Senators Want to Give President Trump the Authority to Wage Worldwide War

[G_j]

https://www.aclu.org/blog/executive-branch/senators-corker-and-kaine-want-give-president-trump-authority-wage-worldwide

Senators Corker and Kaine Want to Give President Trump the Authority to Wage Worldwide War

By Christopher Anders, Deputy Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
JUNE 8, 2018 | 4:45 PM

This piece is a shortened version of Deputy Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office Christopher Anders’ testimony delivered before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management on June 6, 2018.

No decision by the federal government is graver or more consequential than the decision to go to war.

Over the many years since Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001, the ACLU has dedicated itself to defending the civil liberties and human rights that have been threatened as a result of this resolution and its successors. The harms have included the drone killings of American citizens, broad surveillance of American citizens, the kidnapping and torture of suspects, and indefinite detention without charge or trial, even of an American citizen apprehended in the United States.

Now, Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) are working on a new AUMF that is even more damaging to our freedoms.

It would be hard to overstate the depth and breadth of the dangers to the Constitution, civil liberties, and human rights that the Corker-Kaine AUMF would cause. The Corker-Kaine AUMF would give the current president and all future presidents authority from Congress to engage in worldwide war, sending American troops to countries where we are not now at war and against groups that the president alone decides are enemies.

The Corker-Kaine AUMF would authorize force, without operational limitations, against eight groups in six countries. The president could then add to both lists, as long as the president reports the expansion to Congress. To be clear — the president would have unilateral authority to add additional countries — including the United States itself — to the list of countries where Congress is authorizing war. And the president would have unilateral authority to add additional enemies, including groups in the United States itself and even individual Americans, under its new authority for the president to designate “persons” as enemies.

..more..

[hedda_foil]

1. Kaine? As in the guy who should be our VP right now????

WTF is going on with that?

[smirkymonkey]

4. I know! That alarmed me more than anything.

I would expect this from republicans, but Tim Kaine?

[G_j]

5. yep

Had a real WTF? moment reading this.

[Zambero]

2. Trump needs no such authority

He is proven to be quite adept at stumbling and bumbling his way into these sorts of things, absent any legislative go-ahead..

[Voltaire2]

3. ugh