president of peace everybody

Ok, so he breaks the law, AGAIN… that’ll be how many times? And how many consequences? And how will he be punished? Who will punish him? Remember, this is an insurrectionist that the administration from 17-21 did not go after because it would have been “taken as political”. So, again, who cares what the law says, because he doesn’t.

Trump has already been impeached twice. What else could they do except attempt to remove him from power, and with what army?
- Uh, my point exactly. Mother fucker thinks he’s untouchable because he is. The GOP have kneecapped our democracy to the point that if you are in power, you can do whatever the fuck you want.
- Being impeached doesnt inherently carry consequences.
  If you think of it like a trial, the house delivers the guilty verdict (impeachment), and the senate determines the sentencing. The senate basically said, "yea so what? No consequences"
  If the senate would do their job too, impeachment would mean something
I think that at this point people should settle on the fact that the only consequences Trump will ever face is in a history book 30 years after WW3/Civil War 2.
Well except in the Reconstruction States because there will be a number of lies that will endure forever, similar to the Lost Cause and Stabbed in the Back myths.
maybe cynicism will help
- I think cynicism is keeping a vast majority of Americans peaceful right now. We are being told we need to be peaceful, we feel the need to fight. We all cope with this insanity in different ways man.
We’re waiting on the Kilmar contempt case still aren’t we? (Refusal to turn the planes around)
Eh, he's not the first president to do so. Not to dismiss your own anger at this, but not everything can be the absolute last straw.

I mean, the Constitution of the United States is also very clear the fucker wasn't eligible to BE President again, but we all seem to have just shimmied right past that as well.

Do you mean because of the insurrection? I think there's something in that part about Congress needing to do something too, so Congress dropped the ball on that.
- The DoJ was a big help too

Congress has been shirking their responsibility to declare wars since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. They gave Presidents the power to carry out military actions abroad without a formal declaration. By passing the responsibility on to the president, Congress gets to avoid the blame for unpopular wars.

Even the Vietnam "War" which lasted 10 years, was never declared by Congress.

Bernie should be aware of the war powers act. It's one of the worse pieces of legislation ever, but it makes the whole declare war thing largely meaningless.

The act gives a president the ability to perform military actions provided Congress is notified within 48 hours of the action happening. Then the president gets a free 60 days to do whatever without additional approval. Then there's a further 30 days where forces should be withdrawing if there is no further congressional approval. However, that timeline doesn't really matter, as the Supreme Court ruled under Clinton that of troops are gone by the time the case gets to them then it doesn't really matter that the law was violated.

"It's illegal"

Someone remind him that the supreme court has judged that the usa president can do any crime willy nilly

Trump clearly demonstrated over decades that he is unable to not break laws, and he was arguably elected because of that. Therefore, the most democratic thing would be to let him be a dictator. 🤷

Yeah unfortunately that is not actually the way the law is written Bernie. Wish it was.

Short version, the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.

Only congress has the power to declare a war, but the Potus gets to defacto kick off the war and then dare congress not to back him.

After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to "review" the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war. So the only thing they can do is turn off the finances to the military, and wait for the money to run out - which is generally up to a year. They have no way of forcing the president to desist other than impeachment or cutting off the funds.

They can pass a motion, or even legislation, which the Prez can then veto, pointless. If they can muster the 2/3rds of congress they can remove him via impeachment.

Edit, spelling correction and to note that I can pull out the full details if needed - was discussed heavily on reddit a while ago

