never heard of an honest consertave,!

Why would one sign anything despite "...serious reservations?"

Unfortunately, Obama has been making these moves since day one.

I will not vote for this Moderate Republican, despite the non-existent Party of No, Bagger, and Libertardian options.

Shame on you, Obama.

A moderate republican would not usher in health care reform nor oversee the repeal of DADT. I am unhappy with many of his positions but when I was looking at private health insurance because of my young son and saw that the policies now include an explanation that children cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions, I was (am) grateful that it was Obama and not McCain (fomerly a moderate republican) sitting in office.

Sammy, respectfully, do you even know what Obama's position on National Healthcare is?

I waited for months and months...and I still don't know where he stands (I had assumed that he would support Universal, Single-Payer coverage...but...alas, he has proven to be an anti-FDR, career politician).

If you can explain and justifiy how he has supported the dwindling Middle Class, I will consider him in 2012 (1/2 of all Americans are either low-income or impoverished...tell me how he cares?).

I'm not sure about OBAMA having an easy time getting re-elected. There are so many simple minded Republicans and Independents that still believe all the negative rhetoric spewed by them. After their three years of obstructionism anyone who doesn't know who's caused the slow recovery, job losses, cuts in social programs are either simpletons or raciest. It scares the hell out of me to think we would have another split Congress or even worse, that the Repuglicans would control either or both.

Obama's position on Healthcare?!?!? We finally had serious reform. Not allowing people to be denied because of pre-existing conditions is profound. I have a son with a major disability who previously could be denied coverage.

Supporting the middle class? Ask the hundreds of thousands of middle class workers who livelihood depended on the American automobile industry what they think about Obama helping the middle class. He fought to keep the W tax cuts for the middle class and the payroll tax.

As Jopech points out, Obama is facing an extremist coalition. You think him holding out for single payer health care and being denied would have been a better route? Really?

I lived in Alabama for a while. Of course I voted. I moved away and three years later moved back, this happened 5 times. The funny part is that all the while I didn't live there, my name voted. The sad part is that my name voted Rep. I have never voted Rep in my life. The system is broken there. It is the Rep criminals that use fraud, not the real voters.

Hence the need for voter id. It's not a question that one side or the other is using it, but that both sides could use it.

City clerk when I went to register a change of address

How do you think having a voter ID would help when it is the polling places and the clerks who are doing the wrong thing stknmov. All the ID in the world won't help that.

The voter fraud myth has a history. It didn't come out of nowhere. It started in1996 with an election in Orange County California where the arguably racist and definitely paranoid right-wing Republican Congressman Bob Dornan was running for re-election in a predominately Republican district and lost to Loretta Sanchez, a Latina Democrat. Dornan falsely claimed that illegal immigrants from Mexico had registered to vote and voted for Loretta, giving her the victory. He demanded a recount and an investigation. Neither the recount or the investigation showed any fraudulent voting at all. Sanchez has served ably and well in the US Congress ever since. But that didn't stop Dornan from infecting the right-wing blogosphere and the remnants of the John Birch Society network with the lie that he had lost because illegals had voted for his opponent.

Ever since the fairy tale of massive illegal registration by illegal immigrants has been accepted as fact by the right wing that has taken over the Republican Party. But it all began with Bob Dornan here in Orange County. The seed wa planted here, and spread throughout the country.

Clearly, California owes everyone an apology, sad to say!

Laws are only as good as their enforcement. Did you file a complaint, because it was voter fraud? Any number of documents constitute legal id to vote. I doubt the volunteer clerks are capable of validating all of the forms of id and if they tried to, they would be infringing on someones right to vote. A photo-id would help with consistent enforcement.

barbaratop how do you know that your name voted?

I think I know why this was asked. And,

Did you file a complaint, because it was voter fraud?

I think I know the answer to this one.

I, too, doubt that this happened as described and I'm for voter IDs. What did the clerk do, "Oh, you want to change your address, well, let me look at how you've voted the last few times and let you know." My guess, the process is, "please just fill out this form, thank you." And, I so, of course, I don't think she filed charges.

Now granted, I'm make assumptions and passing judgment and readily admit I could be wrong. If so and confronted with objective data like a news report on where someone filed charges of voter fraud in Alabama for such an incident, I will apologize and admit my error.

