The National Defense Authorization Act Clown Show
New hot take on how the House Republicans turned the NDAA into a culture wars trash fire
My latest for MeidasTouch
I did an analysis of the debate and amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act for MeidasTouch this week. The House GOP turned it into a complete circus and doomed it to failure in the Senate.
It wasn’t ever like this
When the extremist wing of the House Republicans didn’t get the deal they wanted in the debt ceiling debate they made a plan to use the funding bills to piggyback all of their most hateful ideas into law. They’re plan is to use the funding bills that run our government to create national bans on all of the most hated right wing ideas.
Last week that plan came in to clear public display with the amendment process to the NDAA where the Freedom Caucus piled on. Usually it’s a bipartisan bill with some nibbling around the edges of what the Department of Defense asked for or demanding oversight on specific items but it is never a place for heated debate on topics like this past week.
Moms for Liberty fever dreams
They piled all of the crazy into their bill. Everything from killing travel support for reproductive care; banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; ending gender affirming care; and Lauren Boebert was even able to slide in some book banning too. It’s literally the Moms for Liberty fantasy league of hatred and bigotry baked into funding our national defense.
The icing on the cake is former Navy SEAL Eli Crane slipping his hood and using the term “colored people” during the debate on his amendment to ban any use of race, religion, politics, shoe size, hair style, or some other bullshit in military recruiting. It set off fury on the Democratic side immediately.
The icing on the cake on his goal is that the Navy SEALS are one of the least diverse arms of the military with about 70% of them being white and only a smattering of black members. SEALs keep embarrassing their community in Congress.
Watch the video and leave a comment. I’d love your feedback. New episode of ‘On Democracy’ comes out tomorrow on MeidasTouch or tonight for paid subscribers or subscribers to our On Democracy Podcast YouTube channel. I talk with Missouri Democratic House Floor Leader and candidate for Governor, Crystal Quade about why the issues we are fighting here in a red state should matter to everyone.
Catch last week’s show with Congressman Eric Swalwell while you’re waiting!
We really need reporters to start asking them, on the record, this:
"Rep/Sen Whomever, Do you support our Troops?", follow up; "Do you support the Families of our Servicemen & Women". You will, of course, get a BS Yes to both
They then need to follow up and ask them, "If you support the Troops and their families, Why are you doing things that show the exact opposite of that"; "Why is it that the Servicemen/women and their families think that you don't give a rats behind about them, what do you say about that?"
I would really like to see some hard hitting reporters cornering these MAGA a$$hats with these kind of questions, on the record...
Thanks for sharing, Fred. Always appreciate you!
Eli Crane did not slip his hood, the Velcro ensured that! It’s in plain sight, not inhibited by the proverbial dog whistle. And that’s fine, transparency is good. Show us who you really are so we don’t have to guess.
But “colored”😜🤯 Damn, he’s not even capable of being a racist 2.0 - that term is so outdated and passé 1969 Bull Conor Alabama.
Shows us the GOP is incapable of studying history because they are too busy living in it.
It also appears to us that the SEAL community insist on slipping into some sick form of Wagner. Hope that’s not the case...but...
We’ll see. 550 days till another coup d’etat attempt or a proper Joe Harris inauguration ceremony.
☯️🇺🇸☮️