If this story from McClatchy pans out, it's big, big news. And would indicate that Mueller knows far, far more than the general public could possibly even be aware of. Cohen VIGOROUSLY denied this trip ever took place, going so far as to basically shout it from the mountaintops. So why lie about it?? Going to Prague is not illegal, unless...........
The story is still a little too thin. "Unnamed sources" and "spoke on the condition of anonymity" might as well be heresay or guesswork--if the proof exists then put it out there for everyone to see and for Cohen to rebut. What evidence do they have? Credit card receipt? (surely he couldn't be that dumb) Signed a hotel register under his own name? (again, he can't be that dumb) Got his picture taken from a street or security camera? (it can be difficult to avoid all of those) If the evidence definitely puts him in Prague at that time then go ahead and make the case for linking him to Russians, otherwise they should just admit that they can't prove anything.
It sounds like I am defending him...but I am not. If they can prove it then I definitely want them to prove it. Right now, though, I don't see proof, only hypothesis.
In any criminal case, what’s shared with the media is always a sliver of all the facts regarding the investigation. A lot is held back so a person isn’t 1) tried through the media, allowing them to have a fair trial 2) so people can’t claim they were the ones that committed the acts.
Keeping sources confidential allows two things as well. 1) it prevents that person from being in trouble from superiors or being dissected by other media outlets turning them into the story instead of what they shared 2) prevents other media from hounding them for more information. That person still has a job to do, one that can be extremely difficult if they have to field phone calls every half hour from different personalities and fact checkers.
And finally today he declares "Mission Accomplished" which is the thing that haunted GW Bush for saying Mission Accomplished in Iraq and then fighting went on with insurgents for several more years. Seems appropriate since he's brought back John Bolton and pardoned Scooter Libby he's trying to bring back ghosts of incompetent people from Bush's administration.
Sometimes you sit down, do a bunch of research, ponder, and come up with a solution to a complex problem that's founded upon solid reason, logic and pragmatism and feel really good about yourself. Then, the dumbest person you know says "hey, that's what I thought too" and you begin to question everything. Well...
So, what realpolitik options do we have left? China knows military threats are hollow, and has a diverse enough economy to shrug off most sanction options even assuming we could get our allies on board. Revival of a TPP-like agreement remains our best option, even though the countries we just jilted will demand more concessions than the previous agreement.
Trump was right in 2013, and a complete hypocrite in 2018
Just like Obama was right in 2006, and a complete hypocrite in 2009
Ha no. Nobody is more of a hypocrite than he is. Nobody. Many people are saying that.
Come on Obama doesn't even compare to this guy attacking others and then doing the same thing. Obama said stuff like he'd be tough on wall street and then he wasn't. That is not remotely the same as this guy blasting others for something then doing the same thing but 10 times worse.
Trumps tweets are a gold mine of hypocrisy. You can find a tweet for being on both sides of every issue and for attacking others for doing the exact same stuff he's doing. You won't find that with Obama. He's not a loudmouth blowhard who's never wrong like this guy.
I wasn't referring to overall unprincipled behavior. In that area, Trump is in a world of his own.
I'm saying that on this particular issue Obama made the same claims about unauthorized war when a senator, only to conduct war without congressional approval as president.
I wasn't referring to overall unprincipled behavior. In that area, Trump is in a world of his own.
I'm saying that on this particular issue Obama made the same claims about unauthorized war when a senator, only to conduct war without congressional approval as president.
In that case I totally agree... Sorry, this guy just really gets me going lol...
As someone else said, Obama attempted to get congressional approval and when it was not given he did it anyway like he was convinced action was warranted and Republicans were just being contrary. So at least he made the attempt, but when he didn't get the answer he wanted he did it anyway, which is wrong. Most of those same Republicans are still in office, and still didn't give permission right? I doubt they will complain though now. Maybe Rand Paul.
The whole President declaring war without Congress has got to go, be it Obama or Trump or whoever is next. Too bad Congress has been such a mess that they kinda don't do their job most of the time as we've seen Congress flail around with budgets, continuing resolutions for budgets, and obamacare repeals, error filled tax cuts in the middle of the night, etc and that's just recent foolishness. Still, it should be up to them, fixing Congressional dysfunction is a separate issue.
I must say once again that the U.S. did not even contribute humanitarian aid to the Syrian rebels until 2 years into the war, much less arms and military support. To date, no Americans are fighting in the Syrian civil war, and the most that even the Trump administration has done is launch a few limited air strikes. Most of our involvement consists strictly of drone strikes on ISIS targets.
Obama did not ignore Congress--he sought permission for direct involvement and then, when that was refused, he settled for a more limited plan for indirect action, just like FDR did when Congress refused to declare war on Germany. Obama asked approval for one thing, and when Congress said no, he accepted the refusal and then did something else.
Obama could legally have intervened even without Congressional approval for quite some time. The President has the legal power to send in troops to Syria for three months (90 days) before requiring Congressional approval. Yet he did not send in troops at all.
us president has (at this point in time) dubious authority to send troops with a war goal of destroying isis, but he has 0 authority to bomb syria, as that war goal hasn't been covered by an act of congress. isis also isn't but conventionally it is taken that it is, under the loosely taken authority to destroy al-qaeda
One thing that will NEVER change is how quickly the media, from nearly EVERY spectrum, falls into line once the bombs start dropping. It is no wonder people suspect this timing is suspicious. Look at how well it worked for Trump in the interim (meaning at least 24 hours). The moment a military strike is announced, the war propaganda begins. The American media learned NOTHING from their complicity in Iraq. They seem to be operating on the principle that war is good for ratings. Most of the media are nothing but stenographers for the Pentagon in the immediate aftermath of these events.
As for my understanding of the difference between Obama and Trump on this issue, I was under the impression that the Obama Administration was targeting ISIS fighters, which at least ostensibly is still a power granted by the authorization Congress gave after 9/11. Trump (and Britain and France for that matter) have attacked the Syrian regime DIRECTLY, which, no matter what we think of them, is an attack on another country that is not being done in self-defense. Regardless, the overreaching power of the Executive to conduct these actions is to be laid EXCLUSIVELY at the feet of the Congress, who have essentially abdicated their Constitutional duty in this regard since 9/11.
Beyond that, as I said yesterday, if we are going to bomb Syria, and reserve the right to do so in perpetuity (and Nikki Haley and Mike Pence seem to be suggesting we will), the THIS situation is utterly not acceptable and morally reprehensible:
As the article points out, in the same 4-month time period at the beginning of 2016, the Obama Administration accepted over 70x more Syrian refugees than the Trump Administration has in 2018. Seventy. Times. More.
I seem to be recalling something. Something someone said where they compared Syrian refugees to poisoned candy. Oh yeah, I remember now. It was Don Jr.:
I am torn about intervention in Syria. Assad is a murderous dictator and it's beyond unacceptable for his regime to remain in power after perpetrating so many crimes against humanity. But the ruthless crushing of the opposition has been very successful, and we don't have a "good guy" who would be strong enough to take his place.
Yet Assad is not strong, either; he's a weak leader who resorted to violence when confronted with the mildest of opposition and still could not stay on top. Syria has disintegrated under his leadership and even with foreign aid, he has proven incapable of winning the war.
Worse yet, American involvement runs the risk of damaging our already-fragile reputation in the Middle East. Even now, with no American boots on the ground, it's too easy for America's enemies to paint the whole situation as somehow the fault of the United States. We take ownership of the problem once we intervene, and even if the situation is demonstrably better than Assad's regime, we still take the blame for anything that goes wrong.
On top of that, the majority of the American people are decidedly against intervention. There's not much political incentive to get involved, and with so many people saying "no" to another potential quagmire, I don't think the United States is likely to commit to fixing the problem.
