[cousair]

I live in Washington State. All day today and over the weekend, our local radio stations have been broadcasting that the Governors of both Washington (illegally elected Christine Gregoire) and Oregon have told their respective National Guard units they DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO THE BORDER IF THEY DON'T WANT TO, that this order should be voluntary. I understand that is not the case coming from the White House when the President ordered it. Does anyone know more about this, and since when can a state pick and choose what they will or won't do. Border security is just that, BORDER SECURITY!

[Terabitten]

I live in Washington State. All day today and over the weekend, our local radio stations have been broadcasting that the Governors of both Washington (illegally elected Christine Gregoire) and Oregon have told their respective National Guard units they DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO THE BORDER IF THEY DON'T WANT TO, that this order should be voluntary. I understand that is not the case coming from the White House when the President ordered it. Does anyone know more about this, and since when can a state pick and choose what they will or won't do. Border security is just that, BORDER SECURITY!

Unless the Federal Government "federalizes" the National Guard, they belong to the state governor. Now, the FedGov has a BIG stick in this, in that the FedGov provides around 95% of the funding for the National Guards of most states. So, Washington state and Oregon both risk essentially losing their NG units if the Federal Gov't pulls the funding for them. The Department of the Army would likely just convert those units to US Army Reserve instead of Army National Guard. The Governor can't touch USAR.