President Obama may be on the brink of breaking the law.
At issue: The 1973 War Powers Act, which says if the president does not get congressional authorization 60 days after military action, the mission must stop within 30 days.
The president formally notified Congress about the mission in Libya with a letter on March 21, which makes Friday the 60-day deadline.
To be sure, presidents in both parties often ignored another part of the War Powers Act -- that the commander-in-chief should get congressional approval before any military action.
Still, in recent years, President Bush did seek and receive congressional authority for Afghanistan and Iraq prior to launching those missions.
"Make no mistake: Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors," Yale law professors Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway wrote this week in the Washington Post.
The only thing that comes close is President Clinton's military effort in Kosovo.
ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.
OK, let's play storytime.There are two principle versions of the Second Amendment: one version was passed by Congress, while the other is found in the copies distributed to each individual state and later ratified by them
As passed by the Congress:A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
As ratified by the States: A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.