WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Oversight Committee passed Congresswoman Jen Kiggans’ (VA-02) Securing the Chain of Command Continuity Act by a unanimous, bipartisan vote of 41-0. Kiggans introduced the bipartisan legislation with Congressman Don Davis (NC-01) on January 11, 2024, following reports that essential members of the U.S. government, including the President, were left in the dark over Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s recent absence due to health challenges.
At a time when our nation is facing countless global threats, this bipartisan legislation ensures a continuous chain of command among members of the National Security Council (NSC) to preserve America’s nation defense superiority. The legislation now awaits to be scheduled for a vote on the House Floor.
“We live in an increasingly dangerous world,” said Congresswoman Kiggans. “To ensure America remains capable of combating threats wherever and whenever they occur, we not only need an unparalleled military force, but also a strong military leadership that cannot be compromised. I was pleased to see the House Oversight Committee recognize that need today by unanimously passing the Securing the Chain of Command Continuity Act. I look forward to seeing this critical legislation on the House floor for a vote as soon as possible in order to protect the integrity of our national security.”
“The House Oversight Committee’s favorable report of the Securing Chain of Command Continuity Act is a vital step forward to protecting our national security,” said Congressman Don Davis. “Requiring a 24-hour notice for the incapacitation of the National Security Council leaders is a minimum expectation. Congress must pass this to help safeguard the American people.”
Specifically, this legislation would amend the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to require all members of the NSC to provide notification to the Executive Office of the President, the Comptroller General of the United States, and to each chamber of Congress within 24 hours of any planned or emergency medical incapacitation. In the event this notification does not occur, the respective agency would be required to submit a comprehensive report providing transparency surrounding the incapacitation and related notification failure to the above entities within three days.
You can find the bill text here.
WBUR
“Defense Secretary Austin says he didn’t handle news of hospitalization ‘right'”
Tom Bowman
February 01, 2024
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, under fire from Capitol Hill for not disclosing to the White House his hospital stay for prostate cancer, told reporters Thursday, “We did not handle this right and I did not handle this right.”
“I should have told the President about my cancer diagnosis.”
“I should have also told my team and the American public, and I take full responsibility.”
Austin, in his first Pentagon press briefing in more than a year, appeared thin and walked with a slow gait as he approached the podium and said he was recovering and working with a physical therapist.
He said he was a private person and did not want to burden Biden with his diagnosis, saying he later apologized to President Biden and does not plan to resign.
“I’ve told him that I’m deeply sorry for not letting him know immediately that I received a heavy diagnosis and was getting treatment,” Austin, 70, said.
“And he responded with a grace and warm heart that anyone who knows President Biden would expect.”
Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early December.
He was hospitalized for the procedure on Dec. 22, and the next day he transferred his authority to his deputy, Kathleen Hicks.
But neither Biden nor Hicks was aware he was in the hospital, or that he returned on New Year’s Day with complications.
It was not until several days later that Biden learned he was in the hospital, and another week before the president was made aware of Austin’s cancer treatment.
But Austin did not answer a repeated question about whether any staff members knew of his hospitalization on Dec. 22 and if so, why didn’t they tell the White House.
His chief of staff, Kelly Magsamen, who would normally inform her White House counterpart, was sick with the flu at the time.
She was not seated among the staff at the Pentagon on Thursday, though she would normally be in attendance.
And another unnamed staff member told a radio dispatcher to send an ambulance to Austin’s home but to make sure the ambulance did not have its siren or lights on.
Austin said Thursday he did not direct his aide to say that.
Magsamen has ordered a 30-day review of the communications breakdown.
Another review is being carried out by the Pentagon’s Inspector General.
Some Democrats faulted Austin’s secrecy and Republicans have been particularly critical.
Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, wrote Austin a letter on Jan. 18, saying Austin promised transparency but failed to answer some of his questions.
“Specifically, I am alarmed you refused to answer whether you instructed your staff to not inform the President of the United States or anyone else of your hospitalization,” Rogers wrote.
“Unfortunately, this leads me to believe that information is being withheld from Congress.”
“Congress must understand what happened and who made decisions to prevent the disclosure of the whereabouts of a cabinet secretary.”
Rogers said he would call a hearing of the full committee on Feb. 14 because of Austin’s “unwillingness to provide candid and complete answers.”
Speaking as a sane, rational, and responsible American citizen who is a distinguished, twice-wounded military combat veteran with more years on the planet than congresswoman Kiggans, and apparently, far more knowledge of history, I would say that we live in an increasingly dangerous world at a time when our nation is facing countless global threats precisely because of gross incompetence, downright idiocy, sheer stupidity, short-sightedness, shallow-thinking and extreme arrogance on the part of the occupants of the white house coupled with the members of the senate and house of representatives, all of whom reside in the Ten Miles Square of Washington, D.C. which was accurately described in the Cato IV political essay by Cato on November 8, 1787 as the place of residence for the president and the great officers of state, a president possessing the powers of a monarch, a place where one finds ambition with idleness, baseness with pride, the thirst of riches without labour (think Nancy Pelosi), aversion to truth, flattery, perfidy, and above all, the perpetual ridicule of virtue.
