Watch Rand Paul Urge Congress to Stop Letting the President ‘Do Whatever He Wants’ in War

Moments ago, the United States Senate voted 61-36 to kill an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would have given a six-month sunset to the authorizations for use of military force that were passed on Sept. 14, 2001, and again in 2002 in the run-up to the Iraq War.

“I rise today to oppose unauthorized, undeclared, and unconstitutional war,” Paul declared yesterday, while getting his amendment scheduled for a vote. “None of the seven wars we’re involved with now has anything to do with 9/11,” he argued on last night’s Hardball.

Paul’s floor speech today was a stinging rebuke to Senate’s “abdication” of responsibility to the executive branch in the waging of war, and the resulting interventionist promiscuity. “The neo-conservatives and the neo-liberals believe the president has unlimited authority,” the senator complained. Watch the whole thing below:

Read Eli Lake’s 2010 Reason article on “The 9/14 Presidency,” and Brian Doherty’s post this week on Paul’s attempt to force Congress to perform arguably its most important constitutional function.