JD Crowe: War is Trump’s deadliest unconstitutional distraction

This is an opinion cartoon.

His lame little military parade didn’t flatter and feed his machismo enough, so Trump tossed a few bunker-busters at Iran.

In the process of going rogue without congressional approval, the president also bunker-buster bombed the U.S. Constitution.

There was no ‘oops.’ He intentionally bypassed Congress. And the democracy death march continues …

Never thought I’d be in semi-partial agreement on anything with Marjorie Taylor Greene, but here we are: The Georgia Congresswoman vehemently voiced her opposition to President Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, claiming the attack “feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons.”

I expect monkeys to fly out of my butt any moment.

“There’s always a danger in U.S. wars that dissent is labeled as disloyalty,’ writes Mark Jacob in his Stop the Presses newsletter. ”But in fact, the people who oppose Trump’s go-it-alone approach – without congressional authorization – are the ones showing the highest regard for our laws and the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.”

Jacob, a former journalist and author of several books, reminds us that lying politicians are even more dishonest during war. I shudder to think Trump could lie even more than he does already, but war gives him an excuse to break his own deceitful records.

“There’s a reason George Orwell wrote in “1984” that “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous,” writes Jacob. “Totalitarian governments use war as a rationale for total control over their citizens. They frighten citizens into giving up their rights.”

“War is the deadliest distraction in the authoritarian’s playbook,” writes radio personality and political commentator Thom Hartmann,

“In the modern era, it was probably George W. Bush who first said it out loud and then acted on it: When you’re unpopular and losing politically, just start a little war that’s easily winnable and you’ll be back on top,” says Hartmann.

“It worked for Bush, although history hasn’t been kind to him as a result. Trump’s second presidency, meanwhile, has been an unmitigated disaster, both in real terms and politically as his approval ratings have slipped so far underwater they’re in late-years Nixon territory.”

Read all of The Hartmann Report opinion piece here.

“Trump’s war on Iran is illegal and immoral,” writes Jason Sattler (better known as LOLGOP on Blue Sky and X Twitter) on his The Farce Substack.

An excerpt:

“Trump started a war by bombing nuclear facilities that had been effectively neutralized under the nuclear deal America and our allies made with the UN Security Council and the European Union. If that war is legal in any way, the regime will claim that legality through the War Powers Act.

“On X, Amash destroyed that argument with his explanation of the War Powers Act:

One of the most frequently misrepresented federal statutes—often falsely used to justify unconstitutional presidential war powers—is the War Powers Resolution (or Act.)

Contrary to what you may have heard about the War Powers Resolution, it does not allow the president to take military action for any reason for 60-90 days without congressional approval so long as the president notifies Congress within 48 hours.