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
@Sandi: You confuse me with yourself, perhaps. I am not in Ron Paul’s “tribe,” I despise free market thinking, I love the FDA, Department of Education, the EPA, Social Security, and Medicare. Seriously. I even liked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had they stuck to their original service intent (instead of becoming corrupt loan banks).
(I probably agree with Ron Paul on the Federal Reserve, however, they have become a tool of the banksters and corrupt politics that was never intended.)
Ron Paul is not of my tribe. That said, neither is Romney, Bush, or Obama, because THOSE guys are corrupt, lying bastard corporatists in service to the 1% and destroying civil rights. Ron Paul is the only candidate on the correct side of civil rights, the only candidate on the correct side of ending the thoroughly racist war on drugs, the only candidate on the correct side of ending covert CIA wars that are killing children (ours and theirs), and the only candidate that even SAYS he will end the Imperial Presidency, and I believe him.
Ron Paul is an Ayn Rand idiot, I have decimated the logic of Ayn Rand with hundreds of posts, full of logic (not emotional dismissal, actual original reasoning) and compelling hypotheticals the Randians simply cannot answer. If you doubt my opposition to the Ayn Rand Objectivist nonsense and Ron Paul’s idiotic economic free market drivel, just go read there, I think any person with sense will find it impossible to believe I would actually support that addle-brained bullshit and argue that convincingly against it.
But Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist first, and in the current dire straits where your rights to free speech are now limited to “free speech zones” and the government has asserted the right to shut down any website at any time, your right to be free from warrantless search no longer applies in airports, on the Internet, or to your email or telephone calls, the OWS rights to assembly and protest are being met with pepper spray, tasers, beatings with clubs and false arrests and false charges of resisting arrest, your right to a hearing or trial or lawyer are now gone, and your very right to life has been rescinded, it seems time to me to go with the only Constitutionalist in the race, no matter his other views, and no matter what tribe he comes from. I want my rights back, and Ron Paul the stubborn Constitutionalist is the only chance left to get them back.
@ Tony C, I appreciate the reply Tony but you are the one who was talking about “tribes”, not me. If I have a “tribe” it is Democrats, liberals and progressives and Ron Paul is not in it.
I respect “free market thinking” as long as it is like even Adam Smith admitted it needed to be, accompanied by a regulatory system. I do not “love the FDA, Department of Education, the EPA, Social Security, and Medicare” but I respect what they were meant to do and what they have accomplished for our nation. I think they are all too bureaucratic, top heavy, and no longer mission centered and are all in need of serious reform and oversight. Our problem is everything in this nation is political, leveraged and loaded for bear, whether we are hunting bear or not.
There is no department, organization or government service that cannot be corrupted and is not the victim of fraud, abuse and/or political gamesmanship. We do not elect leaders; we elect sound bites and corporate packages. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America and can’t even admit it.
Obama is of my tribe. I remain proud of my vote and proud to give it to him again. Not because he is the best this nation has to offer, but because he is what is offered. The idea of voting for someone not on the ballot or unelectable is a pipe dream this nation cannot risk. I agree that Obama is a corporatist but I disagree he is “in service to the 1% and destroying civil rights”. The idea that “Ron Paul is the only candidate on the correct side of civil rights” is just laughable IMO. He would have us go back to Jim Crow in a nano-second and forget gay rights being recognized by the likes of him!
He will NEVER win the nomination much less the Presidency so his sides, while arguable, are irrelevant. He is as imperial as a candidate gets and no I do not “believe him” any more than Romney or Gingrich or the other clowns who are exponentially worse than Obama. He is the kind of President who could destroy this nation. He is a radical and not the good kind IMO.
I disagree that “Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist first”. I believe he is an “AynRandian” first and I find it odd you do not think so. Free speech rights are rights that have been so abused and pushed to unhealthy limits by haters that I fully understand the limits many seek and accept for them. When the only exercise a right gets is abuse, it is no longer a right, there is a line and Fred Phelps, Sovereign Citizens, Black Panthers, Muslim Brotherhood, KKK, Race Haters and Gay Bashers all cross it daily with their hate and vitriol and hell no, I will never applaud or defend that as the price for my free speech. I do not have to accept child molesters to have children either. Zealotry is not a good guard. Excess breeds excess.
If you think that only a “Constitutionalist” is the answer, you are asking the wrong question IMO. And it is blind madness to say his other views don’t or should not matter. If “Ron Paul the stubborn Constitutionalist is the only chance left to get them back”, your rights are gone for good.
