Most of the major party leaders on both sides of the aisle were pretty straightforward about their opposition to voting on the ISIS war before the Tuesday election. President Obama was fine with it at the time, insisting he didn’t need authorization.
Now that the election’s over, President Obama is changing his tune, and pushing for the lame duck Congress to quickly rubber stamp the conflict before the new one takes office.
“The idea is to right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the current fight,” Obama insisted. With the incoming Congress far more hawkish and doubtless to push a far more aggressive scope of the war, the president seems hopeful he can get the formality of a Congressional vote out of the way without them.
Legally, such a vote should’ve happened long ago, with the War Powers Act allowing the president only a 60 day window to seek authorization from Congress. If it had been held before the vote, the unpopularity of the conflict might’ve scared some off of backing it.
Now, with Congress outgoing and those returning to session years from having to face reelection, there’s likely to be much more stomach for pushing through a quick vote, and less serious debate.
So one of the last acts of the lame (more like 'paraplegic') duck session of the dysfunctional 113th Congress may be to collude with the President in passing an illegally overdue resolution declaring war retrospectively on a bunch of non-state fundamentalist hooligans?
Let loose the balloons.
That didn't take long after the democrats' defeat.
Nothing wrong with a lame duck Congress. The less government does, the better. It's not like it ever does anything good anyway.
Let's say he gets the war authorization, than what? Barack Hussein Obama shouldn't get involved in Syrian war by creating waht is called "moderate rebels", there is'nt a moderate rebels in Syria nor in Iraq they are thrives, they are saudis mercinaris and barbarians, they are the fifth military columns of the saudis and UAE, when Obama's secret services couldn't see that while on the ground working with these barbarians, there is something fishy smelling very bad, if they haven't smell the bad smell than there is something wrong with decision maker/s as they trying to wash their hand off of guiltily conscious, if they have it, by asking to go to war with what they created to begin with.
…hmmm… why ask the lame duck set when the 'hawks' are coming? Wants to show some Dem predatory creds?
Maybe he's actually hoping Congress declines to grant authorization or just never brings it up for a vote. To what end? No clue but then I've not had a clue to what's been going on on this topic for years. It's not made any logical sense. Kind of like standing blindfolded at the line and throwing a handful of darts at the board and those that stick become the plan.
Not a reply to the Vermont Curmudgeon; but to add; just consider, the lame duck has been lame for 6 years; lost his feathers too. He and all future "Presidents in Training", will eventually take the path of that tie salesman from Kansas City, and declare the next war is only a "police action". Anyone notice that 35,000 "police" are still there?
I will point out that all future Presidents are inexperienced when it comes to that office, unless they are incumbents. There is no prior training and despite claims by all who run that THEY know how to get things done, they don't..when it comes to being President. But, that doesn't exonerate the current resident from being woefully unprepared and incompetent.
Might be handy to have your opinion on … Would you say he's more of a scapegoat for the other party than other Dem Prez's? Or is the treatment of him just normal? (Clinton, maybe. Carter, …too young here to assess.) …either way just kinda dawned on me that he may be asking the Ducks for this just out of a feel for Rep belligerence (towards him)…kind of a thought that might've been just reflexive if I were actually a Dem…
Ah ha…there is no doubt, IMO, that the current resident gets "special" attention from the other party – and increasingly from his own party. My assumption is that this special attention is racially driven for many of his political detractors but there are ideological reasons, such as his evident incompetence, especially when pressured. He really should have stayed in academia.
Carter's issues were more a result of his surrounding himself with his people from Georgia and their lack of creds within the beltway. Carter also didn't mesh well with the degenerates who populate the other end of Pennsylvania Ave.
At least when other Dem prezs were dissed, they didn't rate the level of disgust that Obama seems to rate whatever the reasons.
Is it not an axiom of politics that the qualities and skills needed to get elected are not the same as those needed to govern?
The pols themselves do not care to differentiate. And with candidates who claim they can govern (especially from state Governors) I have to qualify that the job of President is unlike any other job and there is no amount of "training" or experience to prepare to fulfill the responsibilities.
Unfortunately, the voters have to wait until well after the election to decide whether the person they voted for can actually do the job. And by then it's too late. Doesn't explain why the voters re-elected Obama after he proved he could not function in the current environment so explicitly in his first term. Perhaps having the choice of the idjut you have and the one running against him/her is not a viable choice. Despite the failures of Obama, Romney would have been far worse. And we won't even bring up McCain and the half-governor quitter.
Another axiom is apt: all politics are local.
The problem is one of scale.
Voters in Redmond CA had no problem shrugging of $3m+ of Chevron's support for corporate candidates when re-electing people they knew.
Members of the US congress cannot connect with or adequately represent the number of people in their constituencies. The problem is 100 x for the President.
Impeach & imprison this WARMONGER TRAITOR–NOW. Come on REPUBS LET'S SEE YOUR 'TRUE' MOTIVES !
Obama will get his War authorization now or later, so I'm still not clear on what the rush is. So the Repubs will give him a broader mandate and more money for more military toys…is that somehow worse (from Obama's perspective) than a lesser mandate from a Dem Congress? "I want war authorization, but not too broad, because otherwise I might hurt somebody.?" Makes little sense, right? I'm still confused.
That's actually a good sign. If you aren't confused you don't understand what's going on.
The Repugs taking the Senate is no big deal. It makes no difference what
(party) is in control. Both are whores and prostitutes for big business,
MIC, AIPAC, and (neither) are worth a damn for the average citizen living
in the USG.
The entire election was a 4 BILLION buck Dog and Pony show the make
(us) masses think (we) have some say in regime.
Jason, I’m not sure if you reported this correctly. It seems they just want to craft the legislation during the current Congress & vote on it in the next one. See the parts of the Stripes article you linked to below:
"He said he would update congressional leaders about the fight against IS during meetings Friday. He said he wanted to start now to craft new authorization but that completing it could carry over into next year when a new Congress will usher in Republican control of the Senate."
Finding reasons to kill Arab/Muslims for Israel is and always will be a bipartisan effort.
Just as the glow of 9/11 fades…thousands of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan…not enough for Israel, there is still some Arab resistance so US Goy Cattle must come in yet again.
The way he phrased it, he is NOT going to ask for approval of the ISIS fight, but rather changes to the Afghan-Iraq AUMF to concede more discretion (and power) to Obama. Sadly, there are too many Republicans who will be happy to give him that.
I'm rather curious as to why Obama wouldn't wait until the new Congress is in session and asks for a formal declaration of war- that way, he puts the monkey back on Congress' back (and, by extension, the Republicans specifically), and if they don't do it anything that happens in the Middle East that is detrimental to US interests can be labeled as 'their fault'. By pushing for yet another AUMF, all Obama is doing is cementing his failure in the foreign policy business.
At this point, what would I do if I were Obama? I'd pull every bit of military personnel and equipment out of the Middle East, stop the air attacks, pull out the Special Forces- all of it- and then tell Congress if they want a war, they're going to have to declare it themselves. If the war hawks are that fired up about it, they should have no trouble pushing this through and getting a vote on it. So far Congress has been given a pass to just duck its responsibility- give it back them, whether they want it or not, and let them put their votes where their mouths are.