Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.
There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.
SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.
These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.
Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.
The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.
And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
[0] <https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...>
[1] See the "The Korean War" section here: <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11236>
Presumably under the War Powers Resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
unitary executive and dictator are different things.
a unitary executive cant make new laws, but a dictator can
That's a distinction without a difference.
If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.
There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.
SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.
These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.
Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.
The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.
And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.
The same way every president since ww2 has been able to.
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.