As for Russia's support of Assad, I don't think antagonizing Russia is as big of a danger as some believe it is. Putin is a petty thug who knows the limits of his power. He will gleefully punch down and force his will on weaker countries, but he has yet to put his soldiers in the America military's line of fire. Putin has only used force in places where the U.S. military was not actively there to fight him off. He knows better than to confront the U.S. directly. If we did put boots on the ground in Syria, Russia would back off and switch gears from propping up Assad through military aid to sabotaging the new government out of spite.
Obama could legally have intervened even without Congressional approval for quite some time. The President has the legal power to send in troops to Syria for three months (90 days) before requiring Congressional approval. Yet he did not send in troops at all.
The executive can take military action without a formally declared war, but they must request approval from Congress within 90 days. One could argue--and I think, successfully--that because Obama had already asked for an approval and been denied, the 90-day window would not apply.
Sadly, it's moot at this point. Congress has ceded their war authority to the executive for undeclared wars for so long that WW2 was our last declared war (neither the Korean war nor Vietnam were declared wars). Congress, should it find a spine somewhere, could reclaim their constitutional powers by repealing the 2001 AUMF that has been the cited authority for the past 17 years of US military adventures.
chlorine is an element in the periodic table. it's mainly used to produce drinking water, and disinfect swimming pools. when you compress chlorine into a gas canister you create a kind of a stone age chemical weapon. in can be used in an atrocious way.
they shot some chemistry lab / institute and two other unimportant buildings. that has exactly nothing to do with capacity to produce chlorine and metal canisters. didn't save any lives certainly.
so shoot a hundred rockets to destroy three irrelevant objects as a function of some kind of inter-factional internal dialogue? mattis vs the uber hawks? maybe setting some kind of an operational precedent in the post-obama era of strategy-making? maybe someone sees it as a moral, honorable act unconnected to real strategical concerns? it's an internal act, an inward-looking act.
it doesn't even strengthen morale at home as a lead-up to a large-scale operation because it's media effect is negligible, and the act is unpopular.
you don't shoot a hundred rockets into the middle east to do that.
What is the "mission accomplished" anyway? What is the point? Syrians gassed Syrians so we kill more Syrians. That'll learn them?
It will take Republicans to stand up to Trump here since for the time being they still control both house of Congress. So far they've not lifted a finger while Trump runs roughshod over the Constitution and gets away with murder (literally here). Will they stand up to him now? Don't hold your breath.
I read The “Mission Accomplished” as “This is all we are going to do.” Directed at both the American people AND Russia.
I am also sick of hearing people say this is illegal and doing nothing about it. This is the second President who intervened in the Syrian civil war, both for different reasons. In my opinion, they have two options if they are really up in arms about this taking away of power:
1. Impeach the president for this illegal act, or
2. Do their job and dictate when and how a president can use force in the region. “We give the president of the United States approval to do X if and when Y happens.”
For example “Congress gives approval for air strikes against known chemical plants in the borders of Syria if gas is used in the conflict”
If they don’t do either of these two things then expect the president to keep doing whatever he wants, illegal or not. If there are no repocussions or guidelines then what’s stopping him?
But that’d be taking responsibility for such actions and god forbid congress being responsible and accountable to something. Easier to wag the finger and “you can do that with me, I’m important!”
mostly the people who are qualified to say that it's illegal are the people who are able to do exactly nothing about it. top-level illegality maybe doesn't work the way you see it - it's not about flagrant rulebreaking, it's about setting a precedent and making a new normal. so it's actually a creeping illegality.
obama was expected to turn the tide against this phenomenon and he did to a very small degree. that's why he was very conservative in syria.
what's needed is a new president who will really deliver on this issue and say no to creeping illegality.
An incident happened at a Starbucks in Philadelphia in the last few days that indicates that when I say that African-Americans literally do not have the same right to EXIST in this country as non-minorities, it isn't even remotely hyperbole.
Two African-American men were simply waiting in the Starbucks for their friend to arrive. It's important to keep in mind that coffee shops like Starbucks will usually allow people to spend an entire day with their laptop hooked up to the Wi-Fi of the store if they even buy a SINGLE cup of coffee. According to witnesses, the men were not asked to leave, but instead someone working in the store called the cops on them. Witnesses from the store say that during this time, a woman was given the code to the bathroom door without buying anything, and another women flat-out admitted she had been sitting in the restaurant for HOURS without making a purchase.
