More Oppose Than Support Trump's Deployment Of Marines To LA

The chart above reflects the results of a YouGov Poll -- done on June 10th of a nationwide sample of 4,309 adults.

The results are only slightly better for the National Guard deployment.

Was Trump Responsible For Jan. 6th National Guard Delay?

When the rioters attacked our Capitol Building on January 6th, the call went out for National Guard help. But it was over three hours later before the decision was made to send those troops. What so long a delay? Was it because Trump administration officials in the Defense Department didn't want to upset Trump (who seemed to be enjoying watching the riot on TV)?

It certainly looks that way. The troops were not sent until Trump finally asked his rioting supporters to go home. Here is just part of the story from Dana Milbank in The Washington Post: 

Three hours and 19 minutes.

That’s how long it took from the first, desperate pleas for help from the Capitol Police to the Trump Pentagon on Jan. 6 until the D.C. National Guard finally received permission to help put down the bloody insurrection.

During those 199 minutes, the mob sacked the Capitol. People died. Overwhelmed Capitol and D.C. police were beaten. Lawmakers’ lives were jeopardized. And violent extremists defiled the seat of government, temporarily halting the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

“At 1:49 p.m., I received a frantic call from then-chief of United States Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter of the United States Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,” Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commander of the D.C. Guard, testified Wednesday to a joint Senate committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency at the Capitol, and he requested the immediate assistance of as many available national guardsmen that I could muster.”

Walker immediately alerted senior Army leadership — and then waited. And waited. Approval to mobilize the guard wouldn’t be received until 5:08 p.m.

At best, this was a catastrophic failure of government. At worst, political appointees and Trump loyalists at the Defense Department deliberately prevented the National Guard from defending the Capitol against a seditious mob.

The man ultimately responsible for the delay, Christopher Miller, had been a White House aide before Donald Trump installed him as acting defense secretary in November, as the president began his attempt to overturn his election defeat. Miller did Trump’s political bidding at another point during his 10-week tenure, forcing the National Security Agency to install a Republican political operative as chief counsel.

Also involved in the Pentagon delay was Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, brother of disgraced former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, convicted (and pardoned) for lying to the FBI. Michael Flynn had suggested Trump declare martial law, and he helped to rile Trump supporters in Washington the day before the Capitol attack. The Pentagon had falsely denied to Post journalists that Charles Flynn was involved in the pivotal call on Jan. 6. . . .

Curiously, the Pentagon claims Miller’s authorization came at 4:32 — 15 minutes after Trump told his “very special” insurrectionists to “go home in peace.” Was Miller waiting for Trump’s blessing before defending the Capitol?

The Pentagon’s 199-minute delay looks worse in light of a Jan. 4 memo Miller issued saying that without his “personal authorization” the D.C. Guard couldn’t “be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.”

The Army secretary added more restrictions the next day, saying in a memo that he would “withhold authority” for the D.C. Guard to deploy a “quick reaction force” and that he would “require a concept of operation” before allowing a quick reaction force to react. McCarthy even blocked the D.C. Guard in advance from redeploying to the Capitol guardsmen assigned to help the D.C. police elsewhere in Washington.

Without such restrictions, Walker, the D.C. Guard commander, could have dispatched nearly 200 guardsmen soon after the Capitol Police mayday call. “That number could have made a difference,” Walker testified.

More Support Protests And Oppose Using The Military

The two charts above are from the Morning Consult Poll. They polled 1,990 adults between May 31st and June 1st, and 2,014 adults between June 3rd and 5th. The charts compare the difference between the two polls taken only a few days apart. Both polls had a 2 point margin of error.

Note that the support for the protests is growing, while the support for using the military or the National Guard to police the protests is dropping. This is a good thing. I hope these trends continue.

Patrick Wants To Keep National Guard On The Border

(This photo of Dan Patrick is by Bob Daemmrich at the website of The Texas Tribune.)

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has wasted no time in trying to appease his xenophobic base. Patrick has called for keeping the Texas National Guard on the border with Mexico through the next biennium (which ends in August of 2017).

Those troops were sent to the border by Rick Perry, when it became national news that children from Central America were turning themselves in at the border to escape a terrible situation in the home countries. It didn't seem to matter to Perry that those children weren't trying to sneak in to this country, but were turning themselves in -- and that undocumented immigrants crossing the border is also at its lowest number in years (due mainly to our poor economy). Perry was playing a political game -- reacting to the unwarranted fears of his right-wing supporters.

