The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was approved by the Senate on December 15th (the Bill of Rights Day). This legislation will federalize the National Guard, eliminate posse comitatus and may allow the federal government to suspend US citizens rights depending on the legal interpretation of sections 1021 through 1023.
Leading members of Congress have already indicated that they believe that these provisions [1021 through 1023] could be used by this and any future president to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial — even American citizens and others picked up within the borders of the United States.
Although most people have never heard of this legislation let alone its implications, there is another twist to the story that is not being reported. President Obama is currently in Hawaii playing his 90th game of golf today. While he is expected to increase the US debt ceiling today by $1.2 trillion (thank you John Boehner), he still has not signed off on the NDAA.
President Obama is in Hawaii playing his 90th round of golf during his term as POTUS, while on a 17-day vacation. He could have signed the bill into law before leaving, but expressed reservations and demanded changes to the Iran sanctions amendment. Several changes were added to the bill to give the administration greater flexibility. And then there is this tidbit, that shows just how irrelevant the U.S. Congress has become, at least in the eyes of one Barack Hussein Obama.
The sanctions would not come into effect until six months after the bill is signed, and would allow the president to waive the penalties for national security reasons.
So the president is not signing the NDAA (which also sets our military funding) because he does not want to alienate Iran by instituting sanctions for their nuclear weapons program? And he wants to have complete authority over the penalties, once again bypassing Congress.
Is the current military situation in the Persian Gulf part of a “pre-planned, routine operation” or a show of force in an election year?
Iran-US brinkmanship over oil strait worsens
A showdown between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers worsened on Thursday with warships from each side giving weight to an increasingly bellicose exchange of words.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rejected a warning that the US military would “not tolerate” such a closure, saying they would act decisively “to protect our vital interests.”
The tough language came as two US warships entered a zone where the Iranian navy’s ships and aircraft were in the middle of 10 days of war games designed as a show of military might.
But a US navy spokeswoman said later that the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay had transited without incident on Tuesday, in pre-planned, routine operation.
The NDAA is the latest example where we will have to read the bill after it is passed in its final form to see what is in the legislation. Our founding fathers gave so much for what we value so little.
David DeGerolamo
And where is the TEA party? I hear silence.