There has to be a way for the President to respond immmediately to a threat to the country. What if another country launched nukes and we had 30 minutes to respond? Would we have to convene a congressional session and get a formal declaration? While I think we need to start working on that issue right away, my thoughts are that we are engaged in a legal response to a surprise attack.
Marbury vs Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803)
"An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no right; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed."
Norton vs Shelby County118 US 425 p.442
"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, in in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it.
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it."
16th American Jurisprudence 2d, Section 177 late 2nd, Section 256
If it is contrary to the Constitution it doesn't exist. PERIOD. This is not a war. PERIOD. The president can respond, but he cannot declare war.
Let's do this. I'll give $50.00, every other family in the country can put up $10.00. We will offer a reward for the perpretrators of the 9/11 attack. Somebody will want to be a millionaire! There's lots of ex-KGB guys that would like a new Dacha on the Moscow River, or Mafiosos, maybe you'd do it for a few hundred million! We can bring the troops home, save the Billions of Ferns (dollars) and nobody, except the perpretrators will suffer.
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66