Tout le Beltway lost its shit on Monday when the president* signed the John S. McCain, Jr. National Defense Authorization Act without mentioning, you know, John S. McCain, Jr. This was both astonishingly petty and completely predictable. However, that more than 11 seconds worth of attention was spent on this towering outrage is a severe indictment of the way the elite political media handles important policy issues.

The John S. McCain, Jr. National Defense Authorization Act is an abomination, and it should be treated as such, no matter whose name has been slapped on it as a kind of honorific. For starters, the ACLU would like a word:

The question with the NDAA was never whether habeas rights are lost. Instead, the question is whether and when any president can order the military to imprison a person without charge or trial. The NDAA did not take away habeas rights from anyone, but it did codify a dangerous indefinite detention without charge or trial scheme. And nothing in the proposed bill by Rigell would change it. The Rigell bill won't stop any president from ordering the military lockup of civilians without charge or trial. And there's more. Not only is it a useless bill, but it could end up causing harm too. It doesn't accurately and fully list who is entitled to habeas (for example, it doesn't even mention American citizens traveling outside the country), which could end up causing confusion.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Getty Images

It's also an environmental disaster. From cleanwater.org:

The anti-environmental riders, detailed below, would block or remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for the greater sage-grouse, lesser prairie-chicken, and American burying beetle; weaken a core safeguard of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA); circumvent longstanding protections for National Wildlife Refuge System lands and other public lands by overriding National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) protections for land withdrawals; override NEPA for hardrock mining projects; and authorize a harmful land exchange in Superior National Forest for the PolyMet mining company. All of these riders except the PolyMet rider are contained in the House legislation; the PolyMet rider is contained in the Senate legislation.

That's bad enough, but the JSMJNDAA of 2019 is going to hand a graft-ridden and completely incompetent administration $717 billion to squander and grift, or $82 billion more than the 2018 bill ladled out.

The Center For International Policy issued a report back in May that examined the military budget. (You will note how many items are budgeted at more money than was requested.) Besides continuing to fund the increasingly pointless war in Afghanistan, and military operations everywhere from Mali to Yemen, the JSMNDAA of 2019 includes 13 new warships, the purchase of 77 more of our favorite boondoggle, the F-35 Flying Swiss Army Knife, and a new low-yield nuke for...something. There's also another aircraft carrier tucked away in there, because having more than the rest of the world combined is never enough. We're also getting a new Stealth bomber. Some poor schlub at the Pentagon is going to have to explain to the president* that the plane isn't really invisible.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io