Posted on 06/14/2016 10:31:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
Ever since Donald Trump effectively won the Republican presidential nomination by decisively defeating Ted Cruz in the Indiana primary, Congressional Republicans led by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have engaged in unseemly public hand-wringing about whether they will or will not accept the people's choice. Unwilling to support the positions that Trump campaigned on -- reducing immigration, adopting a pro-American trade policy, and returning education to the local level -- Speaker Ryan dusted off his own policy agenda and promised to roll out a series of position papers to compete with those of the presumptive nominee.
One of Ryan's six task forces, entitled Restoring Constitutional Authority, announced its purpose to "Reclaim power ceded to the executive branch by ... exercising the power of the purse and conducting more robust oversight." That's a worthy goal, and the annual defense bill (known as NDAA) now moving through Congress is a great opportunity for Congress to reclaim its power to limit the use of women in the armed forces.
Unknown to most Americans, the Obama administration unilaterally decided to make military women eligible for assignment to ground combat units in the infantry and special forces. Our nation has never allowed the assignment of women to units whose mission is to seek out, engage and kill the enemy, and no other country (not even Israel) does so today.
Although women have not yet been assigned to Special Forces and combat infantry, the official change in policy has already raised the risks for military women who serve honorably in non-combat roles. It has opened the door for women to be drafted into service as combat troops in a future war.
From 1940 to 1973, the Selective Service System drafted young men into the armed forces; that's how we got combat troops for World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Since 1980, all young men age 18-26 have been required to register with Selective Service for a potential future draft, and those who fail to register are disqualified from federal student loans.
Everyone knows that the president is the commander-in-chief of America's armed forces. But our Constitution gives Congress the power "to raise and support armies;" "to provide and maintain a navy;" and "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces."
Congress has no more important responsibility than to prevent the compulsory assignment of women to military combat, and there's no better reason why grassroots Republicans are frustrated with this Republican Congress than its failure to do so. Despite the "robust oversight" promised by Speaker Ryan, Congress has not held a single hearing on this radical change in policy about women in the military.
The failure continued last month in the House Armed Services Committee, where a draft-our-daughters provision was attached to the annual defense authorization bill with the support of 6 of the 36 Republicans on that committee. Only a procedural maneuver by the House Rules Committee was able to strip out the provision before NDAA passed the full House.
When the Senate Armed Services Committee took up its version of the NDAA, the chairman, John McCain, exercised his prerogative to add a draft-our-daughters provision to the bill. A motion by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) to strike that provision was defeated when 6 Republican Senators joined all the committee's Democrats to support the registration of women for military service.
There's no Rules Committee in the Senate, which requires unanimous consent for most action, and Democrats refused to allow Mike Lee's amendment to be considered on the floor. As a result, a "No" vote on the entire NDAA is the only way to prevent the draft-our-daughters law from passing the full Senate.
The 2012 platform of the Republican Party declares categorically: "We support military women's exemption from direct ground combat units and infantry battalions." The platform also states: "We reject the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation and will not accept attempts to undermine military priorities and mission readiness." This year's Republican platform committee will convene on July 11 in Cleveland.
Military combat units draw their strength from "unit cohesion," not diversity. The U.S. Marine Corps' gender integration study, which is the most comprehensive research ever conducted on this issue, reported last September that all-male combat teams outperformed mixed-gender teams on a wide variety of measures of speed, endurance, lethality, negotiating obstacles, and evacuation of casualties.
The female Marines studied were physically fit, but they nevertheless experienced injuries at twice the rate of male Marines. Combat troops fight in small teams where the loss of one member can be fatal to all.
Relying on its study proving that mixed-gender units are less effective, the Marine Corps requested permission to keep some combat roles male-only. Obama's Secretary of Defense not only denied that reasonable request, but ordered the Corps to require Marines to undergo training to erase "unconscious bias" and clamp down on potential misgivings about women in combat.
Congress may draft our daughters but THEIR daughters will find a way out. You can be sure about that.
Not merely sign up for Selective service, but also get an intensive course on the operation, care, feeding and grooming of side arms of every level, from BB guns to 4-gauge shotguns, bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles, pistols of every variety, and revolvers of all calibers. And to qualify at some level of marksmanship.
Some of those ladies are pretty good sharpshooters already. We should assure their numbers are legion.
Equal rights, equal FIGHTS.
Feminists asked for this, and they’re going to get it, GOOD AND HARD.
We just have the best thinkers here. :)
I remember they were close to drafting girls some 40 years ago, too.
Won’t be fair until they include the other 57 genders (that’s at last count - Fakebook just recently added a new one).
Don't be ridiculous.
No one will ever be drafted again. "Registering" for Selective Service merely perpetuates a tax-eating bureaucracy with no purpose.
And no female person (karyotype XX) will ever be involuntarily inducted into the armed forces. Not one. Never.
The whole PURPOSE of female registration is to make resuming a REAL draft impossible, even in the event of dire national need.
"Congress is Close to Drafting Our Daughters" is a lie, and a stupid lie at that. Very disappointing from Mrs. Schlafly.
Congress isn't going to draft anyone.
If you have noticed it is the rats who want to bring the draft back.
No, they don't.
It would be nice to see God sending something this way. I’m getting sick of what other human beings are trying to make me think.
“On the other hand, when the left screams about this, tell them either both sexes are the same in every way or they aren’t. If they are, sign up. If not, shut up.”
Exactly. You asked for it, you got it.
I don’t think Congress is close to drafting anyone, son or daughter.
Elected officials shouldn’t be making decisions like this practically in secret. The media has hardly covered this.
I’m a woman and don’t agree with it.
Men and women are just physiologically not the same, with men being about twice as strong on average and having larger hearts and lungs, to name but a few differences. Apparently, though, if all the difference between the sexes are ignored and one’s sex is declared to be “just a state of mind,” then it follows that both men and women should be able to engage in combat and be drafted.
They should be drafted to make the fighting men samichs
“Biden said the Violence Against Women Act, which he drafted as a U.S. senator, articulated the fundamental right of women to live their lives free of abuse.”
He drafted a bill that said women have the fundamental right to be stay-at-home mothers married to men owning firearms? Wow, that WILL help stop abuse of women!
Oh, wait, he’s using Liberal definitions of ‘rights’ and ‘abuse’.
many times men want the benefits of what women have and none of the downsides and negatives...
they want custody of "their" children yet never had a monthly period or had their bodies stretched every which way to grow a child inside...
have yet heard of any man volunteering to have a period every month....
"special legal status in multiple ways in the law."
like what?....what special legal status??....this is baloney...
They have total say whether a mans child lives or dies."..
....and men and men ONLY can "provide" their sperm for breeding .....they have total control on a woman getting pregnant or not....but gee, that would require some "responsibility"..
Really, the period thing?
Maybe we can disqualify women from decisions based on body physical limitations they cant do that men can. You seem fine to do it to men who cant have a period or have a uterus.
Oh wait you dont like that when its applied to women.
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