National Defense Authorization Act

Conaway Chronicle Volume 6, Issue 10


National Defense Authorization Act

In Congress this week the National Defense Authorization Act passed the House and Senate, whereupon it was sent to the President for his signature. This bill is important because it provides pay and benefits for our troops, buys the weapons and equipment they need to do their job, and funds research to help meet future threats to our national security.

While this bill is central to a functioning national security, there was a misunderstanding regarding the detainee provisions. This provision does not address or extend new authority to detain U.S. Citizens. What it does do is affirm that the military may lawfully detain individuals who are engaged in armed conflict with the United States, as stated by the Authorization of the Use of Military Force. The bill adds explicit protections for American citizens as well as a prohibition against the President waving such protections.

This bill strengthens our ability to fight the War on Terror and enables a continued, steadfast national security plan.

Read the Bill*
*Detainee provision exempting U.S. citizens: page 655 & 657


Mike Conaway voted for the bill.  So did John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison.  I've dug into the background on the bill but there's too much legaleze for me.  When I read the page indicated by Mike Conaway above, it seems rather straightforward that this will not pertain to American citizens or legal  residents and that the President would also be resticted from  using the waiver option against American citizens or legal residents.

But since when was anything straightforward coming out of D.C.?  So I got to looking at who was objecting and what they were objecting to. 

• Montana has initiated a recall of their representatives who voted for the bill. " Montana residents William Crain and Stewart Rhodes are spearheading the drive. Mr. Crain is an artist. Mr. Rhodes is an attorney, Yale Law School graduate, and the national president of the organization Oath Keepers, who are military and law enforcement officers, both former and active duty, who vow to uphold their Oath to the US Constitution and to disobey illegal orders which constitute attacks on their fellow citizens."   Source here.  Oathkeepers,  of course,  has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  Now,  the SPLC is a hate group unto itself; however,  DHS is using them  as a resource and published the directives sent out to all law enforcement indicating returning veterans,  people believing in the Constitution or pro-life,  people having Ron Paul bumper stickers,  people wanting our borders secure,  people with beliefs againt homosexuality, etc.,  might be terrorists based on the info given them  by SPLC.
• Here's a video of a Judge Napolitano report on it.
• And,  here's what Ron Paul has to say on it.  No matter what you think about Ron Paul,  you can't argue with his 100% adherance to voting Constitutionally in all his years as a Congressman. 
• Personally,  I don't know what to think about this bill.  Viscerally,  I don't like it.

"Soft" Corruption

It's called "soft" corruption when Congress members do it.  The rest of us would go to jail.

Allen West, Once Again. This guy is Great!!!

Heee, hee. I really like this man

WOOOOHOOOO!!!!

I like Adam West...maybe as much as I like Jeff Sessions.  Real men.  Real Americans.

Dems Want Law To Keep Obama Records Secret

Last Updated: Tue, 10/04/2011 - 12:42pm


In an obvious effort to protect President Barack Obama, a group of congressional Democrats has introduced legislation to create an official process that will allow the commander-in-chief to keep presidential records secret after he leaves office.

Ironically, Obama revoked a similar George W. Bush order in one of his first official acts as president. In 2001 Bush penned an executive order severely limiting public access to his presidential records. Shortly after swearing in, Obama killed it as part of his much-ballyhooed commitment to government transparency. At the time, the new president claimed that he was giving the American people greater access to “historic documents.”

It was the right move. The Bush Administration did indeed demonstrate a disappointing penchant for secrecy and Judicial Watch was a frontrunner in the effort to make records public. Examples include: The Dick Cheney Energy Task Force records that JW pursued before the United States Supreme Court; Attorney General John Ashcroft’s order advising government agencies to withhold all discretionary disclosures; invoking executive privilege to block the House Government Reform Committee’s probe of the Campaign Financing Task Force.