Mike, I feel your pain…. boy am I glad i was out doing something productive today instead of wasting time replying to the lunatic fringe.
Not voting for Obama is the same as voting for a 3rd Term for George W. Bush only worse. However, imperfect anyone may think Obama is, not whole heartedly supporting and voting for him now is the same as voting for a 3rd Term for George W. Bush only worse; it’s the same as voting for 2 more members of the Supreme Court like Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia. It’s the same as voting for no hope over some hope. Staying home and not voting is the same as voting for a 3rd Term for George W. Bush only worse. Supporting or voting for Ron Paul is the same as voting for Ralph Nader only worse. Remember what that got us.
I’m assuming most people are smart enough to grasp that concept which is obviousely a big mistake on my part.
Anyone who thinks there is absolutly anyway that having Ron Paul or any Republican/Tparty Candidate in the Whitehouse (or controlling congress) will not be signficantly worse or in any way beneficial then having Obama in the Whitehouse and a congress controlled by Democrats is so completely disconnected from facts and reality as not be be worth spending even one moment of time on.
Yes people have a right to be ignorant, and I will defend that right with my life if necessery, but I just wish for once that so many people did not feel the need to exercise that right all the time.
I realilze that is mostly an emotional rant, but since facts, history, or reality seem to carry so little weight around here why bother with anything else.
Yes shano, it is beyond a darned shame. I am not proud of the compromises that the deep divisions and unmitigated intimidation from the right have caused us to offer. It is so easy to throw out that old “un-American” epithet and they do it with such ease and such passion that we cringe and back down because their propaganda machine actually puts out product people “buy” and ours apparently just blows air. If Obama loses this election it will prove that only the threat of Palin won it last time.
It also makes me crazy that they have so successfully labeled Obama as a “Socialist”, “Communist”, “Marxist”, “secret Muslim” when he is in fact so much like them only with some level of conscience.
Sandi, yes, you are probably right about the Obama/Bush comparison the right wing would hammer, and with PAC money other right wing orgs as well.
Well said, but it is a crying shame that we have been pulled so far to the right by Corporate Media in America that our choice in the election is between a Republican/NeoLiberal (Obama) and fascists, oligarchs or fanatics after the Bush catastrophe..
Sandi Sanders,
I hold Obama to his oath of office. There is no sense in electing a man who destroys your own form of govt. You can go ahead a elect Romney at that point.
Tony C.,
I believe Mike provided you with plenty of reasons for why he plans to vote for Obama. He isn’t going to do it because “tribalism” is more important to him than the Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law. It seems you sometimes feel you can interpret for yourself how/why other people think/act as they do. Either that or you really can’t comprehend what other people’s reasoning is when it differs from yours.
@Tony C: I find it odd that you can so demean someone else’s “tribalism” even as yours is so vehemently expressed. How is that exactly? Your “tribe” is better than Mike’s or mine? Not hardly and darned sure not Ron Paul’s!
Of course some things trump civil liberties. Crimes, aiding/abetting/supporting/financing terror comes to mind but there are certainly others, like blatant discrimination. Civil liberties are not a magic shield for dirty deeds, and too many people have used them for same.
You would be against Obama even if he had vetoed this bill and went down in flames on the altar of civil liberties for suspected terrorists, which is precisely how that would have played in the political back alleys, the Conservative media outlets and among the conservative right wing talking heads. President Bush was “protecting” this nation and only Obama, 10+ years later is “destroying” it with virtually the SAME tools. Funny how that works.
The “spotlight” is on you dude.
@Mike: I haven’t backed off on anything, I began by saying that nothing trumps civil liberties, and I haven’t backed off on that. Abortion does not trump civil liberties, racism does not trump civil liberties, nothing trumps civil liberties. I do not see how that would make me a Hitler supporter. I am against Obama because he is destroying the freedoms codified in the Bill of Rights, and I am not for anybody that thinks that is a good idea, or has actually voted for it.
Obama is violating and destroying the civil liberties guaranteed in this country for 200 years. Ron Paul is not, and if you read his actual words, what he said was that Head Start is unconstitutional, but like social security and medicare it must be transitioned away from. In the case of social security and medicare, he says that citizens were made promises by their government and have been paying into it, and it would not be fair to cut them off now, that it would take a generation to transition to self reliance.
He was implying a similar thing about Head Start, it is not on his hit list but (he thinks) needs to be transitioned away from.
The bit about the magic wand is his entirely correct and rational contention that not everything can be changed at once without causing chaos; that what he regards as unconstitutional programs must be unwound over time to prevent a complete disaster. He did not say he would keep HeadStart forever (even though I think we should).
