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(25.06.2021)
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to take up a bipartisan measure to repeal the 2002 and 1991 war authorizations for Iraq in mid-July, the panel’s chairman confirmed Thursday.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said he is working with the Biden administration to schedule a classified briefing…
Following the House’s passage – on a broadly bipartisan basis – of legislation to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq (2002 AUMF), five members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (a minority of the minority) are seeking to delay its companion bill’s movement out of committee and onto the Senate floor.
– Our shared commitment to a regular dialogue underscores our desire to contribute to a world in which knowledge of the Holocaust is abundant, fact-based, and serves as a foundation for tackling today’s challenges, including those that lead to the normalization of hatred that can result in demonization or persecution of those perceived as “the other.”
– Jointly with Germany, we will produce strategies and tools that governments can deploy to improve education and training on the Holocaust, counter Holocaust denial and distortion, combat anti-Semitism, and ensure policymakers have a strong understanding of these issues and of their responsibility to act.
– We will support innovation in education and commemoration, joint initiatives to ensure understanding of the Holocaust remains grounded in historical fact, and training activities for stakeholders in democratic societies on Holocaust issues.
By launching this bilateral consultation, and by raising public awareness about anti-Semitism and the hatred of “the other” that paved the way for the horrific crimes of the Holocaust, we can stand together as Transatlantic partners to ensure such atrocities never again occur.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to grant police more authority to enter the home of a fleeing suspect following a minor offense.
The unanimous ruling adopts a legal test that involves weighing the circumstances of a warrantless search to determine its lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment.
The delay comes after five GOP senators asked for a public hearing with the secretaries of Defense and State as well as a classified briefing with those departments and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence before the panel votes on repealing 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force (AUMF).
(21.06.2021)
Now, Sen. Todd Young of Indiana is one of 11 GOP senators on Capitol Hill who support ending the 2002 AUMF.
“We let our warfighters in the future know that the American people are with them every time there is a military engagement,” Young told MSNBC. “As opposed to leaving, as one of my colleagues characterized as, a zombie authorization on the book that may be used to engage in a war that was never authorized or intended by Congress.”
„It’s been such a long time coming,“ Lee said ahead of Thursday’s vote. „It’s Congress‘ responsibility to authorize the use of force, and that authorization cannot be blank checks that stay as authorizations for any administration to use the way they see fit.“
Lee’s legislation has drawn growing bipartisan support. Her repeal of the 2002 authority, which was issued Oct. 16 of that year, has more than 130 cosponsors now.
The IG’s conclusion could not be clearer: the media narrative was false from start to finish. Namely, he said, “the evidence did not support a finding that the [U.S. Park Police] cleared the park on June 1, 2020, so that then President Trump could enter the park.” Instead — exactly as Hemingway’s widely-mocked-by-liberal-outlets article reported — “the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing in response to destruction of Federal property and injury to officers that occurred on May 30 and May 31.” Crucially, “the evidence established that relevant USPP officials had made those decisions and had begun implementing the operational plan several hours before they knew of a potential Presidential visit to the park, which occurred later that day.“
After 12 years in power, MK Benjamin Netanyahu adopted more than a few traits of this type: He turned the members of the government and cabinet into rubber stamps and concentrated power and numerous types of authority in his office. He undermined the principle of the separation of authorities, and especially the independence of the justice system and law enforcement, he compartmentalized the executive branch, cultivated a personal and familial cult of personality, ascribed to himself superhuman qualities, quashed the political competition in Likud and became his party’s supreme leader.
The son of Israel’s sixth president, former Labor Party leader Herzog will replace outgoing President Reuven Rivlin next month
Front-runner Isaac Herzog, chairman of the Jewish Agency and former head of the Labor Party, is also the son of a previous president, Chaim Herzog. He is expected to win backing from legislators of both the right and the left after he amassed the signatures of 27 MKs representing all the parties in the Knesset, except for the Arab ones.
In addition, a few moments before Netanyahu announced his decision to back Gantz for the position, he apparently was made aware that Bennett held his first meeting with Mansour Abbas – the leader of the Islamist Ra’am party – in an effort to form a unity government.
Hours before the High Court of Justice was due to decide on the legality of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to install a justice minister from his own party, the premier announced Wednesday afternoon he supports the appointment of Blue & White leader Benny Gantz for the position.
In a statement Netanyahu said, „The prime minister submitted a detailed response to the High Court that completely rejects the court’s claim that yesterday’s vote was illegal.“
„However,“ Netanyahu said, „after the prime minister’s attempts at compromise were rejected again this morning, and in order to extract us from this dead end situation and allow the Justice Ministry to function, the prime minister decided to appoint Benny Gantz to the post of Justice Minister for the tenure of the interim government.“
Netanyahu’s refusal to appoint a justice minister is a direct assault on this nation. It is that simple.
His reasoning is also simple: Netanyahu does not want to fill the role with someone who is not subservient and willing to go along with coordinated efforts to escape his bribery trial.
Rather, it is the public danger he constitutes and his conspiring to topple state institutions. Ordinary criminal defendants who behaved as Netanyahu has would have long since been ordered to remain in custody for the duration of legal proceedings, lest they obstruct the investigation and trial, and for disobeying a court order. But we can’t complain to Netanyahu about it, when the court itself gives him license to harm it.
(today)
“The entire proceeding against me was an abuse of the destructive power the prosecution holds,” Netanyahu said at a press conference. The prime minister referred to the hearing as a „charade,“ and went as far as accusing the state prosecution of an „attempted coup.“
„The prosecution opened this investigation against the law… and why did they do it? Because they’re on the hunt,“ Netanyahu claimed.