That is the first ridiculous part of the scenario. But the second part is that EIGHT cops showed up. Eight. To deal with what, AT MOST, would be an issue of loitering. Then the men were ARRESTED, even though as they were being taken into custody, the friend they had been waiting for showed up and tried to explain the situation. Naturally, the cops didn't give a shit, and took them in anyway, presumably for the crime of being black and waiting for a friend to show up at a restaurant. I cannot possibly fathom what it must be like to deal with this kind of bullshit on a daily basis because of your skin color. The manager of the Starbucks and every cop involved here should be ashamed of themselves. If EIGHT police officers had nothing better to do than descend on two black men sitting patiently for their friend in Starbucks, we may have, by orders of magnitude, WAY too many cops. Having eight cops respond to something like this is like me gathering five co-workers to help me change a battery in a clock. I suppose at this juncture in our nation's history we should be grateful the men weren't executed on the spot.
You need a passcode to use the bathroom there? That's appalling enough. It's also interesting that this happened in Philly and not Birmingham, Alabama. I thought folks on the 'enlightened' coasts were above this sort of thing...
You need a passcode to use the bathroom there? That's appalling enough. It's also interesting that this happened in Philly and not Birmingham, Alabama. I thought folks on the 'enlightened' coasts were above this sort of thing...
I read somewhere that it was a code. Though I have never seen one, it certainly would make sense, as it has to be better than handing someone a key chained to a piece of wood like we're all used to seeing. I have actually never seen locked bathrooms anywhere but gas stations, I've NEVER seen one in an actual restaurant. While I usually try to at least buy a pop or pack of gum if I use the bathroom at a gas station, I would be lying if I said I haven't gone in and then slipped out without doing so many times.
Yeah, the Starbucks around there all have four-digit codes for their bathroom doors. They routinely give it to anyone who asks, even when the person isn't buying anything (although apparently a barista said no to a cop in 2015). It's a pretty common practice for chains in urban areas. There has been controversy over the now-diminished role of Starbucks as NYC's de facto public restrooms.
I must say once again that the U.S. did not even contribute humanitarian aid to the Syrian rebels until 2 years into the war, much less arms and military support. To date, no Americans are fighting in the Syrian civil war, and the most that even the Trump administration has done is launch a few limited air strikes. Most of our involvement consists strictly of drone strikes on ISIS targets.
Obama did not ignore Congress--he sought permission for direct involvement and then, when that was refused, he settled for a more limited plan for indirect action, just like FDR did when Congress refused to declare war on Germany. Obama asked approval for one thing, and when Congress said no, he accepted the refusal and then did something else.
Obama could legally have intervened even without Congressional approval for quite some time. The President has the legal power to send in troops to Syria for three months (90 days) before requiring Congressional approval. Yet he did not send in troops at all.
First, I was referring to Libya, where the Obama administration waged war long past the War Powers Resolution deadline. He went so far to personally declare that he did not need authorization, and sent Hillary Clinton to testify before congress that they didn't need to seek congressional approval.
Second, you do not need to send troops to wage war, as bombing is an act of war. To say otherwise is to pretend that Pearl Harbor was not a military attack on the United States.
1. The police were doing their job. The individuals were asked to leave 3 times by the police officers prior to them being arrested, and escorted out of the establishment. Once you are asked to leave a place of business, you must comply. It is trespassing if you refuse. 8 cops is called a "show of force." You do this to limit a persons chances of attempting to resist. I bet 5-6 of these cops were just watching the incident and probably outside. The police officers also do not know what they are responding to. All they know is that dispatch requested them to help in a trespass. They do not know if these individuals are black, white, Hispanic or raging T-rex people. The same amount of cops would have shown up regardless of the colour of the persons skin being asked to leave. The officers also didn't know that the establishment didn't first ask them to leave the restaurant, they just walked in, staff pointed them out and an interaction ensued. They were not charged as Starbucks didn't press charges. This whole incident however would have been avoided if they left when they were asked to leave and escalated with Starbucks' head office instead. Think of how much free coffee these two would of gotten if they sent out a stern email regarding their visit.
