JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 953
- 715
- 910
Speaker Mike Johnson in his Press Conference yesterday underscored why the Republican leadership has it dramatically wrong on the Iran matter! The big question is did President Trump have the authority to conduct the massive aerial bombing campaign on Iran he is conducting! The answer is absolutely no! This is an important government power at issue here the power to use America's military which means the power to kill other human beings and the power to put Americans lives at risk who are in uniform; it is not a power a President should be using for political reasons or for personal reputational advancement! Pursuant to the U.S. Constitution the President can use the U.S. military without going to Congress and getting authorization when using the U.S. military to defend America against an imminent threat and it is also implied although it doesn't come up often in a humanitarian effort!
None of these exceptions to the War Powers Act lie here if one wants to stretch and say that the American government knew the Israeli government was going to bomb Iran and based on the Iranian government's past behavior they surmised that Iran's security forces would do a retaliatory bombing against American installations in the Middle East and so the decision was made to do a preemptive strike to reduce the harm done to American interests from an Iranian bombing, the bombing would have to be commensurate with the justification, this would justify one strike. But after the first day of bombing and Iran's just response the President should have publicly and privately opened up channels with the Iran government to reach an agreement to stop the bombing exchanges, in other words, the President's actions have to be within the scope of his authority they have to be within a legitimate response to an imminent threat to America. The President's actions don't meet this standard there isn't lawful justification to embark on a multi-day campaign to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capacity, degrade its drone capacity and destroy all nuclear program infrastructure and kill its political leadership; if he wanted to do this he had to get Congressional authorization! America is a great country to a significant degree because we hold the rule of law as supreme, the U.S. Constitution needs to be respected and abided by all the time - President Trump does not get this!
Speaker Johnson by his own words established that President Trump did not have justification for the use of the military here because he fails to describe an imminent threat. Speaker Johnson said the Iranian regime was a bad regime and they were pursuing the means to get a nuclear weapon and President Trump tried five time to negotiate with them to abandon this program and five times they refused his offer and so he then had justification to take out this program. One of America's enemies pursuing a nuclear weapons program isn't sufficient justification; the target country would have to have weapons grade uranium, the technology and the know how to put that uranium into a bomb and carrying out such activity and the technology and know how to put that nuclear bomb in a missile where it would detonate as a missile should and carrying out such activity. These conditions were not met not only in their entirety but not even on an individual condition basis; so President Trump didn't have the authority to do what he did. Speaker Johnson also says that Iran was producing ballistic missiles at a volume which would overwhelm our Middle East allies so the President was justified in attacking to degrade Iran's ballistic missile program; these facts don't cut it just because one of America's enemies even a really bad one are dramatically building up its missile program doesn't green light the President to unilaterally bomb that enemy - an imminent threat justification doesn't lie!
Speaker Johnson yesterday said something yesterday and President Trump has said it numerous time and even said it yesterday and Republicans in Congress skirt this issue like its toxic and it is a critically important point. They say Iran won't agree to negotiate the end of its nuclear program and we have tried everything. This is an incredibly abusive and misguided claim because what the Trump administration does is they add all these non-nuclear conditions to the deal they say Iran has to stop funding and arming terrorist groups and it has to stop its ballistic missile program et al, these are all good goals but they have no business in being used in holding up a deal that insures Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon! This deal's objective is too important to the fate of America and the world, President Trump was incredibly irresponsible in linking these objectives. President Trump and Republican politicians played politics with this whole issue to the American people's great detriment and one cannot proclaim that enough! The glaring truth is that President Obama was an infinitely better President on the "nuclear weapon danger from Iran" issue than President Trump, President Obama didn't link the issue and got a deal and it was being honored by Iran pursuant to the consensus in the international community meaning it was working it was reliably working in keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon - it is another reason why this current Iran disaster didn't have to happen!
You know what kills me about the Republican leadership how cavalierly they are prepared to put ordinary Iranian civilians lives in grave danger they really are people with alarming character depravity! Speaker Johnson said yesterday that after the bombing he hopes the Iranian people rise up and take back their country and President Trump has said it numerous times in an advisory manner which is a more awful manner. How could one sell people out like this when America stops its bombing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and their Basij militia whose role is to brutally suppress protest and opposition movements in Iran will be essentially intact, ordinary Iranians that rise up against the Iranian theocratic regime will be crushed like their bugs these Basij animals will kill and assault them without limit; friends don't tell other friends to run through a field that is a minefield which metaphorically the Republican leadership is doing here!