And the facts don't seem to matter to Patrick either, who is playing the same political game. Patrick says he will work with the governor to get the $6 million dollars a month to extend the stay at the border for 1,000 guardsmen for another two months -- and then he will work with the legislature to find the money to extend the stay through the next biennium.

Where the money is going to come from? How much money is it? Well, he wants to extend the stay for another 29 months at a rate of $6 million dollars a month. My calculator tells me that's about $174 million. That may not sound like a lot when you consider the total Texas budget -- but remember, Texas recently slashed it's spending on all state programs to balance that budget -- including $5 billion cut from ecucation (and only a tiny portion of that was restored).

Texas gets most of its revenues from a sales tax and from oil&gas revenues. Thanks to the sharp drop in the price of oil, those revenues are dropping. And the sales tax is already at 6.25% (and most cities have tacked their own sales tax on to that -- raising it to 8.25%). And considering Texas has the most low-wage jobs in the nation (both in absolute numbers and percentage), I seriously doubt raising that tax would be politically viable.It would just take more money out of the budgets of Texans -- most of whom are already struggling.

The money would have to come from further cuts to other state agencies -- agencies whose budgets were already slashed to the bone by the last two legislatures. And it would not be done out of necessity, but so Patrick can appease his xenophobic base.

Keeping those troops on the border is a very bad idea -- an idea that Texas neither needs nor can afford.

Rick Perry To Spend Millions Playing Border Politics

Rick Perry is again showcasing his ignorance and naked political ambition. On Monday, he declared that he will be sending 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the border with Mexico. To excuse this action, he is seizing on recent reports of more than 50,000 children that have been captured trying to enter the United States on our Southern border.

This is a very bad idea for several reasons:

* We already have more patrol officers at the border than ever before -- about 5.4 Border Patrol officers for every mile of the border.

* Those officers are doing a very good job. After all, the children Perry is using as an excuse for his action did not get in the country. They were caught by the Border Patrol.

* The undocumented immigrant population is no longer growing (both because of the increased number of officers and because of the poor economy). There are currently as many (if not more) immigrants leaving the United States as there are entering it.

* Keeping 1,000 National Guardsmen at the border will cost the state of Texas about $12 million a month -- a silly expenditure after his own party has slashed state spending because they whine we don't have enough revenue to pay our bills (and want to cut more from the budget). That money could be put to a much better use by increasing the education budget (which is the lowest per capita of any state in the nation).

* The National Guard is trained to fight a war (and proved in Iraq and Afghanistan that they can do that well). They are not trained as border patrol officers (not should they be). Putting them on the border to do a job they have not been trained to do is just asking for trouble.

It would not surprise me if this crazy decision by Perry resulted in tragedy -- with innocent people, who just want to escape violence or provide for their families, being killed. And when that happens, I won't blame the National Guard. I'll blame Rick Perry -- because this action is nothing more than political. He wants to run for president in 2016 -- and to do that he needs to keep his name before the national public, and keep the anti-immigrant teabaggers happy (because they'll be the ones to pick the 2016 GOP nominee).

(The caricature of Rick Perry above is by DonkeyHotey.)

A Bad Solution To Discrimination By The Texas National Guard

It was learned recently that the Texas National Guard has been discriminating against same-sex married couples. The Department of Defense recently stopped their discrimination, and ordered all married couples to receive the same federal benefits (regardless of whether they were same-sex or opposite-sex couples). That should have settled things since the benefits received by these couples, whether in the regular military services or the National Guard, are federal benefits -- not state benefits.

But Texas decided to continue its discrimination anyway, once again flouting federal rules and regulations. With encouragement from Republican state leaders, Major General John Nichols (commander of all Texas Military Forces, including the National Guard) instructed Texas National Guard installations to refuse to sign same-sex married couples up for the benefits available to all members of the National Guard (access to commissary, housing allowances, medical care, etc.). He ruled that opposite-sex couples could register for the benefits at state facilities, but same-sex couples would have to travel to a federal facility (like Fort Hood) to register. He claimed that state law prevented this registration.

That a load of crap though. While Texas law prevents same-sex couples from being married in the state, it does not prevent them from registering for federal benefits -- even at state facilities. This illegal discrimination was nothing more that state Republican leaders trying to please their teabagger base, and had nothing to do with the law.

