Intro: "The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal - Barack Obama - have reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya."
Ralph Nader doing an interview during his 2008 presidential campaign, 08/01/08. (photo: Scrape TV)
Waging Another Unconstitutional War
18 June 11
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he meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal - Barack Obama - have reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya.
You see, the widespread daily bombing of Libya, the strict naval blockade of Muammar Gadhafi-controlled Libya, the destruction of Gadhafi's family compound and tent encampment in the desert - killing his son and three grandchildren - and the deployment of special forces inside Libya is not a "War." It is, in the Obama White House's evasive nomenclature, just a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" Can you find that phrase in the Constitution?
If Obama used the word "War," he would have a more difficult time explaining to Congress and the American people (three out of four oppose this war) why he did not (1) seek a declaration of war under Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution, or (2) seek Congressional authorization for appropriated funds to further the war with our NATO co-warriors, or (3) comply with the deadlines of the War Powers Resolution. He threw all three lawful restraints on his presidential unilateralism overboard.
So, in the invidious tradition of George W. Bush and his indentured confessor, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, now comfortably ensconced on the law faculty of the University of California Berkeley, Mr. Obama is blithely claiming as authority for taking our country into another war "the inherent powers of the President under Article II of the Constitution." This wouldn't pass the laugh test by Jefferson, Madison, Franklin Mason or even Hamilton. James Madison believed placing the war-declaring power in the exclusive hands of Congress was the most significant achievement during the convention in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. No more King George substitutes for America's future, they demanded.
Note that Libya did not attack the US or its appendages, and did not attack a member of NATO. Obama admits these points. Libya's trusting government sovereign fund even left $37 billion in the US, which Obama promptly froze. Lacking even the prevaricatory pretenses for Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Obama and Hillary Clinton now say the US is militarily involved "to protect our interests and advance our values" in the region and, of course, to protect the "universal rights" of the Libyan people. (Opportunities abound for this Obama doctrine around the world from the Congo to Syria, to Burma, to occupied Palestine and many other areas.)
Desperately seeking legitimacy, Mr. Obama cites the UN resolution, NATO, and the Arab League instead of seeking it from Congress. For all treaties with foreign countries, including the UN Charter, are trumped by the US Constitution (Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957)). As a former teacher of constitutional law, the president knows this basic principle but then, as Lord Acton declared: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Congress, rendered a rubber stamp by president George W. Bush, is bestirring itself. On June 3, 2011, the House of Representatives passed H.R. Res 292 declaring that the president shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya. On this matter, Obama pleads state secrets.
On June 16, 2011, ten members of the House - five conservative Republicans (including Walter B. Jones (Rep. N.C.) and Ron Paul (Rep. Texas) and five Democrats (including Dennis Kucinich (Dem. Ohio) and John Conyers (Dem. Mich.) filed suit against president Obama in federal district court for an order declaring the US war in Libya "without a declaration of Congress with the use of funds never approved for such a war" to be unconstitutional. Given past judicial decisions declaring members of Congress to have "no standing to sue" on what they call "political matters," this suit is facing an uphill barrier.
Congress has appropriated no money for this war, already costing nearly a billion dollars, nor has the lawless Obama asked for it because he knows there will be strong bi-partisan resistance.
So where is the Congress to go but to the courts to decide this internal, domestic issue affecting the separation of powers provoked by a clearly lawless president? The degraded, politicized, formerly professional Office of Legal Counsel is a sleazy apologist for presidential overreaching for over two decades.
The expanding immunities of the Executive Branch, now increasingly embracing the military contractors of the corporate state, is destroying the remaining pretensions that we are a nation under law. When he was inaugurated as president in January 2009, President Obama said he wanted his Administration to be known as one of "transparency and the rule of law." You'll recall during his 2008 campaign he trumpeted that he would obey the Constitution, inferring the the Republican regime was trampling the Rule of Law.
Indeed, in 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama stated that "the president does not have any 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." Vice President Biden was even more vehement on this issue. And Secretary of Defense Robert Gates originally opposed the attack on Libya before falling in line.
Gadhafi's dictatorship is a brutal one. Civil wars are brutal. People are dying and suffering. The country is being torn apart. Obama and NATO are not adequately testing offers for a truce and supervised elections. Top-level officials are defecting from Gadhafi and hoping to help lead any successor government.
Regimes brutalize their people whether as dictatorships, authoritarian rulers, connected with dominant oligarchies, or through racial, religious or other sectarian repressions. Is the US, mired in deep recession, debt and its own kleptocracy, going to continue to police the world with bases, interventions, subversions or occupation?
The cause of human rights everywhere, needs a permanent, well-quipped professional United Nations peace-keeping force and effective international courts to prevent mass massacres and mass brutalities. That time is not near but it should be at the top of the agenda of civilized nations.
The US, as the number one military superpower, provoking antagonisms by its penchant for control throughout the world, should not imperially advance the empire. It is that belief which is bringing Right and Left together, not just in Congress, but around the country.
(Also See: ComeHomeAmerica.us, edited by George D. O'Neill, Jr. Paul Buhle; Bill Kauffman and Kevin Zeese, Titan Publishing Company [2010].)
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In all of the cases I could find of cops being convicted and sent to prison for murder, the victim was white. But none of them were killed in prison.
