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.

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.

Can we not pretend like this hasn’t happened numerous times in the past. The US hasn’t been in a war since WW2 and yet somehow we keep ending up killing people in other countries.

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

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.

Are the generals going to refuse his orders? Is the legislative going to impeach him? Is anyone in American government going to do the job their very roles exist to do within the framework of power? What happens if he does? What's been happening as he violates the constitution, daily? When he violates the rights protected, seemingly, by nothing but a sheet of fucking parchment?

Whose going to stop him when he tries?

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.

"It's illegal"

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

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.

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.

Remember Vietnam?

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

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

GWB : Hold mah beer.

You know, that technically, when he violated his oath of office the first time, he resigned from his position. Once you violate your oath of office you no longer hold that office. You can do whatever you want to him, worse case scenario you have to wait for a pardon

That's not a war ! That's a 3 days military special operation !

-Russian Trump alter ego

Oh. He must not.

And you're going to stop him, right?

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.

Went thru the same shit with Bush 20 years ago.

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.