Name: Turmp Vetoes NDAA Citing Confederate Base Names, Section 230
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Turmp Vetoes NDAA Citing Confederate Base Names, Section 230

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Sometimes, hate and vengeance can be living things. It is clear from his actions on Wednesday, when he vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, the $740 billion measure that keeps the lights on at the Pentagon, that he is nothing more than a vehicle for the hate and vengeance that is the closest thing about him to human emotion. From the :In his veto message, Trump complained that the legislation includes “provisions that fail to respect our veterans’ and military’s history” — a seeming reference to instructions that the Defense Department change the names of installations commemorating Confederate leaders. He also scorned the bill as a “ ‘gift’ to China and Russia,” slammed the bill for restricting his ability to draw down the presence of U.S. troops in certain foreign outposts, and excoriated lawmakers for failing to include an unrelated repeal of a law granting liability protections to technology companies that Trump has accused, without significant evidence of anti-conservative bias...The president and his advisers have repeatedly objected to various provisions in the behemoth defense legislation, including its mandate to the Pentagon to rename the 10 military installations bearing titles that honor the Confederacy and the bill’s limitations on reducing troop levels in Germany, South Korea and Afghanistan. Trump’s insistence that the defense bill become a vehicle for a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from bearing legal responsibility for content third parties post on their websites, became a breaking point between the president and congressional Republicans during the final days of negotiations over the legislation. Trump views its repeal as a way to punish social media companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter.There is so much fuel there for the eternal furnace of his ungoverned rage. It is a massive boon to all the people who warm themselves at that fire. He vetoed the NDAA for a reason guaranteed to inflame divisions in white America that have existed since 1865, and in America generally since 1619. Congress refused to sign aboard his assault on democratic elections, so by god he's going to haul them back to override his veto between Christmas and New Years. And the lesser classes of society have been allowed to demean his greatness on various social media platforms, so we must not have any more of that. Those people must be punished. The traitors in his own party must be punished. The unruly country that has turfed him out must be punished. And not for nothing, but between this and his apparent disinterest in the massive Russian-based cyber-attack on American public and private institutions, and his having been AWOL on a pandemic that's now killing 3,000 Americans a day, can you tell me anything he's done that a Russian toady in the Oval Office wouldn't have done?The NDAA passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress, so the odds are that this veto will be overridden next week. But there are signs that the characteristic cowardice of establishment Republicans is still an animating force in their caucuses. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, voted to pass the NDAA, but he's also said he won't vote to override a veto, an impressive bit of straddling that likely will cost him a hamstring or two. Several senators tried to talk the president* out of a veto, and they clearly failed. These are people who thought his rage and his lust for vengeful conquest could be contained. The furnace now has consumed them all.Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has his three children.This content is imported from OpenWeb. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.&nbsp;Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below

Sometimes, hate and vengeance can be living things. It is clear from his actions on Wednesday, when he vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, the $740 billion measure that keeps the lights on at the Pentagon, that he is nothing more than a vehicle for the hate and vengeance that is the closest thing about him to human emotion. From the :In his veto message, Trump complained that the legislation includes “provisions that fail to respect our veterans’ and military’s history” — a seeming reference to instructions that the Defense Department change the names of installations...

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Charles P. Pierce is a writer-at-large for Esquire and his work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the LA Times Magazine, the Nation, the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated and The Chicago Tribune, among others.

Turmp Vetoes NDAA Citing Confederate Base Names, Section 230

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