Since President Donald Trump launched the U.S. into war over the weekend — without any consent from the legislative branch — Congress has been scrambling to respond to the situation. Republicans are struggling to defend Trump’s actions and Democrats are criticizing the president for entering the U.S. into a full-scale conflict without authorization from Congress.
The Senate voted on its bipartisan war powers resolution Wednesday afternoon. The procedural vote to take up the resolution failed on a largely party-line vote, with the Republican majority voting against it. The House is expected to vote on its resolution on Thursday. Though the resolutions, on paper, are an effort to rein in Trump’s Iran war, they are largely symbolic. They have been all but guaranteed to fail, and, even if successful, would face a veto from Trump.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are taking advantage of the moment to try to spin the war into a way to pressure Democrats’ to help end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Democrats have been demanding reforms to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the wake of two recent killings of U.S. citizens by ICE agents. The White House and Senate Democrats have been exchanging proposals for weeks now with little progress.
As Republicans try to bully the Dems into funding the agencies under the DHS umbrella without any reforms — claiming it is dangerous and irresponsible to leave them unfunded during a time of elevated threats at home — the House voted on the largely unchanged DHS funding bill Wednesday afternoon.
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The whole idea of this retroactive war powers resolution is absurd. You either have the powers before you go to war or you don’t - if you don’t, it’s illegal. The congress doesn’t have to retroactively affirm that it would’ve gone along with what illegal shit you’re doing - it needs to declare war FIRST.
Unfortunately we’re getting the MAGA equivalent of Putin calling his war against Ukraine a special military operation. Mike Johnson called the war a “Defensive Operation”. Hilariously, though, Markwayne Mullin is incapable of not calling it a war, despite seemingly being one of the administration’s preferred spokesmen for the war.
I guess we got our Orwellian war with Eurasia.
“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia”
We got a “Crusade” led by these fascist, authoritarian, religious cult, wackadoodles against something actually very similar.
I hope Democrats realize that the DHS goons have provided them a hill we expect them to climb or to die trying.
My wife told me last night that this November she intends to vote against every incumbent on her ballot regardless of party. I am not sure I blame her.
And the vote begins…..