If the Democrats’ proposed measure (Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2011) becomes law, former presidents will be allowed to assert a new “constitutionally based privilege” against disclosing records of their liking. Here is how it would work; the Archivist of the United States would be required to notify the former president, as well as the incumbent, of intentions to make records public. Anything that either the former or current president claims should be kept private won’t be released.

The veteran Brooklyn congressman (Edolphus Towns) who recently introduced the law in the U.S. House has yet to explain why it’s necessary. What’s certain is that Obama has failed miserably to keep his promise of running the most transparent administration in history. For examples read highlights from Judicial Watch’s testimony before Congress earlier this year. JW was invited to testify in separate House and Senate hearings during “Sunshine Week,” a national initiative by the news media, nonprofits and other organizations to promote government transparency and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/oct/dems-want-law-keep-obama-records-secret
 
And Perry got his sealed...sounds to me like they've both got something to hide from the voters. ~ Faye
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/perrys-travel-security-costs-will-stay-secret-until-after-2012/2011/08/22/gIQANIZBjJ_story.html

Bernie and Bernanke

Senator Bernie Sanders

I've been watching Bernie Sanders for several years.  He's a self-admitted Socialist.  Being a Socialist, however, has not prevented Bernie from seeing what is actually going on and trying to fight it.  A while back I posted an article from his site that showed the Federal Reserve had secretly sent another SIXTEEN TRILLION dollars to foreign banks.  I didn't see that on any other legislator's site.  They know and they're keeping their mouths shut.  Now Bernie's figuring out that the NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, SPP trade agreements have deliberately destroyed our economy.  I could have told him that if he'd read the CFR report, "Building a North American Community," he'd have known this several years ago.  For all I know, Bernie voted for NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT.  The SPP has not yet been approved by our Congress but is fully functional with its 30 committees working their destruction of our country and our form of government every day...illegally.

At any rate, it's interesting to watch the Left become as cognizant of what's been going on as evidenced by not only Bernie, but the protests to shut Wall Street down.  The TEA Party has been aware and it got them into the streets.  Of course, our corrupted media has tried to discredit the Wall Street protests by focusing on some of the outrageous demands of the protestors while shutting down on the actual reasons they're protesting both Wall Street and the Federal Reserve.  They attempted to discredit the TEA Partiers.  They're still trying.  But one of these days, the Wall Street Protesters and the TEA Partiers are going to be in the street yelling at each other and they're each going to take a breath and realize they're combatting the same things...just from different angles. 

Here's Bernie on the unfair free trade agreements.

SHEILA JACKSON LEE LEAVES US ALL SPEECHLESS.

From Redstate Briefing:


Recently, Congresswoman Shiela Jackson-Lee went on the air with Tavis Smiley of PBS. During her appearance she was kind enough to explain something to all those crazy conservative bloggers. “Shut up!” And while we’re all zipping the soup-coolers, we’re also supposed to lay off the racial politics.
For those of us hoping for greater detail, we are still unsure as to whether we should “Go to Hell” first, and then shut the yaps, or whether that works the other way around. However, she is handy with a totally non-racial and uncontroversial piece of advice for anyone who expects to do business with the Federal Government once Barack Obama’s new jobs bill has been passed.

She also said that if Obama’s jobs bill is passed, that contractors who “do not look like”* her need to make sure that if they get federal money, their workforce “better be reflective of those suffering double-digit unemployment.”
“I don’t consider it discrimination, I don’t consider it affirmative action,” she added.

Now before we all rush to judgment about members of Congress who are differently-able, it helps to review some prior public statements of Shiela Jackson-Lee. She claims that Venezuela is a friendly nation and a US ally soon after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called US President George W. Bush the devil. She seems enamored with the notion that the US succeeded in The Vietnam War. Gob-smacking historical ignorance follows below.

She continued, “Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working. We may not agree with all that North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for a better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they are living side by side.”