I disagree with Paul about what is and is not constitutional in social programs, but his refusal to take the ax to HeadStart on his first day in office is not a betrayal of his Constitutional beliefs, it is just an acknowledgement that he is neither insane or unfair.
And finally, your tribalism is betrayed by your claim that my characterization is absurd. It is factually correct, not absurd. He ordered an unconstitutional hit on Awlaki; he had no right to do it, no power to do it, and Awlaki is dead. That is no different than a mob boss ordering a hit. Isn’t that murder? Do you deny he has overtly lied to us? Do you deny he has taken overt acts that abrogate the Bill of Rights?
The fact that you THINK that characterization is absurd simply spotlights your tribalism: It makes no difference how many crimes he commits, you are going to vote for him no matter what. Which means your “reasons” are all just excuses for or dismissals of Obama’s behavior so you can do what you were always going to do anyway; vote for your side, because as far as I can tell, THAT is more important to you than the Bill of Rights or the Rule of Law.
Great link Elaine!
You are right Shano. Any woman voting for any of the Republican candidates is troublesome.
Blouise, yes, I will be voting for Obama again. I’m just sending money I would have sent to politicians this election year to OWS instead.
No woman in her right mind would vote for Ron Paul, imho. He is terrible in his stance on any issues concerning women in America.
Tony,
Is this the deal you’re thinking of?
Rahm Emanuel Personally Pressed Reid To Cut Deal With Lieberman: Sources
3/18/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/14/rahm-emanuel-personally-p_n_391786.html
Excerpt:
Rahm Emanuel visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his Capitol office on Sunday evening and personally urged him to cut a deal with recalcitrant Sen. Joe Lieberman, two Democratic sources familiar with the situation told the Huffington Post.
Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, has long been identified as leading a faction of White House advisers who have been pushing the Senate simply to pass any health care bill, no matter how weak.
His direct message to Reid (D-Nev.), according to a source close to the negotiations: “Get it done. Just get it done.”
Politico reported Monday morning that the White House had pressed Reid to cut the deal after Lieberman (I-Conn) insisted the Senate drop a provision, which Lieberman himself has long favored, to allow those 55-64 to buy in to Medicare. Lieberman is threatening to join a Republican filibuster of the bill if the provision isn’t dropped.
@Elaine: Yes, Liebermann’s wife is a lobbyist for the health care industry; however, as I read it at the time, Rahm Emanuel admitted in one of his characteristic expletive laden rants that the White House negotiated away the public option early on, and he personally recruited Liebermann to be the foil for Obama. I believe the Democratic Senators knew that, and the deal Obama had cut, and that is why Liebermann was not punished in any way by the Democratic Caucus (he was an Independent) and why, ultimately, the public option was defeated.
Liebermann was certainly making money (via his wife) for extending the debate on the public option, but he was also a Senator that wanted his cushy Committee seats, and they would have been threatened if he just acted alone. Reid is another corrupt autocrat with the right to simply strip Liebermann of his seats, if the Senate REALLY wanted to pass the public option. So it was a marriage of convenience: Obama needed a foil to play against, Rahm found the perfect man for the job, and Liebermann was allowed to make an indirect fortune, be the bad guy, and take the blame for the death of the public option in place of Obama without any punishment by Reid (who also blocked punitive action against Liebermann floated by those members of the Caucus that WANTED a public option).
That is my understanding. It was Obama that ditched it, the rest was a D.C. political theatre production. It was also Obama that promised the universal mandate to insurers, and promised to block re-importation of drugs for the Pharmacies. Both of those are huge payoffs to the industry, and what else was promised I do not know, but they also haven’t lost their legalized monopoly status or pricing power.
Mike,
Point noted….and that is scary that tricky Dick can be viewed as a centrist…I guess I am reaching a point in life that I want someone that can be trusted…so I suppose that if they can be trusted they are not going to be popular…..I am tired of associating trust with folks that have proved over and over that they are psychopaths/psychopaths…
Blouise, I caught the drift in 2010 when Tony C insisted that Grayson, Kucinich and Feingold should be defeated, and Jill spoke so favorably of the tea party. Don’t vote for the corrupt democrats or you are immoral was the message they presented.The tea party won and Grayson and Feingold were defeated.
Tony,
“Just like he lied about the public option, as we know now, he threw that under the bus the first thing, recruited Joe Liebermann to be the bad guy, and lied for six months about how he was trying to get it in.”
I wasn’t aware that was the reason for Lieberman’s actions regarding the health care bill. I thought that there might have been another reason.
