Obama Is Guilty of Executive Overreach, Says Lawyer Who Authored Bush Torture Memos
John Yoo thinks the president should have virtually limitless war-making powers.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference today, former George W. Bush administration lawyer John Yoo led a breakout session to promote his new book, Liberty's Nemesis.
Yoo criticized in no uncertain terms "the inexorable growth of the administrative state" under President Obama. "One thing that should be for certain is that we all believe in narrowing the size of the federal government," he said. "The whole point of our Constitution is to keep limits on the government so we have space for our individual liberty."
That's a fine critique. I don't disagree in the slightest that Washington under Obama has grown bloated, or that bureaucrats in the various federal agencies have been given far too much authority to draft "rules" that function as laws no one ever had the chance to vote on.
Still, it's jarring to hear those arguments coming from someone best known for arguing that the Commander in Chief does possess broad powers, including the right to unilaterally send American troops into combat and the right to make use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Hypocritical? Yoo doesn't think so. When an audience member brought up the War Powers Resolution—a law that was intended to rein in the executive's authority to wage war without a declaration from Congress but that presidents have been happily ignoring for decades—Yoo drew a bright-line distinction between foreign affairs, on which he said the Framers wanted presidents "to act with energy and vigorousness," and domestic affiars, on which "they expected the president's main job to be to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed."
Except, that is, the laws Congress passes specifically to restrain a president's war-making abilities—those laws he apparently doesn't think need to be respected. "I think the War Powers [Resolution] is a very bad law," he said. "It should be overhauled."
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Liberty’s Nemesis
So Yoo wrote an autobiography?
Fuck Yoo.
And U2
For his actions while working in the White House, Yoo should receive a harsh punishment.
Listening to U2 all day for the rest of his life?
Yeah yeah yeah
I was going to guess that he distinguished between foreign and domestic.
The problem is (a) it’s hard to tell where foreign ends and domestic begins and (b) the Founders worried about abuse of government power both in the foreign and domestic contexts.
I think his distinctions are intelligible and consistent, just naive, wrong and anti-liberty.
Indeed – I think you might even suggest that the Founders’ anxiety about granting the President war powers had everything to do with how that would affect government power in domestic contexts.
Yeah, I don’t think the Founders wanted presidents freely engaging in military adventures abroad as that, yes, is a threat to liberty at home. Indeed, there are multiple provisions of the Constitution which make it quite obvious they preferred a restrained presidency abroad.
The declaration of war power is the most obvious.
Less obvious: the fact that the Army’s budget can only be appropriated for two years at a time. The theory was that there would be a debate regarding the continued deployment of the Army and Congress if the deployment lasted longer than two years because the Founders viewed the mere idea of a standing army as dangerous to liberty. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
Isn’t there something about no standing army too? What happened to that?
They thought about it but decided that sometimes a standing army was necessary, with the restrictions mentioned.
“There was a proposal at the Constitutional Convention to limit the standing army for the country to 5,000 men. George Washington [presiding at the convention] sarcastically agreed with this proposal as long as a stipulation was added that no invading army could number more than 3,000 troops.”
Wasn’t Yoo the guy who said it was okay to crush the testicles of a child of a suspect because there is no law against it?
Wasn’t Yoo the guy who said it was okay to crush the testicles of a child of a suspect because there is no law against it?
Sounds truthy to me. Ima need linky.
I suppose he’s referring to this.
It might be good to find a full transcript or recording of the debate.
*googles a little more*
Here’s an audio clip of that portion of the debate.
It’s, I suppose, a bit of a “gotcha!” question. Yoo seems to be attempting to make a very clear distinction between the limits treaties place upon the US executive branch and the limits congress, the courts, or the consitution place upon it. I’m not sure whether or not he says somewhere else that adolescent-third-party-nut-squishing is prohibitted.
In case it needs to be said, I’m firmly against ATPNS.
Yoo gotta be shittin me.
I took a moment to film my reaction to this.
Is this that Leonardo DiCaprio video again?
