (Again)" Sandy Levinson
How the WPR Became "Unconstitutional" Stephen Griffin
"George W. Obama and the OLC" JB
OT:Ezra Klein Says Michele Bachman Is Right About Obamacare ...Digby
George W. Obama is right
Sorry about the stomp. I agree about the bullshit.
You would think Obama would be in favor of having congress take political ownership of an unpopular war. But no, instead there is bullshit.
"Transparent bullshit" is an interesting image, if you think about it.
I was thinking of a defective Panera soda fountain when I wrote "transparent self-serving bullshit." Diet cola isn't supposed to be clear.
Moby obviously doesn't remember Diet Crystal Pepsi.
We've gotten about three years of invisible COLAs at work.
9: You mean it's clear? They forgot to add colaration?
And not only bullshit, but a dangerous precedent in that he ignored the advice of OLC and cherry picked advice from more friendly lawyers, which of is what every President always wants to do, which is precisely why it shouldn't happen.
Interestingly, one of the people providing the bullshit advice is Harold Koh, who is about as liberal as they come in the world of connected DC types, and who I would have put in my top two people I'd hope would advise any President on national securtity law. Oh well!
Didn't the past presidents always say, "We're not listening, this law is unconstitutional, my balls are bigger than yours" and then kinda follow the WPA anyway? I know they've always hedged and dodged, but I don't think there has been anything this blatant before.
That's not my impression -- I think the WPA conventionally gets ignored. Not in this particularly blatant way, but ignored. But I'd have to do some reading to check on what happened in, e.g., Gulf War I.
who I would have put in my top two people I'd hope would advise any President on national securtity law. Oh well!
Oh well, another gutter ball!
13: Congress authorized Gulf War I.
Yeah, my vague impression is that it's usually ignored as well, but perhaps with more fig leaves and a less transparently weird argument for why it doesn't apply. In reality, I don't really care much about the WPA, but the rationale and the process by which it was decided upon seem (from news reports, it's not like I know either the law or the facts that well) to be pretty screwed up.
A little quick Googling suggests that the ordinary route (Bosnia, Haiti intervention) is to order and begin the intervention, and then engage in post-intervention "consultation" with Congress that's more or less meaningless. A kind of gesture towards compliance with the WPA but not actual compliance.
I used to study this area, thought I don't have good knowledge of the last ten years or so, and I thought that while presidents have never admitted it was valid law and never missed an excuse to avoid it, no one has actually said something as stupid as "It isn't a war because they can't hit us."
A kind of gesture towards compliance with the WPA but not actual compliance.
True. They always have avoided the prospective part of it. I was just thinking about the 'after 60 days" part of the WPA.
Wikipedia suggests that Clinton ignored it in the Kosovo bombing, under the theory (contradicted in the text of the statute) that by voting funds for the armed forces, Congress had implicitly authorized the bombing.
But I'm remembering something with a couple of Congressmen bringing suit under the WPA, and having it thrown out because it wasn't more than half of Congress. Can't remember when it was, including which war or which president, but since 1990 or so -- I'm remembering it as stuff I read in the paper as an adult.
I think there was a lawsuit brought by some Congressmen about Bosnia? (Its hard to remember the time in which the GOP was furiously against bombing, but it did happen.)
18. Within living memory they actually consulted Congress first, and Congress declared war.
Call me old fashioned, but I think this was better.
Clinton was relying on the fact that Congress voted funds for that operation, not general funds for the armed forces. Still against the text and spirit of the WPA, but this seems more worser.
Yup, it was Bosnia. I remember rooting for them at the time, but I'd lost the details.
I'm in favor of practically any measure that constrains the government's ability to carry out military engagements. In practical terms, that means I'm completely hopeless and absolutely nothing legislative or constitutional matters the least damn bit, since we've been on a permanent war footing for over six decades now.
I've been looking at the Kosovo thing some more and I see that the House had failed to pass a non-binding resolution in support of continuing the bombing, so maybe this isn't more worser.
You would think Obama would be in favor of having congress take political ownership of an unpopular war. But no, instead there is bullshit.
I think Yglesias is correct that Congress appears to be actively avoiding taking ownership asserting that they have any authority in the matter.
That doesn't make Obama correct, but it does mean that it doesn't look like conflict between congress and the president.
I was joking at work yesterday that if everybody is ignoring the War Powers Act they should pass a new law that says that the US can't bomb more than two countries at the same time without getting congressional approval.
In any given month, we should only bomb countries with names starting with a vowel or countries with names starting with a consonant.
I saw Heartbreak Ridge the other day, which in addition to being objectively pro-fascist has got to be the only movie in which the invasion of Grenada provides the exciting military action scenes.
It's one of those Japanese movies where the title doesn't translate well.
31: Bahahaha. I saw that *in the movie theater.* I guess I was in high school. What a hilarious piece of shit. The invasion of Grenada! Weren't we just talking about medical schools?
I'd like more subjectively pro-fascist movies because I'm writing a dissertation on phenomenological totalitarianism.
re: 34
Heh, yeah, me too. re: cinema. Can't think why, either.
I saw Pearl Harbor in the theater and wondered how something with that many dogfights and Kate Beckinsale naked could be so unwatchable.
I see that the movie was PG-13, so maybe the last part of that was only in my mind to try to make the movie watchable.
34: Operation Urgent Fury.
Urgent need to wipe the Lebanon barracks bombing off the front page.
Per Wikipedia: State department officials had assured the medical students that they would be able to complete their medical school education in the United States.
Any movie that contained Kate Beckinsale nude scenes would be watchable. Multiple times. In slo-mo.
I'm fairly certain they wouldn't let me in the projection booth.
There's also the Walmart case to grouse about.
Transparent self-serving bullshit.
Obama did promise more government transparency.
I will vote against President Obama simply because of the war-mongering, no matter who the opposing candidate is.
Does that work if you're looking at equal or greater warmongering on the other side? Or, to be clear, I don't think it does.
In the primary? Or in the general election?
That Brad Delong and his practice of quoting the entire post.
It seems like such a short post in his blog's format.
(Also, if you live in certain states, you may as well vote for your neighbor's dog. It won't matter.)
On the internet, no one knows if you voted for your neighbor's dog.
48 was just me taunting the Californians and New Yorkers and Texans with my meaningful vote.
I actually support the underlying war -- it's pretty cheap, none of our troops have gotten killed, Ali Tarhouni is awesome and makes me think highly of the rebels, and the daily death tolls from conflict are a lot lower than from when Gadhafi was killing unarmed protesters.
That's part of why I'm upset about this War Powers stuff. There's a good case to be made for the war. Instead of making it in a straightforward way, Obama is acting like he's got something to hide and setting bad precedents.
It's transparantly bad bullshit that would've been alright if Obama had been a Republican for most of his critics on this subject, which is the most annoying aspect of this.
I've also decided to cast my meaningless vote for Not Obama.
52 is basically where I'm at. No Republican would've batted an eye at Dubya going after Gaddafi. It's been a wet dream of theirs since at least 1986. If anything, I'm sure Obama's actually playing softball according to the real desires of the GOP (what with letting Europe take the lead).
Not that I want to measure Obama against Bush-43—it's always going to be an improvement, since the last guy was a bumbling fool. Still, it's weird that the list of people this actually pisses off is more or less Kucinich, while Republicans act fake-pissed-off and the vast majority of the voting population is basically saying, "Whatevs."