2. The onus is on Starbucks. If I personally witnessed that incident, I would never step foot in that coffee shop again. That said, you do not know how agitated the two individuals were once refusal to use the washroom. If they started threatening or acting aggressive towards the staff for following procedure damn right to call the cops. They don't get paid enough to deal with shit like that. However, it does seem the staff escalated it too quickly, but I wasn't there, can't pass judgement.
3. I live in a small city. Downtown fast food restaurants and coffee shops lock their washrooms and are only for paying customers. It invites drug use into the establishment if they do not. IMO, it is standard practise in downtown areas.
But that’d be taking responsibility for such actions and god forbid congress being responsible and accountable to something. Easier to wag the finger and “you can do that with me, I’m important!”
I think @deltago is exactly right. Voting to authorize the use of force puts you on record in favor of making war. We've seen that bite candidates in the back in future elections (twice in Hillary Clinton's case). Inaction is easier than accepting responsibility.
As for my understanding of the difference between Obama and Trump on this issue, I was under the impression that the Obama Administration was targeting ISIS fighters, which at least ostensibly is still a power granted by the authorization Congress gave after 9/11.
First, the Obama administration armed Syrian rebels who were fighting Assad's forces, not ISIS.
Second, the AUMF after 9/11 was to go after those responsible for the attacks, namely Al Qaeda. ISIS is not Al Qaeda, and barely existed at the time. The original AUMF (which is older than Kanye West's entire career) has been used to justify every military action since 9/11, to the point of absurdity. The only connection that can be seen is al-Zarqawi, a founder of one of ISIS's predecessors, swearing loyalty to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
1. The police were doing their job. The individuals were asked to leave 3 times by the police officers prior to them being arrested, and escorted out of the establishment. Once you are asked to leave a place of business, you must comply. It is trespassing if you refuse. 8 cops is called a "show of force." You do this to limit a persons chances of attempting to resist. I bet 5-6 of these cops were just watching the incident and probably outside. The police officers also do not know what they are responding to. All they know is that dispatch requested them to help in a trespass. They do not know if these individuals are black, white, Hispanic or raging T-rex people. The same amount of cops would have shown up regardless of the colour of the persons skin being asked to leave. The officers also didn't know that the establishment didn't first ask them to leave the restaurant, they just walked in, staff pointed them out and an interaction ensued. They were not charged as Starbucks didn't press charges. This whole incident however would have been avoided if they left when they were asked to leave and escalated with Starbucks' head office instead. Think of how much free coffee these two would of gotten if they sent out a stern email regarding their visit.
2. The onus is on Starbucks. If I personally witnessed that incident, I would never step foot in that coffee shop again. That said, you do not know how agitated the two individuals were once refusal to use the washroom. If they started threatening or acting aggressive towards the staff for following procedure damn right to call the cops. They don't get paid enough to deal with shit like that. However, it does seem the staff escalated it too quickly, but I wasn't there, can't pass judgement.
3. I live in a small city. Downtown fast food restaurants and coffee shops lock their washrooms and are only for paying customers. It invites drug use into the establishment if they do not. IMO, it is standard practise in downtown areas.
1. After watching the video, I partially agree with you on this. The police stayed much mellower than I was expecting (a low bar to clear), it's not really their job to figure out whether Starbucks had a good reason to ask the guys to leave, and once the police are called, it's hard to imagine a resolution that doesn't involve the guys leaving. Where I strongly disagree with you (assuming we're getting the full story here) is that I think these guys were absolutely right and brave to refuse to leave. It was an act of protest, a small sit-in. It gave greater visibility to an apparent injustice.
2. I wasn't there either, but there are witnesses saying the guys did nothing wrong, they did not seem remotely belligerent, and Starbucks hasn't put any counter-narrative forward. It really sounds like one or more employees screwed up here.