(…)
(08 October 2020)
Lord Neuberger linked the new powers to the coronavirus pandemic and suggested that if the government was seen to be ignoring the law, ordinary people might also decide to reject it,
„The government understandably expects people to obey the law: but I ask rhetorically, what moral authority does the government have expecting people to obey these draconian laws, if it itself is announcing that it intends to break its obligations under international law and intends to stop people going to court to enforce their rights against the government?“ he said.
Police have come under fire for their treatment of a reporter at demonstrations in Bristol on Friday night, during violent clashes between officers and protesters.
Daily Mirror journalist Matthew Dresch shared video footage that appeared to show police pushing him and hitting him with a baton as he shouted that he was a member of the press.
On 27 January, the home secretary said going on holiday was “not a valid reason” to leave home during England’s coronavirus lockdown and added: “Anyone who does not have a valid reason for travel will be directed to return home or they will face a fine.”
The Home Office claimed that police could arrest people who remained intent on going on holiday after being stopped at an airport, saying: “Holiday travel is not allowed and police can fine anyone trying to do so, direct them to go home and, if necessary, use powers of arrest.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel also criticised the disorder and the „violence being directed towards the police“.
„I’m in no doubt the silent, law-abiding majority will be appalled by the actions of this criminal minority,“ she said.
„Despite repeated warnings to disperse, it’s clear these thugs were only intent on causing trouble.
A crowd of people gathered in Bristol on Friday evening for a third ‚kill the bill‘ demonstration within a week.
Protesters met at two parks, Castle Park and College Green, and marched through the city centre and along Park Street towards Bristol University’s buildings
Hundreds sit down outside Bristol police station in ‚kill the bill‘ protest
Britain risks ‘squandering the advantages of our vaccination programme’ by moving too slowly to lift the lockdown, Conservative MPs warned yesterday.
Amid signs of a gathering rebellion, a string of MPs said they were ready to vote against the Government this week when it seeks to extend Covid laws to the end of September.
The nationwide campaign for women’s safety follows the death of Sarah Everard. The 33-year-old marketing executive went missing while walking home from a friend’s flat in London on 3 March.
People are also protesting against the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill. It would change how protests are policed and making some aspects of the Coronavirus Act permanent.
It comes as the UK remains in a national lockdown, which bans gatherings
(livestream)
(16.03.2021)
It will also become a crime to fail to follow restrictions the protesters „ought“ to have known about, even if they have not received a direct order from an officer.
At present, police need to prove protesters knew they had been told to move on, before they can be said to have broken the law.
The proposed law includes an offence of „intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance“.
The event was dubbed „Kill the Bill“, in reference to the attempts to stop the Government’s proposed law which would give police and the Home Secretary increased powers to stop protests.
The Bill also makes a special new law to protect monuments and statues, in the wake of the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, with the crime of damaging them punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Demonstrators began gathering at Bristol’s College Green around 2pm before marching through the city.
According to Bristol Live police initially encouraged them to disperse but moved to the crowd’s edges as numbers increased.
Protestors waved ‘Kill The Bill’ placards whilst a small number had black and red anarchist flags.
@RepGolden and @RepRonKind voted against the bill, and GOP Rep. Lance Gooden, R-TX, voted w/ Dems for it.
Drawing on the Civil Contingencies Act, measures would also need Parliamentary approval before coming into effect (unless too urgent – in which case validity would be provisional) and they would expire after no more than 30 days unless renewed, so that in the event of another pandemic, restrictions could not be imposed for months on end without proper scrutiny.
Although the lower house refused to extend the state of emergency it in a vote on Thursday, the government acted in response to a request from the governors of the country’s 14 regions who argued that a state of danger would not give them adequate powers to enforce the necessary restrictions needed to keep the coronavirus epidemic in check.
(20. April 1997)
Netanyahu told CNN’s Walter Rodgers he was „glad that the truth came out,“ and said the entire incident was „blown out of proportion and twisted out of shape.“
„It’s politics,“ he said in an interview shortly after the attorney general released his report. „Of course there were people out to get us. But this is going nowhere. It’s done. It’s finished.“
Boris Johnson and his top scientific advisers tonight sensationally claimed the Kent coronavirus variant could be up to 40 per cent deadlier – but sparked fury by not providing the public any evidence for their doom-mongering.
Critics argued No10’s bold claim – based on findings by three academic groups – were reminiscent of ‚Project Fear‘, accusing ministers of managing to find a ’new twist‘ in Britain’s crisis whenever hopes are raised that lockdown could be eased.
A year ago, Netanyahu waived his parliamentary immunity after he realized that in the Knesset elected in September 2019, he had no chance of receiving immunity. But the prime minister’s lawyers recently claimed in court that he never waived his right to parliamentary immunity, saying that the Knesset’s immunity proceedings were flawed.
No one has been brought to book for the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks. Instead, the Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on the international criminal court for daring to investigate these and other offences, and is pursuing the man who brought them to light. It has taken the unprecedented step of prosecuting him under the Espionage Act for publishing confidential information. (Mike Pompeo, secretary of state and former CIA director, has previously described Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence agency”). In doing so, it chose to attack one of the very bases of journalism: its ability to share vital information that the government would rather suppress.
But that is what would happen if the UK decides to extradite Julian. It would rewrite the rules of what it is permissible to publish here. Overnight, it would chill free and open debate about abuses by our own government and by many foreign ones, too.
In effect, foreign countries could simply issue an extradition request saying that UK journalists, or Facebook users for that matter, have violated their censorship laws.
Reporters Without Borders and the National Union of Journalists have said that as long as Julian remains in prison facing extradition, the UK is not a safe place for journalists and publishers to work.
The press freedoms we cherish in Britain are meaningless if they can be criminalised and suppressed by regimes in Russia or Ankara or by prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia.
If Westminster Magistrates‘ Court accepts the US arguments tomorrow, every other country can use them, too. It would place an impossible burden on you, me, everyone, not to violate foreign censorship laws.