Whoa, Carolinaladywithfan, I don't know any of my so called poll-watches. You may know yours and they may know you but that must be a really, really small community you live in.

Aren't there some states now demanding a birth certificate as proof along with the usual credentials? The fact is there has been so little voter fraud that this shouldn't have become an issue.

The answer to this drummed up Republican voter fraud issue is a National Photo ID card and if they are serious they could get it done before the next election.

One definition of common sense: don't fix what ain't broke. And the corollary: don't fix imaginary problems.

Mr. or Ms. jopech2: y'all really should read a post thoroughly and use all y'all's little gray cells before ripping of a reply.

NO. We DON'T need National Photo ID's. NO. Bad idea.

Voting precincts are just about all the same size, darlin' - they're based on population. So the relative size of my small town and your big city don't signify none.

Well darlin, I didn't intend my reply to be a rip. I was just questioning your statement because I don't think any of the poll workers at my voting precinct know who I am. Unless there is some uniqueness about a person I wouldn't remember what they looked like even a month later much less a year later and visa-verse. So tell me, how do you think this issue which is now being installed in most Repuglican controlled states be handled? Do you even think it is a political move?

Yes, it's a political move. It's intended to keep people who don't tend to vote Republican from voting at all.

The way to combat it is to get out and register people to vote NOW and to get their names on the rolls. To organize - if absolutely necessary the appropriate transportation to get them to the appropriate places to have their pix taken for the required IDs, etc. THEN, we challenge the bastards in court.

That's what's going on here in North Carolina, where the state assembly passed one of those laws, the Governor vetoed it and the assembly attempted to override her veto. They couldn't quite muster the votes, so they lopped a week off the early voting period just for spite.

CW, CNN knows what the people want. Since all MSNBC does is talk about what is going on on FOX News, then CNN is doing what the old Cliche says..If you can't beat them..then Join them. MAybe MSNBC will get the message before they go off the air.

I live in Minnesota. If anyone thinks there is rampant (or even occasional) voter fraud, they need only look to Minnesota. We have had two contested electiona in the last two election cycles. One was was Franken V Coleman for the senate in 2008 and the other was 2010's governors race. In both cases every vote was recounted, our state supreme court looked at everything and determined that, although there were some slight changes in the counts there was NO EVIDENCE of voter fraud in either contest.

If there is all this voter fraud out there that Reps. are trying to eliminate, I'd like to know where it is. It sure isn't in Minnesota.

I think we can all agree these new laws aren't about voter fraud.

PS...I'm in MN too.

Some things are done to ensure confidence in the process not because there is fraud. This is why unions require members to present ID when voting, to add a simple layer of integrity to the system.

Yep, and this brief mention of Obama signing this into law and with the stroke of that pen, doing away with Habeas Corpus, will probably be the last we hear of this from TRMS and the remainder of the MSNBC bunch. We have just lost our right to live under the rule of law in this country, but because it was done our hero Obama, no one is going to object. To do so might be seen as criticism of him and we can't do that. Might make him look bad and then the Republicans will win the next election, and then where would we be? I mean those Republicans might try to take away our rights or something.

Kiss your country good-bye Americans. What George W. Bush could not do, Obama has slipped in, and hardly anyone noticed, or if they did, said nothing or very little. He really is a great Republican president.

Have u called your senator and or congressman who created the law? You do understand who writes laws? Probably not because what u wrote is not that politically astute.

Did u write the progressive hero Bernie Sanders and ask him why he voted against the President to close Gitmo. I am sure u didn't.

Maybe if you would have said something as Blacks were being killed and thrown into jail for nothing someone would care.

er just so that we're clear here this defense bill doesn't change anything that hasn't already been done since the early 2000's. So saying that we "just now" signed away our liberties is disingenuous. This bill continues the practice of indefinite detention of prisoners, even if US citizens, and the execution of suspected terrorists, even if US citizens, w/o a trial as was done under the Bush Administration. PBO gets a ding here not because he enacted some new policy, but because he has not revoked the old policy that was in place as he had promised to. The same goes w/ the Democratic Party which took as a platform position during the 2008 election cycle the revocation of these anti-constitutional policies. I also just want to point out that TRMS did criticize this decision as made by the congress last week and the week before. You'd be complaining that Rachel did not attack the President, which as I stated before could be accurate in the sense that PBO said he would push to end these laws, but you would be inaccurate as to state that TRMS hasn't pointed out opposition to the bill. Rachel also explained that the President would be adding a signing statement to the bill which is essentially the closest thing a US President can get to a line-item veto. It doesn't affect the law, as Rachel explained, but it does issue a direct opposition to the law by the Executive Branch.

In the interest of being "somewhat accurate", this is NOT a continuation of a policy which the Bush administration had been doing since the early 2000's. This is not even a "bill". This is a LAW, which Obama signed into being after he said he would veto it. There is a difference between a policy and a law. It is true, Bush/Cheney did this crap, as a matter of policy. What Obama has done goes well beyond that. It is not just a policy now. Now it carries the weight of law. While it used to be against the law to deprive someone of the right to not be arrested without due process, to know the charges against them, to be represented by an attorney, to NOT be held indefinitely (like forever), now it is all legal. All that is required is for The President, Obama or any other future president, to say it's OK. (Wouldn't this be a handy little law for Bachman or Santorum to have, and say, use against gay people because they might think being gay is a threat to the U.S. of A. and therefore a terrorist act. Couldn't happen? Want to take the chance? Well, you are.) Yeah, maybe Obama ought to get a "ding" for this. It's just a violation of the constitution.

Further, in the interest of accuracy, I am well aware of TRMS's reports on this issue. My statement was, this "... will probably be the last we hear of this from TRMS and the remainder of the MSNBC bunch." I did not say they had never reported on this issue. It might be interesting for you to look back, either on You Tube or TRMS archives, and review her reports on Obama's indefinite detention "policy", and on the NDAA, and his promise to veto this bill (his "line in the sand"). It's an interesting evolution, one that has become less and less strident in opposition. That's just my opinion. Wouldn't want you to think I was stating that as a fact. Nothing would please me more than for Maddow to remember the things she said about this "law", and remind all of us of what she said. Also, she said something about not voting on Rights. That's why they are called Rights. The right to Habeas Corpus is just that. A Right.

You are correct, I am outraged. If you aren't, you should be.

You're incorrect here. The US Congress passed laws authorizing indefinite detention w/ the most notable law being passed in 2004. What happened was that SCOTUS and several circuit courts below overruled these provisions in previous defense bills as unconstitutional. This recent defense bill is just another attempt at legislating into effect policies that have already been held unconstitutional and as such these provisions will likely be ruled unconstitutional. SCOTUS cannot rule an executive order to be unconstitutional- it can only rule on laws that have been in effect. You are thinking of the executive mandates put into place by the Bush Administration which yes did go far beyond those that were legally written in to place, I will give you that. Pretending like this law somehow goes beyond what has already been done, however, is still inaccurate. It is an extension of legal policy that has already been in place, much of which (as I've stated 3x now) has been overturned as being unconstitutional and will likely be overturned again. I am just saying that people are acting like you just now SUDDENLY could be arrested for no reason when in reality that has existed for almost a decade. I wasn't implying in any way that this is not concerning. I was merely correcting that this is not new. PBO gets a ding because he said he would move to revoke these policies and he has not. He has either strengthened the executive orders already in place by the previous administrations or congress has passed new laws which PBO has instructed the DoJ not to challenge regarding torture, search and seizure, wiretapping, and the like. I do not excuse his decision to extend bad executive policies nor do I excuse the Democratic Party for their insistence on peddling more legislative restrictions on civil liberties (of which I said as much in the above post). You may not like the phrase "ding" but that's a semantics debate that I'm not interested in having. Do not pretend like this is somehow egregious given recent precedent- it is not. The most you could be saying is egregious is that this new bill expands military restraints and makes it more likely that a US citizen detained on suspension of terrorism would be held in military court and not civilian. Other than that there is nothing in the new defense bill that has not already been passed or attempted to be passed in some format before.

*suspicion blah

Sorry I meant to say 2001 and not 2004. Was thinking of the SCOTUS ruling when I said that. I meant to say the most notable act giving the Executive privilege orders was that of AUMF which was passed in 2001. It was challenged and provisions upheld in a SCOTUS ruling in 2004 in Hamdi v Rumsfield, but later court cases narrowed the scope of these provisions.

