Tuesday, December 6, 2011

S. 1867 and HR 1540


Last Action:
Dec 1, 2011: See also H.R. 1540.
Other Titles:
-- Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
Related:
See the Related Legislation page for other bills related to this one and a list of subject terms that have been applied to this bill. Sometimes the text of one bill or resolution is incorporated into another, and in those cases the original bill or resolution, as it would appear here, would seem to be abandoned.
Votes:
Dec 1, 2011: This bill passed in the Senate by roll call vote. The totals were 93 Ayes, 7 Nays. Vote Details.


Number:
Senate Vote #218 in 2011 [primary source: senate.gov]
Date:
Dec 1, 2011 8:02PM
Result:
Bill Passed
Bill:

Vote
[Sort]
State
[Sort]
Representative
Alabama
Yea
AL
Yea
AL
Alaska
Yea
AK
Yea
AK
Arizona
Yea
AZ
Yea
AZ
Arkansas
Yea
AR
Yea
AR
California
Yea
CA
Yea
CA
Colorado
Yea
CO
Yea
CO
Connecticut
Yea
CT
Yea
CT
Delaware
Yea
DE
Yea
DE
Florida
Yea
FL
Yea
FL
Georgia
Yea
GA
Yea
GA
Hawaii
Yea
HI
Yea
HI
Idaho
Yea
ID
Yea
ID
Illinois
Yea
IL
Yea
IL
Indiana
Yea
IN
Yea
IN
Iowa
Yea
IA
Nay
IA
Kansas
Yea
KS
Yea
KS
Kentucky
Yea
KY
Nay
KY
Louisiana
Yea
LA
Yea
LA
Maine
Yea
ME
Yea
ME
Maryland
Yea
MD
Yea
MD
Massachusetts
Yea
MA
Yea
MA
Michigan
Yea
MI
Yea
MI
Minnesota
Yea
MN
Yea
MN
Mississippi
Yea
MS
Yea
MS
Missouri
Yea
MO
Yea
MO
Montana
Yea
MT
Yea
MT
Nebraska
Yea
NE
Yea
NE
Nevada
Yea
NV
Yea
NV
New Hampshire
Yea
NH
Yea
NH
New Jersey
Yea
NJ
Yea
NJ
New Mexico
Yea
NM
Yea
NM
New York
Yea
NY
Yea
NY
North Carolina
Yea
NC
Yea
NC
North Dakota
Yea
ND
Yea
ND
Ohio
Yea
OH
Yea
OH
Oklahoma
Nay
OK
Yea
OK
Oregon
Nay
OR
Nay
OR
Pennsylvania
Yea
PA
Yea
PA
Rhode Island
Yea
RI
Yea
RI
South Carolina
Yea
SC
Yea
SC
South Dakota
Yea
SD
Yea
SD
Tennessee
Yea
TN
Yea
TN
Texas
Yea
TX
Yea
TX
Utah
Yea
UT
Nay
UT
Vermont
Yea
VT
Nay
VT
Virginia
Yea
VA
Yea
VA
Washington
Yea
WA
Yea
WA
West Virginia
Yea
WV
Yea
WV
Wisconsin
Yea
WI
Yea
WI
Wyoming
Yea
WY
Yea
WY