And the good congresswoman is surely attempting to gaslight us with her statement that her bipartisan legislation ensures that a National Security Council (NSC) consisting of the senile Joe Biden, who is now talking to dead people and can’t remember who Hamas is, along with Karmela Harris with her meaningless word salads, Tony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, Jennifer Granholm, Merrick “THE GUTLESS” Garland, Alejandro Mayorkas, John “JACKIE BOY” Kerry, and John Podesta is some way preserves America’s national defense superiority.
We live in an increasingly dangerous world in large part because of the incompetence of those in the Ten Miles Square who try to rule the world, as if Washington, DC were the new Rome, which city also tried and failed to rule the world, and her bipartisan legislation, which leaves intact Joe Biden’s incompetent NSC will do absolutely nothing to ensure America remains capable of combating threats wherever and whenever they occur, as we can see by going back to a Huffington Post article titled “How to Lose to the Islamic State: Obama Administration Considers Deploying Troops to Iraq, Focusing on Assad in Syria” by Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, the Cato Institute on November 30, 2014, where we have the roots of the conflicts in the Middle East America is facing today with Joe Biden and Tony Blinken and the idiot Jake Sullivan in charge of thing, given the role they played back then in creating the mess in the first place, to wit:
In 2009 President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize before doing much of anything.
Since then he has initiated two wars, first in Libya and now in Iraq and Syria, and escalated another, in Afghanistan.
Alas, he has demonstrated that it is bad to start wars unnecessarily, but even worse to wage wars foolishly.
end quotes
And congresswoman Kiggans wonders why the world is an increasingly dangerous place!
Go figure, which takes us back to that article, keeping in mind that Joe Biden and Tony Blinken are also involved in that “administration,” to wit:
The administration appears to have lost its collective mind.
The president has added ground forces to the battle in Iraq and the military has suggested introducing thousands more.
His officials reportedly have decided to focus on overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the name of fighting the Islamic State.
It is hard to know which of these ideas is worse.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel may not have wanted to leave the Pentagon, but he might be lucky having been left at the curb.
The U.S. has been back at war in the Middle East for nearly three months.
The results have not been pretty.
The administration claims to have created a vast coalition of 60 nations, roughly 30 percent of the world’s countries.
Alas, as in the past the celebrated gaggle assembled by Washington turned out to be mostly a PR stunt.
The U.S. accounts for about 770 of the roughly 900 strikes on Iraq and Syria.
The Arab states have done little in the air and nothing afoot.
Only Iran, which Washington fears almost as much as ISIL, has put boots on the ground.
Most flagrantly AWOL is Turkey, which has tolerated radical fighters transiting through and even operating on its territory.
Many of the Islamic State’s combatants came from Turkey and ISIL has targeted Turkish territory for its caliphate.
Yet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan only cares about the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, once a close friend.
And Erdogan expects the U.S. do the job for him.
Nor has the administration’s scattershot bombing campaign had much effect.
Iraq’s Baghdad has not fallen.
That was never likely, however.
Kurdistan’s Irbil remains in danger.
Syria’s Kobani is unconquered but in ruins, and thousands of its residents have fled.
The Islamic State quickly adjusted its tactics to minimize the vulnerability of its forces.
By one count U.S. strikes have killed 464 Islamic State personnel and 57 fighters for Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate.
However, Washington’s intervention helped treble the estimated number of ISIL fighters to as many as 30,000 just a couple weeks into Obama’s war.
Moderate Syrian rebels, most notably the Harakat al-Hazm and Syrian Revolutionary Front, favored by the administration have been routed in that country’s north.
Many fighters defected or fled while abandoning their heavy weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles and BM-21 Grad rockets, provided by Washington.
Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken essentially admitted failure: “Unfortunately, every day there is going to be in some part of Iraq or some part of Syria, a community that is under siege, under attack, and is looking for help.”
“We can’t be every place, every time.”
end quotes
Yes, people, Tony admitted FAILURE, so what do our rocket scientists in Washington do about it?
THEY PROMOTE HIM TO SECRETARY OF STATE!
Going back to that history of stupidity and idiocy coming to us from Washington, DC, we have more as follows:
The Free Syrian Army, the biggest Western-oriented insurgent group, also is losing fighters, perhaps 3000 in the last few months, largely to al-Nusra.
This raises questions about how “moderate” the group actually is.
In fact, some of Assad’s opponents now are criticizing the U.S.
