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The Senate voted to pass its annual National Defense Authorization Act on Friday , sending Montana’s first wilderness additions in 33 years to President Barack Obama’s desk. The National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $585 billion in Pentagon discretionary spending and $63.7 billion in overseas contingency operations.It also includes a package of 70 public land management bills; the biggest collection since the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. They create about 250,000 acres of new wilderness designations and protection of other lands from energy development. Other measures open thousands of acres to logging in Alaska and swaps federal lands for...

The White House is threatening a veto of the House version of a $601 billion defense bill over election-year moves to spare weapons systems and popular programs in the face of limited budgets. […] The White House also complained about the bill’s limits on the president’s ability to transfer terror suspects being held at the U.S. facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. …

President Barack Obama has signed into law a comprehensive defense bill that cracks down on sexual assault in the military. […] The bill provides $552.1 billion for the regular military budget, plus $80.7 billion for the Afghanistan war and other overseas operations. …

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is headed back to the drawing board with her controversial proposal to take sexual assault cases outside the chain of command. Gillibrand had been assured a vote on her plan during work on the Defense authorization bill. [snip] Gillibrand spokeswoman Bethany Lesser said the senator is “confident” she will eventually receive a vote on her measure, even if it isn’t voted on as an amendment to the Defense bill. Her amendment was introduced as a stand-alone measure on the floor last month under a procedure that would allow Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring...

Backing down on a threatened veto, President Obama has signed into law a $633.3 billion defense bill with an attached a statement in which he serves notice to Congress that he’ll interpret the law as he sees fit on issues ranging from the transfer of terrorism detainees to objections of military chaplains against the new policy on gay service members. Mr. Obama said in a “signing statement” late Wednesday that he agrees with the “vast majority” of provisions in the 680-page law. But he added, “I do not agree with them all.” He earlier had issued a veto threat to...

President Barack Obama has signed a $633 billion defense bill for next year that tightens penalties on Iran and bolsters security at diplomatic missions worldwide after the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. …

You may not have heard of PSD-10 because it has received no significant coverage from the major media. Yet, President Obama issued “Presidential Study Directive 10” last August 4, 2011, and posted it on the White House website. It amounts to a new and potentially far-reaching exercise of American military power cloaked in humanitarian language and conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Under this new “Obama doctrine,” U.S. troops can be deployed to arrest or even terminate individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court, which is based on a treaty that has not...

Can the president kill an American simply because the person is dangerous and his arrest would be impractical? Can the president be judge, jury and executioner of an American in a foreign country because he believes that would keep America safe? Can Congress authorize the president to do this? Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to justify presidential killing in a speech at Northwestern University law school. In it, he recognized the requirement of the Fifth Amendment for due process. He argued that the president may substitute the traditionally understood due process -- a public jury trial...

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) have unveiled legislation in the Senate and House which would ensure that any individual detained on U.S. soil under the Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) has access to due process and the federal court system. The bill would repeal the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that requires the military to detain on U.S. soil any individuals suspected of terrorism. Senator Mark Udall and Rep. Adam Smith launch an effort to protect U.S. citizens from indefinite detention and preserve civil liberties.Senator Mark Udall and Rep. Adam Smith launch...

Attorney General Eric Holder Monday presented the Obama administration’s most detailed justification for armed drone strikes against Al Qaeda leaders, arguing that the U.S. government doesn’t legally need judicial review to kill terrorist operatives overseas — even when those individuals are American citizens. “It’s clear that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted. But it does mean that the government must take into account all relevant constitutional considerations with respect to United States citizens – even those who are leading efforts to kill innocent Americans,” Holder said in a speech delivered at Northwestern University...

U.S. to offer legal backing for "targeted killing": sourceBy Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON | Sun Mar 4, 2012 7:23pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday plans to outline how U.S. laws empower the government to kill Americans overseas who engage in terrorism against their home country, a source familiar with the matter said, months after a drone strike killed a U.S.-born cleric who plotted attacks from Yemen. Civil liberties groups have been pressuring the administration to offer justification for what has been described as a top-secret "targeted kill" program in which Americans who have joined al Qaeda or...

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday plans to outline how U.S. laws empower the government to kill Americans overseas who engage in terrorism against their home country, a source familiar with the matter said, months after a drone strike killed a U.S.-born cleric who plotted attacks from Yemen. Civil liberties groups have been pressuring the administration to offer justification for what has been described as a top-secret "targeted kill" program in which Americans who have joined al Qaeda or other militants are deemed legitimate targets to be killed overseas. Attorney General Eric Holder plans to address the issue and...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected Monday to provide the most detailed explanation yet of the Obama administration’s secret decision-making leading up to the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen last year in Yemen. Holder’s speech Monday afternoon at Northwestern Law School in Chicago is the result of months of internal Obama administration deliberations over how much can be made public about the decisions leading up to the strike. The Justice Department wrote a still-classified memo that provided the legal rationale for the targeting of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki that also included intelligence material about his operational role within...

A Framingham District Court judge today ordered the release of the on-duty driving records of the Framingham cop who busted President Obama’s illegal-alien half-uncle on a drunken-driving rap this summer. Onyango Obama’s defense team will receive the records they’d requested on Val Krishtal, the veteran patrolman who pulled the man over after nearly rear-ending him when he turned into traffic.

In his latest signing statement Obama said: "My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation." Now why would he even need to say that were it not possible? Does his signing statement make you feel safer? It ought not. After all, it was Obama who said unequivocally that he would not use signing statements to "get his way." [VIDEO AT SITE] Obviously it is now possible for Obama to hold...

Regime Grabs Power to Detain US Citizens January 03, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that, either: The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence. Well, it is being reported because I saw it. I saw it reported. Obama signed this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve. Folks, you know what this thing does? It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason! They don't...

You know these are interesting times when Glenn Beck, Dianne Feinstein, Rand Paul and the ACLU all agree on an issue. The issue in question is Subtitle D of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), headed to the president’s desk. These under-the-radar provisions, co-sponsored by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, would allow for the indefinite military detention of any person alleged to be a member of Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces.” The provisions also apply to any person who supports or aids “belligerent” acts against the United States, whether the person is apprehended here or abroad. 
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An old adage reads, "If it quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck." The push by the Obama Administration to progressively strip Americans of basic liberties in the pursuit of political objectives has now taken on more draconian overtones, and no one seems to have noticed. While the media quibbles over Romney versus Gingrich, the Occupy movement, and other diversions, President Obama continues to undermine law and order, dismantling the US Constitution piece by piece. When public officials seek to limit freedom, it can be concluded that these officials want to rule instead of govern. Cloaking seizures of...

President Barack Obama faced a civil liberties backlash today after he signed a law that will allow terror suspects to be held indefinitely- even raising the prospects of U.S. citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. The controversial move, revealed last night, effectively extends the laws of the battlefield to American soil. The move shows a clear hardening of Mr Obama’s anti-terror policies, and a major shift from the liberal stance that helped him sweep into power three years ago.

<p>It now becomes perfectly clear why Obama did not want to close down Guantánamo Bay. It’s the perfect place to ‘disappear’ his Tea Party enemies during Election Year...</p> <p>Obama’s well covered by mainstream media threat to veto what can only be described as Soviet Union Horror Come to America, was only the drama he could milk during the Final Act.</p>