Its like choosing the president is a really important decision.
- But genocidal Kamala is just as bad! I was informed about it multiple times by accounts on .ml (and not all of them are operating exclusively during Moscow working hours)
- Sounds like more should have been done to prevent trump even getting on the ballot while his opposition was still in power. Oh wait, but then they couldn't run on "trump bad" and would actually have to champion something for the people to get their votes. Oh well!
Yup. Someone has to be the ultimate commander of the military. Unfortunately (at least right now) POTUS is the commander in chief of the military.
So while his actions may not be a formal declaration of war, they certainly can cause a foreign nation to declare war on the USA.... Which simply pulls the US into a state of war regardless.
Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?
That would be great....
Sincerely, a Canadian.
- Not American, but I am in favour of convicted felons not being in the White House too
- Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?
  You’re right. Next time we should vote for someone respectable! Someone who has experience! Someone who went to a good school and is smart! Someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime! Someone like that would NEVER illegally start a war of aggression on false premises! Such a completely hypothetical scenario is basically ~~unmemorable~~ unimaginable!
Your comment contradicts the Wikipedia entry...
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. ch. 33) is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization", or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces".
- Scroll down that page to the section about "Questions regarding constitutionality" after reading that, also consider
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Clinton
  Campbell v. Clinton, 203 F.3d 19 (D.C. Cir. 2000),[1] was a case holding that members of Congress could not sue President Bill Clinton for alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution in his handling of the war in Yugoslavia.
  Further reading
  https://www.npr.org/2011/06/16/137222043/why-the-war-powers-act-doesnt-work
  https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31133
  https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/RL33532.pdf
  https://www.propublica.org/article/what-exactly-is-the-war-powers-act-and-is-obama-really-violating-it
  TL;DR a law being passed that intends to achieve a certain outcome is not the same as it actually achieving the outcome. The law intended to constrain the president but failed because it had no enforcement mechanism and could be vetoed by President
  As Bernie well knows because he twice sponsored a change to the law that was vetoed by trump (2019 & 2020) - See your wikipedia page in the sections for Yemen and Iran
the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.
That is how it's been interpreted, it's not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents 'commander in chief' role by reserving the right to declare war for congress. If the president can still effectively declare war without a declaration of war, it's the same as not having that check in the first place. It's basically a loophole that presidents have been using to do illegal things
After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to “review” the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war.
It's 60 (with an additional 30 days to withdraw the forces) as outlined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. This was an attempt by congress to close that loophole.
It's true that they can cut off funding (as per Section 5c of the WPR), but congress pretty much already had that power as per the constitution and that's not actually their only recourse. It's still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it. He could also be censured and as you mention impeached for it. None of those things are likely to happen now, but my point is Bernie is basically technically correct if not practically correct.
- That is how it's been interpreted, it's not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents 'commander in chief' role by reserving the right to declare war for congress.
  Agreed, the founding fathers definitely didn't want a king who could wage war at his whim, but unfortunately the constitution as drafted didn't envisage a standing army under the bidding of the President, it expected militias to be levied for defense as required.
  It's still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it.
  Kinda but not really. Something is only illegal if it is within the powers of the lawmaker to bind in that way. If the constitution doesn't provide that power then it is ultra vires and as if the law didn't exist. Unfortunately the constitutionality of the 1973 act is definitely questionable - I listed more in another response but
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Questions_regarding_constitutionality
  and
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Clinton
This is how we ended up with the Iran-Contra Scandal. The Reagan administration wanted to fight the growing communist forces in Nicaragua, but Congress forbid them, and denied them funding.
They decided to find the money by selling highly inflated arms to our bitterest enemy at the time, IRAN, only a few short years after they had held our Embassy officials hostage for over a year.
They took the profits of those illegal arms sales, and used it to finance their illegal war on Central America.
So these traitors don't even take no for an answer when Congress shuts off the money tap.
What congress can do is refuse to pay for the war/police action. They still need to write the checks. Wars don't last long with out money.

Remember Vietnam?

The president has the power to deploy the military even without a declaration

In the sense that if you take power you don't deserve you have it

Actually, the constitution IS ambiguous in how it defines war. If it weren't so ambiguous, presidents wouldn't be able to take advantage of the War Powers Act so easily - as they have done for decades.

The US hasn't declared war since WWII despite both red and blue presidents dropping untold bombs since then. The hubbub about Trump unilaterally carrying out "military action" is less about scary orange man, and more about an executive branch that has been concentrating power for decades under red and blue presidents alike. This, like many other things, is something that leftists have been sounding alarm bells about for ages.

Stop elevating the Constitution. It is an extremely weak, vague, and antiquated document that was written almost exclusively by 20 something, white, enslaving, landowing white males. I know of no other constitution that explicitly enshrines the right to enslave people. The US constitution is an embarrassment, and its no surprise its getting torn to shreds once the first unabashedly fascist shows up.

Pepperidge Farms remembers "police action" in Vietnam
- "Vietnam, stop resisting!"
Really it's surprising it took this long.

If they haven’t noticed. Trump does whatever the fuck he wants. If he ignores the ruling of courts, do they think he will read a post on X and be like “oh shit, you’re right.” No, posts on X are fucking useless. He will ignore congress like he does everything else. His ego is severely damaged after the little parade and leaders not worshipping him at G7. He is realizing his place in the food chain and looking for a win to boost his ego.

Come on it is not a war, but a special military operation....

A "Police Action."

Went thru the same shit with Bush 20 years ago.

Diaper Don gonna order brown people to get bombed so he 'looks like a tough man".

Fuck that guy and everyone who voted for him. Or chose not to vote. Fuck you even more.

There is absolutely ZERO reason to believe that those who didnt vote would have voted for Harris. In fact, every person I know who didnt vote are trump defenders. Every one. Every. Single. One.
Fuck you even more.
I've never understood this pov. Sure you can say no vote was the same thing as a vote for trump, but surely the people that actually voted for him are worse, no? I can understand 'fuck you just as much', but even more?
- It's the apathy, or the belief that it somehow doesn't matter. To quote Walter Sobchak:
  Nihilists, fuck me. Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos.
"Looks like a tough man". Is this really the level of political comprehension we're working with? No wonder you idiots elected a fascist. Are all of you 12? Go back to playing fortnight.

Unfortunately our Constitution isn’t worth the paper its gift shop reproductions are printed on. Unfortunately, it’s been that way for a long, long time.

I mean I'm not sure what to say to anyone that still thinks the Constitution is something the United States actually adheres to.

It's null and void the minute it gets violated at the highest levels of government with no repercussions and we've already crossed that line multiple times.

The Constitution is not valid anymore. The first step is to accept that fact. We're not going to get anywhere endlessly debating a document that isn't taken seriously by the ones capable of enforcing its mandates.

There are 0 rules that explicitly state they apply to the rich (enough)

GWB : Hold mah beer.

The POTUS has a window of discretion where he can act unilaterally without congressional approval. And they ALL have done so over many terms.

The hard stop is when congress needs to appropriate funds to pay for the war/police action.

Maybe we need to take away those powers and put Congress in control.
- Perhaps. Until there is a real crisis that does require immediate action. There is no good answer here. Have a window of discretion, or be unable to trigger action and get innocent people killed due to inaction.
  Which do you prefer?

After watching some of the footage on Saturday, it's annoying to think "these are the people who will need to pull off a coup?"

He's not wrong. Definition of genocide and war crimes are also pretty clearly enshrined. As are our countries laws against funding them.

yhea, Have you seen the news?
rule of law is dead in the US

OMG that's hilarious. We haven't declared war since WWII. But how many presidents have done just that? Good luck with that argument.

Oh. He must not.

And you're going to stop him, right?

Well, we're waiting, any day now, determine away you useless feckless fuck.

He’s. it useless. He’s just alone. AOC and him are the only Democrats speaking out throughout this whole shit show

Keep pissing into the wind, Bernie.

He’ll do what he wants without consequence, whine about it online as if he’s somehow the victim, and then continue to break more laws.

What a sweet old man.

“I don’t care what that old paper says” -Trump

Well, shit.

By Trump's rules: Have no plan, just do the opposite of what the liberals want

Now he has to

We haven't followed that law in so long though

Will there be a January 7 at the White House ?

Yeah, but nobody has given a shit about that since like... Korea?

I think most of those congressional powers have been eroded for a very long time.

Even if we ignore the fact that he can easily coax our useless congress into agreeing, the entire government has done nothing but dance around this requirement ever since the end of WWII. You won't see a congressional declaration of war unless its literally WWIII.

2/3 of Congress is owned by AIPAC so it wouldn't make a difference anyway.

uhhh ok sure but that doesn't mean loopholes exist

and like loopholes the founders knew abt, like its by design that the POTUS moves the military arround

to say that this is illegal isnt sensible, you might be against it but still

Ya congress's check to that is supposed to be the ability to cut funding

Taco’s a bitch, he’s leaking all this to get leverage to make a deal. He’ll pussy out and Iran knows it. They’re playing the same games with him but from a position of knowing he’s full of shit

As soon as I see who wrote it, my mind reads it as "cleah."

In the case of war on Iran, Trump successfully ended it, or ended so far. Congress as part of the zionist first rule over America would definitely have authorized it, and may have been behind "discrediting the success" report leaks, in order to extend the war. Israel did fail to provide immunity from war crime repercussions, and so likely happy, at citizen level, with ceasefire. But congress is no threat to zionist supremacy, and a debate procedure, just legitimizes the illusion of non tyranny.