(01.01.2021)
In a weekend interview with Yediot Aharonot, Gantz said „I felt him stabbing me in the back and turning the knife.“
Nissenkorn, whose resignation took effect Friday morning, wrote on Facebook afterward that Gantz made „crazy concessions“ that would have emptied the justice minister post of authority in an effort to keep the government together.
They say video that emerged this week of police beating a Black music producer during an arrest in Paris — which French President Emmanuel Macron denounced on Friday as „unacceptable“ — may never have been reported on if the law were passed, AFP notes.
The law would criminalize the publication or broadcasting of images of police if the intent is to „physically or mentally harm“ them.
Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, tweeted that the 24-year-old had been wounded at Place de la Bastille by „a police baton“ and condemned the violence.
Ben Shitrit said Hitler “Erased the parliament, destroyed the courts and terrorized the judges” and that Netanyahu was acting similarly.
„There are no words to describe you, the revulsion, the disgust and the recoiling we feel towards you. You are the most hatred prime minister here ever. There is no forgiveness for what you have done,” he added.
(26.08.2020)
The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following revelations from a whistleblower. The officials, including the head of the agency, Lars Finden, have been “relieved of duty for the time being” following the release of a trove of documents. The documents detailed that the FE has been illegally spying on Danish citizens in the last six years and were released by an unnamed whistleblower to the independent regulator of Danish security services which is known as Tilsynet med Efterretningstjenesterne (TET).
#MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs
(November 2020)
These “black boxes” have required both election officials and the public to take on faith that the machines are programmed to capture voter intent, not subvert it. When researchers have attempted to examine the computer code, they have been threatened with lawsuits by the election vendors. (…)
These include machines that can be reprogrammed remotely or in person by surreptitiously (and easily) inserting fraudulent media cards or thumb drives, as researchers have shown over and over again.
Meanwhile, despite claims to the contrary by election vendors, it’s been demonstrated that ballot scanners in precincts in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida use wireless modems that connect to the Internet. (…)
These vulnerabilities—and others—inject doubt into the public’s perception of election integrity. That doubt is compounded by the fact that the three major election vendors in the United States—Election Systems and Software, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion—are owned by private equity. Together, they account for about 80 percent of all election equipment used in the United States.
Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver-based company that supplies voting machines across the United States, on Thursday rejected President Trump’s claim that it had „deleted“ millions of votes in favor of the president.
Earlier in the day, the president said on Twitter that Dominion had struck a total of 2.7 million Trump votes from its machines, including 221,000 in Pennsylvania that he claims were instead tallied for now-President-elect Joe Biden.
These vulnerabilities—and others—inject doubt into the public’s perception of election integrity. That doubt is compounded by the fact that the three major election vendors in the United States—Election Systems and Software, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion—are owned by private equity. Together, they account for about 80 percent of all election equipment used in the United States. This leaves the public in the dark about who owns the voting machine companies, or how much money those owners make from elections.
At the very least, not knowing who is behind these companies—and if they have ties to either political party, donate to super PACs, or have a financial stake in the outcome of an election—undermines confidence in the proprietary software undergirding voting machines. The federal government, which does not participate in the administration of elections, could change this by requiring any election vendor paid with federal funds to disclose its full ownership and post its balance sheet. Until then, as Saltman warned, “situations may be created in which conflict of interest is a serious concern.”
The opinion states that Netanyahu cannot make decisions regarding appointments to the legal system or law enforcment. Netanyahu must also be barred from making decisions regarding witnesses, other defendants or engaging in legislation that could affect the proceedings against him, Mendelblit wrote.
Furthermore, Netanyahu cannot interfere in several areas under the jurisdiction of the Communications Ministry.
He is to say the methods used by ministers will undo the unity of society and will lead to long-term authoritarian government.
Lord Sumption will say that ministers avoided Parliament through the Public Health Act which let them introduce lockdowns and other measures without the same level of scrutiny by the House of Commons or Lords.
Giving the Cambridge Freshfields annual law lecture, he will accuse the Government of ‚tendentiously‘ presenting guidance as if it was law – such as the two-metre social distancing rule.
Berlin Senate is appealing #covid19 #berlin
Brooklyn U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan said safety restrictions and guidelines may even “turn New York City into a very different, even desolate, place compared to how it was before the pandemic,” but he declined to grant a preliminary injunction against rules that prohibit restaurants from serving food after midnight. Indoor dining is also restricted to 25% capacity as of Sept. 30.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in an order Friday that even though the rules harm religious groups, it is not in the public interest to block them if they are helping prevent a wave of new infections.
Without a functioning mainstream media, and with government scientific advisors seemingly bought and paid for by pharmaceutical corporations, it has been left to independent journalists and researchers to question the Covid-19 narrative that we are all supposed to accept without hesitation. Few have worked harder than Mark Oakford.
Mark has sent 1,392 freedom of information requests to local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS trusts, Police Forces, Education Authorities, Ministerial departments and more.
While a few requests remain unanswered, he has gathered data on more than 1.6 million public sector workers across the UK…
(…)
We are told that lockdowns are essential to avert a so-called second wave. Yet Mark found, for public sector workers who regularly interact with the public in the community, such as police officers, fire officers, park attendants and so forth, mortality was zero.
Our entire way of life is being irrevocably changed because of the claims made about Covid-19. We should insists that those claims be rigorously scrutinised.
– A new three-tier strategy of local lockdown measures for England has been announced by Boris Johnson in efforts to curb rising Covid-19 rates
– Different areas of England will be split up into medium, high and very high alert levels
– These areas will be subject to the same national measures which currently apply across the country including a 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants and the ‚rule of six‘
Any details of the plan are based solely on leaks to the media over the last week, including a document dated 30 September that was seen by the Guardian.
