An edited video of Carl Levin claiming that Obama wanted the language in the NDAA caused outrage among many Americans, but the full Levin video reveals the opposite.( Read more... )
Maybe it's just because I'm tired, but I'm still confused as hell about all this, because I'm still hearing such widely varying statements, though I have not watched the video because I can't right now.
My opinion is basically, if Obama hadn't reauthorized the Patriot Act and actually had shut down Gitmo and y'know, not just had an American citizen assassinated without trial, I would've just heard "death panelllls!!" when he agreed to sign it. But he did and didn't and did, so srry I ~fell for it~ or whatever. And Congress can fuck off, I know they'll pretty much vote for whatever gets them the most money (which is why I was suspicious at the idea of taking money out of the pockets of private prisons and putting it in military courts, that seems in opposition to their lobbies.)
I've got nothing on the Patriot Act, but wrt Gitmo - he asked for money to move prisoners out of Gitmo almost as soon as he was inaugurated, but the majority-Democratic Congress banned him from getting money for that purpose (it was an amendment in a defense appropriations bill, authored by Sen. Inouye). By the time they decided it was okay to give him what he wanted, Scott Brown had Ted Kennedy's old seat and the super-majority was no more. Sorry, but I blame Democrats in Congress for the lack of movement on Gitmo way more than I blame Obama. He came to them and asked for funding and they flat-out screwed him - and more importantly, the prisoners still left there - because they were too short-sighted to realize that a super-majority is not a permanent thing especially when they had two senators close to death and one senator hadn't even been seated yet when Obama had asked.
What's apparently happened in this bill is that Congress tried to permanently restrict funding for moving prisoners, and Obama talked them down to a temporary
( ... )
Can someone tell me where in that long video Levin says this? Because it shows McConnell blathering on. And the transcript is something else that doesn't say what this article says. So I remain confused.
The White House statements on this case didn't challenge the Levin video, or address the American citizens aspect, so I'm not sure I'm buying.
The quoted part where he says the bill already doesn't include US citizens is around 1:35:00-ish. The section 1031 provisions that are discussed in the shorter video are referenced, I think at 1:32:00-ish, where Levin says that the administration wanted to ensure the bill neither limited nor expanded rules that were already in place and tested in the courts. That's also around where Levin said the administration wanted to strike section 1032 entirely, when it required military detention for al Qaeda suspects. If you're going by C-SPAN timestamps instead of the video time, it starts around 11:30 AM ET, and then the shorter video comes from an exchange starting somewhere around 2:30-ish PM ET in the same video.
It's a long video and I know C-SPAN's video player kind of sucks a little, so I apologize, but it does seem clear to me that the shorter video is lacking some serious context. Not that the bill doesn't still suck, but it sounds like it sucks in a different way than how the shorter video makes it out to suck.
Excuse you but Obama is personally responsible for everything that's wrong in the world right now. We don't mention Congress' responsibility for anything, we only blame Obama because he's not ~progressive enough. Pay attention.
This is one area of U.S. policy that I've had a hard time grasping thoroughly, so I totally figured "I dont quite follow the info as being reported; then again, I dont fully understand the nuances, either, and everyone else's reaction seems uniformed in one way (and besides which, what would I know? I'm just an ignorant foreign observer)". Well.
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Cut, por favor?
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It's offending my website sensibilities I never knew I had.
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My opinion is basically, if Obama hadn't reauthorized the Patriot Act and actually had shut down Gitmo and y'know, not just had an American citizen assassinated without trial, I would've just heard "death panelllls!!" when he agreed to sign it. But he did and didn't and did, so srry I ~fell for it~ or whatever. And Congress can fuck off, I know they'll pretty much vote for whatever gets them the most money (which is why I was suspicious at the idea of taking money out of the pockets of private prisons and putting it in military courts, that seems in opposition to their lobbies.)
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What's apparently happened in this bill is that Congress tried to permanently restrict funding for moving prisoners, and Obama talked them down to a temporary ( ... )
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The White House statements on this case didn't challenge the Levin video, or address the American citizens aspect, so I'm not sure I'm buying.
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It's a long video and I know C-SPAN's video player kind of sucks a little, so I apologize, but it does seem clear to me that the shorter video is lacking some serious context. Not that the bill doesn't still suck, but it sounds like it sucks in a different way than how the shorter video makes it out to suck.
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Also: death warrants.
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