3. I don't think they care about drug use nearly as much as they care about having to clean up really disgusting messes.
Sadly, it's moot at this point. Congress has ceded their war authority to the executive for undeclared wars for so long that WW2 was our last declared war (neither the Korean war nor Vietnam were declared wars). Congress, should it find a spine somewhere, could reclaim their constitutional powers by repealing the 2001 AUMF that has been the cited authority for the past 17 years of US military adventures.
@CamDawg do you think that SCOTUS should rule on the legality of a war when the War Powers Resolution is violated? It's an interesting question that I'm torn on myself.
There was an interesting debate a while back on National Review Online between John Yoo (UC Berkeley law professor and author of the torture memos under the Bush administration) and Michael Stokes Paulsen about whether Trump's Syria strikes last year required congressional authorization, where Paulsen questioned the constitutionality of the War Powers Act.
An interesting read for those interested in the details surrounding the War Power Resolution and the War Powers Clause.
Comments
Keeping sources confidential allows two things as well. 1) it prevents that person from being in trouble from superiors or being dissected by other media outlets turning them into the story instead of what they shared 2) prevents other media from hounding them for more information. That person still has a job to do, one that can be extremely difficult if they have to field phone calls every half hour from different personalities and fact checkers.
And finally today he declares "Mission Accomplished" which is the thing that haunted GW Bush for saying Mission Accomplished in Iraq and then fighting went on with insurgents for several more years. Seems appropriate since he's brought back John Bolton and pardoned Scooter Libby he's trying to bring back ghosts of incompetent people from Bush's administration.
Just like Obama was right in 2006, and a complete hypocrite in 2009
Time to re-evaluate my life choices.
Come on Obama doesn't even compare to this guy attacking others and then doing the same thing. Obama said stuff like he'd be tough on wall street and then he wasn't. That is not remotely the same as this guy blasting others for something then doing the same thing but 10 times worse.
Trumps tweets are a gold mine of hypocrisy. You can find a tweet for being on both sides of every issue and for attacking others for doing the exact same stuff he's doing. You won't find that with Obama. He's not a loudmouth blowhard who's never wrong like this guy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/
I'm saying that on this particular issue Obama made the same claims about unauthorized war when a senator, only to conduct war without congressional approval as president.
As someone else said, Obama attempted to get congressional approval and when it was not given he did it anyway like he was convinced action was warranted and Republicans were just being contrary. So at least he made the attempt, but when he didn't get the answer he wanted he did it anyway, which is wrong. Most of those same Republicans are still in office, and still didn't give permission right? I doubt they will complain though now. Maybe Rand Paul.
The whole President declaring war without Congress has got to go, be it Obama or Trump or whoever is next. Too bad Congress has been such a mess that they kinda don't do their job most of the time as we've seen Congress flail around with budgets, continuing resolutions for budgets, and obamacare repeals, error filled tax cuts in the middle of the night, etc and that's just recent foolishness. Still, it should be up to them, fixing Congressional dysfunction is a separate issue.
Obama did not ignore Congress--he sought permission for direct involvement and then, when that was refused, he settled for a more limited plan for indirect action, just like FDR did when Congress refused to declare war on Germany. Obama asked approval for one thing, and when Congress said no, he accepted the refusal and then did something else.
Obama could legally have intervened even without Congressional approval for quite some time. The President has the legal power to send in troops to Syria for three months (90 days) before requiring Congressional approval. Yet he did not send in troops at all.
As for my understanding of the difference between Obama and Trump on this issue, I was under the impression that the Obama Administration was targeting ISIS fighters, which at least ostensibly is still a power granted by the authorization Congress gave after 9/11. Trump (and Britain and France for that matter) have attacked the Syrian regime DIRECTLY, which, no matter what we think of them, is an attack on another country that is not being done in self-defense. Regardless, the overreaching power of the Executive to conduct these actions is to be laid EXCLUSIVELY at the feet of the Congress, who have essentially abdicated their Constitutional duty in this regard since 9/11.