Yesterday there was an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein and the articles essence is emblematic of what a large portion of the "Powers That Be" in America vis-a-vis the media are trying to propagandize the American People with on this issue. They say the Democrats opposition to this bombing campaign on Iran by President Trump is purely partisanship they ignore the Constitutional issue that the Constitution puts limits on the Presidents unilateral use of America's military power; and they cite the following example to try to claim that the Democrats are hypocrites on this War Power issue. They say the use of America's air power in Libya in 2011 by President Obama is an example and claim that Democrats then didn't demand that President Obama come to Congress and get authorization for the use of America's military power in Libya. These issues differ like the difference between apples and oranges! That use of military power by President Obama at its core was a humanitarian effort it saved a lot of Libyan civilians from being killed. These are the facts in 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring ordinary Libyans rose up against the brutal dictator Moammar Gadhafi who had been in power for over forty years; at the beginning the rebels did well but Gadhafi forces had an air force and the rebels didn't and with that power and Gadhafi's Navy they took back town and city after town and city from the rebels and at the end the rebels were held up in two cities in eastern Libya, Benghazi and Tobruk. The Gadhafi forces were in position to make an offensive on Benghazi on march 17 2011 and world leaders became alarmed about a slaughter of civilians in the city which had a population of around 650,000 people; Gadhafi forces had a large contingent of mercenaries who showed little regard for human life and Gadhafi's air force at the time would just level residential neighborhoods, no regard for limiting their attacks to combatants! So on 3/17/2011 the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a no fly zone and the use of military power to protect civilians - the purpose of the resolution was to prevent a civilian massacre in Libya!. So President Obama used America's air power to enforce the UN resolution and after like two weeks turned the operation over to NATO. Members of both parties in Congress heavily condemned President Obama for not going to Congress and spelling out his objectives clearly and getting Congressional approval. This is one of the big differences between the Libya matter and the Iran matter even the leadership of the opposite political party from President Obama was not sure the War Powers Act of the Constitution was triggered here. On March 23 2011, Speaker John Boehner wrote a letter to President Obama saying come to Congress and explain your objectives and mentioned budgetary concerns and made no mention of the Constitution's War Powers act and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on March 28 2011 went to the Senate Floor and said to President Obama come to Congress and explain your objectives Senator McConnell brought up the Constitutions War Powers Act but explicitly said that if the Obama administration stays within the mandate of the UN resolution the Act isn't triggered the power of the President and the power as Commander-in-Chief provides the authority for this use of military force! Moreover, in June of that year the House voted down a bill that would have authorized the Libya operation but on the same day voted down a bill that would have cut off funding for that operation you would have thought if the Republican House thought the Democrat President's military operation in Libya was illegal they would have shut off funding!
One thing the American people don't hear enough about on this whole issue is that the Founding Fathers very prudently put the War Powers Act in the Constitution because they didn't want one person alone using America's military to take actions that amount to an act of war because of the catastrophic consequences of such an act they believed that Congress with its hundreds of members should make that monumental decision which would result in a more prudent decision. This whole Iran matter is a perfect example of why we need this protection the Founding Fathers provided in the Constitution. Likely, this Iran situation will end up exponentially worse than the state of things prior to February 28, 2026. One quality that is pretty clear about the current Islamic regime is that they are pretty smart, they learn from their mistakes. This is evident from the 12 day war in 2025. The Islamic Regime in Iran learned that the conventional ballistic missile weapon is a valuable and effective weapon it killed Israelis and caused significant physical damage; so what did the regime do since the 12 day war it prioritized rebuilding the ballistic program. Prior to February 28 reports were Iran had four hundred and fifty missile launchers in the first five days the U.S. and Israeli air forces destroyed at least 270 of these missile launchers because they targeted them with the highest priority. What do you think the Iran regime will do after this current war if a hard line Islamic regime remains in power? They will build nine hundred missile launchers and have underground concrete complexes with around fifty openings n each tunnel system that reach the surface to enable them to fire missiles but make it hard for their enemy to know exactly where the launchers are so they can destroy them. For the next war now U.S. and Israeli air forces will have to bomb Iran for months before they really curtail Iran's missile power; so in the next war against Iran instead of America and her allies losing dozens of their citizens to this war they will lose hundreds or thousands! President Trump is currently acting like a real jackass acting like he has veto power over the selection of who is the next Supreme Leader of Iran. The body in Iran that selects the next Supreme Leader is a Cleric Council made up of 88 orthodox Islamic clerics there is no way on God's green earth that this body is going to let the nonbeliever, infidel leader of the country who is one of their worst enemies control their decision. Donald Trump shows himself to be a real fool with his behavior where he thinks he has control over this selection; he embarrasses America in front of the whole world with this nutty behavior!
