Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) criticized U.S.-led strikes on Yemen, saying they were “an unacceptable violation of the Constitution.”

“Article 1 requires that military action be authorized by Congress,” Jayapal added in her post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, late Thursday.

Other Democrats, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), also criticized the strikes.

  • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    This is the kind of soundbite that comes off really nice and edgy but doesn’t actually stand up to a second of real legal scrutiny.

    The President, under prior acts of Congress, absolutely has the authority to order strikes like this. You’ll notice that the complaining Congress critters here have not actually filed a lawsuit, because they know they’re wrong and will lose. The President does not unilaterally have the authority to institute single-payer healthcare or guarantee abortion rights federally.

    He’s not ignoring Congress here. He’s following prior acts of Congress that are still in force. If Congress wanted to stop these actions, they could revoke those authorizations at literally any time.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The situation remains the same. He has congress to block stuff he ran on but doesn’t want to do, and he gets to eschew congress when it’s shit he wants to do.

      • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Okay, but again, this is not an example of him eschewing Congress; this is him quite explicitly following the law as Congress has passed it, so this has essentially no relevance to any other greater grievance you might have with him.

        If it’s actually illegal for him to do certain things without Congress and Congress isn’t cooperating, I don’t really see how that’s his fault either, unless you have the counter-example of this Congress agreeing to do things he said he would do but him not doing it anyway. Beyond that, it sounds like your fundamental issue is that Biden is, er, following the law?