Step right up and take a spin at the wheel; you’ll never know what you’ll get!
What’s up with the monkey statue??
And the fire extinguisher?
I don’t even hover over links anymore, I just click on whatever, It usually works out.
On my wedding day, I was attired in a double breasted white / cream suit similar to that adorning Bishop B. My tie, however, was an emerald green bowtie.
I respect that.
Respect?
Or, fear?
Dude has a fire extinguisher and a monkey statue on either side of him at the podium. Interesting choices.
It’s called style. Not that you would know.
That’s a winner.
Yep. I’m keeping that one in my back pocket.
That was a Los Doyers joint.
“I think the War Powers [Resolution] is a very bad law,” he said. “It should be overhauled.”
I think he’s right about the War Powers Act being a very bad law, but it needs to just go away. Congress cannot delegate it’s war-making authority to the President at all, trying to legislate how the President may exercise his war-making authority is unconstitutional. The whole theory behind the need to allow the President war-making powers is because in this day and age we don’t have months to debate declarations of war like our Founding Fathers did but mere minutes or hours. So? Things have changed, so amend the Constitution. There’s a process for that, follow it. The President starts waging war absent a Congressional declaration, impeach his ass – none of this mealy-mouthed “well, if Congress doesn’t want the war they can refuse to fund it” bullshit the Court came up with to explain why a Congressional resolution is a de facto declaration of war and, hey, close enough, whatever.
The whole theory behind the need to allow the President war-making powers is because in this day and age we don’t have months to debate declarations of war like our Founding Fathers did
Of course, it took weeks to assemble Congress back in the day.
Elapsed time between bombing of Pearl Harbor and declaration of war? Around 24 hours.
The war powers act should be repealed, and replaced with a law declaring that engaging in military action without the express approval of Congress is a high crime subject to impeachment.
“The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
? James Madison
I think these fears applied more to the existence of a standing army, but interestingly it still seems to apply.
He’s right about the War Powers Resolution. It’s Congress pretending to do something but not actually doing anything.
Congress has the ability to restrain the president’s military adventurism through the power of the purse. It doesn’t want to use that power and, instead, bitches about how the president is not complying with the WPR…. while throwing more money into the military slush fund.
It has more than the power of the purse. The Constitution explicitly reserves the right to declare war to the Congress. All Congress has to do is insist that it’s their right. They can appeal executive action to the contrary to the SCOTUS, or just straight up impeach any president who sends troops outside of the country without congressional approval.
In the event that immediate action is required to defend the US, not its interests, there is no need to send troops out of the country. In other words, if the nation is being invaded, then POTUS doesn’t need approval to repel the invaders, but if he wants to pursue them back to Quebec or Mexico City, he needs a declaration of war.
And if he wants to send troops halfway around the globe to invade a country that poses absolutely no physical threat to the USA, he damn sure better get a declaration of war.
RBS circa 2001?
Teddy Roosevelt?
OT: Much to the chagrin of the links snob, and hopefully the rest of you as well, I present the trailer for the Ghostbusters reboot.
That was as about as funny as this.
Man Leonardo DiCaprio never seems to age, does he?
It’s because he doesn’t expose his skin to carbon.
The trailer was less funny.
Very diverse, but could use either a Native American or a Muslim.
“One thing that should be for certain is that we all believe in narrowing the size of the federal government,” he said.
How droll.
Are we starting this shit again?
Americans vowing to move if Trump wins?
Tell you what, we don’t need more progs up here. On the other hand, I’d consider those who would leave if Hillary or Bernie were elected.
http://cbiftrumpwins.com/#intro
There was a hilarious article in one of the NY papers laying out how to flee the country if Trump wins.
It included a description of the immigration restrictions and paperwork needed to immigrate to the top 5 destinations, for all those people fleeing Trump because he wants to restrict immigration.
But I give props to this guy for trying to capitalize on it.
BY THE BARREL!
Which reminds me of next Wednesday…
Don’t forget to get a “Drone Me” sign to put on your back.
I need yoo, yoo, yoo, I need yoo, yoo, yoo…
Lame.
Try this link.
Some one should look up the legislation passed to support the fist American/Muslim War – the Barbary War. It was an AUMF.
FIRST!
Yeah, that probably counts as declaration of war. I don’t think it has to be called “declaration of war”.
Congress can declare war, grand letters of Marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning capture on land and water.
Yeah, and when I mentioned Letters of Marquee a few months ago, everybody laughed at me.
(sulks)
IIRC, letters of marque and reprisal are now illegal or something. Or maybe not.
OT: Attention San Francisco readers! We are putting together a meetup for later this month. Email me at my handle @gmail.com and I’ll add you to the list when we announce.
I heard it’s going to suck.
Sevo refuses to come, because it involves more than 1-2 people. Maybe that’s a factor.
Heh: GOP Statisticians Develop New Branch Of Math To Formulate Scenarios In Which Trump Doesn’t Win Nomination
I hope it works, I worry that underpants gnomes may be involved.
The new method is called “integral disintegration”.
The new method is called “integral disintegration” .
squirlz
squirls again
chick can’t even afford a couple bucks for a set of stencils? I applaud any effort to fuck the State out of money but surely she could have done better than this.
http://nbc4i.com/2016/03/03/wo…..nse-plate/
35 miles south of Buffalo might as well be banjoes and squealing pigs.
She’s earned FloridaWoman status. I’ll have Florida Man issue her the gator-skinned passport.
You use your own distant relatives in such a way? You’re hardcore, Sir Tongue-flicker.
Speaking of distant relatives. The Warty frog finds a new victim.
Lucille Ball came from that part of the state.
Ages ago, I remember a case of an art teacher getting arrested because she didn’t like the colors of her plate, so she repainted it.
A felony rap too. Nice. I will sleep better knowing this hardened criminal is off the streets.
I’m so happy that the presidential election is finally down to just white-ish people.
Whitish-Orange
Old, whitish-orange people.
Till it happens to Yoo, you don’t know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to Yoo, you won’t know
It won’t be real
No It won’t be real
Won’t know how it feels
Another video from Yoo-Tube, to wash out the memory of the last video.
I had no idea Yoo was so kinky.
Like, no, bet Yoo can’t do it like me
Bet Yoo can’t do it like me, No
bet Yoo can’t do it like me
Bet Yoo can’t do it like me, No
bet Yoo can’t do it like me
Bet Yoo can’t do it like me
For Yoo… I shall give
http://youtu.be/IRfX3oK1fgY
I bet he sings this one to the mirror.
Nobody linked this one yet, especially given the torture oriented lyrics?
speaking of torture
Imagine the Constitution eating ice cream straight from the carton and weeping while listening to this.
Torture.
Yoo drive me ape Yoo big gorilla
http://youtu.be/5389V4oKlsA
Wow, I sure can’t seem to stop posting John Yoo videos.
Which can only mean one thing.
Don’t Wanna See Yoo Cry
http://youtu.be/bYi0epG29EM
I Wanna Destroy Yoo
http://youtu.be/VAt7hK_zKr0
He formed his own feminist band, the Yoo-Rhythmics.
Man you (yoo) got MPLS covered.
Here’s To Yoo
http://youtu.be/xWKziSpH7LM
He’s a lucky dog to have inspired this song.
I’m sick of yoo and all this song oneupmanship.
We don’t care what you say, Fuck Yoo!
http://youtu.be/F5mrhIDPwKg
It’s been fun. But uh…
I Don’t Care About Yoo (fuck Yoo)
http://youtu.be/PyM4uAJBujA
Time to break the John Yoo cycle.
Fun fact: Robert Pollard pitched the first no-hitter in Wright State Uni baseball history. I love that band. Thanks for sharing.
I’m a go eat dinner now. Parting shot.: I Won’t Write Yoo A Letter
http://youtu.be/2X4OCXCS5lE
Game over! Tundra wins! Tundra wins! Tundra wins!
Amazing video man. Have a great night. Dinnertime.