The draft traffic-light-style plan is designed to simplify the current patchwork of localised restrictions, which apply to about a quarter of the UK.
(today)
In response to the Court’s ruling, the governor incorrectly stated that the decision is not effective for another 21 days: Under Michigan Court Rule 7.315(C)(4), “unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an order or judgment is effective when it is issued…” Not 21 days later. Immediately. Her emergency powers are over, and either the Court or the attorney general should publicly clarify that Whitmer’s executive orders no longer have any force of law.
(02.10.2020)
She warned the court order doesn’t take effect for another 21 days and some of the measures put in place to control the virus can continue under „alternative sources of authority not at issue in today’s ruling.“
(03.10.2020)
The court ruled that Whitmer lacked authority under each of the two laws that govern states of emergency in Michigan to extend the state of emergency passed April 30, when her first state of emergency declaration expired, according to Mlive.com. Those two laws are the 1976 Emergency Management Act (EMA) and the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act (EPGA).
(02.10.2020)
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lacked the authority after April 30 to declare a state of emergency under the 1976 Emergency Management Act.
The court also ruled that the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act (EPGA) was unconstitutional, and that it did not provide a basis for Gov. Whitmer to exercise emergency powers.
It’s important for me to be precise, because I know the mechanisms of thought enforcement in my political camp, which will want to turn my words into support for Netanyahu. I firmly oppose the lockdown, but the fact that Israel is enforcing it by using the army doesn’t make the paratroopers’ presence at checkpoints proof that “the dictatorship is already here.” Certainly no more than the curfew in Spain and the soldiers patrolling the streets there were proof of Franco’s return.
(25.09.2020)
Attorney Ben Crump, co-counsels Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, and the family of Breonna Taylor hold a press conference at Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky
(24.09.2020)
Palmer’s attorneys, Ben Crump, Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar, specifically called on Cameron to release the grand jury transcript and recording to show what evidence and recommendations he presented.
„What we also want is for you to quit dodging the question. You were asked at the press conference (Wednesday): Did you make a recommendation“ to the grand jury, Baker asked. „You refused to answer. Answer the question: Did you even present any charges regarding Breonna Taylor to the grand jury?“
(24.09.2020)
Jasmine Caruthers is one of the two students helping Miller and said she had mixed emotions on the decision.
„Part of me was happy that the Taylor family was going to get compensated because they have been through so much. Another part of me was extremely sad because at the end of the day you can’t put a price tag on someone’s life,“ said Caruthers.
Netanyahu is pursuing two tracks simultaneously. The first is that of the attorney general. It involves ceaselessly attacking Avichai Mendelblit to get him to break and resign, thereby enabling Netanyahu to appoint an attorney general after his own heart who will cancel his trial due to “lack of public interest.”
The second track is the general lockdown he intends to impose later this month to stop the demonstrations outside his official residence on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street.
Senior police officers have been charged with sex crimes against their subordinates. They have consorted with famous rabbis, ministers and mafia bosses. One was offered a bribe that he did not report. Another served as a mole for a tycoon who was the target of a police intelligence operation.
One officer, considered a rising star, worked with a famous lawyer to trade sensitive information from undercover investigations for cash-filled envelopes. …
Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit is holding consultations on Wednesday whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be disqualified from serving as premier, because of what Mendelblit sees as Netanyahu’s use of the office for his personal benefit as a defendant in three corruption cases.
And third, Benjamin Netanyahu has utilized the paralysis and confusion he has imposed on Israel’s body politic over the past two years to dismantle the checks and balances that stand in the way of his efforts to avoid criminal trial. It is one of many battles in the total war that Netanyahu is waging against the very foundations of Israeli democracy, which, in his distress and incessant self-victimization, he has come to despise.
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked two intelligence agencies on Friday if surveillance has been conducted on members of Congress in the last decade.
In a letter to the heads of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Eshoo raised alarm over allegations in a book published earlier this year by journalist Barton Gellman.
“The whole system is being upended by this. It’s security recklessness. Netanyahu knew where Trump was going with the arms deal and didn’t tell us a thing,” an Israeli defense source told Haaretz on Thursday.
“Both the Ben Shabbat-Norkin conversation and the Netanyahu-Gantz meeting were part of the prime minister’s feelers without him showing his cards. We suspect that Netanyahu gave Trump a wink. The result will be that if the United States wishes, it will sell those planes, and with them offensive drones and other advanced weapons. It will happen without any prior professional discussion in Israel.
So we must take seriously the report in Israel Hayom, the Netanyahu family’s private journal, saying that the prime minister is willing to give up the one-year budget – and consequently an election – in exchange for appointing the police commissioner and attorney general of his choice.
(21.03.2020)
Both Congress and the Supreme Court have stopped meeting out of fear of physical contact, even though the technology exists to allow officials to continue working in virtual spaces. Legal barriers could be removed to allow such a shift to a type of virtual democracy, but the main barrier seems to be conceptual and cultural.
We must not allow a constitutional system to wither like a starving man staring at an apple tree but incapable of imagining a stick.
(28.07.2020)
What I showed those journalists was proof, in the form of the government’s own classified documents, that the self-described “Five Eyes”—the state security organs of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada—had together conspired to weaken their laws. They had forced clandestine access to the networks of their largest telecommunications and internet titans (some of whom hadn’t needed much in the way of arm-twisting) in pursuit of a single goal: the transformation of the free and fragmented internet into history’s first centralized means of global mass surveillance.
To understand what the crime syndicate that has taken over this country is after, one must first understand the goals of the man who leads it. The criminal defendant bunkered down in Balfour Street has three goals: to remain prime minister, to cancel his trial and to prevent the truth from coming out about the so-called steel shares and submarines affairs (which could result in charges that are much more serious than those in his current trial).
