Senate Passes Defense Authorization
The final vote was 86-13. No votes were Lee, Paul, DeMint, Risch, Crapo, and Coburn (the last three not on civil liberties grounds), and Cardin, Wyden, Sanders, Durbin, Franken, Harkin, and Merkley.
I’m sure Obama will sign this in time for us all to be indefinitely detained this weekend.
Update: Senator Franken sent out a statement explaining his no vote. It ends, “Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and this wasn’t the way to mark its birthday.”
There was a time when I would have found this news shocking.
That was a long time ago.
Nonetheless, thank you for continuing to record the events of our decline and fall…
marcy live now on RT America On Air
bonus: she’s wearing lipstick!
Wow…. i thought the vote would be closer at least….
/cry
@Kris: Not me. These days Congresscritters almost never vote against a Defense bill for fear of being labeled “soft”.
That’s why I’ve thought that Repug Senator Lindsey Graham snookered everybody in the Senate by successfully using Democratic Senator Carl Levin as his “cat’s paw” in writing into US law in a Defense Bill written by the Senate Armed Services Committee that with which he could never have gotten passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I was casting around on the tubes when this legislation first started getting attention a couple of weeks ago and found this:
From Dictatorship to Democracy (http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf)
Arose initially out of the Burmese experience in the 90’s. Found it intriguing as a general matter.
@MadDog: Was Levin willing to serve as the cat’s paw because of his devotion to Israel?