President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country . . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House that insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the President. The “American way of life” is defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration. Even today reporters refuse to call waterboarding torture despite the long line of cases and experts defining waterboarding as torture for decades. On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The Administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the Constitution.
There are also those who continue the long-standing effort to excuse Obama’s horrific record on civil liberties by either blaming others or the times. One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens. The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality. THe Administration and Democratic members are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military. The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.
Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Sen. Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying Obama as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or as Obama maintains a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.
Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this unAmerican measure. Some Montana citizens are moving to force the removal of these members who they insist betrayed their oaths of office and their constituents. Most citizens however are continuing to treat the matter as a distraction from the holiday cheer.
For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment. 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.
So here is a resolution better than losing weight this year . . . make 2012 the year you regained your rights.
Here is the signing statement attached to the bill:
————-
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2011
Statement by the President on H.R. 1540
Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Source: ABC
“I want Ron Paul in the race as long as possible to inform voters, both Democrats and Republicans, of exactly what they are voting for when they vote for Obama or Romney: Autocracy, endless covert war, corporatism, the Imperial Presidency, and the elimination of their own rights, including their rights to free speech and protest.”
Tony,
So essentially you are saying there is no difference between Obama and Romney. You’re wrong and if you don’t get it by now, there is little I could do to change your mind.
S.M.,
Are you uncomfortable with denying poor and really sick women abortion? Are you uncomfortable with the havoc visited on women’s reproductive capacity in other nations by the current president’s authorization of DU and other chemicals in attacks upon civilians? Are you uncomfortable with the racist policies of the current president?
There are reasons to oppose Paul. Many of the reasons you site would be reasons to oppose Obama. This lack of ethical consistency is disturbing.
Tony,
Back at you, if you want to go the route of pain and suffering. You won’t be the family of five evicted from their home, living in their car, because of the jobs lost through an ongoing depression. You won’t be the thirtyish man with young children, who can’t afford a heart transplant. You won’t be a disabled war veteran whose PTSD goes untreated because of cuts in the VA. You won’t be the 16 year old rape victim forced to carry the baby of her rapist to term, nor will you be the Doctor arrested because he tried to help her with her abortion. You won’t be the forty-ish victim of MS, unable to receive SS Disability benefits and forced to live in a shelter. Nor will you be the children suffering the lifelong effects of malnutrition because their food programs have been ended. You won’t be the students whose intellectual growth is stunted by the teaching of “Intelligent Design”, along side evolution in school. You won’t be the Emergency Room patient in critical condition turned away because they had no health insurance. As for the decriminalization of drugs, don’t hold your breath because their is a very powerful lobby that would have Congress block any Paul initiative and this is true actually for the reasons you think Paul couldn’t effectively implement any of his screwball ideas.
If you want, I could go on with this list and match every possible atrocity you list, with two grislier ones brought about by a Paul, or other Republican Presidency. Your reasoning about 51 Democratic Senators, or less, blocking the harsher aspects of a Republican victor can be turned around against you also. Congress has blocked the closing of Guantanamo for instance under Obama, yet he takes your fall. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/09/2580557/congress-rule-keep-obama-from.html . Obama is faulted for not overcoming this, yet you see the same thing happening when a Republican President tries to initiate any of the draconian policies they all believe in. When you voted for Obama Tony, were you voting for President, or for a progressive Superman, waving away the encrustations of decades of ultra-conservative wealth propagandizing our people and in the process moving the Democratic Party to the right via buying Congress?
As has been pointed out though, Paul will probably not get the nomination, but in your universe I guess it doesn’t matter which one wins, because nothing worse could go on with anybody but Obama. As to the insertion of your Marine nephew by you, in a effort to find some way you would be personally affected, since you tacitly acknowledge your financial stability is fine either way, all that’s keeping us from a war with Iran and him out of harm’s way, right now is Obama. The MI Complex war chant has begun and it has little to do with Israel and much to do with oil. My guess is Obama understands the folly of this, but he is being pressed hard. Your guess is I suppose as long as it’s anyone but Obama, things will work out just fine.
