Posted on 06/17/2011 6:54:40 PM PDT by Hoodat
WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.
Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.
But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good Lord - we need need lawyers to convince our President that US airplanes dropping bombs on another country in an attempt to overthrow its Gov't is considered "hostilities?"
obama “kills” Bin Laden and spikes the football for weeks, yet Gadaffi takess a half hearted pounding, loses hundreds or thousands of Libyans to NATO attacks, yet lives and mocks everyone.
Syria's Assad mows down hundreds or thousands of civilians and it isn't even a page one story. Russia and China join to warn obama off Syria but remain strangely acquiescent of NATO’s half-vast pounding of Libya.
What exactly is obama’s agenda? Who benefits from this?????
Something is just... off ... with this entire situation.
Is this a dry-run for using US forces against Israel without Congressional constraint???
Paging Mr. Beck...Would Mr. Glenn Beck please pick up the RED courtesy phone?
I was a little surprised that the Times reported this.
Der Fuhrer-Imam
The Constitution is a living document, don’t you know? It can always be rewritten as necessary for the convenience of the good guys.
His evil is definitely intentional, and I do think he sees himself as the first Muslim dictator of the US.
But he couldn’t be doing this alone (for one thing, he’s not bright enough to work out the strategy). Some of the people who helped him get where he is are probably naive leftist ideologues, some are probably the typical leftist personally loyal hero-worshipper, some of them may think he’s going to give them power because they’re black - but there are some others who are probably getting a little uneasy right now. I suspect that there are even some Dems who are beginning to realize that this isn’t what they thought they were bargaining for.
I think his overall agenda is to promote Islam and the power of Islamic Third World countries. Many of the people behind him want to promote Marxism, which fortunately for them fits fairly well with Islam.
I think he believed that when he took over, all of the Muslims were going to acknowledge their true leader (him) and everything would be groovy. He's so self-obssessed that he probably really did believe this.
But it hasn't worked out that way. He may be doing wink-wink, nudge-nudge with some of them, but a lot of them regard him as an interloper, and I think he's having a hard time dealing with this.
He's using the US military to advance a weird Islamist agenda to show them his bona fides, so to speak, and prove that (a) he's not loyal to the US but to Islam and (b) he has lots and lots of power.
If accurate this just says there are a bunch of ‘destroy the character of the USA’ controlling and operating our government. For Congress and SCOTUSA to let this go down as history is a crime against the oath to protect and defend the Constitution. All should be removed from office if not charged with treason.
You are absolutely right and it could not be more clear if it was written in indelible ink across his forehead.
He is a muslim decapitation strike on America.
Thing is...he's not as good at it. This should be fun to watch.
Obama is doing things no differently than nearly every President since Andrew Jackson.
That somb!tch.
Something is just... off ... with this entire situation.
That theory kinda explains some weirdness. Other than that, I’m just as clueless as to why zero gets away with the sh)t he does.
Comet Honda
Check it
There’s been substantial coverage of the House having voted on 6/14 to cut off funding for Libya. What hasn’t been made clear is that the vote was essentially worthless.
The House passed (248 to 163) an amendment to a military appropriations bill. While the appropriations bill has a good chance of passing the Democratically controlled Senate, the amendment will not actually cut off funding for Libya.
The wording of the amendment is key: “none of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act.”
Obama has decided that the actions in Libya are not hostilities and therefore do not fall under the authority of the War Powers Act. So not only has Obama told Congress that he doesn’t have to consult them about this operation but also that he controls the money for it by way of a legal definition.
That’s why he overruled the Office of Legal Counsel.
Some lady from the audience asked Glenn Beck today if Hillary would be running for President in ‘12. Glenn said he thinks she will because the Dems will be bailing on O to save their own necks!
Some lady from the audience asked Glenn Beck today if Hillary would be running for President in ‘12. Glenn said he thinks she will because the Dems will be bailing on O to save their own necks!
I really don’t want to check it.
Did enough research today to ~assume I’m OK where I’m at.
Maybe.
Some lady from the audience asked Glenn Beck today if Hillary would be running for President in ‘12. Glenn said he thinks she will because the Dems will be bailing on O to save their own necks!
This is not an issue for the SCOTUS; it is for Congress to take action in the form of impeachment.
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