Beyond that, as I said yesterday, if we are going to bomb Syria, and reserve the right to do so in perpetuity (and Nikki Haley and Mike Pence seem to be suggesting we will), the THIS situation is utterly not acceptable and morally reprehensible:
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/12/602022877/the-u-s-has-welcomed-only-11-syrian-refugees-this-year
As the article points out, in the same 4-month time period at the beginning of 2016, the Obama Administration accepted over 70x more Syrian refugees than the Trump Administration has in 2018. Seventy. Times. More.
I seem to be recalling something. Something someone said where they compared Syrian refugees to poisoned candy. Oh yeah, I remember now. It was Don Jr.:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/20/donald-trump-jnr-compares-refugees-poisoned-skittles-twitter-reacted
Yet Assad is not strong, either; he's a weak leader who resorted to violence when confronted with the mildest of opposition and still could not stay on top. Syria has disintegrated under his leadership and even with foreign aid, he has proven incapable of winning the war.
Worse yet, American involvement runs the risk of damaging our already-fragile reputation in the Middle East. Even now, with no American boots on the ground, it's too easy for America's enemies to paint the whole situation as somehow the fault of the United States. We take ownership of the problem once we intervene, and even if the situation is demonstrably better than Assad's regime, we still take the blame for anything that goes wrong.
On top of that, the majority of the American people are decidedly against intervention. There's not much political incentive to get involved, and with so many people saying "no" to another potential quagmire, I don't think the United States is likely to commit to fixing the problem.
As for Russia's support of Assad, I don't think antagonizing Russia is as big of a danger as some believe it is. Putin is a petty thug who knows the limits of his power. He will gleefully punch down and force his will on weaker countries, but he has yet to put his soldiers in the America military's line of fire. Putin has only used force in places where the U.S. military was not actively there to fight him off. He knows better than to confront the U.S. directly. If we did put boots on the ground in Syria, Russia would back off and switch gears from propping up Assad through military aid to sabotaging the new government out of spite.
Sadly, it's moot at this point. Congress has ceded their war authority to the executive for undeclared wars for so long that WW2 was our last declared war (neither the Korean war nor Vietnam were declared wars). Congress, should it find a spine somewhere, could reclaim their constitutional powers by repealing the 2001 AUMF that has been the cited authority for the past 17 years of US military adventures.
they shot some chemistry lab / institute and two other unimportant buildings.
that has exactly nothing to do with capacity to produce chlorine and metal canisters.
didn't save any lives certainly.
so shoot a hundred rockets to destroy three irrelevant objects as a function of some kind of inter-factional internal dialogue? mattis vs the uber hawks? maybe setting some kind of an operational precedent in the post-obama era of strategy-making? maybe someone sees it as a moral, honorable act unconnected to real strategical concerns?
it's an internal act, an inward-looking act.
it doesn't even strengthen morale at home as a lead-up to a large-scale operation because it's media effect is negligible, and the act is unpopular.
you don't shoot a hundred rockets into the middle east to do that.
It will take Republicans to stand up to Trump here since for the time being they still control both house of Congress. So far they've not lifted a finger while Trump runs roughshod over the Constitution and gets away with murder (literally here). Will they stand up to him now? Don't hold your breath.
bombing syria is illegal and there are serious analyses of that https://www.lawfareblog.com/bad-legal-arguments-syria-airstrikes , https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/the-unconstitutional-strike-on-syria/558044/
it's an act to create discontinuity with obama's way of thinking (which was not good, but better)
it's a concession to that part of the administration that wants to drop bombs. always.
so yeah, mission accomplished on those points woohoo
one hawkish analyst says The exercise seems to have been framed in terms of upholding honor
so yeah evil was smitten or something
I am also sick of hearing people say this is illegal and doing nothing about it. This is the second President who intervened in the Syrian civil war, both for different reasons. In my opinion, they have two options if they are really up in arms about this taking away of power:
1. Impeach the president for this illegal act, or
2. Do their job and dictate when and how a president can use force in the region. “We give the president of the United States approval to do X if and when Y happens.”