@Elaine: I still think Ron Paul has about a 20% chance of being the nominee.
For whatever reason, Republicans hate Romney. I don’t know if it is his Mormonism so much as the fact that he comes off as a phony every single time he speaks. When all other anti-Romney candidates have given up, I think Ron Paul could still take it from him, and if he makes a third-party run, I think Ron Paul will get more support from ex-Obama supporters like me; at least I know some in my camp.
In any case, I agree with Glenn Greenwald and others, even as a third party candidate, or even if Paul is destined to lose, I want him to deliver the anti-war, anti-drug-war, anti-secrecy, anti-corruption message he is delivering.
Even if we are destined to lose the fight for what is right, the resistance costs the enemy their resources and slows their progress and we can hope our resistance will contribute to their weakness and eventual demise.
I want Ron Paul in the race as long as possible to inform voters, both Democrats and Republicans, of exactly what they are voting for when they vote for Obama or Romney: Autocracy, endless covert war, corporatism, the Imperial Presidency, and the elimination of their own rights, including their rights to free speech and protest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/06/ron-paul-useful-idiots-on-the-left The Guardian lays out the reasons that I am uncomfortable with Paul.
Elaine,
I don’t think Paul will win the Republican nomination however there is a real importance to his campaign. He is raising issues that Democrats do not want raised. That is the argument of Glenn Greenwald and others. It think it makes sense.
Tony C. and Mike S. are talking about things that make Democrats very uncomfortable. It’s a discussion that would not likely take place without Paul having enough supporters to bring these problems with president Obama to a public forum. It can also help Democrats to start thinking about voting for candidates who they might actually agree with such as Rocky Anderson, Jill Stein and even, Buddy Roemer. I will also point out that Ron Paul might run his own third party ticket.
We don’t know the future, but we do know what is happening in the present. I am hoping that what Obama, Congress, the financial industry and the Pentagon are doing is worth taking on right now. War crimes and financial fraud are happening right now and they are undermining our society. IMO, we are failing to address these horrible crimes because we are distracted by fear.
That is why I keep urging people to pay more attention to the present and spend less time worrying about the future. If we concentrate on the present we have a chance at ameliorating the future.
Tony C.,
Do you actually believe that Ron Paul is going to be the Republican nominee? If not, what’s the point of the Obama vs. Paul argument?
Now all the talk is about whether Romney will pick swing staters ,Rubio or Portman, as vp. But anybody is better than Obama even Bain Capital.
Paul is not in going to be on the ballot in the fall unless he runs as a third party candidate. It is Obama versus the person, Bain Capital. Buddy Roemer finished behind Perry in last place. Last night was the coronation of the Downton Abbey family. Even Rush Limbaugh criticized Perry and Newt for being socialists .It appears to be over. Coulter and Mark Levin are on board too, Tony C.
@Mike Spindell: How noble of you save for the fact that if any candidate in this race gets elected you won’t suffer any pain at all. You’ve alluded to the fact that besides being a scientist, you’re a successful businessman.
How noble of you, Mike, because if Obama gets elected you won’t be the Muslim cleric targeted for assassination, or the innocent Arab indefinitely detained, or the Whistleblower tortured and held without charges. You won’t be the villager burying the charred remains of your children in Pakistan, killed in an undeclared and unconstitutional CIA war. It probably won’t be you attending the funerals of soldiers killed by the endless war machine (which may well include my Marine nephew). It probably won’t be you watching the lives of nephews and nieces ruined forever over idiotic drug charges (or like me, bearing the expense of having them defended.)
You accuse me of ignoring the pain of others for political expediency, I suggest you do not use weapons that can be turned against you.
I do not believe either of us wants to ignore the pain of others; I balance the probable minimal effect of Ron Paul’s stance against abortion, and the probable effect of continued war losses under Obama, and I firmly believe the net effect is far LESS pain with Paul, without trivializing the fact that there will be pain with either choice.