The Israeli premier reportedly wants immediate elections in case the High Court of Justice disqualifies him from serving as alternate prime minister, after his rotation with Gantz commences in November 2021, due to the indictments filed against him.
His second demand is to dissolve a public committee slated to appoint the state prosecutor and police commissioner and transfer the procedure to the government instead.
The report suggested that Gantz’s Blue and White party will find it „difficult“ to approve Netanyahu’s first request.
Most sports facilities were ordered shut on July 17 following a government vote on a package of measures aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
However, on Thursday, the Knesset panel supervising the country’s coronavirus response voted to strike this restriction down
Powers like these have been deployed sparingly: A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, a proclamation declaring a national emergency, followed by an executive order days later, invoked some presidential powers, including the use of National Guard and U.S. military forces.
What little we know about these secret powers comes from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, but we believe they may include suspension of habeas corpus, surveillance, home intrusion, arrest without a judicial warrant, collective if not mass arrests and more; some could violate constitutional protections.
A pair of Oregon state lawmakers joined with a local lawyer, church, and advocacy group on Tuesday to bring yet another lawsuit against federal government agencies over President Donald Trump’s ongoing militarized crackdown on Black Lives Matter protests in Portland.
The president portrayed the nation’s cities as out of control. “Look at what’s going on — all run by Democrats, all run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by radical left,” Mr. Trump said. He added: “If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.”
Democrats said the president was the one out of control.
Heavily armed federal officers without name tags have carried out nightly attacks on antiracist demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, and snatched people off the streets into unmarked vans, sparking widespread outrage. “What we’ve seen is a continuous escalation in violence against our protesters,” says Lilith Sinclair, an Afro-Indigenous local organizer in Portland. They note the federal violence follows many years of “severe police brutality” from local police. “It’s left the people of Portland not only worried about their safety, but, even more so, justified in the fight that we’re engaged in.”
The U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon has called for an investigation into the conduct of federal officers deployed to protests in Portland, calling their behavior “unlawful.” Local officials are also mounting legal challenges to remove the agents from city streets. Juan Chavez, project director and attorney at the Oregon Justice Resource Center, says it’s a terrifying situation for Portland residents who face “these camouflaged goon squads” who often refuse to identify themselves or their agencies. “They just appear in the middle of the night next to people who are in and around downtown who then get corralled into these vehicles, not told where or who’s picking them up,” he says.
Democrat Congresswoman Jim Clyburn compared federal law enforcement to Nazi Germany Gestapo, when he appeared on CNN on 7/20/2020.
“The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appear to have increasingly abused emergency authorities to justify the use of force against Americans exercising their right to peaceful assembly,” wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).
MARTIN: First of all, would you just give us an update on the situation in Portland today?
BROWN: Obviously, things are very challenging right now. I was very, very clear with the Trump administration and the head of the Homeland Security to take their federal troops off the streets of Portland. The Trump administration needs to stop playing politics with people’s lives. We don’t have a secret police in this country. This is not a dictatorship. And Trump needs to get his officers off the streets.
When contacted by CNN, a spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau said that their officers were not involved in the incident.
Customs and Border Protection also told CNN that their officers were not involved.
CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and US Marshals for a comment but has not yet heard back.
(17.06.2020)
(17.06.2020)
Federal law enforcement officers have used unmarked vehicles to detain protesters in Portland, according to news reports and at least one protester who spoke to USA TODAY.
Videos shared online show officers driving up to people, detaining them without explanation, then driving off, Oregon Public Broadcasting first reported. The ACLU filed a lawsuit Friday evening to try and end what it called „lawlessness“ on the streets of Portland.
Roberts laid out a list of factors for courts to consider when weighing such subpoenas but stressed that the list was not comprehensive, noting how rarely interbranch disputes have come before the court over the nation’s history.
“Other considerations may be pertinent as well; one case every two centuries does not afford enough experience for an exhaustive list,” the chief justice wrote
With 187 votes, Greek MPs put the nails on the coffin of Democracy in the country.
PS How many protesters were injured by police and suffered from tear-gas, we will probably never learn.
Netanyahu’s fixation with controlling the media is dangerous enough; controlling law enforcement will be worse
The Supreme Court in a split decision on Thursday granted New York state prosecutors access to President Trump’s tax returns, even as it shielded a trove of his financial records from Congress.
The justices upheld a Manhattan district attorney subpoena for eight years of Trump’s financial documents, including his personal and corporate tax returns. But they declined to grant Congress access to records subpoenaed by a trio of Democratic-led House committees.
The Knesset on Wednesday voted against forming a commission of inquiry that will probe conflicts of interest of Supreme Court justices.
Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said it would back the initiative by far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich of the Yamina faction to establish such a commission.
Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan party called the move „a declaration of war on democracy.
At the end of summer 2020, Israeli democracy died in broad daylight.
The bill allows the executive branch to sidestep Knesset committees, which the government says cause delays in implementing its decisions. It has been debated by the Knesset and has passed a first vote on Monday night with the support of 47 MKs, while 34 opposed it. It was then approved in its second and third votes, with with 29 lawmakers voting in favor and 24 against.
Despite unanimous support Friday, the amendment faces a number of bureaucratic obstacles before voters can vote on it in November.
The House on Thursday passed sweeping criminal justice reforms aimed at curbing the use of excessive force by law enforcement after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police one month ago.
The package was crafted exclusively by the majority Democrats — drawing howls of criticism from GOP leaders — and its passage was never in doubt, as Democrats of all stripes united in a 236 to 181 vote to send the measure to the Senate.
Berman leaves behind a string of high-profile prosecutions and investigations. Since he became US attorney in early 2018, the office has prosecuted Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, is investigating top Trump confidante Rudy Giuliani and indicted the former New York mayor’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
President Trump on Saturday fired the federal prosecutor whose office put his former personal lawyer in prison and is investigating his current one, heightening criticism that the president was carrying out an extraordinary purge to rid his administration of officials whose independence could be a threat to his re-election campaign.
