Iran ATTACKS US Warship & UAE in DIRE Warning to Trump.

Larry Johnson and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson join the show to discuss Iran's retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz, hitting UAE's top oil port and numerous cargo ships as Trump's Project Freedom goes up in flames.

Americans wounded & probably killed on US bases

Scott Horton's 2010 warning about a US regime change war with Iran

"They're both nuts, they're both pathological liars, says Prof Jeffrey Sachs. Psychopaths who kill and create harm without remorse. Everything points to a resumption of fighting because 'we do not have rational leadership or a rational process' "

"Senate voted Thursday to repeal the resolution that authorized the 2003 US invasion, following a House vote last month that would return the basic #warpower to Congress"

This doesn't end 2001 #AUMF used by Executive Dept to make war without #Congress

Abraham Lincoln, Letter to William Henry Herndon, Washington [D.C.], February 15, 1848. 

In After Hope and Change, we look at the 2012 campaign, in which Barack Obama ran against Mitt Romney and the memory of George W. Bush. 

Josh Gerstein writes at Politico:

Less than two months after President Barack Obama’s administration called for repeal of the Congressional authorization for the 2002 Iraq war, he is formally citing the 12-year-old measure as a basis for newly expanded airstrikes against the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant.

Since June, Obama has been sending official war-powers notifications to Congress about the campaign he authorized against ISIL. Administration aides have repeatedly cited the 2001 war authorization against Al Qaeda and the Taliban as grounds for strikes in Iraq.

Some administration officials had indicated in background comments that Obama might invoke the Iraq war authorization if the bombing campaign spread to Syria, but he officially did so in a letter to Congress Tuesday. The authorization cited the measure only with a reference to its Public Law number, 107-243.

The administration’s embrace of the 2002 Iraq war authorization through this obscure citation is awkward because it paints the expanding anti-ISIL campaign as a successor to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq 12 years ago. Last year at the United Nations General Assembly, Obama spoke of working “to end a decade of war” and cited the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq as a part of that effort. On Wednesday he’ll address the General Assembly the day after having essentially extended that effort.

Carrie Budoff Brown writes at Politico:

President Barack Obama drafted most of Wednesday’s United Nations speech by himself, but it often sounded like he had a ghost writer: the predecessor he mocked.

Type Obama’s money phrase — the evocative description of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant as a “network of death” — into thesaurus.com and George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” could very well come out, as many tweeters and former aides to the 43rd president noted.

Michael Gerson, a former White House speechwriter who helped compose Bush’s famous slogan, offered an explanation. “When dealing with an ideology that inspires beheadings and mass murder, the English language only offers so many words that carry sufficient moral weight,” Gerson said in an e-mail. “‘Evil’ and ‘death’ are two of them.”

Even so, the parallel was striking given Obama’s attitude toward Bush.

Obama didn’t just run against Bush’s foreign policy. He used to ridicule it. His rejection of the Bush worldview was so emphatic that it seemed to prompt the Nobel Peace Prize committee to give him the award just for getting elected.

In After Hope and Change, we contrast the promises of the 2008 Obama campaign and transition with the reality of governing.

The president has reversed himself many times.

On Wednesday, a senior administration official said that "the President has constitutional and statutory authority to direct U.S. military airstrike operations to deal with the threat posed by ISIL."

On December 20, 2007, the Boston Globe reported Senator Obama's response to a question about war powers:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

War Power to stand in Washington

7-year-old stallion War Power, who raced in France and originally stood in Texas, will be moved to Gibson Thoroughbred Farm for the 2013 season