The reason I believe Paul means less pain is that I do not believe that in four years Ron Paul can accomplish any stitch of the social agenda you accuse him of, and nobody has shown me even a plausible scenario in which he could. If our 51 Democratic Senators refuse to filibuster a Paul anti-abortion move, we are lost anyway. We are most likely to gain a Senate Seat (via Scott Brown) but even if we lose some, we can filibuster. Democrats will stop Ron Paul’s social agenda, and Ron Paul will stop the shooting wars and drug wars and corporate welfare and restore the rule of law and save countless lives in the process, both the lives of soldiers and the lives of non-violent drug offenders currently senselessly imprisoned.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/08/the_evils_of_indefinite_detention_and_those_wanting_to_de_prioritze_them/singleton/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/notes-from-a-guantanamo-survivor.html?ref=opinion
1zb1,
That is affirmative. Now, if you recall the Federalist papers, they will give you the directions to achieve the result that we seek.
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
51
Yogi,
“In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.” and ” In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good;”
1zb1,
Exactly how can you divide what is not united to begin with?
YOGI, the whole point of the constitution was to “manage” differences. That a single nation even with its differences had a better chance of survivial then a group of individual states, groups, etc. Conflict is inevitable (at least for the present) but how you deal with them and resolve them is what is at issue.
If everyone agreed with me there would be no conflict (that’s a joke).
You leaderhosen had me goin for a while, but I’m not one to take anything at face value. so I did some research and this is what I found. http://www.republicansforobama.org/node/9821 and http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/12/24/caucuses-tea-party-constitution-progressive-hr-1540/ . I suggest you people do some research starting with the above. If you think Ron Paul is the answer then you are TRULY are UNINFORMED.
F2S,
I have read some say that some of Ron Paul’s ideas are attractive and some do sound pretty good but I certainly don’t think he is the answer to anything but a Faster Fascism but then……well I don’t think any of these guys are the answer. Republican or Democrat. They are the problem; not the solution.
I won’t presume to speak for anyone else of course.
AMS: your answer is essentially to vote for Ralph Nader. We all know how that turned out: Eight years of GWB; Citizens United, Iraq, and you name it. And because I don’t think you are a complete fool I have to assume that is exactly the outcome you want – divide democrats and republicans win.
A reasonable assumption but incorrect. Like Mike I sometimes assume familiarity with my beliefs.
No. I don’t believe that a third party candidiate has a chance; even if we could find one.
I support a slightly more radical proccess. I don’t believe any attempt to clean up the system will succeed if it is initiated through the current system or the system as it exists at least. I believe that a massive movement of the people; a general strike; and widespread civil disobedience is the only answer. Not a violent revolution but a non-violent Occupation of the system to force the changes we need to make the system work for all Americans.
Though I suspect the 1% won’t agree.
I support this more radical solution because if the system is corrupt; you can’t expect the system to correct itself.
Once the private money is out of our political system; our political leaders will be free to act to benefit the people instead of the corporations.
I hope Obama wins this year. But I don’t expect him to do anything more than he has done.
I expect in fact I am certail that whoever wins; the conditions for Americans will just get worse unless we also Occupy the Government and make it change.
Still a reasonable assumption and it would probably be my hopeless course if I still had any faith or belief in our Government or Political System.
I suppose; just to be safe; i should give more thought to the election but my heart will never be in it again untill we take care of the bigger problem of corruption and money or corruption of money or corruption by money or however you look at it.
AMS SAID: “I suppose; just to be safe; i should give more thought to the election but my heart will never be in it again untill we take care of the bigger problem of corruption and money or corruption of money or corruption by money or however you look at it.”
And just who is the “WE”? Since you are sitting this out in the comfort of your living room making pointless posts on a blog, just who is going to be the “we”.
If you are waiting for the end of “corruption and money or corruption of money or corruption by money or however you look at it” you will probably be waiting until the end of time. There are plenty of bad guys all over the place,. If you are going to wait until they are all gone before you are going to do anything to get rid of them then guess what happens….
Swarthmore mom, It’s a despicable ad.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ron-paul-supporters-release-racist-ad-depicting-jon-huntsman-as-maoist-soldier/ Desperate for a second place finish in NH