Defunding the police is largely understood to mean reallocating funds from police departments to other community resources. Some activists, however, are calling for police departments to be completely dismantled. Regardless, these calls to ‚defund the police‘ — which are supported by about one-third of Americans — involve reimagining the current policing system in the United States.
The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act already has enough co-sponsors to win the two-thirds support needed to override veto from the mayor, who has opposed the bill.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has asked for the budget increase amid ongoing local and national reports of police violence against protesters.
The budget that you put out last month, in fact, calls for increasing funding for the police … Are you reconsidering your position in any way?
Not at all.
Krystal Ball examines Joe Biden’s policy proposals to address racial inequality if elected president.
As the force of the defund police movement has taken some by surprise, Biden has hardly been the only politician to seek to defend the status quo. Even his one-time rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, indicated in a recent interview that he objected calls to defund the police. “I think we want to redefine what police departments do, give them the support they need to make their jobs better defined,” said Sanders. “So I do believe that we need well-trained, well-educated, and well-paid professionals in police departments.”
That’s what officials have promised for years. P
In some cases of police violence, including in the case of George Floyd, there is a disconnect between what officers say happened and what video evidence later shows. As the nation weighs police reform measures, former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton says it should focus on the importance of telling the truth.
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, some cities are asking if the police are being asked to do jobs they were never intended to do. Budgets are being re-evaluated.
Non-reformist reforms seek abolition as an end goal, and include defunding and demilitarizing the police — a demand that has long been considered politically impossible but has entered mainstream discourse over the last week and is reflected in the letters sent Friday.
The letter to police chiefs asks them to help curb the power of police unions. “Making sure that unions aren’t as powerful so that you can keep bad apples on the force, and prevent robust oversight and disciplinary action,” Medwed said.
In a two-page memorandum to the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys, Barr cautioned that some state and local directives could be infringing on protected religious, speech and economic rights.
“If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” Barr wrote.
Nothing of the like has been seen before – not in Israel or in any other advanced democracy. This political agreement, fundamentally corrupt and rotten, emasculates the Knesset under cover of the coronavirus, undermines the foundations of our system of government and subordinates the Supreme Court to the government.
The obvious reason for its existence is neither the coronavirus nor the crisis, but immunity for the criminal defendant, Benjamin Netanyahu, in any situation and at any price.
– Legislative—including budget and veto—authority
President Trump has moved from stating that he alone can fix it to telling America’s governors that they need to “call your own shots” when it comes to reopening their economies during the nation’s worst health crisis in 100 years.
That’s our top takeaway from Trump’s announcement Thursday on federal guidelines to reopen the country “that put the onus on governors of making decisions about their states‘ economies,” per NBC News.
“Let there be no doubt, the High Court will take the opportunity to oust me,” Netanyahu himself says in these conversations. He warns that if the court prevents him from being prime minister, or if a law is enacted banning him from running for the post in the future, a civil rebellion will erupt. “Masses will take to the streets,” he predicts. “There will be a call to boycott the election.”
Read the White House’s plan for „Opening Up America Again“ here.
The guidelines released by the president effectively mean that any restoration of American society will take place on a patchwork basis.
A group of House members authored a new one-sentence resolution to remind President Trump of the limits on his power and challenged anyone in the House to vote against it.
A looming showdown between President Trump’s eagerness to revive a cratering economy and governors facing a deadly pandemic is leading to what could become the most contentious standoff between state and federal governments since the civil rights era.
For almost 250 years, the competing interests of states and the U.S. government have undergirded the most divisive debates in American history.
A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!
“ The president doesn’t have total authority. We have a constitution. We don’t have a king. We have an elected president. That’s what our founding fathers did when they wrote the constitution. And the constitution clearly says the powers that are not specifically listed for the federal government are reserved to the states. And the balance between federal and state authority was central to the constitution, it’s one of the great balances of power. „
Trump would not offer specifics about the source of his asserted power, which he claimed, despite constitutional limitations, was absolute.
“When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “The governors know that.”
Leaders with authoritarian instincts may not cede their emergency powers.
In this unprecedented situation, it is legitimate that Member States adopt extraordinary measures to protect their citizens and overcome the crisis. We are however deeply concerned about the risk of violations of the principles of rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights arising from the adoption of certain emergency measures.
Emergency measures should be limited to what is strictly necessary, should be proportionate and temporary in nature, subject to regular scrutiny, and respect the aforementioned principles and international law obligations. They should not restrict the freedom of expression or the freedom of the press.
The Netherlands is one of 13 EU member states which have signed a joint statement criticising Viktor Orban’s power grab in Hungary but which does not mention the country by name.
In the statement, EU foreign ministers say they are ‘deeply concerned about the risk of violations of the principles of rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights arising from the adoption of certain emergency measures.’
Hungary’s parliament endorsed a bill on Monday giving nationalist premier Viktor Orban the sweeping new powers he says he needs to fight the new coronavirus pandemic.
Nationalist opposition League leader Matteo Salvini said, amid criticism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban getting full powers Monday, that it had been a democratic choice by the Hungarian parliament.
Most concerning is that this could lead to the censorship of those who disagree with the government’s line on coronavirus – and the extraordinary measures it has put in place to tackle it.
There is a great deal of disagreement among experts on a whole range of questions related to the coronavirus outbreak, such as over the death rate of the virus or the necessity of a society-wide shutdown. Members of the public have every right to weigh in on these debates on social media, too.
(26.03.2020)
Derbyshire Police have tweeted a menacing video warning the public to stay away from the Peak District during the coronavirus lockdown.