This person is upset at the President but not at the congress for actually writing the law. It President vetoed it was going be overturned by nuts in congress.

If the commenter spent more time paying attention to what Republican and Repub like congress was up to instead of voting for incompetants we would not be in this situation. Don't blame President Obama for what u stood by and did nothing about for years, in the words of Herman Cain, blame yo self!

Mouzer is correct. All of these policies were put into place by Bush through executive orders and by skewed interpretation of various terrorist and criminal laws. There were many provisions of the Patriot Act that were struck down by the courts. Congress is still trying to fill in the blanks without regard to the court rulings that were based on the Constitution. Obama signed the current defense bill with reservations about the detention provision. It would have been a political mistake to veto the law. He will add a signing statement expressing doubts about the Constitutionality of the detention provisions which he can ignore. It is a matter of time before the provisions get challenged and a court strikes the provisions down. You have to note that every presidents since Nixon has made claims about extraordinary national security powers for the president under the Constitution. These claims have repeatedly claimed that these national security powers outweigh your constitutional rights. There are no court cases that have ruled on that issue and that view is highly untenable. That is why Bush withdrew his legal opinions by John Yew about certain powers.

And we all know this is a great thing Obama has done because such luminaries as Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdock have complimented him on his good and courageous work for signing this. High praise, indeed.

.....ya know it really annoys the hell out of me when people read selectively. Both Mike and I stated that we do not endorse the law and that our correction was not intended to justify the law. It was to clarify that this is not a new policy. It's still bad policy and needs to be revoked and given previous court cases it will be revoked (which is now I think the 5th time this has been said?). It is very concerning that US citizens can have their rights removed and especially concerning that since 2009 the Republicans in congress (and the warhawk Democrats) have pushed for more and more restrictive policies regarding our civil rights. In fact this latest bill debacle was primarily advocated for by a Democrat. But we should all keep in mind that they got this idea because of the fundamental changes made by the Bush Administration and this is why it's so concerning and why, now for the 3rd time, PBO gets a ding. He stated when he was a US Senator and subsequently when he was running for US President that he would work to reverse these policies and he has not. The Democratic Party, subsequently, stated as it's platform in 2008 that it would work to reverse these policies and the party has not.

Recognizing what a policy is, where it comes from, and why it has support =/= justification for the policy itself.

Please excuse the confusion Mouzer. That last comment was made in general about the fact that Obama did not veto, but rather signed this into law, and was not directed to either your, or Mike's comments. You have made it very clear you do not agree with either this policy or law, and I sense that you are as upset as anyone who understands what a threat this is to our civil liberties. I appreciate your comments, and although I don't completely agree with everything you say, I always take the time to read them carefully, and respect them.

When Obama signed the law, it was a political decision and not a legal one. There is no legal justification for the indefinite detention and in fact, violates the Constitution if the citizen is U.S. or a person present within the US and its territories. Even foreigners are protected by the Constitution. All persons are entitled to Due Process which means a speedy hearing before an impartial judge or jury, because otherwise, Habeas Corpus attaches. There is no court case that has decided the issue of whether these rights attach to a US citizen outside the US on foreign soil. Alawaki was a US citizen but was killed on foreign soil. I doubt whether he would be entitled to his Constitutional rights when he is in a foreign country.

So James are you going to vote Republican, if not why do you care. It amazes me how focused All you Libs are on MSNBC, including the Hosts are so focused on the Republican Process. Why don't you guys try to boost up your candidate by showing his record. Oh yea, he dont have one. He killed an Un Armed Man, an UnArmed American Citizen and now signed into Law any American Citizen he deems is a terrorist.

Yes we Can..Yes we can..destroy America.

I love red herring arguments. Let me play:

Hey there officer why are you pulling me over instead of all those other cars who are speeding?

Yes honey I know it looks like I'm cheating on you, but at least I was wearing protection when I bought this hooker!

Ad hominems are fun too:

Mitt Romney is a stupid dumb face. Stupid dumb faces make bad policies. Therefore Mitt Romney will make bad policies.