We had The One's threat to veto the Defense appropriations bill if it didn't shovel most of the funding into domestic programs and didn't close Gitmo on his behalf - the latter a strange insistence since I would think that he would want to belatedly keep that 2008 campaign promise personally. And it is a threat that he made good on today (as if he wasn't going to):
Barack Obama vetoed a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill on Thursday, returning the measure to the Republican-controlled Congress because of the way it uses money meant for war spending to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs.
"I'm going to be sending it back to Congress and my message to them is very simple: 'Let's do this right,'" Obama told reporters.
Translation: You're gonna do this MY way, or the annihilation of the United States I will have successfully brought about will be on YOUR hands.
"We're in the midst of budget discussions. Let's have a budget that properly funds our national security as well as economic security," he said.
Defense spending is not supposed to fund anything BUT our national security, you bonehead.
But here's where his rubber really met the road:
Obama also said he disagreed with provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have limited his ability to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center before he leaves office in January 2017.
"Guantanamo is one of the premier mechanisms for jihadists to recruit," he told reporters at a rare White House veto signing ceremony.
No, it's not, Barry, as has been well documented. Not that it couldn't be made less of a jihadist vacation spot, as a matter of fact.
"It's time for us to close it. It's outdated, it's expensive, it's been there for years. We can do better in terms of keeping Americans safe while making sure that we are consistent with our values," he said.
Your "values" include NOT keeping Americans safe. Which is why you want to close Gitmo so much, and why you're effectively defunding the Pentagon.
Republicans were quick to point this out:
"By placing domestic politics ahead of our troops, Barack Obama has put America's national security at risk," John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, said in a statement.
But that statement, while heartfelt and genuine, is just pyrrhic words. It's Crazy Nancy Pelosi's that will find their way into legislative reality:
Nancy Pelosi, the House [Minority] leader, insists the House will sustain [Obama's veto]....
Democrats insisted a better NDAA would pass easily if the veto is sustained.
They mean "when". Because there's no way the GOP can force a mini-shutdown of DoD for the exact same reason that they're (seditiously) excoriating his infernal majesty. Their choice was always going to be either the crumbs from King Hussein's insanely out of control domestic spending table, or nothing at all. Which corresponds with his treasonous, Ameriphobic foreign policy quite nicely.
And his veto will be sustained, and Republicans will capitulate, and Tea Partiers will erupt in fratricidal rage anew, and.....aw, hell, I better pace myself for the next couple of weeks, because this is going to get a very familiar kind of ugly REAL soon.
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