Kevin_Kennedy
Defend Liberty
- Aug 27, 2008
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The House on Friday passed a $642 billion defense bill that abandons the deficit-cutting agreement that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans backed last summer.
On a 299-120 vote, lawmakers backed the spending blueprint that adds $8 billion for the military for next year. The bill calls for a missile defense site on the East Coast that the military opposes and restricts the ability of the president to reduce the arsenal of nuclear weapons under a 2010 treaty with Russia. It also preserves ships and aircraft that the Pentagon wanted to retire in a cost-cutting move.
The Associated Press: House OKs $642 billion defense bill
My question is, if Republicans are unwilling to give up their sacred cow, military spending, then why should Democrats give up theirs, welfare spending?
However, the most depressing part is this:
Earlier Friday, the House reaffirmed the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, even of U.S. citizens captured on American soil.
A coalition of Democrats and tea party Republicans fell short in their effort to end the controversial policy established last year and based on the post-Sept. 11 authorization for the use of military force that allows indefinite detention of enemy combatants.
The House rejected an amendment by Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Justin Amash, R-Mich., that would have barred indefinite detention and rolled back mandatory military custody. The vote was 238-182.
"The frightening thing here is that the government is claiming the power under the Afghanistan authorization for use of military force as a justification for entering American homes to grab people, indefinitely detain them and not give them a charge or trial," Amash said during hours of House debate.
The policy's supporters argued that ending it would weaken national security and coddle terrorists.
Here's the roll call for the Smith-Amash amendment.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll270.xml
For those who argue that the language in the NDAA did not originally permit indefinite detention of American citizens in the first place, then why not pass this amendment to make it absolutely clear?