Former Congressman from Nebraska, Clair Callan, has filed suit to prevent military action in Iraq. Callan's argument is that without a Congressional declaration of war, Bush is not authorized to make war on Iraq. Because Bush has no such declataion, Callan believes Bush the courts should restrain Bush.
These kinds of suits have been filed before. Check out Dellums v. Bush (Gulf War I), Campbell v. Clinton (Kosovo) and Lowry v. Reagan. When are people going to realize that the courts will forever duck this question? It is pretty well-settled by now that Congress has very little ability to restrict the actions of the Commander in Chief when it comes to war making. For a variety of reasons, the courts just don't want to decide this issue.
Callan gets points for a PR stunt, but that's about it. His suit will get tossed for lack of standing and perhaps ripeness. Bush will argue the Gulf War I resolution is still in effect. That's an interesting slant that will never get adjudicated.
CNN has a really good overview of where these kinds of challenges have gone in the past.
Salon did a decent piece on Campbell v. Clinton (before Campbell lost).
Via Polstate via To the Barricades.
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I'm still moving in, so please excuse the mess. I'll be cleaning up and decorating soon.
I like Blogger because it brought blogging to the masses. I like Movable Type because it does everything you want and a million things you've never thought of.
But I've decided to go with Blosxom, which seems like the neatest little open source blog tool around. It has much less complex code and uses fewer resources than Movable Type and is more customizable than Blogger.
It's also open source. I don't have to worry about somebody refusing to let me use later versions. I can install it anywhere I please without paying a dime to anybody. And when I get under the hood and monkey with the system, my changes are a gift to everybody. I like it.
There's a lot of great blog tools out there, one for every level of complexity and technical skill. Good for everybody and thanks to the many people that have helped make those tools available.
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