(HT:CBS News)
No tribute to the intellectual firepower of Congresswoman Shiela Jackson-Lee would be complete without her famous visit to NASA JPL. She wanted to know if the Mars rover would have any footage of where the astronauts planted the flag before. She also drinks the other dark cola, because Pepsi, you see, has racist commercials.
Oh, and who could possibly forget….

One of Lee’s crusades as a Representative of subtropical Gulf Coast Houston has been to end what she calls the government policy of giving hurricanes “lily white” names. “All racial groups should be represented,” she told The Hill Magazine, adding that she hoped the weather establishment in the future “would try to be inclusive of African American names” such as “Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn.”

 
At that juncture, I realized something. I couldn’t think of anything that would describe Shiela Jackson-Lee’s mental incapacity. Depleted Uranium is dense. So is the gravity field in the vicinity of a highly-complexioned hole.(The Congresswoman did tell me to stop playing the race card.)  But nothing adequately serves as a metaphor for the hardness of Shiela Jackson-Lee’s head. It would score a 14 on The Moh Scale.
She wins, I have nothing left to say….

California Banning Walmart?

Dem Rep. Schakowsky: 'You Don't Deserve To Keep All Your Money'

Rand Paul Smacks Down Nanny State

Texas' Leadership Conundrum

By MQSullivan (09/06/2011)

With Texas' top two elected office-holders eyeing moves to federal office, Texans face the real possibility of our next legislative session being overseen by a governor and lieutenant governor not elected by the people but instead selected by the state’s senate.

With Rick Perry’s presidential bid gaining steam, and David Dewhurst in the race for the US Senate, we could find both men resigning their current offices in late 2012. While not a constitutional crisis, such a scenario creates a leadership conundrum for Texans to thoughtfully consider.

Our state's constitution provides for an orderly transition of power when vacancies occur in the top offices. If the governor resigns his office, the lieutenant governor -- elected statewide, separately from the governor -- moves into the governor's mansion. The senate then picks from among their own a new lieutenant governor.

In the legislatively proscribed order of gubernatorial succession, the president pro tempore of the Senate, Speaker of the House, the Attorney General and the chief judges of the Court of Appeals are all in line to be governor if those proceeding in order were simultaneously unable to serve. Even then, a new lieutenant governor would be picked by the senate.

Let's say both Gov. Perry and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst win their respective federal races. President-elect Perry would likely resign first, to focus on the presidential transition, moving Mr. Dewhurst (Senator-elect, as it were) to the office of the governor.

The state senate would convene to select from among themselves a new lieutenant governor. Once the new lite-guv was sworn in, Mr. Dewhurst could resign and head off to DC. This new lieutenant governor (who just 15 minutes before was a state senator few Texans had heard of) moves up to governor. The senate, still hanging around, would pick yet another new lieutenant governor (also a state senator, who you had probably heard even less about) from the remaining 30 senators.

If such a scenario plays out, it might make voters suddenly pay a little more attention to the senatorial "club" than in the past. By then it’ll be too late, which is why we must begin asking tough questions now.

Why? The senate doing the picking for the new governor and lieutenant governor won't be elected in 2012 and seated in 2013, it will most likely be the current senators. Worse, it will be a lame-duck senate with members who didn't seek re-election or were defeated in the 2012 cycle.

The senate is currently composed of 19 Republicans to 12 Democrats. In practice, it's more like a half-dozen conservatives, a few quasi-conservatives and 19 or more moderates and liberals. (Gerrymandering, incumbency power and voter apathy have conspired to ensure the state senate looks less like Texas, ideologically, than one might presume.)

Nothing stops the senate from populating the offices of governor and lieutenant governor with washed up pols who lost re-election bids, vacated their seats, or are simply out of touch with the state’s electorate. Given the peculiar voting blocs and deal-swapping in the state's senate, the governor and lieutenant governor could well be a moderate Republican or Democrat.

The kind of leadership the senate picks will have immediate consequences. The 2013 legislative session is going to be fiscally trying, perhaps even more difficult than the recently concluded session. Indeed, budget debates in 2013 will make those of 2011 seem almost benign in comparison.

