I write today on why Congress should vote to authorize the war against the Islamic State. I think the war is legal regardless under the president’s inherent authority to defend the country. But the case for the 2001 and 2002 AUMF’s authorizing this fight — which the administration is making — seems attenuated to me, in the sense that a layman wouldn’t read either of them and say, “Oh yeah, they are talking about the Islamic State.” (John Yoo makes the argument for these authorizations here; Cass Sunstein makes the point here that even though the Islamic State split from al Qaeda, it doesn’t make sense that the authority the administration had under the 2001 authorization to fight it prior to the rift suddenly disappeared as soon the rift occurred.) There would be no need for legalistic parsing, though, if Congress just voted a clear, simple authorization for this military action. To their credit, some in Congress are calling for an authorization, but so far evasion rules the day.