Weekly Columns and Op-Eds
Congress Sells out America in NDAA Bill – Rep. Dr. Paul Gosar
Washington,
December 18, 2023
As published in the Prescott e-News here: To quickly bring everyone up to speed, earlier this year I voted in favor of the original version of this legislation when it first passed the House of Representatives because it supported our men and women in uniform while ensuring the necessary resources are available to rebuild and maintain a prepared military force to safeguard our country. The Senate changed it substantially and our vote this week was on the Senate version. Unfortunately, some members of congress saddled it with countless unrelated provisions that I could not support. The House-passed version of the NDAA contained great provisions that focused on our military and got rid of leftist woke programs. The Senate, controlled by democrats, passed its version that contains dozens of programs average Americans would be horrified to know that their tax money is supporting. In a big loss for House Republicans, virtually every policy victory in our original bill was cut from the final bill. Our “negotiators” failed to negotiate anything of value. It was a complete loss for Republicans. For example, the bill that passed includes money to pay for surgical mutilation for transgenders and hormones, it pays for sexualized drag shows on military vessels and bases, it pays for abortions, and keeps illegal affirmative action and DEI military programs fully funded, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action and DEI is unconstitutional anti-White and anti-Asian racism. Tens of millions of dollars are spent on these illegal programs, but more importantly, our military is weakened as competent people are passed over for promotions. It also included millions for funding climate hoax programs. A key take away is this: democrats supplied more votes to pass the NDAA than did the Republicans. It gets worse: this bill included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. I’m absolutely outraged it reauthorizes FISA without any reforms or safeguards to protect citizens from abuse by the intelligence agencies. FISA has a long record of abuse against American citizens and operates as a blank check to the FBI and other agencies to read all of your text messages, emails, listen on calls, and do any electronic spying they want without a court order or warrant. The Constitution requires a warrant when spying on Americans yet for well over a decade, U.S. agencies have used FISA to spy on people like you and me. Thanks to the Durham report, we have a better idea of the lengths of corruption, such as an over-reliance on a former British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s deeply discredited dossier used as a justification for instigating a witch-hunt into Donald Trump. As if that were not bad enough, a court found in May that the FBI wrongfully used their database for searches on non-citizens and U.S. citizens – nearly 278,000 times! Our Constitution’s 4th Amendment demands the government needs to obtain a warrant. To continue using FISA without any safeguards to U.S. citizens is despicable. I’m not done. The NDAA also now prohibits future Presidents from withdrawing from NATO without Senate approval. You know who wants to withdraw from NATO? Donald Trump, that’s who. And for good reason. NATO was a cold war construct that is no longer relevant and has not been relevant for 30 years. But it costs us billions every year and it is a foreign entanglement that risks drawing us in to wars and conflict we have no business being in, like Ukraine. Regrettably, 147 of my Republican colleagues joined 163 democrats in voting in support of this crap sandwich. |