• NutWrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Congress has been shirking their responsibility to declare wars since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. They gave Presidents the power to carry out military actions abroad without a formal declaration. By passing the responsibility on to the president, Congress gets to avoid the blame for unpopular wars.

    Even the Vietnam “War” which lasted 10 years, was never declared by Congress.

  • bieren@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    If they haven’t noticed. Trump does whatever the fuck he wants. If he ignores the ruling of courts, do they think he will read a post on X and be like “oh shit, you’re right.” No, posts on X are fucking useless. He will ignore congress like he does everything else. His ego is severely damaged after the little parade and leaders not worshipping him at G7. He is realizing his place in the food chain and looking for a win to boost his ego.

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Remember Vietnam?

    The president has the power to deploy the military even without a declaration

    • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      This is why Congress passed the War Powers Resolution. It’s an open question whether the law matters.

      Every President says they are not constrained, Congress says that they are. The Supreme Court says, “this is a political question, not a legal question, so the executive and legislative have to sort it out”.

  • JohnnyFlapHoleSeed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    You know, that technically, when he violated his oath of office the first time, he resigned from his position. Once you violate your oath of office you no longer hold that office. You can do whatever you want to him, worse case scenario you have to wait for a pardon

    • stephen@lazysoci.alEnglish
      0·
      11 days ago

      I wish the law worked that way, but there is no technicality that violating an oath of office triggers a resignation. Resignation is resignation.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 days ago

        I asked Merrick Garland if Trump had done anything wrong and he just shrugged and said “There’s no way for us to know for sure so we didn’t want to take any chances by pressing charges.”

        Four years later, I feel like he made the right call. Imagine if the Biden DOJ had actually tried to press charges on Trump. Just imagine… I think we can all agree that their prudence and restraint really helped the US dodge a bullet.

  • Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    You’re right Bernie! But how are you, I, or anyone else going to stop him? I mean, somebody’s gotta do it…

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Unfortunately our Constitution isn’t worth the paper its gift shop reproductions are printed on. Unfortunately, it’s been that way for a long, long time.

  • minorkeys@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Are the generals going to refuse his orders? Is the legislative going to impeach him? Is anyone in American government going to do the job their very roles exist to do within the framework of power? What happens if he does? What’s been happening as he violates the constitution, daily? When he violates the rights protected, seemingly, by nothing but a sheet of fucking parchment?

    Whose going to stop him when he tries?

    • ryannathans@aussie.zoneEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      It’s not that someone has to stop him, by himself Trump can scream till he’s blue in the face and there won’t be a war.

      It’s that someone has to enable him to do so, follow and carry out the order, and order others to, etc. Which have to follow and carry out the order too.

    • Typotyper@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      He’s. it useless. He’s just alone. AOC and him are the only Democrats speaking out throughout this whole shit show

  • Awesomo85@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    The Constitution is NOT ambiguous!..except 1A…and 2A…and 25A…you know what? It’s NOT ambiguous on things that I disagree with!!

  • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafeEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Yeah unfortunately that is not actually the way the law is written Bernie. Wish it was.

    Short version, the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.

    Only congress has the power to declare a war, but the Potus gets to defacto kick off the war and then dare congress not to back him.

    After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to “review” the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war. So the only thing they can do is turn off the finances to the military, and wait for the money to run out - which is generally up to a year. They have no way of forcing the president to desist other than impeachment or cutting off the funds.

    They can pass a motion, or even legislation, which the Prez can then veto, pointless. If they can muster the 2/3rds of congress they can remove him via impeachment.

    Edit, spelling correction and to note that I can pull out the full details if needed - was discussed heavily on reddit a while ago

      • meowMix2525@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        Sounds like more should have been done to prevent trump even getting on the ballot while his opposition was still in power. Oh wait, but then they couldn’t run on “trump bad” and would actually have to champion something for the people to get their votes. Oh well!

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        But genocidal Kamala is just as bad! I was informed about it multiple times by accounts on .ml (and not all of them are operating exclusively during Moscow working hours)

        • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          10 days ago

          Biden/Harris would have done something similar to defend Israel from the consequences of its actions. Biden did bomb Yemen after all when it tried to stop the genocide. Biden is a self admitted Zionist and defended Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and supported the invasion of Iraq. Harris did nothing to distance herself from him.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            10 days ago

            Yeah, in most regards kamala would’ve been better, but this is Israel. She may have been less gung ho, which would be better for a handful of Iranians benefitting from slightly fewer bombs, but not better enough

          • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            0·
            8 days ago

            Trump killed more civilians in Yemen this one excursion than the US did in the previous 23 years.
            There is bad, and there is this bad. And not differentiating between the two is criminal.

            • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              8 days ago

              By the time Biden has left office he was already responsible for over 30,000 deaths in Palestine. They are all bad.

              • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                0·
                8 days ago

                By this point, there are only two ways to not understand what the degrees of bad are. Either you really, deeply, powerfully don’t give a flying fuck about people’s lives, and you see people as numbers you want to use to own the libs or whatever, or you are are so disconnected from reality, you really don’t understand what differentiate more suffering from less suffering.
                I really don’t know what’s worse, but both of those possibilities are deeply disturbing. You might feel like you’re a good person, but you really aren’t.

                • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  8 days ago

                  Do you deny that it was a genocide when Biden was president or do you deny his complicity? That’s the only way your comment would make any sense.

        • meowMix2525@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          10 days ago

          I’m sorry, do you have a magical alternate reality viewer that shows Kamala not doing the same exact thing except whinging along the way about “working tirelessly” to avoid the thing that is currently happening with zero repercussions for the aggressor state… ? Come on, don’t forget the president that kept warning about non-existent red lines as Palestinians were being (and still are!) slaughtered by the thousands, and literally bypassed congress to send munitions to Israel despite this. Y’know, the thing that will now be super bad when Trump does it?

          At least we & our government officials don’t have to pretend this is fucking normal just because the president is super duper apologetic about it and pinky promises that they care about all the lives involved but conspicuously only mentioning the ones belonging to the aggressor nation!!!1!

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      Yup. Someone has to be the ultimate commander of the military. Unfortunately (at least right now) POTUS is the commander in chief of the military.

      So while his actions may not be a formal declaration of war, they certainly can cause a foreign nation to declare war on the USA… Which simply pulls the US into a state of war regardless.

      Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?

      That would be great…

      Sincerely, a Canadian.

      • darthelmet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?

        You’re right. Next time we should vote for someone respectable! Someone who has experience! Someone who went to a good school and is smart! Someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime! Someone like that would NEVER illegally start a war of aggression on false premises! Such a completely hypothetical scenario is basically unmemorable unimaginable!

    • Wolf@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.

      That is how it’s been interpreted, it’s not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents ‘commander in chief’ role by reserving the right to declare war for congress. If the president can still effectively declare war without a declaration of war, it’s the same as not having that check in the first place. It’s basically a loophole that presidents have been using to do illegal things

      After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to “review” the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war.

      It’s 60 (with an additional 30 days to withdraw the forces) as outlined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. This was an attempt by congress to close that loophole.

      It’s true that they can cut off funding (as per Section 5c of the WPR), but congress pretty much already had that power as per the constitution and that’s not actually their only recourse. It’s still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it. He could also be censured and as you mention impeached for it. None of those things are likely to happen now, but my point is Bernie is basically technically correct if not practically correct.

      • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafeEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        That is how it’s been interpreted, it’s not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents ‘commander in chief’ role by reserving the right to declare war for congress.

        Agreed, the founding fathers definitely didn’t want a king who could wage war at his whim, but unfortunately the constitution as drafted didn’t envisage a standing army under the bidding of the President, it expected militias to be levied for defense as required.

        It’s still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it.

        Kinda but not really. Something is only illegal if it is within the powers of the lawmaker to bind in that way. If the constitution doesn’t provide that power then it is ultra vires and as if the law didn’t exist. Unfortunately the constitutionality of the 1973 act is definitely questionable - I listed more in another response but

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Questions_regarding_constitutionality

        and

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Clinton

    • sqgl@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      Your comment contradicts the Wikipedia entry…

      The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. ch. 33) is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president’s power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, “statutory authorization”, or in case of “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces”.

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      This is how we ended up with the Iran-Contra Scandal. The Reagan administration wanted to fight the growing communist forces in Nicaragua, but Congress forbid them, and denied them funding.

      They decided to find the money by selling highly inflated arms to our bitterest enemy at the time, IRAN, only a few short years after they had held our Embassy officials hostage for over a year.

      They took the profits of those illegal arms sales, and used it to finance their illegal war on Central America.

      So these traitors don’t even take no for an answer when Congress shuts off the money tap.

    • Bluewing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      What congress can do is refuse to pay for the war/police action. They still need to write the checks. Wars don’t last long with out money.