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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I too am curious when Obama started a war. Is Libya supposed to count here? That wasn't a war even by the most liberal definition.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:07:01 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@ Serocco: Not in particular, but I feel that section should be made both stricter (in that Congress alone has less power to go to war, and so the judicial branch can torpedo calls to war that aren't based in evidence beyond a reasonable doubt) and looser (in that a funky Congress like the one Obama had to face doesn't get to play games like it did).
There's stuff I'd be willing in theory to impeach him on, but providing air support to Libyan rebels wasn't it.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:19:17 PM by RadicalTaoist
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.I think it is fairly settled by practice that UN intervention does not count for the purposes of Article 1, section 8, and he hasn't started any wars other than Libya.
I too support tightening the restrictions on the executive branch in the US (and in Britain, but that's another thread), but I don't see how this would work in practice - how would you put an interim interdict going to war? Also, do SCOTUS justices have security clearance, given that the intelligence data could quite possibly come from sources still undercover?
Unless the President had to gain the approval of SCOTUS first, but given how politicized that court is that could lead to some nasty wranglings over national defense, which should be free of such things. Unless you mean that starting an unconstitutional war would be grounds for ex post facto indictment, which could work. Or, there could be passed a statute or Amendment requiring evidence that national security was threatened that was good enough to take to a court of law and/or UN approval before going to war. The trouble with courts and national security is that judges get self-conscious about not being elected and not being security cleared, and often tend to defer to the government on these things. Certainly in Europe, SCOTUK and the ECtHR almost always toe government lines when "national security" is invoked.
Don't get me wrong, I think more restrictions are a great idea, but I think forcing SCOTUS to approve each action (which this would in essence do, given the inherent controversial-ness of military action) might become impractical - we can't very well declare war on some country and then have the invasion fleet steam in circles whilst SCOTUS rules on its legality.
EDIT: Idea: When it comes to citizens' arrests, there is a "moral certainty" requirement, so one can use reasonable force to restrain someone obviously guilty (such as someone you saw commit the crime or someone caught in circumstances making it obvious they committed the crime), which could be grounds to waive this requirement: so SCOTUS don't need to rule if the ICBMs are flying, for instance, or if Johnny Foreigner is having a strafing competition over Pearl Harbor.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:25:34 PM by Achaemenid
Schild und Schwert der ParteiThe President has the Constitutional and statutory authority to engage in combat operations without Congress' approval or a formal declaration of war. This has been established for about as long as we've had a country. Congress holds the purse strings and can deauthorize expenditure of funds for such pursuits.
If you impeach Obama over Libya, you have to go back and retroactively impeach every President who's ever sent troops to fight anywhere without getting Congress' explicit authorization.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:17:54 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I've been dreaming of some judicial oversight, preferably based in international law, over our foreign policy adventures. We've needed that since Iran-Contra set the precedent that there would be no more Nixons - Congresspeople and Presidents risk almost no consequences for engaging in criminal activities nowadays, be it towards America or the rest of the world.
And
a few links
with which to work myself
into a frothing rage
.
Well, someone walked off the crazy pier.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Serrocco, are you aware that stupid idealism like you're advocating doesn't work in politics? Or in life? Tell me exactly how impeaching Obama would help fucking anything.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:41:05 PM by DrTentacles
You can't impeach a president for signing a bill that was passed by congress. It doesn't work like that, and that's not what impeachment is for. Saying things like that makes you come off far less informed of politics than you actually are.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick@ Serocco: Possibly the extrajudicial murder of American and foreign noncombatants abroad (I don't give a shit if it was done by drones or not), the continuation of extraordinary rendition practices, and his handling of the Katrina cleanup
. But those are reaching, and I don't know the degree to which he was handcuffed by regulations/bureaucratic limitations or blinkered by bad/deceitful advisors. I am aware that the President has a lot less policy power than often attributed to his position, and I don't think there's legal grounds to impeach him on the issues I raised above.
Besides, you don't impeach the least corrupt section of a hilariously dysfunctional government. Impeachment proceedings in a healthy government, a government that is accountable and transparent, a government that does not give time to political movements trying to actively disenfranchise large portions of the electorate, a government that can appoint department heads and release budgets on a sensible schedule - those are all good. Selectively impeaching a president who's a little dirty but who has honestly been better behaved than nearly any other going all the way back to Harry Truman, especially when the Senate is corrupt as hell, the House is batshit insane, and the Court has a bunch of parasitic fossils willing to give more electoral power to corporations than to Southern blacks? Seems a little selective.
I judge Obama's flaws in the context of his environment. He's not given as much opportunity to do good as I wish he did.
edit: and as others have said, Obama could not have stopped the NDAA. That was Congress' fuckup.
edited 19th Mar '13 2:42:47 PM by RadicalTaoist
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Which was bullshit, especially since no one so much as raised an eyebrow when he dropped a cruise missile on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant because those Africans were producing their own medical supplies instead of kowtowing to outside sources.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.![]()
Clinton bombed Al-Shifa because he wrongly believed it was producing chemical weapons, due to residue of a compound called EMPTA being found from CIA-obtained soil samples in the plant grounds. EMPTA is a vital component of VX and VM nerve gas. Where the CIA went wrong is that they didn't check what else could have produced the positive for EMPTA. Turns out the EMPTA was almost certainly the product of the chemical breakdown of the pesticides commonly used in Sudan. The bombing was a horrendous intelligence failure (for which no-one was held accountable), not part of some grand plan to force the Sudanese to kowtow to anyone.
Source: Wright, Lawrence The Looming Tower
, pg 282. Read it. It's brilliant.
EDIT: And, I should also say, for which no-one has apologized or admitted fault.
edited 19th Mar '13 3:15:46 PM by Achaemenid
Schild und Schwert der ParteiHmmm. I'd not heard that. I'll look into it.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.I don't think it's possible to name any politician or leader that hasn't done something that somebody hasn't disagreed with. That's an irrational criterion by which to judge them.
Serocco, your insistence on finding something to impeach Obama over smacks of the kind of hysterical fanaticism one observes in extremists. You might want to reconsider it.
edited 19th Mar '13 4:01:46 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

edited 19th Mar '13 2:06:19 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.