Why Obama's Waiver of NDAA Provisions Means Squat

There were great "Huzzahs!" across the liberal landscape last week as President Obama announced that he had signed a "waiver" of some of the most troubling of the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. According to the announcement, the new rules which deal with Section 1022 of the law (previously Section 1032 as set forth in the original Senate bill). The White House announced that this section already is inapplicable to United States citizens and the President was waiving the applicability to legal resident aliens. Furthermore, the President was allowing for those who are required to be held under military custody to be transferred back to civilian custody when necessary..

Immediately following this announcement, both the liberal and mainstream press hailed this as a win for civil liberties (see the Huffington Post article on the announcement here). Posts on Reddit as well as on Facebook and the twitterverse were celebrating Obama's "veto" of the NDAA detention provisions. Once again President Obama was a friend to freedom and was living up to his promises to be the champion of civil liberties and the Constitution on which he campaigned in 2008.

Except that he isn't and his "rules" do no such thing.

I have previously discussed this bill on this blog in my post "We Are All Well and Truly F***ed" which can be found here. As pointed out there, this section of the NDAA only deals with the requirement that anyone covered under this bill be detained by the military and held indefinitely in military custody. It is true that this section does not apply to U.S. citizens and under these rules the President is agreeing that he is not going to apply this to legal permanent resident aliens either. Of course this does not prevent him from doing so if he changes his mind, which he can, of course, do since he is the one making the rules in the first place.

But what is genuinely appalling about the pass that the President is receiving on this is that nothing in these rules addresses the biggest and most troubling aspect of this law in the first place. That is that the President is still given the authority under this law to detain and hold indefinitely without charge or trial anyone, including United States citizens, who is deemed by the President in his sole judgment to be a terrorist or to have committed a belligerent act against the United States. Let me state that again so that you out there who are so scared of a Rick Santorum presidency that you are willing to buy any of the bullshit that the Obama campaign is shoveling at you: NOTHING IN THESE RULES CHANGES THE PRESIDENT'S ABILITY TO DETAIN AND HOLD INDEFINITELY WITHOUT CHARGE OR TRIAL ANYONE, INCLUDING UNITED STATES CITIZENS, WHO IS DEEMED BY THE PRESIDENT IN HIS SOLE JUDGMENT TO BE A TERRORIST OR TO HAVE COMMITTED A BELLIGERENT ACT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.

This law sets up a despotic presidency and it was supported by almost all of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Much was made in the media of the opposition to the bill by the FBI and CIA who said that it would harm their ability to pursue terrorist suspects in the United States. But, again, most of this coverage missed the point. The FBI and the CIA are all for indefinite detention without charge. It makes their life easier. They just didn't want the military to have all the fun, they wanted in the game themselves. Thus the changes to the law which cut out the requirement that the detention be by the military.

So, all of this celebrating among liberals over this decision of President Obama to do an about face and suddenly embrace individual liberties was all for nothing. The fact that the implementation of rules which have no effect on the very law which caused all of the rightful rancor among civil libertarians on both sides of the political divide in the first place, is being hailed as proof that a second Obama term would be much different than the first shows a lot about those doing the celebrating. It shows that the left is either willfully blind to what is happening due to their fear of a truly draconian right wing Presidency or it shows that they really didn't understand this law in the first place. Either conclusion is troubling.

If the left is being willfully blind to the abuses of the Obama administration in the realm of civil liberties, it shows a lack of real concern over these issues in the first place. It is one thing to vote for someone knowing that he is not the real deal because his opposition is so horrible, it is truly another to hail your choice as someone who truly believes in what you do. If you are voting for Barack Obama because you really believe that he is a civil libertarian and will fight for individual rights and liberties in his second term, you are stupid and there is nothing I can do for you. If you know this is not the case, but you are going to proclaim that he is such because he passed some meaningless rules regarding the worst piece of legislation he signed then you are a liar and any authority you claimed to have on these issues is forever forfeited.

It is also quite possible that those hailing this decision simply never understood the NDAA or its ramifications for the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans in the first place. This would certainly make sense since if people on either side of the political spectrum understood what this legislation, along with a whole host of other attacks on our civil liberties that have occurred over the last decade, there would have (or should have) been a revolution by now. Of course those on the left are not immune from the extraordinary lack of engagement in political and civil affairs that has seemed to become the norm for American citizens. Since 2001, the United States has seen the implementation of the largest Federal bureaucracy ever devised whose sole purpose is to restrict liberty and engage in unprecedented collection of information (read: spy) on American citizens in the history of our republic in the Department of Homeland Security, the unprecedented transfer of wealth to the richest individuals in the nation, as well as the largest criminal conspiracy ever to be pulled off in the banking meltdown of 2008, all done with the seal of approval of our Federal government. All the while, the only thing that the average American citizen seemed to care about was how cheap his gas was going to be and who was going to survive on this week's Dancing With the Stars. We get the government we deserve, and what we deserve right now is either Barack Obama or one of the four idiots who are battling to lose to him.