None of these exceptions to the War Powers Act lie here if one wants to stretch and say that the American government knew the Israeli government was going to bomb Iran and based on the Iranian government's past behavior they surmised that Iran's security forces would do a retaliatory bombing against American installations in the Middle East and so the decision was made to do a preemptive strike to reduce the harm done to American interests from an Iranian bombing, the bombing would have to be commensurate with the justification, this would justify one strike. But after the first day of bombing and Iran's just response the President should have publicly and privately opened up channels with the Iran government to reach an agreement to stop the bombing exchanges, in other words, the President's actions have to be within the scope of his authority they have to be within a legitimate response to an imminent threat to America. The President's actions don't meet this standard there isn't lawful justification to embark on a multi-day campaign to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capacity, degrade its drone capacity and destroy all nuclear program infrastructure and kill its political leadership; if he wanted to do this he had to get Congressional authorization! America is a great country to a significant degree because we hold the rule of law as supreme, the U.S. Constitution needs to be respected and abided by all the time - President Trump does not get this!
Speaker Johnson by his own words established that President Trump did not have justification for the use of the military here because he fails to describe an imminent threat. Speaker Johnson said the Iranian regime was a bad regime and they were pursuing the means to get a nuclear weapon and President Trump tried five time to negotiate with them to abandon this program and five times they refused his offer and so he then had justification to take out this program. One of America's enemies pursuing a nuclear weapons program isn't sufficient justification; the target country would have to have weapons grade uranium, the technology and the know how to put that uranium into a bomb and carrying out such activity and the technology and know how to put that nuclear bomb in a missile where it would detonate as a missile should and carrying out such activity. These conditions were not met not only in their entirety but not even on an individual condition basis; so President Trump didn't have the authority to do what he did. Speaker Johnson also says that Iran was producing ballistic missiles at a volume which would overwhelm our Middle East allies so the President was justified in attacking to degrade Iran's ballistic missile program; these facts don't cut it just because one of America's enemies even a really bad one are dramatically building up its missile program doesn't green light the President to unilaterally bomb that enemy - an imminent threat justification doesn't lie!
Speaker Johnson yesterday said something yesterday and President Trump has said it numerous time and even said it yesterday and Republicans in Congress skirt this issue like its toxic and it is a critically important point. They say Iran won't agree to negotiate the end of its nuclear program and we have tried everything. This is an incredibly abusive and misguided claim because what the Trump administration does is they add all these non-nuclear conditions to the deal they say Iran has to stop funding and arming terrorist groups and it has to stop its ballistic missile program et al, these are all good goals but they have no business in being used in holding up a deal that insures Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon! This deal's objective is too important to the fate of America and the world, President Trump was incredibly irresponsible in linking these objectives. President Trump and Republican politicians played politics with this whole issue to the American people's great detriment and one cannot proclaim that enough! The glaring truth is that President Obama was an infinitely better President on the "nuclear weapon danger from Iran" issue than President Trump, President Obama didn't link the issue and got a deal and it was being honored by Iran pursuant to the consensus in the international community meaning it was working it was reliably working in keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon - it is another reason why this current Iran disaster didn't have to happen!
You know what kills me about the Republican leadership how cavalierly they are prepared to put ordinary Iranian civilians lives in grave danger they really are people with alarming character depravity! Speaker Johnson said yesterday that after the bombing he hopes the Iranian people rise up and take back their country and President Trump has said it numerous times in an advisory manner which is a more awful manner. How could one sell people out like this when America stops its bombing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and their Basij militia whose role is to brutally suppress protest and opposition movements in Iran will be essentially intact, ordinary Iranians that rise up against the Iranian theocratic regime will be crushed like their bugs these Basij animals will kill and assault them without limit; friends don't tell other friends to run through a field that is a minefield which metaphorically the Republican leadership is doing here!