The video shows police drone footage of unsuspecting members of the public hiking, walking their dogs and watching the sunset. All totally harmless behaviour, which is now deemed ‘non-essential’ – and by implication illegal – by the authorities.
(25.03.2020)
The Coronavirus Bill, having sailed through the House of Commons, is expected to become law today. The Bill gives the government and the authorities unprecedented new powers, unheard of in a democracy during peacetime.
(9. September 2019)
After the Sept. 11 attacks, an American citizen who had been arrested in Chicago and accused of terrorism links was deemed to be an “enemy combatant” and transferred to military custody. He was held in wartime detention without trial for years, then transferred back to the civilian justice system before the Supreme Court could resolve his case. In 2011, an American drone strike targeted and killed an American citizen who had been deemed to be an operational terrorist leader whose capture was infeasible, but who had not been charged or convicted in a trial. In 2019, the executive branch was reported to be considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces on domestic soil to enforce immigration laws.
Are any of these examples unlawful? Under what circumstances, if any, may a president use military force within the United States or against Americans?
Trump, by way of a signing statement, noted that his administration would quite simply override a provision in the nearly 900-page stimulus bill that would require the country’s newest inspector general–just created and tasked with overseeing the disbursement of the stimulus funds–to report to Congress any time the administration stonewalled about where or how those funds were being spent.
The Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the limits of signing statements.
President Donald Trump has issued a signing statement declaring that he can block a watchdog from telling Congress when information is withheld about payouts to businesses in the massive new $2 trillion economic relief law.
Democrats fought hard for provisions in the measure to ensure …
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) blasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday for not allowing him to speak on the floor before the House approved a $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package.
Massie had sought to force a roll-call vote on the measure, earning a condemnation from President Trump in the process and criticism from a number of members of Congress.
“This is a 9/11 moment,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said on the floor. “A time to put partisan differences aside, policy differences aside, and work together as Americans.”
Israel’s Supreme Court ordered a Thursday vote to elect a new Knesset (Israeli Parliament) speaker after Yuli Edelstein announced his resignation Wednesday, allowing senior MKAmir Peretz to lead the plenary.
The court decided late Wednesday night to hold the vote Thursday.
In the ruling, Supreme Court President Justice Esther Hayut attacked Edelstein, saying he had committed „an unprecedented violation of the rule of law.“ Hayut had strongly criticized Edelstein’s decision to lock the plenary contrary to the court’s decision.
Earlier, the High Court debated a petition to accuse Edelstein of dishonoring the court, after he resigned earlier Wednesday, locking the Knesset plenum contrary to the court’s decision, which ruled that a new Speaker will be selected by Wednesday midnight.
Never before has such a senior public official – Edelstein is second in line to President Rivlin in the state’s official hierarchy – thumbed his nose so directly at Israel’s judicial system, sparking an unprecedented constitutional crisis in the midst of the coronavirus crisis which is plaguing both Israel and the world.
There’s no direct analogy, of course, with the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that spurred FDR to make his famous “infamy speech” while asking Congress to approve a declaration of war against Japan – other than in the potential if not existential threat that Edelstein’s move poses to Israel’s future.
This prompted the High Court to convene urgently to decide how to move forward, with proceedings seemingly set to extend into the night.
According to Knesset protocols, Edelstein’s resignation will come into effect within 48 hours. The Knesset won’t be able to vote on a new Knesset speaker until then, and Edelstein said that the Knesset will not be able to convene for a vote until Monday. Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan is looking into ways to circumvent the protocols and appoint an acting Knesset speaker.
While last week Gantz agreed in principle to join a unity government with Likud that would be headed by Netanyahu for a limited period until Gantz replaced him, he has pulled back following criticism from supporters.
“First, we will get Israeli democracy back to working – and later we will form a government that will deal with the coronavirus and the other challenges that are on the line,” Gantz wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “We must not let the coronavirus crisis, which requires thorough attention – medical, social and economic – trample over Israeli democracy. Not on my watch.”
Other special committees to be established will focus on education, violence in Israeli Arab communities and labor and welfare; the four special panels will need to be approved by the plenum Tuesday.
These included Finance and Foreign Affairs and Defense panels, with the latter set to establish a special committee that will supervise the contentious Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)-led coronavirus patients surveillance program.
CNN’s Kaitlin Collins pressed President Donald Trump on his comments about hoping to re-open the US by Easter, a date that few health experts believe will be sufficient in containing the spread of coronavirus.
Hanegbi, who heads the Agriculture Ministry, and Elkin, minister for Jerusalem affairs and environmental protection, are joining Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Likud parliamentarian Gideon Sa’ar, who is known as a Netanyahu rival, in supporting the court’s decision.
Despite also voicing criticism of the ruling, on Monday Erdan said „we must respect the ruling or else resign ourselves to anarchy,“ while Sa’ar stressed that calls not to accept a direct court ruling are „unacceptable.“
„The President is right, the cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re going to have to make some difficult tradeoffs,“ Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Monday on Fox News. „I spoke with the President about this very subject late last evening, so we’ll be looking at a number of different things. Let’s give it another week.“
Crazy turn of events.
The High Court ruled in a unanimous decision Monday that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein must convene the Knesset no later than Wednesday, to elect his replacement.
Israel’s High Court of Justice approved Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) Speaker Yuli Edelstein’s request to submit his answer today at 9 pm (local time) regarding whether he will convene a parliamentary vote for his replacement.
Throughout Israel’s 72-year existence, the Knesset Speaker had only been replaced once a new government was sworn in. Thus, replacing Edelstein before a government is formed would represent an unprecedented move, even with a majority vote.
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the country’s parliament to reconvene for the selection of a new speaker, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he tries to steer the country through the coronavirus crisis and fend off a looming corruption trial.