Former U.S. ambassador Robert Ford explained: “they are burning American flags because they think we are helping the regime instead of helping them.”
Residents of Raqaa, the ISIL stronghold bombed by American forces, blame Washington for higher food and fuel prices, as well as electricity outages.
Iraq’s Shiite majority has formed a new government — handing the Interior Ministry to a hardline Shia faction responsible for past atrocities against Sunni civilians.
Reconciliation remains a distant hope.
The army has made progress, though as much if not more by bringing in reliable troops from the south and leaning on Iranian assistance as by relying on the U.S.
President Obama hasn’t even sold his policy to his own aides.
One unnamed administration official told CNN: “It has been pretty clear for some time that supporting the moderate opposition in the hopes of toppling Assad, isn’t going to work.”
Some four months ago the administration announced that it planned to vet and train “moderate” insurgents; as yet not a single Syrian has been approved.
Once begun, that process will take three to five months, followed by eight to nine months of training.
Thus, it will be at least another year before the first U.S.-backed fighter emerges to do battle.
Moreover, reports recently emerged that the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, long at odds, agreed to stop battling each other.
The pact appears to have grown out of a series of informal local ceasefires begun in October and envisions the two radical groups fighting together.
The administration’s plan for the “moderates” to defeat this strengthened radical axis and the Syrian government looks ever more fantastic.
Through everything the Islamic State is unbowed, accepting recruits, raising funds, slaughtering opponents, and launching attacks.
The administration appears to have created its own variant of the infamous quagmire: continuing, desultory warfare with little effect other than to suck America deeper into sectarian strife.
At the same time Washington is relieving Arab nations of the need to act in their own defense and making ever more enemies by intervening yet again in someone else’s quarrel.
The Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi responded to the U.S. campaign with a call to “erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere.”
So the administration apparently is rethinking its policy.
And preparing to make everything worse.
The president already has doubled U.S. boots on the ground, sending in another 1500 advisers to Iraq.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in September that as many as 15,000 U.S. troops might be needed for “a ground component to the campaign” to retake Iraqi and Syrian territory seized by ISIL.
Last week he said that the administration was considering sending American personnel to cooperate with Iraqi troops in the battle for Mosul and to guard that nation’s border.
As yet he didn’t “foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent.”
However, if, as is likely, the administration’s latest escalation has little effect, the administration will be under greater pressure with fewer options.
Already this is as much America’s as Iraq’s war, even though the Islamic State did not threaten the U.S.
And Baghdad holds the key to defeating ISIL: either reconcile with or free Iraq’s Sunnis.
The majority Shia must give the Sunni tribes and former Baathists who don’t want to live in the 7th century — the great majority of the population of Mosul and elsewhere in Anbar Province — an incentive to confront the Islamic State.
(Either federalism or independence would work.)
But Baghdad has little incentive to do so if it believes the U.S. will do the fighting instead.
Equally foolish, administration officials reportedly want to shift their focus to wrecking the most competent military force opposing ISIL: the Syrian army.
While escalating the conflict Obama officials have declared the Iraq-first approach to be “untenable.”
True, but not because America is not doing more.
Baghdad holds the key in Iraq, while policy in Syria is internally inconsistent.
Alistair Baskey, spokesman for the National Security Council, explained: “Alongside our efforts to isolate and sanction the Assad regime, we are working with our allies to strengthen the moderate opposition.”
The first is the strongest opponent of the Islamic State, while the latter spends most of its time attacking the first.
The president should not expect this policy to defeat anyone.
Yet the administration apparently is moving toward a Syria first strategy, based on the ouster of President Assad.
Proposed steps include accelerating aid to the “moderates” and establishing a no-fly zone along the Turkey-Syria border.
Rep. Ed Royce (R-Ca.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he understood the proposal to be at least in part a response to pressure from Turkey and the Gulf States, which have funded radical forces in Syria against Assad and expect Washington to protect them from their folly.
On the record administration officials speak of a reappraisal as part of a constant review process.
Focusing on Damascus would be twice stupid.
First, it would mean essentially doubling down on the policy of supporting the weakest faction in Syria, whose members have been defecting to the radicals.
Second, it would entail targeting what today is the strongest force resisting the Islamic State.
A “moderate” victory against both jihadist and government forces is the least likely outcome.
Far more likely, U.S.-supplied insurgents would weaken the Assad regime, perhaps enough to contribute to an ISIL/al-Nusra victory.
Then the fun would really start, perhaps with mass beheadings in Damascus.
One reason Americans elected President Obama was their belief that he had learned from the Bush administration’s foolish misadventure in Iraq.
That hope faded when the president launched his own war against Libya’s Moammar Qaddafy, which also had disastrous consequences.
