Philosophy_of_Politics
04-23-2012, 05:00 PM
The top story currently at The Daily Caller features former Bush Department of Justice official John Yoo making some interesting observations:
The Obama administration’s use of executive power has gone further than the Bush administration’s toward diminishing Americans’ civil liberties, author John Yoo told The Daily Caller…
Yoo said the anti-war movement has not criticized President Barack Obama, despite his administration’s formalization of a process for “targeted killing[s]” of American citizens without trial.
“You don’t see the same critics who so thrashed President Bush, for allegedly thinking he was a king, making the same arguments and engaging in the same criticism of President Obama,” Yoo told TheDC.
When “Torture Memos” author and “enhanced interrogations” inventor John Yoo is calling you out for being bad on civil liberties–and he’s right–you’ve got problems.
Worse, we all have problems. Big ones. If Bush was controversial for allowing terror suspects to be arrested and held indefinitely without trial, Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act allows American citizens to be arrested and held indefinitely without trial. This is unprecedented in our history.
It has become a general conservative consensus that the NDAA is bad legislation because it gives the Executive branch unconstitutional and dangerous new powers. Conservative champions in the Senate like Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Jim DeMint have fought against the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision and Rep. Justin Amash has spearheaded this effort in the House.
When Obama signed NDAA he said ”My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”
This pretty much cemented the conservative consensus on NDAA–no president, and especially Obama, should be able to throw American citizens in jail indefinitely without trial or due process.
Mitt Romney disagrees. Not only would he sign NDAA without hesitation, his position is essentially no different from Obama’s. Watch this video:
Said Romney: “There are a lot of things that I think this president does wrong. Lots of them. But I don’t think he’s going to abuse this power. I know that if I were president I wouldn’t abuse this power.”
Giving the Executive Branch unprecedented new powers and then trusting Obama or Romney not to abuse them–who do these people think they’re kidding?
Conservatives at the grassroots have come out in opposition to NDAA in full force. Romney still doesn’t get it:
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2012/04/23/obama-worse-than-bush-on-civil-liberties-romney-no-different-from-obama/
The Obama administration’s use of executive power has gone further than the Bush administration’s toward diminishing Americans’ civil liberties, author John Yoo told The Daily Caller…
Yoo said the anti-war movement has not criticized President Barack Obama, despite his administration’s formalization of a process for “targeted killing[s]” of American citizens without trial.
“You don’t see the same critics who so thrashed President Bush, for allegedly thinking he was a king, making the same arguments and engaging in the same criticism of President Obama,” Yoo told TheDC.
When “Torture Memos” author and “enhanced interrogations” inventor John Yoo is calling you out for being bad on civil liberties–and he’s right–you’ve got problems.
Worse, we all have problems. Big ones. If Bush was controversial for allowing terror suspects to be arrested and held indefinitely without trial, Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act allows American citizens to be arrested and held indefinitely without trial. This is unprecedented in our history.
It has become a general conservative consensus that the NDAA is bad legislation because it gives the Executive branch unconstitutional and dangerous new powers. Conservative champions in the Senate like Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Jim DeMint have fought against the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision and Rep. Justin Amash has spearheaded this effort in the House.
When Obama signed NDAA he said ”My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”
This pretty much cemented the conservative consensus on NDAA–no president, and especially Obama, should be able to throw American citizens in jail indefinitely without trial or due process.
Mitt Romney disagrees. Not only would he sign NDAA without hesitation, his position is essentially no different from Obama’s. Watch this video:
Said Romney: “There are a lot of things that I think this president does wrong. Lots of them. But I don’t think he’s going to abuse this power. I know that if I were president I wouldn’t abuse this power.”
Giving the Executive Branch unprecedented new powers and then trusting Obama or Romney not to abuse them–who do these people think they’re kidding?
Conservatives at the grassroots have come out in opposition to NDAA in full force. Romney still doesn’t get it:
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2012/04/23/obama-worse-than-bush-on-civil-liberties-romney-no-different-from-obama/