Start a war, save your Presidency?

[Jehanne]

Is that what is going through the narcissistic, sociopathic head of President Dumbo?  If he starts a war with Iran, then he won't have to testify before any grand jury ("Hey, I am fighting a war!"), and his popularity is, at least initially, going to get a boost!  What could be sweeter??

[chimp3]

Old News :

James Madison 1793:

"Every just view that can be taken of this subject, admonishes the public, of the necessity of a rigid adherence to the simple, the received and the fundamental doctrine of the constitution, that the power to declare war including the power of judging of the causes of war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature: that the executive has no right, in any case to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war: that the right of convening and informing Congress, whenever such a question seems to call for a decision, is all the right which the constitution has deemed requisite or proper: and that for such more than for any other contingency, this right was specially given to the executive.

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers: the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man: not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Hence it has grown into an axiom that the executive is the department of power most distinguished by its propensity to war: hence it is the practice of all states, in proportion as they are free, to disarm this propensity of its influence.

As the best praise then that can be pronounced on an executive magistrate, is, that he is the friend of peace; a praise that rises in its value, as there may be a known capacity to shine in war: so it must be one of the most sacred duties of a free people, to mark the first omen in the society, of principles that may stimulate the hopes of other magistrates of another propensity, to intrude into questions on which its gratification depends. If a free people be a wise people also, they will not forget that the danger of surprise can never be so great, as when the advocates for the prerogative of war, can sheathe it in a symbol of peace."


"If a free people be a wise people also, they will not forget that the danger of surprise can never be so great, as when the advocates for the prerogative of war, can sheathe it in a symbol of peace." Bamm!

[Minimalist]

Congress has cravenly surrendered on this issue.

[chimp3]

Congress has cravenly surrendered on this issue.

Police are allowed in jurisdictions. When did the entire planet become the jurisdiction of the U.S.?

[henryp]

He already got us into an imaginary nuclear war with North Korea! Do you think the military can handle fighting two imaginary wars at the same time?

[Jehanne]

Congress has cravenly surrendered on this issue.

Police are allowed in jurisdictions. When did the entire planet become the jurisdiction of the U.S.?

Probably right after the close of WWII.

[chimp3]

Police are allowed in jurisdictions. When did the entire planet become the jurisdiction of the U.S.?

Probably right after the close of WWII.

We put the entire planet under the jurisdiction of the U.S. President and then elected Trump! There were Presidential precedents as solid warning signs. Trumps strategy against the stigma of those Presidential precedents was "I will be the stupidest President ever!" America bought it!

[Jehanne]

That is why some call him a "populist' President; he represents the stupidity of the US electorate.

[DLJ]

Is that what is going through the narcissistic, sociopathic head of President Dumbo?  If he starts a war with Iran, then he won't have to testify before any grand jury ("Hey, I am fighting a war!"), and his popularity is, at least initially, going to get a boost!  What could be sweeter??

But this time, it's a tag-team.

Congress has cravenly surrendered on this issue.

Police are allowed in jurisdictions. When did the entire planet become the jurisdiction of the U.S.?

In 1998.  McKinley prayed to his god for guidance and guess what his god said?

[DLJ]

...
In 1998.  McKinley prayed to his god for guidance and guess what his god said?

Ah! Too late to edit. Make that 1898.