Now it appears that Sen. Obama’s famous speech denouncing the Iraq invasion reflected partisanship rather than prescience.
Barack Obama no less than George W. Bush believes in trying to bring peace to the Mideast through war.
The Islamic State is evil, but until now it was not interested in terrorizing Americans.
Rather, ISIL’s raison d’etre was establishing a Middle Eastern caliphate, or quasi-state, from the territory of several Middle Eastern countries which have large armies and para-militaries, and competent air forces.
The administration used the tragic but limited plight of the Yazidi people as an excuse to micro-manage an entire conflict-filled region.
As a result, the Obama policy could end up sacrificing the lives, wealth, and security of Americans for years to come.
Like a second marriage, Washington’s latest Middle Eastern excursion represents the triumph of hope over experience.
It is hard to point to a military intervention in the broader region which has worked well: Lebanon in 1983, Iraq almost continuously since 1990, Somalia in 1992, Afghanistan for more than 13 years starting in 2001, Libya in 2011.
Other forms of meddling have been scarcely more successful: drone warfare in Pakistan and Yemen, decades of financial, military, and diplomatic backing for Egypt, destruction of Iranian democracy in 1953, dismissal of Saudi-backed suppression of Bahrain’s Shia majority by its Sunni monarchy, and tepid support for Syria’s insurgents.
Virtually every U.S. action has resulted in a worse reaction, including by al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State — the latter but one of many ill consequences of the Iraq invasion.
Despite this extraordinary record, the administration would have us believe that it can simultaneously destroy ISIL, rid Iraq of sectarianism, replace Bashar al-Assad with a Syrian Thomas Jefferson, contain Iranian influence, and convince a gaggle of hostile Middle Eastern states to work together to further America’s ends.
The administration admits that it’s been tough going so far, but all we need to do now apparently is put more ground forces into Iraq and better target Assad.
President Obama told Americans in explaining his policy toward the Islamic State: “Keep in mind that this is something that we know how to do.”
Very badly.
It’s time he and others in Washington learned from past mistakes, which are almost too many to be numbered.
The first may be the most serious: the belief that the U.S. can transcend religion, history, ethnicity, tradition, politics, and geography and “fix” the Middle East.
America can’t.
It’s time to give up trying to do so.
end quotes
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES, people!
And Washington, DC, the home of world stupidity, in its overweening arrogance, is incapable of learning that lesson, to our detriment, as it can’t even defend our own borders.
As a Viet Nam combat veteran, I still recall GOOD AMERICANS, GOOD PEOPLE, who were turned into the “RED MIST” in Viet Nam, which is what happens when a soldier steps on or sets off a powerful mine, or who were burned to death in falling helicopters, or were simply shot and killed, or who came back here so grief-stricken that they ended up taking their own lives, ALL FOR LIES given to us by WAR HAWKS and JINGOS in WASHINGTTON, D.C. like congresswoman Kiggans who have it in their arro9gant heads that like Rome before her, America rules the world, when it can’t even govern itself, and while congresswoman Kiggans bleats and howls and moans about how dangerous the world has become, as if it weren’t dangerous two months, it is this country that she is responsible for that has become MORE DANGEROUS, thanks to Joe Biden and his NSC which is incompetent and stupid and undependable.
And while the world burns and America becomes more dangerous by the day, what is the head of the NSC doing?
Posting creepy photos of himself on X, formerly TWITTER, with laser beamjs shooting out of his head as if he were in fact a space alien of some kind, which from the picture he posted, he may well be:
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1756888470599967000
And here, let me go back in time for the benefit of congresswoman Kiggans, who should be one of the first ones in if we go to war, to an essay by another student of history like myself, he being West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, to wit:
Robert Byrd: ‘I weep for my country’, Speech against Iraq invasion – 2003
19 March 2003, US Senate, Washington DC, USA
I believe in this beautiful country.
I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution.
I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers.
Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic.
I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.
But, today I weep for my country.
I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart.
No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper.
The image of America has changed.
Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination.
Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves.
We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many.
We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism.
We assert that right without the sanction of any international body.
As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance.
We treat U.N. Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet.
Valuable alliances are split.
After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq.
We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.
The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence.
We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason.
This is a war of choice.
There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, al-Qaida, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board.
The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures.
That is what we fight.
It is a force not confined to borders.
It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.
But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack.
And villain he is.
But, he is the wrong villain.
And this is the wrong war.
If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power.
But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight.
The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to “orange alert.”
There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered.
How long will we be in Iraq?
What will be the cost?
What is the ultimate mission?
How great is the danger at home?
A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber.
We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.
What is happening to this country?
When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends?
When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might?
How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?
War appears inevitable.
But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift.
Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run.
Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail.
I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland.
May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.
Source: http://www.salon.com/2008/03/19/byrd/