Look, I get that Barack Obama might be the lesser of two evils in 2012. But don't try and convince me that the lesser of two evils isn't evil.

STFU, Rush Limbaugh

Everyone has heard the vile and offensive statements targeting Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. There is certainly no need to rehash them here. But what is behind them? Why would this bloated, aging loud mouth attack such a seemingly undeserving victim? Is it just entertainment as Rick Santorum suggests? Is it a desperate attempt to seem relevant? I believe it is something more. Rush Limbaugh is the right's champion and this is the warning shot to any woman that dares question their anti-woman agenda.

When the president announced that his administration was adopting rules requiring that insurance companies provide birth control without charge as preventative care the radical right saw an opportunity to foment outrage among their constituents with the type of wedge issue on which they count to bring out the vote in a presidential election year. They were running out of these types of issues. In the past a commercial showing blacks taking jobs away from whites or a constitutional amendment stopping godless sodomites from getting married was enough to bring out the army of voters to assure a competitive GOP race. But something happened on the way to 2012. You see the country just isn't racist, bigoted, or hateful enough for this type of easy cheap theatrical stunt to work anymore.

So, the GOP took the issue of contraception coverage (something insurance companies support) and turned it from an issue of women's health into a question of religious freedom. You see the administration wasn't allowing large employers who were affiliated with a religious institution to be exempted (although the churches themselves are). Suddenly, all of the presidential candidates and the white male congressional leadership (well, ok, I guess you could consider Boehner to be orange) was practically falling over themselves to portray the president as someone who was going to force you to give up your religious beliefs and send you to reeducation camps if you disagreed.

Of course, once again, they overplayed their hand. Rick Santorum went so far overboard, saying JFK wanted to make him throw up and accusing Obama of promoting a phony theology, that he not only blew a double-digit lead in Michigan, ultimately losing to Mitt Romney, but he even lost the Catholic vote.

In possibly the stupidest move of any, House Oversight Committee chairman Darryl Issa held a hearing on the opposition to the contraception requirement and heard from a panel of all male religious leaders. The Democrats on the panel had requested that Ms. Fluke testify in the hearing. Issa refused stating she was unqualified on the issue (odd since she was the only one there with ovaries).

The resulting scene of conservative old men, many in clerical collars, was a made for social media event. Fresh off their rebuke of the Susan G. Komen foundation's decision not to fund Planned Parenthood, progressives flooded Facebook and Twitter with outrage against the completely out of touch GOP leadership. As Republicans were introducing legislation exempting any employer from covering contraception or anything else the didn't want to cover because of moral objection, the Democratic leadership was winning the day by simply showing the stupidity of the Republican leadership doubling down on an issue they had already lost.

Nancy Pelosi convened a hearing at which Ms. Fluke was finally allowed to give the testimony not allowed by Issa. She told of her friend who suffered from a painful and dangerous condition in which her ovaries became enlarged due to cysts forming on them. The condition would have been easily treated with birth control pills. However since they were at Georgetown, a Catholic institution, birth control was not available at the campus health center or covered under their student health coverage. Her friend's condition went untreated, resulting eventually in her friend losing her ovaries. Pretty compelling story.

Enter Limbaugh. Raging in his usual bloviating, drug-addled style, Limbaugh went on the offensive. Labeling Ms. Fluke a slut and a prostitute, Limbaugh attacked her unmercifully. After receiving the expected criticism from the usual corners, he went further saying that she should film her sexual conquests so that he could make sure he was getting his money's worth for paying for her contraception. He went on in this fashion day after day and he will next week too. You see for Rush Limbaugh, being an asshole means never having to say you're sorry.

Rush has suffered some repercussions because of this. A few advertisers have dropped their sponsorships. There were some timid rebukes coming from Republicans. But the advertisers will be replaced and Rush need not worry about the GOP coming down too hard on him. After all they count on this sniveling wretch to get their true message out to the faithful.

But, you see, this unlike the other previous methods discussed was not a rallying cry to conservative church goers to get out the vote. No, this was something much more sinister. Limbaugh's audience for this hideous attack was not his listeners. It was a warning to any woman who dares speak out for her own rights and her own body to do so at your own risk. The message was clear: stand in our way and risk being labeled a slut, a prostitute, a whore, a pornographer. Your reputation will be left in the dust and you will be subjected to public ridicule in the worst way imaginable.

This is nothing new. How long have women been told to stay in their place? Every woman who has challenged their repressors has been labeled the same way. Many have turned back or been cowed by the unrelenting attacks. But change has been brought about by those who were strong enough to stand up to the assaults and suffer the barbs, enduring for the cause. And as they stood up more and more stood with them.

So we now are all called to stand with Sandra Fluke, our sister who had the audacity to dare to speak the truth to power. We must remain strong for her and for our mothers and sisters who have fought and continue to fight these battles. But most of all we must stay strong for our daughters who will bear the consequences of our decisions today for good or for bad.

So it is the time to stand together and say that we will no longer be intimated by the Rush Limbaugh's of the world.

So STFU Rush Limbaugh.