I'm a bit confused about NDAA...

[vaberella]

First off, did the White House say they will support this bill or not?! I need a bit of clarity. I read the Carney statement which left me confused but seemed to have given clarity to one side. That President Obama will sign this bill into law.

However when I read some articles on the statement it seems as though the White House is still on the fence about this and finds it problematic. For many articles I've read they end their commentary with this statement "The White House, which had threatened a veto of the original House and Senate versions of the legislation, said it “remained concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counter-terrorism professionals.”"

The quote used came from this site:http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/14/white-house-will-not-veto-national-defense-authorization-act/

I personally don't like the bill and won't defend President Obama from criticism even if I am a fanatic. I did read Carney's earlier remarks which I do find troubling. However I don't see how this suggests Obama will sign the bill.

Carney makes no claim that the President supports the bill. He definitely did not the first time around and with recent changes he still seems to be troubled by it. Carney only stated that the senior advisors would not advise against.

My point of confusion, is why is the NDAA position sold as a fact and that Obama will sign the bill and/or Obama will move forward with the bill. It seems to me that the bill is in troubled waters---and not a smooth sail; despite the questionable exemption I see touted by others on this site.

I also have to wonder about our Dems in Congress who went along with this move. It seems the only way this bill could have made it through is if a considerable number of Dems supported this. Who are they and why aren't we looking to reseat these people?

I'm sure we all know that even if Obama vetos the bill it can still be overturned by Congress if they truly want the bill to go through; correct? My main concern is actually for that possibility of happening since it did happen to Bush about two or three times.

In any event...I support keeping Obama aware that this would be foolhardy move. But I must say that the idea that Obama supports this bill and will sign it into law is at best an exaggeration of what is going on from my readings. There are posts and sites that are saying the man already signed the bill into law.

And on this site for many threads I wasn't sure if he did or not. I understand holding his feet to the fire. But can we keep the headlines on the facts rather on the sensationalism...because a few of get confused by the amass of hyperbole over the truth.

As a point of clarity for my posts...I have problems with those who state Obama will sign the bill or the White House supports the bill--which seems to be false. And I have a problem with those who defend the signing of this bill with the "exemption", which I don't find to be strong enough or clear enough language to protect citizens. With that point in mind...I do take issue with this defense as though anyone else who is not a citizen gets what ever they deserve. I was an immigrant when I came here...ditto for my family and I think many of you. I sincerely doubt you would have wanted anyone one in your family who is an immigrant to be indefinitely detained...you'd want them to have access to some sort of protection. So that defense is lame at best and disturbing at worst.

[SixthSense]

1. ask yourself this

Why issue a veto threat against the original bill but not against the version sent to his desk?

This is a fait accompli. If anyone is foolish enough to still have hope and wants to lose some money, send me a message.


edited to add: it was sent to his desk on Dec 15, which means his most probable time to sign it is on Christmas Eve when everyone is too busy with family to pay attention. If you think I'm too cynical, look at what major policy action happened on Christmas Eve 2009.

[tblue]

3. haha.

The threat sure made us perk up and pay attention, that's for sure.

"Will he? I wonder if he will. Gee, I hope so. Come on, Obama! Oh, he's not gonna? Really? No, really?! Dammit! I'm sure he wanted to but he just can't. They won't let him. Poor guy. Everybody, stop criticizing him. It's not his fault! He wanted to veto it."

Actually, I heard the reason for the veto was because the Executive was not given sole authority to make the determination. It wasn't because it was anything like unconstitutional.

[vaberella]

5. Because the language was far more disturbing the first time around.

Mainly because the first time around there was no exemption for US citizens written in. Or that was the greatest problem of many at the time. I believe the article I linked stated that much. Now even with the lukewarm provisions the White House is looking at this...or Obama is looking at this on the long term affect. But it doesn't seem like an affirmative signing. I realize that people want veto or not responses. But we also have to consider how far Congress will try to push this and I can see the President taking that into consideration considering the rather wide sweep of this bill in both the House and Senate who want to push something like this...Dems included.

Not to mention my issue is not only with Obama-- at least he's reading it to make a clear decision. My problem is with all the Dems that supported this action. And I don't get why they are not getting more air times. These are the people making our laws and they are the people in power alongside the President. Shit...these same people can supercede Obama's power and we don't even seem to be giving them the reaming they deserve.

[Po_d Mainiac]

2. Only one way to find out what would happen after a veto

Mr President,
Are you, or are you not a supporter of the US Constitution, including the 6th Amendment?

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Obama is a former constitutional law professor

He has to veto this. It's imperative

[vaberella]

6. What if he does but Congress wants it go through anyway?

In any event...it's not so much his decision but the way this thing is moving away from facts and being run on..."He will vote for it." Which is unnerving....because there has been post after post with tons of DU recs that say Obama sold us out...but how? Because he's reviewing the bill than out right vetoing it? I wonder how many of us and writers of the articles we post have actually sat down to read each and every page of the bills. Because most of the information seems to be regurgitated over and over again.

[Vincardog]

7. It would be if we lived in a DEMOCRACY. We will see where BO thinks we live

[limpyhobbler]

8. I "heard it on the interwebs" that he was gonna sign it...

Good point. I read somewhere that the Prez. had dropped his objection to the bill and I believed it. It shouldn't be too hard to get a first-hand direct answer from the Whitehouse, I'm not sure how though.

Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald said it and I just believed them, not sure if that was a bad idea or not, but I'd rather see a first hand statement from the Whitehouse. If anybody has a link, please post it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Glenn, I wanted to ask you about a not wholly unrelated issue, and that is the issue of the military authorization bill that President Obama threatened to veto if it continued to contain the provisions about the treatment of terrorism prisoners, people who could be picked up, Americans in the United States, without trial, without hearing, and held indefinitely. President Obama has dropped the veto threat, saying the changes have satisfied him. Your thoughts?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, let’s remember that under the status quo, because of the way that the Bush and Obama administrations have interpreted their own powers in the original 2001 authorization to use military force, they already claim, the executive branch does, the power to indefinitely detain people. That’s what’s happening right now at Guantánamo. It’s what’s happening at Bagram and several other facilities. And the Obama administration has vehemently defended this power to put people into prison without any trial or charges for as long as they want to keep them there. Additionally, they—the Obama administration claims the power to target even American citizens as enemy combatants, and not just to detain them indefinitely, but to kill them, as well. That’s what they did with Anwar al-Awlaki, far from any battlefield, based on this theory that they already have this power, even before this bill is passed.

But what this bill will do, and it will be signed into law now by President Obama, as you indicated, is that it will be the first time that the United States Congress has codified the power of indefinite detention into the law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s. The 1950 Congress passed a bill saying that communists and subversives could be imprisoned without a trial, without full due process, based on the allegation that they presented a national threat, an emergency, a threat to the national security of the United States.

http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/12/19/obama_prepares_to_authorize_indefinite_detention