Congress throws its hands up in defeat with NDAA

I've been following the saga of the National Defense Authorization Act of late. This is the bill that President Obama threatened to veto unless Congress removed some unconstitutional provisions that would have gutted habeas corpus and allowed American citizens to be detained indefinitely without a trial.

Congress toned down the bill, but the end product was still alarmingly bad. Today, Obama signed the somewhat weakened bill and issued a lengthy signing statement vowing not to use the new law to detain Americans. Not like that'll do any good if some absolute nutcase becomes President.

Who in Congress decided to add Constitution-shredding provisions to what was otherwise a routine bill? I doubt these sections would have been signed into law if they weren't part of an important authorization bill that was otherwise unrelated. In other words, Congress exploited a must-pass bill.

The addition of these provisions really means that Congress has thrown its hands up in defeat. They know their approval ratings are in the johndola, and that they have no leg to stand on to go after dissidents, so - in frustration - they trot out laws that are blatantly unconstitutional and don't care what anybody thinks. The unconstitutional and unenforceable portions of the NDAA are a sign of sheer desperation.

This isn't how winners act.