Diegetics

So what if the top legal advisors at the Pentagon and Department of Justice told the president he had to get congressional authorization for the war in Libya? Obama was sure he could find someone to split the necessary legal hairs to find him justification to make war without pesky democratic checks and balances like, you know, the law standing in his way.

To say that the legal justification Obama accepted from other attorneys is weak, a stretch, contradictory, and without merit is just getting started in a critique of the president's actions. He actually overrode the top legal minds in government when it comes to warmaking in order to give congress the back of his hand.


New York Times:

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military's activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to "hostilities." Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team - including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh - who argued that the United States military's activities fell short of "hostilities." Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.

Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office's interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

For the record, Bush did something similar in overriding legal opinions at DoJ on FISA warrants. The legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques was also shopped by the White House.

But in the Bush case, these actions were taken post 9/11 and dealt with the security of the US. No one argues that Libya is anything but a "humanitarian" adventure with zero impact on the safety and security of the country.
And only rank partisans argue that our actions in Libya fail to rise to the level of involvement where the War Powers Act should not be triggered.

The moral of this story is, if presidents look hard enough, they can probably find a legal justification for just about anything.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... inion.html


CONFIRMATION UNITARY EXECUTIVE NOW A BIPARTISAN REALITY


and this from a so called constitutional law scholar?

our neighborhood organizer was our warlord in mufti

You're right. This is silly. We are openly engaging in hostilities in Libya. The War Powers Act shouldn't be dismissed.

Candidate Obama Says President Obama's War Is Unconstitutional


Critics of President Obama's unilateral decision to intervene in Libya's civil war note that it seems to contradict a position he took when he was running for president. In a December 2007 survey of presidential candidates, Obama told The Boston Globe, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." The Wall Street Journal summarizes the Obama administration's response:

The White House said the president's actions don't contradict his earlier views, noting that the president met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers regarding Libya before any action took place.

A senior administration official said that the 2007 comment envisioned "an invasion like we saw in Iraq. A mission of this kind, which is time-limited, well-defined, and discrete, clearly falls within the President's constitutional authority."

Seriously? Meeting with a few legislators is not, by any stretch of the imagination, equivalent to obtaining congressional authorization. As for the unnamed administration official's claim that Obama's 2007 statement dealt with "an invasion like we saw in Iraq," it is clearly not true. Here is the question Obama was answering:

In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

In other words, Obama was contemplating a scenario much like the current one in Libya, where the U.S. responds to "a situation that does not involve stopping an imminent threat" with air strikes aimed at destroying particular targets but rules out an invasion (as required not only by public opinion but by the U.N. Security Council resolution that Obama cites as his legal authority).

reason.com

how long can the so called two party oligarchy continue to rule

with so much growing awareness of their defrauding the American people?

This is an interesting article about the nature of a pandemic to the sovereignty of the state.

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=2698

Not endorsing it, just found it interesting.

Rumsfeld strikes again.

Wonder how many millions he made off of his Tamiflu fraud?