The bill was marked up by members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) last Wednesday that poured into Thursday morning (2:45 a.m. to be exact).

A couple of minutes past midnight, Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered an amendment to strike Sec. 1034 — the new authorization for worldwide war provision — from the NDAA. Visibly angry that such a large sweeping provision had not yet had any public hearing whatsoever, he vigorously characterized it as a very broad declaration of war …Washington’s Blog

This is absolutely stunning.

While all the major “news” and cable outlets, including FOX have been wasting air time on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love child and how hurt Maria and the kids are, a bill that would give faux President Obama the authority to declare WWIII (yes, that’s what I said) along with the ability to declare war on U.S. soil has been stealthily moving through Congress.

Sources including Politico, the Daily Paul, the ACLU, and The War Room all confirm that the House Armed Services Committee finished marking up the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012, which contains a dangerous provision that authorizes a worldwide war against terrorism and gives Obama unlimited powers to do so. Constitution? What Constitution?

The ACLU reports that

Republican chair of the Armed Services Committee, Howard McKeon, R-Calif., revealed The National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, which includes a bill renewing an act passed just days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). AUMF gave then-President George W. Bush carte blanche to hunt down the 9/11 perpetrators and their allies. [...] this new bill goes much further than the current authorization of war. It has no expiration date and would allow a president to use military force in any country around the world where there are terrorism suspects, even when there are no connections to the 9/11 attacks or other specific harms or threats to the United States.

According to POLITICO:

The new language drops any reference to 9/11 and “affirms” a state of “armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces.” The measure also explicitly gives the president the right to take prisoners “until the termination of hostilities” – something the courts have found to be implicit in the current version of the AUMF, though the new proposal could be seen to extend that power.

Hard as it is to believe, debate for this bill lasted just over 10 minutes and occurred after midnight! As Washington’s Blog points out,”Of all of the powers that the Constitution assigns to Congress, no power is more fundamental or important than the power “to declare War.”  That is why, in 2002, when Congress was considering whether to authorize war in Iraq, it held fifteen hearings, and passed legislation that cited specific harms, set limits, and defined a clear objective.”

I would point out that the reason our Founding Fathers gave those powers to Congress and not the President is because war is too important to be left to one man, most especially this president, who illegally sits in the White House.

Let us not forget that Obama has already authorized “targeted assassinations” against U.S. citizens.  And let us not forget that our government can pick up anyone that they suspect may be a terrorist. Just ask the 13 year old boy that was interrogated by the Secret Service for posting something on Facebook!

Mom’s Mad Secret Service Grills 7th Grader Over Facebook Post About Obama The Blaze