Rep. Scott Rigell And 115 Members Of U.S. House Sign Letter Demanding Obama Get Congressional Authority For Syria

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – I now hold here in my hand a copy of the letter that was begun by Representative Rigell and was then sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by express courier.  I bet they didn’t put this one in the mail.  It is now signed by I believe last I saw Representative Rigell had 120 signatures on it.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I now hold here in my hand a copy of the letter that was begun by Representative Rigell and was then sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by express courier.  I bet they didn’t put this one in the mail.  It is now signed by I believe last I saw Representative Rigell had 120 signatures on it.  I’ll have to go to his Twitter feed and get the exact count.  They’re all listed on the letter and I posted the letter in today’s Pile of Prep.  Here’s what it says, addressed to “The President, The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500.”  I didn’t realize the White House had a zip code.  If you addressed a letter to “President Obama, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.” and just left the zip code out, do you think it would get there?  I would think it would still get there.  I’ve never seen the zip code before.  Anyway, I digress.

[reading]

Dear Mr. President,

We strongly urge you to consult and receive authorization from Congress before ordering the use of U.S. military force in Syria. Your responsibility to do so is prescribed in the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

While the Founders wisely gave the Office of the President the authority to act in emergencies, they foresaw the need to ensure public debate – and the active engagement of Congress – prior to committing U.S. military assets. Engaging our military in Syria when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution.

[end reading]

Mike:  Mr. Rigell, what is this Constitution you speak of?  I’d like to ask the question: What are these statesmen that I hear some people speaking of today?  Why have statesmen?  We have armies, we don’t need statesmen.  When some actor out there acts up and bombs someone or gasses someone, it is the United States of America’s responsibility to fix it.  We are the world’s great fixer-uppers.  If something goes wrong somewhere or if an atrocity is committed anywhere on the face of the planet, we should marshal our troops to go in there and deal with it.

For the rest of today’s transcript please sign up for a Founders Pass or if you’re already a member, make sure you are logged in!
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Wait a minute, 87 heads arriving in trash bags outside of Mexico City a couple years back, all from the same village, all having been executed by a drug cartel.  Yeah, but we’re not talking about that kind of death, Mike.  That’s not an intervening kind of death where we have to go in and fix it.  Let me find another atrocity.  A couple thousand bodies of Christians in Sudan being piled up by the marauding, murdering Muslim madmen therein, even Joey Biden brought this up in the early debates for the Democratic nomination in 2008.  He demanded to know: If we’re going to fix problems in Iraq, why aren’t we fixing things in the Sudan?  There are thousands of bodies there.  Even George Clooney was going to Congress and going: You guys want to intervene against Saddam.  Why aren’t you intervening in Sudan?  Uh, Mr. Clooney, please sit down.  We’re not talking about those kinds of deaths.

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Isn’t that amazing?  The crowd that thinks we ought to go in there and fix this thing in Syria or whatever it is that you people think we should do or that those people think we should do.  What about all the other cases we missed?  What is the distinction between corpses that are caused by VX gas and corpses that are caused by M16 machine gun rounds?  Someone want to field that one for me?  Back to Rigell’s letter:

[reading]

Mr. President, in the case of military operations in Libya you stated that authorization from Congress was not required because our military was not engaged in “hostilities.” In addition, an April 1, 2011, memorandum to you from your Office of Legal Counsel concluded:

“…President Obama could rely on his constitutional power to safeguard the national interest by directing the anticipated military operations in Libya—which were limited in their nature, scope, and duration—without prior congressional authorization.”

[end reading]

Mike:  Good for you, Representative Rigell, but again, you keep quoting this thing called the Constitution.  I’m having trouble finding one of these things these days.  I’m having trouble actually finding out what is in this thing called the Constitution and why do we even care anymore?  [mocking] “There were people that were gassed in Syria.  Who needs a stupid Constitution?  We gotta get in there and do this!”

[reading]

We view the precedent this opinion sets, where “national interest” is enough to engage in hostilities without congressional authorization, as unconstitutional. If the use of 221 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 704 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, and 42 Predator Hellfire missiles expended in Libya does not constitute “hostilities,” what does?

[end reading]

Mike:  I’d never seen the count of weaponry that had been used there before.  Wow!  Yeah, but lobbing a Tomahawk missile, that’s not a hostility.  Oh, but if Saddam Hussein does it, a scud missile he was lobbing, that’s a hostile action.  When we do it, we’re the world’s policemen.  We are in charge of moral policing of the universe.  How many of you knew that we launched a new spy satellite yesterday, as if we needed another one, and that’s one of two that they’re going to launch this year, not one but two.  Concluding his letter, Representative Rigell says:

[reading]

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If you deem that military action in Syria is necessary, Congress can reconvene at your request. We stand ready to come back into session, consider the facts before us, and share the burden of decisions made regarding U.S. involvement in the quickly escalating Syrian conflict.

[end reading]

Mike:  Final tally for the letter, 116 members of Congress, 98 Republicans and 18 Democrats have signed the letter that I just read to you.  Was your member of Congress one of them?  Even if you are of the Team America, world police mentality and you think it’s our job — by the way, I don’t want to hear any one of you that thinks this is our job to do this complaining when the price of gas goes up to $3.75 per gallon next week, because it’s going to.  I don’t want to hear any of you complaining when your 401k takes a hit because the stock market tanks in anticipation of our vainglorious efforts of intervening in Syria, because it’s going to.  My buddy Mish Shedlock has a rundown of all the things that might happen in the event of our military strike.  He has three possible scenarios.  He’s covering some of the financial aspects of it.  I haven’t seen anyone else cover this.  I guess you could say it is the McCain-Graham-Obama Tax Act of 2013.  Economic recovery?  We don’t need no economic recovery.  There were people that were gassed in Syria, Mr. Church, we had to deal with this, I don’t care how much it costs.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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