Skolops

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@EricRSammons Regardless of the merits of what's happened in Iran, I think "no new wars" is a promise that one should never make and one should never expect someone to fulfill. Whether or not a country enters a war is simply not something that any one man or even country has full control over.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@EricRSammons @CatholicInUtah It's always possible my own experience is an outlier, but I know several ardent libertarians in my life and each of them regularly makes the perfect the enemy of the good and winds up working against conservative causes because they are not perfectly libertarian.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@EricRSammons There's another aspect of this that comes from both: a lot of people hate their kids - or at least have unfortunate feelings about them - precisely because they don't discipline them.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward Again, the Congressional Research Service has several times disagreed with the interpretation that the POTUS cannot use the military like this. It has expressed sympathy to the wish that he could not, but said that additional legislation is required to actually forbid him.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward This would seem to refer to cases where the president considers there to be a national emergency, something which according to existing juriaprudence he has extraordinarily broad authority to decide.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward The Gulf War, for example, may very, very barely qualify as a war, but I'd call it close. Trump and Obama's strikes in the Middle East clearly cannot reasonably be called a war. This current campaign? It is getting closer buy fundamentally is too one sided.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward I disagree, and have for decades. For one thing, I believe that it is unreasonable and illogical to call something a war if it has not lasted a sufficient amount of time. For another, I think that a sufficiently one-sided conflict cannot reasonably be called a war.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward "Start a war" is a phrase which leaves an enormous amount of room for interpretation. How can one evaluate any given military action for whether it constitutes a war vs. the kinds of actions which the WPR says are possible for up to 60 days?

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward By what standard do you determine the action in Iran to constitute a war?

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward Even granting your argument and ignoring the elements pointed out in my other tweets, precedent from SCOTUS and other courts has been that the executive has essentially unilateral authority to determine what constitutes a national emergency and an attack on the US.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward In fact, the entire WPR makes no sense if we do not assume it grants new latitude to the POTUS, since most of it is about what a POTUS must do after military action taken without congressional involvement - but if such action is not possible, the WPR has no raison d'etre.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward S3 specifically acknowledges the possibility of forces being introduced into hostilities without congress being involved while s4 lays out what is required when this is done, part of which includes the deployment being allowed to continue for 60 days.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@IlyaSomin @FeserEdward In fact, it actually puts an additional burden on *congress* by requiring them to convene and vote in order to *end* any such "unauthorized" action prior to the 60 day mark.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@FeserEdward @IlyaSomin This does not mean I necessarily support actions in Iran or unilateral military actions by the POTUS, but from a legal perspective the text seems clear to me that he is within the proper bounds - and the Congressional Research Service has in multiple administrations said as much.

[Skolops @SkolopsT]

@FeserEdward @IlyaSomin And again, just what "consult" means is not well defined. As the CRS notes, a POTUS who simply calls a handful of congressional allies to talk about impending actions would seem to fulfill the legal requirements of the WPR.