Annual defense authorization bill, Abortions, Gays, Illegal aliens, Dream Act

D-Day for the US military

By Frank Gaffney Jr.
Monday, September 20, 2010

The United States Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a motion to proceed to debate on the annual defense authorization bill. Normally, such a step is a routine mechanical one. In this case, though, it is one of the most important national security votes of the year - and will be scored as such by the Center for Security Policy and a number of other organizations in their annual legislative scorecards.

As a proud alumnus of the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, it pains me to say that the Senate should not consider this seriously defective product of that panel’s deliberations. No Republican or Democrat who cares about national security should vote for this motion.

The reason why a filibuster mounted by that committee’s ranking Republican, Senator John McCain, should be sustained is that the defense bill is being used as a vehicle for several extraneous political agendas. These includeâ€