GOT HEALTHCARE? Obama Signs Record $680 Billion War Bill, Extends Military Commissions

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Obama Signs Record $680B War Bill, Extends Military Commissions

President Obama has signed into law the $680 billion National Defense Authorization Act, the largest military spending bill of its kind. The bill includes funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and modifies the military commissions system at Guantanamo Bay. The changes include new restrictions on hearsay and coerced testimony, although without barring them completely. The law also increases prisoners’ access to evidence and witnesses. But civil liberties advocates say it still falls far short of adhering to international law and the Geneva Conventions. Children could still be tried as war criminals, and terror suspects—now known as “unprivileged enemy belligerents”—could be tried for offenses not traditionally considered “war crimes.” Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union said, “Closing the prison will have little meaning if the administration leaves in place the policies that the prison has come to represent.” At the signing ceremony, Obama said the measure had trimmed excessive military spending.

President Obama: “I have always rejected the notion that we have to waste billions of dollars of taxpayer money to keep this nation secure. In fact, I think that wasting these dollars makes us less secure. And that’s why we have passed a defense bill that eliminates some of the waste and inefficiency in our defense process—reforms that will better protect our nation, better protect our troops, and save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.”

Despite Obama’s praise, the bill included several military spending projects he had opposed, including $560 million for a new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine the Pentagon had rejected. Overall, the bill increases spending $24 billion from the last fiscal year. The bill also includes a law expanding the definition of hate crimes to cover those targeted because of their sexual orientation, granting new protections to lesbian, gay and transgender people under federal law. The measure was named after Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming university student who was brutally beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in 1998.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/29/headlines#at

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

:puke:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. Obama signs bills for record Pentagon, Homeland Security spending

Obama signs bills for record Pentagon, Homeland Security spending
By Patrick Martin
30 October 2009

In a ceremony Wednesday, US President Barack Obama signed legislation authorizing the largest ever military budget, a gargantuan $680 billion for the Pentagon, including $130 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Thursday, he signed a spending bill funneling another $44 billion into the Department of Homeland Security, to strengthen the apparatus of state repression within the United States.

The back-to-back bill signings are a clear demonstration that Obama is extending and intensifying the program of militarism and attacks on democratic rights for which the Bush administration was deservedly hated, in the United States and worldwide.

Each of the bills contained provisions aimed at further restricting democratic rights. The Pentagon budget bill authorizes the use of military tribunals to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and others seized illegally, either overseas or within the US, as part of the “war on terror.” It also bars the release of Guantanamo prisoners—even those found completely innocent—into the United States. It prohibits bringing Guantanamo prisoners to trial on US soil without a 45-day advance notice to Congress.

The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill effectively prohibits the release of photographs taken by US military personnel during torture sessions at US bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. It exempts these photos from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, under which the American Civil Liberties Union and several media outlets have filed suit in federal court. The exemption would apply, not just to the photos sought by the ACLU, but to any photos taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 to which the Pentagon has objections.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/dfns-o30.shtml