For example “Congress gives approval for air strikes against known chemical plants in the borders of Syria if gas is used in the conflict”
If they don’t do either of these two things then expect the president to keep doing whatever he wants, illegal or not. If there are no repocussions or guidelines then what’s stopping him?
But that’d be taking responsibility for such actions and god forbid congress being responsible and accountable to something. Easier to wag the finger and “you can do that with me, I’m important!”
obama was expected to turn the tide against this phenomenon and he did to a very small degree. that's why he was very conservative in syria.
what's needed is a new president who will really deliver on this issue and say no to creeping illegality.
Two African-American men were simply waiting in the Starbucks for their friend to arrive. It's important to keep in mind that coffee shops like Starbucks will usually allow people to spend an entire day with their laptop hooked up to the Wi-Fi of the store if they even buy a SINGLE cup of coffee. According to witnesses, the men were not asked to leave, but instead someone working in the store called the cops on them. Witnesses from the store say that during this time, a woman was given the code to the bathroom door without buying anything, and another women flat-out admitted she had been sitting in the restaurant for HOURS without making a purchase.
That is the first ridiculous part of the scenario. But the second part is that EIGHT cops showed up. Eight. To deal with what, AT MOST, would be an issue of loitering. Then the men were ARRESTED, even though as they were being taken into custody, the friend they had been waiting for showed up and tried to explain the situation. Naturally, the cops didn't give a shit, and took them in anyway, presumably for the crime of being black and waiting for a friend to show up at a restaurant. I cannot possibly fathom what it must be like to deal with this kind of bullshit on a daily basis because of your skin color. The manager of the Starbucks and every cop involved here should be ashamed of themselves. If EIGHT police officers had nothing better to do than descend on two black men sitting patiently for their friend in Starbucks, we may have, by orders of magnitude, WAY too many cops. Having eight cops respond to something like this is like me gathering five co-workers to help me change a battery in a clock. I suppose at this juncture in our nation's history we should be grateful the men weren't executed on the spot.
http://6abc.com/what-a-witness-says-happened-during-phila-starbucks-arrests/3342444/?sf186989648=1
Second, you do not need to send troops to wage war, as bombing is an act of war. To say otherwise is to pretend that Pearl Harbor was not a military attack on the United States.
2. The onus is on Starbucks. If I personally witnessed that incident, I would never step foot in that coffee shop again. That said, you do not know how agitated the two individuals were once refusal to use the washroom. If they started threatening or acting aggressive towards the staff for following procedure damn right to call the cops. They don't get paid enough to deal with shit like that. However, it does seem the staff escalated it too quickly, but I wasn't there, can't pass judgement.
3. I live in a small city. Downtown fast food restaurants and coffee shops lock their washrooms and are only for paying customers. It invites drug use into the establishment if they do not. IMO, it is standard practise in downtown areas.
Second, the AUMF after 9/11 was to go after those responsible for the attacks, namely Al Qaeda. ISIS is not Al Qaeda, and barely existed at the time. The original AUMF (which is older than Kanye West's entire career) has been used to justify every military action since 9/11, to the point of absurdity. The only connection that can be seen is al-Zarqawi, a founder of one of ISIS's predecessors, swearing loyalty to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
2. I wasn't there either, but there are witnesses saying the guys did nothing wrong, they did not seem remotely belligerent, and Starbucks hasn't put any counter-narrative forward. It really sounds like one or more employees screwed up here.
3. I don't think they care about drug use nearly as much as they care about having to clean up really disgusting messes.
There was an interesting debate a while back on National Review Online between John Yoo (UC Berkeley law professor and author of the torture memos under the Bush administration) and Michael Stokes Paulsen about whether Trump's Syria strikes last year required congressional authorization, where Paulsen questioned the constitutionality of the War Powers Act.
An interesting read for those interested in the details surrounding the War Power Resolution and the War Powers Clause.
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/syria-war-unconstitutional-trump/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/04/trump-syria-strike-constitutional-presidents-have-broad-war-powers/
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/war-powers-syria-trump-john-yoo/
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/yoo-trump-war-syria-constitution/