The current speaker, Yuli Edelstein of Netanyahu’s Likud party, suspended the parliament’s activities last week, citing procedural issues and restrictions on large gatherings due to the virus.
Edelstein, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, last week suspended parliamentary activities, preventing the newly elected legislature from choosing a new speaker and forming committees critical to the country’s fight against coronavirus.
Monday is an important test for Israeli democracy. The Knesset is due to resume its deliberations amidst the political crisis and the spread of the coronavirus.
If the Knesset chairman Yuri Edelstein, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political hatchetmen from Likud, continue with their delay tactics to prevent the legislative branch performing its duty, Israel will win the dubious title of the only „parliamentary democracy“ to fail to recognize the results of its last democratic general election and to be governed by an inoperative parliament.
President Trump tweeted Sunday that his administration will reassess its response to the coronavirus outbreak at the end of the 15-day period that calls on Americans to limit their normal behaviors in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
But the Justice Department’s request doesn’t stop there. Instead, the department has also included an idea that should be immediately rejected: letting federal court chief judges halt all court proceedings during an emergency. This provision would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings.”
(19.03.2020)
Under the cover of a pandemic, he is transforming himself from lame-duck prime minister to unelected strongman. He and his henchmen have shut down parliament, enacted extreme “security” measures without legislative oversight and shelved the courts just as Netanyahu was about to go on trial for corruption.
I don’t use the word “coup” lightly. But any weaker description of Netanyahu’s assault on Israeli democracy is a refusal to absorb and report the truth.
“Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest,’” said Norman L. Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”
Since a majority of Knesset members – 61 out of 120 – oppose the government, Edelstein was dispatched to block the activity of the legislature and prevent it from voting in a new speaker. It is inconceivable that a temporary speaker would use his authority to set the agenda in order to prevent the selection of a permanent speaker. It is parliamentary bullying, and it must stop immediately.
The government is doing all it can to fight the coronavirus, while the premier moves to demolish Israel’s democracy. Only if the center-left parties are in the coalition will they be able to contain Netanyahu
The United States is facing greater coronavirus upheavals than Israel, led by a president who has less respect for democracy and the rule of law
For years and years, we wondered when the occupation would come home.
It happened this week.
As the settlers once said in a different context: Yesha Zeh Kan – Judea, Samaria and Gaza are here.
One set of laws for the tyrant’s allies. Another set of laws for everyone else. Innocent civilians hounded. Their persecutor – never held accountable.
Raise the black flag. Stand up to the tyrant.
This is the fitting flag for this new Israel.
Panic over the coronavirus, justified as it may be, mustn’t blind the public from seeing how the temporary prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and members of his party are exploiting the crisis to hold onto power. Through their management of the coronavirus crisis, Netanyahu and his government are neutralizing the justice system and quarantining the legislature.
Protesters said they were angry at anti-democratic measures being taken to fight the coronavirus outbreak, such as this week’s decision to use cyber measures to track the location of people diagnosed with the virus as well as suspected coronavirus patients, in addition to strict restrictions to achieve social distancing, such as barring thousands of people from leaving their homes.
Further, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein dispersed parliament on Wednesday, deepening the paralyzation of Israel’s legislative body, which critics have seen as an attack on the checks and balances within Israel’s democratic institutions.
Taking to Twitter, Gantz wrote that “exceptional times, unfortunately, call for exceptional measures. [However,] Blue & White will insist that the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, along with a special corona sub-committee, the Finance Committee and other sub-committees be enlisted immediately to oversee the process and approve the type of oversight regulation so critical at this juncture.”
He added that “a functional parliament, even and especially in states of emergency, is a hallmark of democracy and we will be steadfast in preserving it.”
The Israeli government unanimously passed in the early hours of Tuesday new emergency regulations for tracking the cellphones of coronavirus patients or those suspected of being infected, circumventing the approval of the Knesset in the process.
(11.03.2020)
The bipartisan measure amounts to an unusual rebuke of the president’s expansive war powers. President Trump has promised to veto it.
(13.03.2020)
Sen. Tim Kaine introduced the resolution after President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike that killed a top Iranian general.
In a largely party-line 227-186 vote, the House approved the resolution that would direct the president to “terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities against” Iran unless Congress specifically authorizes it. Six Republicans voted for the measure.
The Senate passed the resolution in a 55-45 vote last month, with eight Republicans siding with Democrats to support it. Neither chamber of Congress is expected to have the votes to override Trump’s likely veto.
The vote was 55-45. Eight Republicans voted in favor of it: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Jerry Moran of Kansas.
The U.S. Senate are expected to hold a final vote on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020 on a War Powers resolution that is aimed at restricting President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran.
The resolution underscores that Congress has the sole power to declare war, as laid out in the Constitution. The resolution also requires that any hostilities with Iran must be explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force. It does not prevent the U.S. from defending itself from an imminent attack.
The U.S. Senate has begun debating a war powers resolution, which was introduced by Senator Tim Kaine.
On Wednesday, Kaine spoke on the Senate floor, urging other members of the congressional chamber to pass the resolution to „prevent further escalation of hostilities with Iran without congressional authorization.“
Rachel Maddow looks at what has turned out to be prescient advice from Masha Gessen and Timothy Snyder about the necessity of institutions in preserving democracy, and the necessity of engaged citizens in protecting those institutions from a threatening autocracy like the Donald Trump presidency.
No matter who is president, Congress needs to re-establish its role in the use of force.
(17.01.2019)
Kudos to Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Todd C. Young (R-Ind.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for their integrity in standing up for the resolution put forward by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that joins the House to remind the administration that the Constitution gave Congress the right to declare war.
(1) Congress has the sole power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution.
(2) Congress has not yet declared war upon, nor enacted a specific statutory authorization for use of military force against, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107–243; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) do not serve as a specific statutory authorization for war against Iran, and neither authorize any such action.