If you’re a student of history, you already know that is the date the Reichstag gave up its powers and turned over complete control to its new dictator.
Back during the 2008 campaign, Senator Obama picked a curious choice of words that certainly sent alarm bells off in my head. He said that “when he is ruler of the United States…”. President Obama was schooled in how governments are run in Indonesia, and as an adult in Kenya. Despite being a “Constitutional professor” in Chicago, he clearly does not understand or agree with the structure it has in place.
So the 60 days for the War Powers Act are up. Congress gave him a two week extension to explain why we are in Libya and what the plan is.
Two top lawyers – one at the justice Department and one from the Pentagon told him that the War Powers Act does apply to what he is doing, and he must get approval or stop the Libyan “kinetic action”.
From the White House Press guy:
“This is not a unanimous legal decision within the administration, and it would be shocking if it were,” Carney said in reference to what he called constant debate over the war powers measure since it was passed in 1973. “… But the president makes the decision. Obviously, his White House (and) State Department lawyer also agree with his assessment, and we feel very confident that the legal reasoning is sound.”
The “Balance of Powers” of the Constitution don’t work based on one lawyer saying the president has a power. The President explicitly does not have the power to make war – that’s a power delegated to Congress.
The President does NOT make that decision. A complication here is that John McCain seems to get sexually aroused at the the thought of dropping bombs out of planes on civilians, and he is actively undercutting people who want to follow the Constitutional process. Thank God that idea that was floated for an Obama/McCain bipartisan ticket in 2008 was dropped.
In related news, the United States is now publicly announcing we are negotiating the terms of our exit from Afghanistan, and that process might start by late 2012, just in time for some election year photo ops.
The deciding point is rapidly approaching. Do we allow events to spin out of control? How little would it take for the country to give up and turn over complete control to a dictator? It can never happen here – are you sure?
it will happen here. see the nice little videos out of libya, syria, yemen? i’m afraid that could be us….
The only way the average citizen can stop this is to find a way to shut off the money supply that funds these illegal actions of the Federal government (in this case it’s the Executive Branch, but Congress has done it too.) Unfortunately I don’t see any way to do that in the current environment, short of enough states seceding from the union to create an impact – 1861 style.
The states are now heavily dependent on the Federal Government’s “Transfer payments” to do anything. My father warned in the early 1970s that Richard Nixon’s “Revenue Sharing” idea to give a one time stimulus to local and state governments was going to turn into a permanent entitlement that would be used to control local governments.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909740,00.html
“When someone wants to give you something for free, consider what they are going to want from you”
I agree. The states are addicted to revenue sharing, and always will be as long as the Federal government takes the majority of the tax monies from state residents. That’s why they have to go at the problem cold turkey. The 10th amendment can’t survive if all the tax money is flowing to DC first.