The Department of Defense has come up with a solution to the discrimination now. Instead of forcing Texas to abide by national regulations for the disbursement of federal benefits, they just decided to require all National Guard members (even those opposite-sex married couples) to sign up with a federal official. For their part, Texas National Guard officials say they will not deny the benefits to anyone registered for them by the federal government officials -- which is not much, since Texas couldn't deny federal benefits if it wanted to.

This sounds like a poor solution to me, and Stephen Peters of the American Military Partner Association agrees. He said:

"The personnel, funding and systems being used previously to process these enrollments were already federally funded. Requiring everyone, both gay and straight couples, to travel potentially far distances away from their home units to enroll for benefits at a facility on federal property sounds more like they are making it worse for all, rather than simply complying with federal directives."

This whole thing is ridiculous. Refusing to register anyone just to continue discriminating against same-sex couples is just mean-spirited and stupid, but that's how Texas Republicans are. Mean and stupid are among their primary values.

Deny Defense Department Funds To Texas

The state of Texas has a recent history of shooting itself in the foot so they can play politics -- by refusing to abide by federal guidelines. They refused to accept the new education standards, and lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education funds. They banned Planned Parenthood from receiving government funding, and lost 90% of the funding for women's clinics (resulting in the closing of dozens of clinics that provided the only medical care many poor women could get). And they passed up many billions of federal dollars by refusing to expand Medicaid (even though the state has the highest percentage of uninsured citizens).

None of this has resulted in any tax savings for the state's citizens. They pay just as much in taxes as they would if the state got those billions of dollars it has lost -- they just don't get the benefit of those federal dollars. But for the Republicans running the state, scoring political points with their teabagger base is more important than providing needed services for citizens.

Now the state is doing it again -- snubbing the federal government by refusing to follow the rules. This time it is Defense Department guidelines they are refusing to follow. When the Supreme Court overturned the DOMA, ruling it an unconstitutional denial of equal rights for those in same-sex marriages, the Defense Department announced they would now provide the same benefits to all married couples -- whether in a same-sex or opposite-sex marriage (as long as the couples had a valid marriage license).

But Texas officials have decided they will not comply with the new guidelines for members of the Texas National Guard (even though they get most of their funding from the Defense Department, and are supposed to comply with Defense Department rules and regulations). Major General John F. Nichols (pictured above), the Adjutant General of all Texas military forces (including the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard) says the Texas National Guard will refuse to register same-sex couples for military benefits -- because state law forbids the marriage of same-sex couples. And he has the backing of Texas Governor Rick Perry.

This is ridiculous. No one is asking the state of Texas to allow same-sex marriages to be conducted in the state (although it is something they should be doing). They are simply asking the state to comply with Defense Department guidelines for couples who have been legally married -- and the state doesn't have the authority to "un-marry" those who have been legally married in other states (regardless of where they now live).

Making the matter even more ludicrous is the fact that other states with right-wing Republican governments (like Oklahoma, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, etc.) are complying with the new Defense Department guidelines -- and don't see it as an abrogation of their own state laws banning same-sex marriages.

It is time for the federal government to once again remind the state that accepting federal dollars means they must follow federal rules -- and no state, not even Texas, can ignore those rules (or the Constitution). If Texas continues to ignore the constitutional guidelines of the Defense Department by discriminating against some soldiers in the Texas National Guard, then I believe the federal dollars going to that organization should be withheld until they agree to comply with the new guidelines. Defense Department funds (or any other federal dollars) should not be sent to an organization that won't follow the rules.

If Texas wants to discriminate against its own soldiers, it should not be able to do so with U.S. government dollars. Let the Republican government in Austin pay for their own bigotry.

8 More Guard Units Called For Iraq Deployment

We get more bad news on the Iraq war. The Pentagon is planning to call up eight more National Guard units. These units will be sent to Iraq next summer. This is just another sign that Bush is not planning to withdraw our troops from Iraq anytime soon.

There have already been 185,000 soldiers of the National Guard that have served in Iraq -- with over 28,000 doing more than one tour of duty there. They have not yet named the specific units that will be called this time, but it is known to include units from North Carolina, Oklahoma, Hawaii and Illinois.

There have already been 3,829 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war (not counting those who died after being evacuated with serious injuries).

When are we going to stop this madness? Why must we send more of our finest to die in Bush's pointless occupation of Iraq?

Where are you Democrats? You were elected to put an end to this. Do it now! Stop letting Bush push you around. Defund this unwinnable war and force Bush to bring our troops home. You may not have the numbers to force a "timetable", but you do have the numbers to refuse to give Bush any more money to wage war with.

Show some political courage. Stop the war now.