Nobody will do any research on it, just keep on quoting Anderson Cooper and the grinning -- excuse me, GRIEVING -- parents about "Sandy Hook".
It's just sickening.
http://www.sandyhookjustice.com/
You can't rely on government officials or propaganda organs like CNN to be telling the truth since 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's WMDs. They have an agenda and it is not in the best interests of your liberty, truth, or justice to accept uncritically the version of events they are propagating.
My wife was a pediatric critical care nurse in Oakland, CA for almost 2 decades, and the thought of all those children, shot and bleeding out without any emergency medical professionals being permitted to try to save some is both heartbreaking and shocking.
Finally, more than an hour after police knew the shooter was dead, the Medical Examiner's Staff went in and simply declared each and every one of them dead.
The police knew the shooter was dead within 10 minutes of first arriving on the scene. The school was taken off lockdown and the children allegedly evacuated within a half hour. And yet, medical workers were not granted access.
That is troubling, especially to anyone who has experience in emergency medical care.
The police considered the scene secure enough to let hundreds of children walk down the halls, out of the building, through the parking lot and down the street, and yet refused to let medical staff in.
At the Aurora Theater scene, EMTs were allowed in even while the police were searching for the shooter's accomplice that many witness/survivo rs reported seeing.
For that matter, why are there no photos or videos of these hundreds of children walking to the Fire Station?
We all saw the one famous photo of a dozen or so kids in the parking lot, but that's all.
"Why do Americans always" believe whatever the corporate media tell them to believe?
Thank you!
I have another question. Why do so many of these comments sections have comment rating numbers that don't show how many pluses and minuses, but only the running total?
Totally ignoring the police gang murder of an innocent, unarmed man who was not breaking the law--and the fixed grand jury that refused to indict the killer cops.
And ignoring that raging injustice could set off extreme anger.
When the grand jury refused to act, I knew they were going to get cops hurt or killed. And they did.
Time to face the music. Bad cops have ignited national rage.
And NYPD and Giuliani, don't castigate the public or protestors as the enemy. You are just making the situation worse--and shredding any semblance of respect we once had for you.
fredboy, your posting is a good example of what our problem is in this country.In the 2nd paragraph you say he wasn't breaking te law but he had multiple priors for the same infraction...se lling loosies. And for the grand jury to act, they would had to find them at fault and they didn't.
Then you call it a raging injustice. Well if you start with that extreme anger, and the grand jury didn't, it follows that you would presume injustice and would only see what you wanted to see. And calling it racism stokes the flames even higher. I could ask why there isn't any uproar over Dillon Taylor, an unarmed white boy shot & killed by a black cop in Utah. That cop wasn't indicted either. The real problem isn't race but that we put guns in the hands of cops and depend on them to keep the law using their own judgement. You can mitigate this problem but it will not disappear because of the poor gun control in this country. And cops don't take chances. I remember a plumber being shot & killed by police when he crawled out from under a house where he was working. OOPS wrong guy.
My father fought against fascism in WWII. I'm sure as hell not going to start supporting it now.
Since there weren't, you're just hyping your fantasy.
These are not a "recent spate of killings." I find no evidence that the rate of police killing people (specifically black males) has increased this year. For some reason, the corporate media has made them "news" this year, and that is an interesting phenomena.
The Zimmerman case was not a police killing. Still, though many of us feel that the case was bungled, and justice was not served, there were not the types of protests you berate after the verdict.
I agree with your comments about actual trials but disagree that people would be satisfied with anything other than conviction. I brought up the Zimmerman case because protesters are still calling it no justice (as you just did). I'm not sure what you mean by "hyping my fantasy." All I said was that people are calling for justice but will not be satisfied with anything less than conviction and they should say what they mean.
That is hyping your fantasy.
They are trained to shot and kill. I think it is time to reevaluate that training along with teaching them not to draw their gun unnecessarily. If they are too scared to be in their assigned location without a gun in hand, they should not be cops.
The roots of the problems here go back generations, not months, and tracing those roots would take more time and space than is allowed here. It comes from the divisiveness inherent in the 'us versus them' that is the core of the issues at this time. And the disintegration of the application of the law even handedly to all citizens, regardless of color or economic status.
What most of the people are missing, who line up with the position that the police are justified in shooting blacks - or anyone, for that matter - when they are unarmed, is that they are afraid of the real possibility that if this 'us versus them' mentality continues, it will not neglect them, either. They won't be immune to such sanctioned violence. This is the potential end result of the degradation of our rights under the Constitution and Bill or Rights. These rights of citizens apply to all of us; white, black, anyone - or they can be abrogated at will by anyone who has been given the power to do so. As the police are who swore their oaths to 'defend and protect'; as the NSA, CIA, FBI, SCOTUS, Congress, and the Administration swore the same oaths.
This divisiveness enhanced by 'security' excuses that override the oaths, will destroy our democracy. Is doing so. Remember.
Wow. Ugly. But reality of history often looks that way when brought into the present.
And who was it that first said that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?
Any aliens who show up in invisible starships to assess humanity's suitability to be allowed out into the rest of the galaxy would most likely conclude that we should be contained on this one planet to see if we manage to avoid self-destructio n from sheer willful stupidity. That's assuming such aliens don't have a vested interest in helping us along to said self-destructio n. Who knows?
Also must cops are veterans taught to shoot first and think later in Basic Training video games