*****
Why does Joe Lieberman oppose healthcare reform? Ask his wife
Both Lieberman and Evan Bayh have spouses who have profited from the healthcare industry
By Joe Conason
Salon, 10/29/09
http://www.salon.com/2009/10/30/joe_lieberman/singleton/
Excerpt:
If Democrats are disappointed by Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster any healthcare reform bill that includes a public option, they shouldn’t be. Despite all of his past promises to support universal healthcare, nothing was more predictable than the Connecticut senator’s fealty to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Much the same can be said of Sen. Evan Bayh, who emerged from hiding on healthcare to announce that he too plans to filibuster against reform with the Republicans, regardless of what his constituents and Americans in general plainly want. Like Lieberman, his state is home to powerful corporations that want reform killed — and like Lieberman, his wife has brought home very big paychecks from those same interests. . (UPDATE: A report published in a South Bend paper Thursday night says Bayh may now support a floor debate.)
The Lieberman family’s financial ties to the health industry are no secret, yet their full extent remains unknown. During her husband’s 2006 reelection campaign, Hadassah Lieberman’s employment as a “senior counselor” to Hill & Knowlton, one of the world’s biggest lobbying firms, briefly erupted as an issue, especially because the clients she served were in the controversial pharmaceutical and insurance sectors. Exactly what she did for those clients has never been disclosed.
At the time she joined the public relations and lobbying conglomerate in the spring of 2005, she expressed the touching hope that she would somehow be able to help those in need. “I have had a lifelong commitment to helping people gain better healthcare,” she said in a press release. “I am excited about the opportunity to work with the talented team at Hill & Knowlton to counsel a terrific stable of clients toward that same goal.” Less than a year later, having pocketed $77,000 in salary, she quit without explanation — just as her husband was facing a tough primary that he would eventually lose. Throughout the campaign, Hadassah Lieberman, her husband and their spokespersons explicitly refused to discuss her professional activities, except to note that she had not been required to register as a lobbyist.
But her stint at Hill & Knowlton was merely one episode in a professional lifetime devoted to the corporate health sector. For most of the past three decades, Hadassah Lieberman has been employed by either pharmaceutical companies or the lobbying firms that represent them — starting with nearly a decade in the “public affairs department” at Hoffman-LaRoche from 1972-81, followed by stints at Pfizer, where she spent four years as “director of policy, planning and communications,” and APCO Associates, a major lobbying firm where she served as a “senior associate” in its large healthcare division before retiring in 1998.
She went back to work when she joined H&K, an outfit that became notorious for its billion-dollar defense of the tobacco industry. Not long after her contract began, Sen. Lieberman introduced legislation vastly extending patent protection for pharmaceutical companies — notably including GlaxoSmithKline, a top client of his wife’s firm.
“So you will vote for a sociopathic liar, murderer, and a man that has proven his evil by one direct act after another, because you are a tribalist that has no choice, because no level of conscious overt betrayal by your party will ever be enough to reject them. Good for them, they can be as evil as they wanna be, and they will still have your vote.”
Tony,
First of all your characterizations of Obama are absurd, but you are entitled to them.
Second, your level of vitriol towards me is obnoxious and is not a reflection of how I’ve addressed you.
Third, you clearly don’t give a damn about your guys economic policies because they won’t hurt you, which to me exhibits lack of empathy for those they will hurt.
Fourth, you are exhibiting this rage after being shown the truth as in:
“It’s not constitutional, but I wouldn’t put that on the list,” he said. “You know, if we want a perfectly free society, you can’t wave a wand and get everything you want. So you have to work our way out of this.” This truth is that the man you support is no bulwark of Constitutional adherence, merely another egotist cleverly positioning himself. You have no answer to this but rage, simply because as time goes on we see that the person you’ve invested so much in, may actually be the most evil of all the candidates.
Fifth, you have even admitted that this man is probably a racist and a bigot, but you don’t care. Tony, very frankly I could see you in 1933 Germany, looking at the doddering fool Von Hindenburg, the runaway inflation, the mismanagement of government and seeing the guy with the mustache as your preference, even though he’s got some silly racial ideas. You wouldn’t worry, the laws won’t allow him to implement any of those policies. JBS=WCC=KKK=AB=NAZI. You fail to realize that at your peril and that of this country.