Congressional Research Service Summary

The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.
11/15/2011--Introduced.
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 - Authorizes appropriations for the Department of Defense (DOD) for FY2012. Authorizes appropriations to DOD for: (1) procurement, including aircraft, missiles, weapons and tracked combat vehicles, ammunition, shipbuilding and conversion, and other procurement; (2) research, development, test, and evaluation; (3) operation and maintenance; (4) active and reserve military personnel; (5) Working Capital Funds; (6) the National Defense Sealift Fund; (7) the Defense Health Program; (8) chemical agents and munitions destruction; (9) drug interdiction and counter-drug activities; (10) the Defense Inspector General; (11) the Armed Forces Retirement Home; (12) overseas contingency operations; (13) the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Security Investment Program; (14) Guard and reserve forces facilities; (15) base closure and realignment activities; and (16) the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Sets forth provisions or requirements concerning: (1) military personnel policy, including education and training, military justice, and sexual assault prevention and response; (2) military pay and allowances; (3) military health care; (4) acquisition policy and management, including major defense acquisition programs; (5) DOD organization and management, including space, intelligence, and cybersecurity matters; (6) financial matters, including counter-drug activities and detainee matters; (7) civilian personnel matters; (8) matters relating to foreign nations, including assistance and training; (9) cooperative threat reduction; and (10) matters relating to military construction and military family housing. Revises and adds new offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) relating to rape, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct. Provides procedures for the judicial review of decisions concerning the correction of military personnel records. Consolidates and revises DOD travel and transportation authorities. Establishes: (1) the Joint Urgent Operational Needs Fund, and (2) the Global Security Contingency Fund. Requires a DOD plan to acquire capabilities to detect previously unknown cyber attacks. Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 - Authorizes appropriations for FY2012 for military construction for the Armed Forces and defense agencies. Authorizes appropriations to the Department of Energy (DOE) for DOE national security programs. Authorizes the obligation and expenditure of amounts specified in funding tables for a DOD project, program, or activity authorized under this Act.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

IS HE RIGHT?


The dollar is inflating faster than you can possibly imagine which means you will be paying more for gasoline, food and everything very soon.
   This was sent to me and it is frightening to think of the ways things are
changing in our land.  We need to be in prayer for wisdom and guidance to
choose those who will lead this country.

What if he's right?

 I hope you find the time (about 4 - 5 mins.) to read this with an open
mind.  It's at the very least interesting and thought provoking.   Please
read it with the open mind rather than immediately breaking it down into
left or right, conservative or liberal, democrat or republican.   Rather,
look at it from the neutral viewpoint of right or wrong. It's like the line
above states, 'What if he is right'?

 David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a
broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball.
Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three
capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal
... He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in
history.  He then spent several years more at Harvard, earning a PhD in
history, which he obtained in 1976....He served in the Army Reserve from
1970 to 1976.

 He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United
States Naval War College.  He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon,
Williams College and Harvard University.  Kaiser's latest book, The Road to
Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard
University Press.


 Dr. David Kaiser

History Unfolding?

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on
history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied
history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally
large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a
mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely
single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a
sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I
know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it.
Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within
our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace
has dramatically quickened in the past two years.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make
massive loans to people they know will never be able to pay it back.   Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no
real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is
$2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom
or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is
three times the $700 billion of stimulous that we all argued about so
strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have
it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized
it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who only "loan" our
powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our
economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no
longer teach our founding documents,...Why we are exceptional,...Why we are
worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically,
read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing,
and school boards
continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election
(violently in California) over a proposition that is so controversial that
it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman.

Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?

We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges
to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream
Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana
republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall,
major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of
collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire
government.

Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know
precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length,
breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an
enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion,
who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have
the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about,
who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as
Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real
radicals in their chosen fields of 'employment', and everything we learn
about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary. Surely you
have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian
defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh,
of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then
demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe
are more important.

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change! Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never,
ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us
along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces
into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when
it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience
what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930's. In those
times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the
streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they
should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted,
shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way
onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read
it right now.

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing
jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot.

And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his
"brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did -
regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled
economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely
he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by
department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were
at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were
taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of
course,

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the
jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial
complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control,
health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill
pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did
it with a compliant media. (Did you know that)? And he did this all in the
name of justice and........ change! And the people surely got what they
voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history
books.

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and
were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston
Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930's while seated in the
House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into
his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the
world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country
in Europe .. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories,
and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than
just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens,
killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and
neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The
road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have
a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me
(even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is
shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am
wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is
transpiring around me.

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me,
others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps
I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them
exactly what I believe...and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in
the next elections.

David Kaiser
Jamestown , Rhode Island

What if he is right?  By passing this along, perhaps it will help to begin
the awakening of America as to where we may be heading.