I don’t care about Maduro, as far as I’m concerned, they can shoot him if they want. What matters to me is walking through the streets of my city and seeing the faces of fear on my neighbors. The military patrolling to prevent looting due to panic. It’s a collective hangover, a horrible one.
It’s 2016 all over again. It’s seeing despair entering the circulatory system of all Venezuelans, only now it’s more sudden, and we are painfully aware of it.
This is far from improving, and we know it.
It’s bullshit and I don’t understand why our Congress is letting him do this. It’s unjustified and illegal.
Because your congress is deepthroating that fucking child rapist. That’s why.
Not just him, every billionaire gets their turn.
They’re all way too old for him
What about your military staff (Generals and the likes) Aren’t they supposed to refuse illegal orders even from potus?
Yes. Yes they are supposed to.
All the ones that would, have been replaced.
That’s why I get pissed about stories of the variety “X resigns rather than follow administrations orders”. People seem to cheer when that happens because they see it as people pushing back on illegal orders, but they’re not. They’re just bailing from responsibility when they were one of the few people in the position to legitimately be a stopgap on this runaway power abuse. In resigning, they’ve just made it easier for a loyalist or morally corrupt replacement to come in and roll out the red carpet to the autocracy. Stay right where the fuck you’re at, plant your feet, and tell them that you’re absolutely not following illegal orders from anyone. That is worth cheering.
Resigning instead of refusing an illegal order is a betrayal of their oath to the constitution, and a betrayal of the American people
This. It’s not upholding the constitution, it’s standing back and watching it get fucked, while selling books or speaking engagements.
I don’t disagree, but then they get dishonorably discharged, lose their pension and benefits, a loyalist is put in their place and the end result is the same except that they’re worse off personally. I can absolutely see that the better option for them is to resign and make a statement rather than going hard-core and fight it. Unless they plan on a full-on military coup.
Apparently their main guiding moral is greed then.
Except the supreme court ruled no order from the executive branch is illegal
I know youre being funny about it, but I need to point out the officer’s oath is not to the president, and the supreme court is irrelevant in this.
Specifically any orders which violate the constitution, federal law, or (specifically an “or” here, not “and”) international law should be refused. Typical examples are torturing people who are detained, targeting civilians, etc.
Not exactly. They ruled the president cannot be prosecuted for illegal acts taken in the capacity of president. So it’s more “he can do illegal shit and we can’t stop him” and less “anything he does it automatically legal”. So refusing an illegal order would presumably still be a valid route of action.
But from what I know about the military, they can just punish you in some other capacity even if what you did is technically legal. Ie reassigning you to some shit duty or miserable location.
Sadly a good chunk of the good ones were fired, and the others are too scared about their pensions to do anything. The rest have been installed by our glorious dictator and also suck his cock on the daily.
He’s been getting rid of those guys since day 1. Undoubtedly they came in with purge lists.
And then of course they gave this operation to a loyalist.
Yes, they are supposed to. They also are trained to follow orders, and much more vigorously.
But generally, overthrowing governments that oppose the USA is seen as routine. We do this frequently.
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but they also have alot of trump supporters in the military, im not surprised.
Congress has not wanted the responsibility to declare war that the Constitution gave them in Article 1 Section 8.
Ever since the civil war, Congress has handed more and more military power over to the Executive branch.
No country actually declares war anymore. From Wikipedia:
That part of the US Constitution is irrelevant nowadays and should long have been updated to require any foreign (or domestic) military operations to be first approved by Congress, not just declaring war. Doesn’t make your point of Congress granting ever more rights to the President irrelevant though.
Yeah, declaring war is only more than just words insofar as there are laws that require a declaration before certain activities or uses of powers.
Congress has allowed the president and executive branch agencies to strike other countries, kill non combatants and soldiers, occupy countries, kill Americans, and operate torture sites without needing a formal declaration of war. There are several relevant acts of Congress, but the clearest example is the Authorized Use of Military Force. We’re still using it 25 years later and Congress keeps reauthorizing it and allowing more and more broad interpretations.
We invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and bombed several more countries in retaliation for 9/11
If you don’t understand then you haven’t been paying attention to US history.
You still haven’t understand yet that your government is rigged as fuck?
The same congress that was totally cool with the Trail of Tears? I think people forget that there were people living here already and that the US has been invading sovereign nations to enrich white people since they stopped doing it in the name of Britain a few hundred years ago.
No, that was a different Congress. Roughly the 17th through 26th. This one is the 119th. They’re cool with different types of awfulness.
Native Americans didn’t get the right to vote until 1975 and 100 years after the promise we still don’t have voting members of congress. It’s the same congress.
The trail of tears was 1820-1840. It’s not the same congress, there’s a new one every two years.
You’re being pedantic. The point is obviously that it’s the same institution with the same rancid values, not literally the same people.
I mean, it’s not though. Things have changed in the last couple hundred years. Some for the better, some for the worse. But it’s not the same, just like it’s not the same as even 30-40 years ago.
It’s still an institution based on capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy. As is the whole country.
None of those things have changed.
The US has done it before. More than once.
$960 billion US defense budget was passed by both parties. There you go and yes, it is fucked up.
This is what has been cooking since 9/11/2001.
The AUMF grants the president the ability to just do military shit if it is in defense against “terrorism”.
It should have been updated and repealed before G. W. Bush left office but it was left on the table and every president has used it.
During his first term, the Trump administration officially accused Maduro with “Narco Terrorism”. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the plan all along. It’s a stretch, for sure, but all that seems to matter to the GOP is having some speck of legal cover and the corrupt SCOTUS does the rest.
He went around Congress. It was an illegal action. Congress may try to do something to stop him, but my odds are on the Supreme Court intervening to let Trump continue to do whatever he wants.
As others have mentioned, it’s most likely legal under the AUMF.
Drug war is also legal. Slavery was legal. Legal doesn’t mean shit. But it is, probably, legal (under US law, definitely not international law but the US doesn’t give a shit about that).
You still don’t know? Republicans are all complicit in it so they refuse to use their control of Congress to do anything. Republicans don’t care about the law they only care about them having power.
I think you may have assumed America hasn’t always been a Mafia and most people in the government are just as naive as most of us regular people.
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Congress is held by GOP at the moment.
The Democrats have overseen scores of absolutely illegal military operations by both D and R presidents
Everyone needs to stop paying attention to the magic act going on center stage and go see what’s going on with the group behind the curtain.
Because they support it.