Sixth, How dare you play that tribalist bullshit. I’ve fully explained myself as to why I’m acting as I am. You have been constantly backtracking as every new revelation about Paul has come out to the point you’ve even justified his racism due to his age and where he grew up. Well when you grow up in Austria and spend your adult years in Bavaria I guess a little Jew hatred is justified, by your standards. When you’re Teutonic too, I guess it’s understandable why you’d hate blacks. As a Texan, dislike of Mexicans come naturally also since the Mexicans tried to steal Texas lands. It doesn’t matter though because Paul has said he’d stop all this bad stuff and the Congress won’t let him get away with any shenanigans, will they?
Seventh, as I’ve made clear with Gene this is not about your not wanting to vote for Obama, I’ve even addressed that to you directly and said I could understand why and have no problem with it. This is about you supporting the most right-wing Conservative of the past 30 years as a viable alternative and claiming progressive bona fides simultaneously. I don’t doubt you as a progressive, but I do doubt the intelligence of your support for a misogynist bigot.
Eighth, unlike your endless dialogue with that idiot Grossman, who surprisingly has shown more adherence to objectivist values than the man who named his son after Rand, this dialogue with me ends here Tony. I’ve proven you wrong and done so with facts and links following your guys words and deeds. I’ve got too many more important things to do than trade barbs with you, because from your overall performance here, in your mind you may not always be right, but you’re never wrong. Respond with all the vitriol you ca muster Tony, I don’t care, I’ve proven you wrong and that was the only point I was trying to make.
I am seriously concerned that you are holding President Obama to an impossible standard given this new McCarthy era we have had since 2001. You are not helping liberals, civil liberties or even the cause of the Constitution, you are simply piling on and using this as a cudgel as if there was an alternative. When you have worse to contend with, you be sure you look in the mirror and thank yourself for making it happen. 48% of this country does not trust or approve of him and you think he can take on this obstructive Congress, aggressive Tea Partiers, and apathetic beaten down nation? The people experiencing “almost a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome” relationship with their “captors” is you, my previously respected friend.
@Mike S: You seem to have missed my point. If I am unaffected by my choice, my choice can be the unbiased lesser of two evils, and I think that is Ron Paul.
I did not think I was electing a superman when I voted for Obama, I thought I was electing a principled man, and I am not. I helped elect an evil man, a liar, and a sociopath. I am not criticizing him for things he could not prevent, but for his conscious choices and direct lies. He ordered the assassination of Awlaki, and two weeks later, the assassination of his 16 year old son. Also with no evidence.
It was OBAMA that threatened to veto the NDAA bill because it had an exception to indefinite detention for citizens, and forced that exception out, then lied about it. Just like he lied about the public option, as we know now, he threw that under the bus the first thing, recruited Joe Liebermann to be the bad guy, and lied for six months about how he was trying to get it in. All after promising on air he would veto a bill without a public option, all when public polling of the public option was favorable by over 70%. Same thing with FISA as a Senator, he was going to filibuster it, right up until he voted for it without a peep. Same thing on lobbyists and transparency in the White House: Do you think he was forced to hire lobbyists? Do you think Republicans forced him to hold secret meetings with Pharma and the Medical Insurance industry, and to hold more secret meetings than BUSH? Do you think he was forced to dispense with trials and hearings and invent the new Kangaroo Court system that ensures anybody he declares a terrorist will be incarcerated forever? NO. Obama is a liar, he wasn’t forced on any of this stuff, he volunteered.
So you will vote for a sociopathic liar, murderer, and a man that has proven his evil by one direct act after another, because you are a tribalist that has no choice, because no level of conscious overt betrayal by your party will ever be enough to reject them. Good for them, they can be as evil as they wanna be, and they will still have your vote.
You aren’t even choosing the lesser of two evils, you are just flat choosing evil on the grounds of partisanship.
BTW … Republicans are very worried about their numbers especially as all this big show over the last few months did not draw the Iowa voters to the caucuses as hoped. Democrats may have their problems with Obama but Republicans can’t get their people excited about anyone … lots of republicans will be sitting this one out.
“Clinton’s collapse on Welfare Reform was more monumental than most in the public realize.” (Mike S)
Truth
=================================================
“The lesser of two evils seems to be our only choice this year.”(shano)
The lesser of two evils has always been our only choice … from the contest between Thomas Jefferson / Aaron Burr /John Adams/ Charles Pinckney and John Jay in 1800 to today, political operatives have constantly invoked the evilness of one candidate over the other.
=============================================
One of the tactics at play here is to get those who would ordinarily vote for Obama to stay home. If you can’t support him 100% then you are compromising your own political values (shame, shame) by voting for him so … stay home … that’ll show him. Suppress your own vote out of righteous indignation.