Good Left Hook

Eight days ago in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney was asked by a voter to comment on the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA grants the federal government the power to grab American citizens and throw them into prison for as long as it wants, without putting the citizens on trial or even charging them with a crime. A mere unsubstantiated accusation is all it will take under this bill for an American to be locked up.

The legislation was passed by both houses of Congress last week and is unopposed by President Barack Obama and so will become law. In spite of its dramatic nature, Mitt Romney didn’t seem to know what the legislation was at all. When asked about the National Defense Authorization Act, Romney stammered and delayed, saying, “Let me look at the particular authorization, ah, and, and, and I’ll make sure on our website we’ll describe our reaction to that particular amendment. I can tell you this, which is that there is an effort on the part of violent, radical jihadis to destroy America.”

The voter offered plenty of information for Mitt Romney and his aides to use to find out about the National Defense Authorization Act. The voter described “an amendment to a defense authorization bill last week that would allow the detention of Americans arrested in the United States and to allow the military to hold them indefinitely without charging them or trying them”.

That’s pretty clear. Yet, over a week later, Mitt Romney has taken no action to keep his promise. The Romney campaign has not made a single statement about the National Defense Authorization Act, and its extraordinary, unconstitutional imprisonment powers.

If I were a voter in New Hampshire, I’d take a look at Mitt Romney’s promise to a New Hampshire resident, and then I’d consider the way that Romney broke that promise, and then… there’s no way in hell I’d cast a ballot for Romney.

I love freedom. That’s why I can’t vote for Mitt Romney

A newcomer to New York state politics might ask why there is a Democrats Against Kirsten Gillibrand Tshirt here on this page. Kirsten Gillibrand, after all, is a Democratic U.S. Senator. Why would Democrats be against Gillibrand?

The answer is that there are two kinds of Democrats. There are people who are Democrats because they believe in the core American ideals of equality, justice, liberty, community responsibility and peace. Then there are people who are Democrats so that they can use the machinery of the political party to gain power for themselves.

Kirsten Gillibrand is a machine Democrat. She’ll promote the Democratic Party’s institutional power, but she won’t promote the values that the Democratic Party purports to stand for.

That leaves idealistic Democrats cold.

Support for Senator Gillibrand among the liberal base of the Democratic Party grew downright frigid this week, when Kirsten Gillibrand voted in favor of a version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that establishes the power of the federal government to seize Americans and throw them into prison, and keep them there without ever charging them with a crime or putting them on trial. It’s a blatantly unconstitutional and unAmerican piece of legislation, but Kirsten Gillibrand was all too happy to vote it through the Senate.

Kirsten Gillibrand is running for re-election in 2012. She may be running under the Democratic Party banner, but the way she has shown such profound disrespect for Americans’ constitutional rights, there’s no way that an honest, idealistic New York Democrat can give her support.