Seriously, what’s the catch? I have a hard time believing that Congress is actually trying to claw back authority from the executive.
The catch is it just won’t pass.
Last week, Kaine and Schiff forced a Senate vote to limit Trump’s war powers in the Caribbean. While that vote failed 48-51, two Republicans, Paul and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in support.
And even if it did, since when does he care about what congress says?
Better to put up barriers and add another option to convince a fence sitter than just preemptively surrender.
It’s an excuse for Chuck Schumer to show off his new designer glasses to his colleagues.
This is 100% political theater. It’ll never get through the House. And it’s meaningless anyway:
-
The CIA never needed a declaration of war to fuck around in other Latin American countries. They are already at work in Venezuela.
-
The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force is still active. It gives the president broad authority to unilaterally launch military operations against any group they label as “terrorists.” No declaration of war is needed there, either.
I remember liberals repeatedly twisting their hands over the AUMF back in '09 and '21 (and on and off with every new NDAA).
Lots of dramatic language about what might happen if we got another Bush admin. There was even a half-hearted push to repeal it in 2019, under Trump.
But too many Dems just suck. They don’t do anything useful. They’re just in the job to get paid.
-
The real fix would have been to have a better person in the Executive Office, more limitations of their power to extreme scenarios, and consequences for them ignoring other parts of the government to check their power. Of course it would also help for those other branches to also do their jobs for the benefit of the people and not for political or other types of favors.
The real fix would be to never create a scenario where the executive has so much power. Or really to never have a strong executive branch at all.
Yes, the Patriot Act was a complete fuckup. And that situation was avoidable by the GWB admin, at least at that scale. Never let a crisis go to waste.
Aren’t they shut down but still paying their base?