Yesterday there was an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein and the articles essence is emblematic of what a large portion of the "Powers That Be" in America vis-a-vis the media are trying to propagandize the American People with on this issue. They say the Democrats opposition to this bombing campaign on Iran by President Trump is purely partisanship they ignore the Constitutional issue that the Constitution puts limits on the Presidents unilateral use of America's military power; and they cite the following example to try to claim that the Democrats are hypocrites on this War Power issue. They say the use of America's air power in Libya in 2011 by President Obama is an example and claim that Democrats then didn't demand that President Obama come to Congress and get authorization for the use of America's military power in Libya. These issues differ like the difference between apples and oranges! That use of military power by President Obama at its core was a humanitarian effort it saved a lot of Libyan civilians from being killed. These are the facts in 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring ordinary Libyans rose up against the brutal dictator Moammar Gadhafi who had been in power for over forty years; at the beginning the rebels did well but Gadhafi forces had an air force and the rebels didn't and with that power and Gadhafi's Navy they took back town and city after town and city from the rebels and at the end the rebels were held up in two cities in eastern Libya, Benghazi and Tobruk. The Gadhafi forces were in position to make an offensive on Benghazi on march 17 2011 and world leaders became alarmed about a slaughter of civilians in the city which had a population of around 650,000 people; Gadhafi forces had a large contingent of mercenaries who showed little regard for human life and Gadhafi's air force at the time would just level residential neighborhoods, no regard for limiting their attacks to combatants! So on 3/17/2011 the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a no fly zone and the use of military power to protect civilians - the purpose of the resolution was to prevent a civilian massacre in Libya!. So President Obama used America's air power to enforce the UN resolution and after like two weeks turned the operation over to NATO. Members of both parties in Congress heavily condemned President Obama for not going to Congress and spelling out his objectives clearly and getting Congressional approval. This is one of the big differences between the Libya matter and the Iran matter even the leadership of the opposite political party from President Obama was not sure the War Powers Act of the Constitution was triggered here. On March 23 2011, Speaker John Boehner wrote a letter to President Obama saying come to Congress and explain your objectives and mentioned budgetary concerns and made no mention of the Constitution's War Powers act and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on March 28 2011 went to the Senate Floor and said to President Obama come to Congress and explain your objectives Senator McConnell brought up the Constitutions War Powers Act but explicitly said that if the Obama administration stays within the mandate of the UN resolution the Act isn't triggered the power of the President and the power as Commander-in-Chief provides the authority for this use of military force! Moreover, in June of that year the House voted down a bill that would have authorized the Libya operation but on the same day voted down a bill that would have cut off funding for that operation you would have thought if the Republican House thought the Democrat President's military operation in Libya was illegal they would have shut off funding!
One thing the American people don't hear enough about on this whole issue is that the Founding Fathers very prudently put the War Powers Act in the Constitution because they didn't want one person alone using America's military to take actions that amount to an act of war because of the catastrophic consequences of such an act they believed that Congress with its hundreds of members should make that monumental decision which would result in a more prudent decision. This whole Iran matter is a perfect example of why we need this protection the Founding Fathers provided in the Constitution. Likely, this Iran situation will end up exponentially worse than the state of things prior to February 28, 2026. One quality that is pretty clear about the current Islamic regime is that they are pretty smart, they learn from their mistakes. This is evident from the 12 day war in 2025. The Islamic Regime in Iran learned that the conventional ballistic missile weapon is a valuable and effective weapon it killed Israelis and caused significant physical damage; so what did the regime do since the 12 day war it prioritized rebuilding the ballistic program. Prior to February 28 reports were Iran had four hundred and fifty missile launchers in the first five days the U.S. and Israeli air forces destroyed at least 270 of these missile launchers because they targeted them with the highest priority. What do you think the Iran regime will do after this current war if a hard line Islamic regime remains in power? They will build nine hundred missile launchers and have underground concrete complexes with around fifty openings n each tunnel system that reach the surface to enable them to fire missiles but make it hard for their enemy to know exactly where the launchers are so they can destroy them. For the next war now U.S. and Israeli air forces will have to bomb Iran for months before they really curtail Iran's missile power; so in the next war against Iran instead of America and her allies losing dozens of their citizens to this war they will lose hundreds or thousands! President Trump is currently acting like a real jackass acting like he has veto power over the selection of who is the next Supreme Leader of Iran. The body in Iran that selects the next Supreme Leader is a Cleric Council made up of 88 orthodox Islamic clerics there is no way on God's green earth that this body is going to let the nonbeliever, infidel leader of the country who is one of their worst enemies control their decision. Donald Trump shows himself to be a real fool with his behavior where he thinks he has control over this selection; he embarrasses America in front of the whole world with this nutty behavior!
Last edited:
