Since Congress has failed in their oversight role, when they should have immediately removed the juggling act of funding for this stupid act of war. Just do nothing like they did before.
And by the way, note that in O’s letter he never says that he needs Congress’s support, just that it’s always better to have it. He’s still a skeptic of the War Powers Act, in other words; he simply doesn’t want a legal battle over it if he can help it, since that would mean bad press for months.
Since “The President” is clearly violating the law, in it’s writing and in it’s intent, congress can just look at him sternly, waiting for him to finally let the curtain be drawn and show his willingness to violate the law of the land.
Before I get the mataconis and joyner argument on me not being a lawyer (which I am not, I’m lucky if I spell it correctly) or “history” and referencing the barbary war being waged without authorization (though notification once the truth was learned) American Citizens were in peril, routinely being taken slave, punished, and executied, and the weeks long travel before authorization was inconvenient to say the least, that is why we have ROE, because the Barbary wars were a war against PIRACY, which is already a part of common law, and requires no authorization. So Shut your hole.
This was a deliberate act, one that required 10 days of deliberation, just long enough to become muddled and confused because we chose to follow THE FRENCH!, because our president is stupid, and chose to “Oh, my bad, forgot for the last 2 months” bullcrap. no, he’s an idiot, and he really thinks he has a right to do whatever he wants. Congress SHOULD have defunded all action within a few days of the initiation, but they didn’t, they failed, fair enough, but the law is still the law and it’s still on the books, and if “The President” ignores it for the next 28 days, without specific authorization, he IS a criminal, and likely (only in the technical sense) knowingly so. Lack of enforcement of a law, makes breaking that law no less a lawless act.