And don’t think lobbyists and Capitol insiders aren’t giddy about the prospect of influencing the selection of a new state leadership more beholden to them than Texas’ taxpayers.


Frankly, many senators would prefer not be asked where they will stand on the question of who will be allowed to ascend. They'd certainly prefer not to provide any straight answers.

Texans cannot afford a “let’s wait and see” attitude from our senators. As voters, we need to gather public commitments -- especially from Republican senators and candidates -- about how they will approach the selection process.

Thanks to redistricting, every single senator will be on the ballot in 2012. Waiting until after the November election to ask them about state leadership won't matter. Make the senators go on the record before getting your support; make them describe how they will vote and publicly commit to picking a sound conservative.

Voters should demand to know, and soon, if their senator plans to let chamber comity and special interests trump the conservative conscience of the Texas majority.

http://www.empowertexans.com/issues/Texas_Leadership_2013_Conundrum

Labor Department Seeks New Rules To Restrict Use of Young Farm Workers

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis

 
Wednesday, August 31, 2011

By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Labor is seeking to update child labor laws to put more restrictions on farm workers under the age of 18 from working with manure, pesticides, driving tractors and engaging in certain other agricultural activities.


Department officials made the announcement on Wednesday during a conference call with reporters.


Public comment for the regulations is open until Nov. 1 of this year. The rules have not been updated since 1970, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said during the call. The current rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act already prohibit young workers from certain tasks.

“Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America,” Solis said. “Ensuring their welfare is a priity of the department, and this proposal is another element of our comprehensive approach.”

Exemptions would be made under the proposed rules for children who work on farms owned by their parents.


The strengthened child labor rules, which would be enforced by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, would bar agricultural work with pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins. Farm workers under the age of 16 would not be allowed to participate in working on tobacco. This would include cultivation, harvesting and curing tobacco.

The rules are also designed to stop anyone below the age of 18 from being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials. Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, and grain silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.

Further, farm workers under the age of 16 would be banned from using all power-driven equipment, including tractors, with an exemption for student learners.


http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/labor-department-seeks-new-rules-restric

Hilda Solis...colorful character with "close ties to NCLR" ...and MEChA, I bet.  2011 Honoree for Excellence in Government Service at the MALDEF Gala Awards.   Just type her name in your search bar.  Betcha before long, you'll be livid.




"Although some of La Raza’s government funding was earmarked by congress, virtually all of it was doled out by the Obama administration. Sixty percent of La Raza's take came from the Department of Labor—run by Hilda Solis. They lobbied hard for her appointment and honored her with an award. She paid them back—with millions of our tax dollars." ~ Tom Tancredo  http://townhall.com/columnists/tomtancredo/2011/07/29/por_la_raza,_nada/page/full/

Sheriff Tony Demeo - Nevada

Raids are increasing on farms and private food-supply clubs

14 Jul 2010 1:32 PM

 When the 20 agents arrived bearing a search warrant at her Ventura County farmhouse door at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday a couple weeks back, Sharon Palmer didn't know what to say. This was the third time she was being raided in 18 months, and she had thought she was on her way to resolving the problem over labeling of her goat cheese that prompted the other two raids. (In addition to producing goat's milk, she raises cattle, pigs, and chickens, and makes the meat available via a CSA.)


But her 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, wasn't the least bit tongue-tied. "She started back-talking to them," recalls Palmer. "She said, 'If you take my computer again, I can't do my homework.' This would be the third computer we will have lost. I still haven't gotten the computers back that they took in the previous two raids."

****
This is a long article, but it lists several more raids in various parts of the country and documents the amount of force being used.  ~Faye

Read the rest of the article here.

Food Raids:A Sampling from the 1st half of 2011

Food Safety Bill: Unconstitutional

Ok.  If this was noted as being unconstitutional before last Christmas, what's going on?

County Sues Farmer For excessive crops on his own land

Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown