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To: fluffdaddy
"The War Powers Act is unconstitutional. "

You forgot to preface that with "In my opinion". It's pretty clear that it's still good law.

"Every President since it was passed has treated it as such. "

Yes, that's the problem and that's how we end up entangling ourselves in places we have absolutely no business being - Kosovo, Somalia, LIBYA etc, etc.

Clinton has made it pretty clear that if wasn't for the abortion that was Operation Gothic Serpant, he would have unilaterally intervened in Rawanda. Wouldn't that have been swell?

So, if we have presidents that ignore US law for long enough, those laws become dead letters, or something?

Maybe Posse Comitatus is unconstitutional too? Should presidents just ignore that as well?

We need to get back to some basics. If there's not enough popular support to get a congressional authorization to involve ourselves in some military engagement in a faraway land, then we shouldn't do it. We have got to STOP indulging a President's personal whim to play world police.

13 posted on 05/03/2011 4:22:43 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: OldDeckHand
Nobody, literally nobody, with any expertise in constitutional law would argue that the War Powers Act (or Resolution if you prefer) is constitutional. No President has treated it as such. Several have repudiated it explicitly and Presidents of both parties have refused to follow it. No Congress has insisted that any President comply with it. No House has ever impeached or tried to impeach a President for flouting the War Powers Act. It's a dead letter, an historical curiosity, a product of the leftist revolt against the Vietnam War long since overtaken by events. Anyone who cites it is, to be charitable, naive.

Outside the world of black helicopters and sinister plots involving fluoridation, the War Powers Act is a punch line, not the basis of a serious argument.

21 posted on 05/03/2011 5:37:32 PM PDT by fluffdaddy (Who died and made the Supreme Court God?)
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