Mitch McConnell appears poised to vote the President powers unlimited in time or space to pursue ISIS. He apparently put this together without telling anyone, even his deputy, and has advanced it using a Senate rule that allows him to bring it to a vote at any time rather than at a time scheduled on the calendar.
Oddly, the Democratic Party are the ones balking at this vast transfer of authority to the President. Senator Murphy of Connecticut described it thus: “It is essentially a declaration of international martial law, a sweeping transfer of military power to the president that will allow him or her to send U.S. troops almost anywhere in the world, for almost any reason, with absolutely no limitations.”
Plausibly much of the world has descended into a situation in which 'martial law' is the only law left, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. None of those three areas are likely to improve soon without major US involvement. On the other hand, this is a big ask to come out of nowhere with no national debate. President Obama has performed very badly as Commander in Chief, but he has now less than a year in office. We don't have any idea to whom we are delegating this authority. This may not be the time. Certainly it's worth thinking about whether or not a largely-unlimited transfer of authority is the right approach.
Yea, and people thought it would only be x days until they saw the last of Hussein.
ReplyDeleteI did tell them that there might always be some "emergency rule" extending his term to the 9th term, indefinitely. They'll start with the third time, but call it an "indefinite extension due to the state of the emergency" on his second term.
Fairly sure that would not fly. Nice thing about our current system, almost none of the people below Obama want to give up that shiny brass ring of the Presidency.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't call off the 1864 election for the Civil War. I doubt this is a pretext for it.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it doesn't make much sense, either. Not now, not like this.
It's a way of prompting debate on Executive Branch war powers and the War Powers Act, too. That's not all bad. Whether that was McConnell's intent, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
But then, why propose it like this, in an apparent attempt to either avoid debate or just surprise the heck out of people?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with people who are in DC too long, they get this blackmail list into circulation.
ReplyDeleteClinton isn't the only one doing weird things in private. The reason why a lot of Democrats didn't seem surprised that Frank was running a prostitution ring out of his home, a homosexual one even, was because all of them know generally speaking what everyone has on everyone else. Or at least, they know what PillowC and Reid has on them, in terms of blackmail, so they don't find it surprising.