War powers/law of armed conflict Twitter leaves a bit to be desired. So--in the aftermath of Biden's strikes--here's a quick legal explainer on the different kinds of military actions and the different constitutional/legal justifications, in case you're interested. /1
First, it's important to remember that presidents of both parties have largely ignored the Constitution and have stretched their Article II commander-in-chief powers up to and past the breaking point. So this thread is about what should be, not what is. /2
Presidents SHOULD seek congressional approval before initiating hostilities against foreign regimes/entities not engaged in active hostilities against the U.S. Examples--Obama attacking the Gaddafi regime, Trump attacking Assad regime. /3
HOWEVER, presidents do have inherent authority to order to troops in the field to take actions to defend themselves against hostile entities who have attacked American forces. Examples -- Trump hitting Soleimani, Biden bombing pro-Iran militias yesterday. /4
For example, here's what I wrote in Time after Trump's attack against Soleimani. /5 time.com/5759007/trumps…)
But here's a problematic gray area--how much should American deployments continue to rely on the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force? It's past time for Congress to revisit, revise, and update existing authorizations to reflect present challenges. /6
But the topline conclusions are clear--presidents should seek authorization for new offensive military operations, but presidents have the right to order troops to defend themselves, and we need new authorizations for existing operations. /end
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I'd encourage everyone who believes that Amazon MUST host Parler's content to read Amazon's brief. The power of the state should not be used to force Americans to host and help disseminate mass amounts of death threats and insurrectionary content. /1 courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
It's honestly stunning to me that many members of a movement that united to say that bakers/florists should be free to use their talents to advance only messages they approve now angrily assert that another set of Americans MUST provide platforms for the MAGA insurrection. No. /2
Again, read the Amazon brief. It presented evidence that it warned Parler for weeks of problems with threatening content and Parler was either unwilling or totally incapable of dealing with the problem. It was a sewer. Americans aren't required to host sewers. /3
I'm getting a lot of good and thoughtful responses to my Sunday essay. I could have written 2,000 more words on the role of staff and boards in enabling abuse, but in lieu of that, here are a few tweets. /1 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-crisis-o…
In dysfunctional religious celebrity cultures, key staff gain not just their livelihood but also their cultural clout from the proximity to the "great man." They have everything to lose if he falls, so they guard him zealously and often crush internal dissent. /2
As for board members, if they also gain prestige from their association with the "great man," they're often unwilling to hold him accountable. Again, the board member also has something to lose if the leader falls. Their own clout is at stake. /3
I'm not sure if you're noticing, but there's been a recent shift in the anti-anti-Trump defense of Trump's deranged behavior from "these lawsuits might have merit" to "hahahaha this is revenge for the 'Russia hoax' and impeachment." This is absurd, for many reasons. /1
Trump's defenders constantly want to memory-hole his campaign's misconduct, but there were real reasons to investigate his campaign. His son, campaign chair, and son-in-law met with a Russian lawyer in the attempt to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. /2
Trump's campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was in active, clandestine communication with a Russian agent and provided the agent with internal campaign information. The campaign attempted to use Roger Stone to set up a back-channel communication with Wikileaks, a Russian asset. /3
So my former colleagues at @AllianceDefends are under fire. A few things:
First, ADF is so "hateful" that it recently joined with the ACLU and NAACP to press for the single-most important civil rights legal reform of our time -- ending qualified immunity. naacpldf.org/wp-content/upl…
Second, it's extraordinarily successful free speech/religious freedom litigation (including a glittering record at SCOTUS) has resulted in concrete civil liberties gains for ALL people, not just Christian believers. My cases at ADF expanded liberty, for example.
Third, at Blackstone and throughout all of ADF's programs (including litigation) there has long been an emphasis on doing the right thing, the right way -- with integrity, civility, and decency.
This is an excellent development, and the opinion is exactly right. Capitol Hill Baptist's plan -- outdoor services, socially-distanced and masked -- was extremely responsible based on everything we now know about the virus. Yet DC said no, while it said yes to mass protests. /1
The key line from the opinion is below. In plain English it means that it's time for courts to stop simply deferring to the judgment of local officials and start applying standard levels of scrutiny to state actions during a pandemic: /2
That doesn't mean that all pandemic measures should be struck down. It means that the time of simple judicial acceptance is over. Mask mandates pass legal review easily. But placing more restrictions on outdoor worship services than outdoor protests or outdoor dining? Nope. /3
How can the Breonna Taylor grand jury reach its result? Because the officers who directly returned fire were operating under a series of SCOTUS precedents that made clashes between armed homeowners 1) lawful; 2) inevitable; and 3) unjust (short thread): frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/supreme-cour…
SCOTUS has given police wide latitude to violently enter homes. Castle doctrine gives homeowners wide latitude to defend themselves. Thus, you can have a terrible, violent clash that EMPOWERED by the law, and you will end up with lawful tragedy. /2
There's a difference between officers serving a lawful (though unjustly granted) warrant returning aimed fire and the officer who wantonly fired outside the apartment. The grand jury decision properly reflects that distinction. /3