Obama Will Sign NDAA Bill: Up Dated

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

As per Sen. Karl Levin, Obama requested that the language barring the indefinite detention of US citizens be removed from the National Defense Authorization Bill. This doesn’t exonerate Levin or the other 97 Senators who voted “aye” on this travesty of legislation.

We have only a few days to speak up to Congress before the President signs NDAA Section 1031, permitting citizen imprisonment without evidence or a trial. Congress plans to give it to him to sign by Dec 9. But if we act urgently to raise awareness among our friends, family, and colleagues, we can still prevent this. Here is what we can do:

1) Americans must know about this to stop it. Urgently pass this petition as widely as possible: http://www.change.org/petition… … – Contact the media by any means available to you. ZERO news stories have covered this Chairman Levin clip yet!

2) Congress can still block the law before December 9. Write and call your Representative and Senator telling them to stop NDAA Section 1031.

Contact your Representative: http://writerep.house.gov/writ…

Contact your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/…

3) Write and call the White House to tell the President you won’t sit by and watch NDAA Section 1031 become law: http://www.whitehouse.gov/cont…

4) Stay smart — To slow down journalists and concerned citizens, it appears Section 1032 was deliberately crafted to distract from Section 1031. However, section 1032 is NOT the citizen imprisonment law. Disturbingly, this confusion is helping Section 1031 to slip by the American people. Do NOT fall for the misdirection, stay informed and urgently work to stop NDAA Section 1031.

We need to stop Obama and Congress from trashing the Constitution.

Up Date 12.8.2011: The web site Lawfare has an excellent two part analysis and side by side comparison of the House and Senate versions of NDAA. Written by Benjamin Wittes, it is an enlightening read on the flaws of both bills:

As the House of Representatives and the Senate head to conference on the NDAA, I thought it might be useful to analyze the similarities and differences between the counterterrorism provisions of the two versions of the bill. People sometimes talk about the NDAA as though both houses are on the same track. And there are some similar themes. But the two bills are also quite different. And these difference give rise to opportunities in conference: opportunities to emerge with far better policy than either bill presents on its own, and opportunities for mischief as well.

In this pair of posts, which is organized thematically and loosely according to the sequence of provisions in the House version of the bill, I am going to do a kind of side-by-side analysis. In each section that follows, I will start with a discussion of the House bill, which is longer and more involved, then describe how the analogous Senate provision (if one exists) differs. I will then discuss what I think the optimal realistic policy outcome looks like given the two versions. I am not going to rehash the merits or lack thereof of the specific provisions, all of which we have discussed elsewhere. My point is simply to highlight where the Congress has a clear position and where the houses are reading from different playbooks.

The Senate version of the bill is available here (pdf), with the relevant section running from pp. 426-445. The House version of the bill is available here (pdf) and runs from pp. 567-603. As this will get long, I will break it up into two posts.

House-Senate Side-by-Side of NDAA Provisions: Part I

House-Senate Side-by-Side of NDAA Provisions: Part II

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    • TMC on December 8, 2011 at 19:31
      Author
  1. Super-corpo-fascist-exp-ali-docious!

    I don’t know but I bin told

    New World Order is real cold

    911 and Northwoods too

    Make a fine deceptive brew

    Larry A hole….. Silverstein

    Couldn’t pay asbestos fine

    Set it up to

    Drop em down

    Hole in the Big Apple Town

    Eisenhauer Bill and John

    Warned us all but now their gone

    Fiat money Madoffed me

    Ponzi scam for all to see

    401s for you and me

    Built the Chinese Factory

    Drywall dogfood kid toys too

    Come back as a toxic brew

    Bilderbergers came to town

    Mortgaged it then burnt it down

    Bill and Turner Holdren too

    Think there are too many of you

    Spanish flu and birdies too

    Make a fine and deadly brew

    Birther, bagger tin foil hatter

    What you say don’t really matter

    NSA knows all you say

    Is the SWAT team on their way

    Tazer me and VMAD you

    Take your chip and cry Boohoo

    Thank you Satan

    Yes we can

    Stuff em all into the van

    Compliance is the way to be

    Make em love their slavery

    Too big to fail

    Too big to big to see

    Enron begat Sar-Oxley

    Frisk my wife

    And own my life

    Global

    Oligopoly

    Myth for me a myth for you

    Taliban and Qeada too

    Bases tunnels great big towns

    Way down deep beneath the ground

    Spray all day and spray all night

    Nothing there for you to sight

    GMO and pharma too

    Frankenfood for me and you

    I don’t need no fucking raise

    Cause I can see the end of days

    If we should we make it through

    Flying cars for me and you

  2. He wants the power to imprison and murder U.S. citizens with ZERO due process.  His only objection, and it’s a mild one at that, is that he doesn’t think Congress should be exercising any say in what the executive branch can or can’t do.

    • Edger on December 14, 2011 at 04:44

    of the bill anyway. He can either veto the entire NDAA or not veto it.

    He could issue a signing statement saying that he will not enforce a single section, but that would not bind any future president, democrat or republican.

    His veto threat is more empty words from a master of empty words.

    It was obvious as far back as at least 2007 what Obama is… and why he will not veto the NDAA:

       “The single most important job of any president is to protect the American people,” [Obama] affirmed in a major foreign-policy statement last April[2007]. But “the threats we face…. can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries…. The security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people.” That’s why the U.S. must be the “leader of the free world.” It’s hard to find much difference on foreign policy between Clinton and Obama, except that Barack is more likely to dress up the imperial march of U.S. interests in such old-fashioned Cold War flourishes.

       That delights neoconservative guru Robert Kagan, who summed up Obama’s message succinctly:  “His critique is not that we’ve meddled too much but that we haven’t meddled enough…. To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States.”  To control everything and everyone, he wants “the strongest, best-equipped military in the world…. A 21st century military to stay on the offense.”

    For more on Obama’s foreign policy thinking, see:

    Barack Obama, Resort to Force, and U.S. Military Hegemony(.PDF)

    Harry van der Linden

    Butler University, 1/1/2009

    Obama is a dyed in the wool neocon, carrying on – no, expanding on – the full spectrum world dominance neocon policies of George Bush.

    Bush would never have gotten away with the things Obama has hypnotized his supporters into praising him for.

    People would be screaming for his impeachment in posts and comments on every non-right wing blog and site in the world.

    In the end, if the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

    Barack Obama, University of Nairobi, August 28, 2006

    An Honest Government, A Hopeful Future

    Fascism Has No Chance in America

    In a startling and heartwarming display of courage and moxy people all over America actually raised their eyebrows for a minute or so last week at the announcement of the coming indefinite detention of Americans section of the 2012 NDAA.

    [snip]

    Fascism obviously has no chance in America. No chance.

    People are fighters. They don’t just roll over for travesties like this. In some places they even put the words “Live Free or Die” on their license plates. And they raise their eyebrows for a minute. Before changing the channel.

    • mplo on December 14, 2011 at 13:37

    It comes as no surprise to me…not one iota!  Meet the new boss…

  3. In fact, He’s about to reveal Himself as the “God Particle” as early as next year! What’s the big deal with the “Bill of Rights” when you got a 5 billion dollar proton collider spittin out elementary particles, conveniently happening, just where John Calvin himself miraculously bumped into a few back in 1536?  

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