The Obama-Care bill that is about to become law of the land includes the establishment of the Ready Reserve Corps. What is that you ask, well I'm not sure. I do know we already have a Ready Reserve Force that that was created in 1976 as a subset of the Maritime Administration's National Defense Reserve (NDRF). This force supports rapid world wide deployment of the US military and was called upon to provide humanitarian relief after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Rita in 2006.
The bill is rather vague about the mission of the new Ready Reserve Corps (CORPSE in Obama speak) and I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, I will let you be the judge. President Obama did call for some sort of Citizen National Security Force during the campaign and I don't know if this is the spawn of that or not. What I do know is this, the Ready Reserve Corps needs to be explained to the American public as well as their mission. I'm not going to throw out some sort of conspiracy theory and accuse Obama of creating his own little jack booted Interior force, but without some sort of explanation he runs that risk.
Here is the text in the bill that creates the Ready Reserve Corps-
SEC. 430. ESTABLISHING A READY RESERVE CORPS. Section 203 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 204) is amended to read as follows: SEC. 203. COMMISSIONED CORPS AND READY RESERVE CORPS. (a) ESTABLISHMENT.— (1) IN GENERAL.—There shall be in the Service a commissioned Regular Corps and a Ready Reserve Corps for service in time of national emergency. (2) REQUIREMENT.—All commissioned officers shall be citizens of the United States and shall be appointed without regard to the civil-service laws and compensated without regard to the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. (3) APPOINTMENT.—Commissioned officers of the Ready Reserve Corps shall be appointed by the President and commissioned officers of the Regular Corps shall be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. (4) ACTIVE DUTY.—Commissioned officers of the Ready Reserve Corps shall at all times be subject to call to active duty by the Surgeon General, including active duty for the purpose of training. (5) WARRANT OFFICERS.—Warrant officers may be appointed to the Service for the purpose of providing support to the health and delivery systems maintained by the Service and any warrant officer appointed to the Service shall be considered for purposes of this Act and title 37, United States Code, to be a commissioned officer within the Commissioned Corps of the Service. (b) ASSIMILATING RESERVE CORP OFFICERS INTO THE REGULAR CORPS.—Effective on the date of enactment of the Affordable Health Choices Act, all individuals classified as officers in the Reserve Corps under this section (as such section existed on the day before the date of enactment of such Act) and serving on active duty shall be deemed to be commissioned officers of the Regular Corps. (c) PURPOSE AND USE OF READY RESERVE.— (1) PURPOSE.—The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is to fulfill the need to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the uniformed service’s reserve program) to assist regular Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions. (2) USES.—The Ready Reserve Corps shall— (A) participate in routine training to meet the general and specific needs of the Commissioned Corps; (B) be available and ready for involuntary calls to active duty during national emergencies and public health crises, similar to the uniformed service reserve personnel; (C) be available for backfilling critical positions left vacant during deployment of active duty Commissioned Corps members, as well as for deployment to respond to public health emergencies, both foreign and domestic; and (D) be available for service assignment in isolated, hardship, and medically underserved communities (as defined in section 399SS) to improve access to health services. (d) FUNDING.—For the purpose of carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the Commissioned Corps under this section, there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to the Office of the Surgeon General for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014. Funds appropriated under this subsection shall be used for recruitment and training of Commissioned Corps Officers.
I wrote Congressman Neugebauer and asked if he knew anything about this clause or if he knew what the mission of this new force would be, but I haven't had a response as of yet. I would encourage you to contact your Representatives as well so we can get some answers that will help us understand the need of the Ready Reserve Corps.
Friday, March 26, 2010
THE READY RESERVE CORPS-Is this Obama's new citizen army?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Obama fails Israel
I and many other bloggers warned before the election of Barack Hussein Obama that he would not be a friend of Israel. Obama's first year in office saw him placing unreasonable demands on Israel and public lashings when they did not concur. I cannot remember an American Administration placing such demands on Israel, much less in the public forum, during such troubling times in the Middle East. A recent poll shows that only 6% of Israelis think Obama is pro-Israel and 50% say he is pro Palestinian. Israels own Ambassador is calling the recent dust up the worst in 35 years.
I will admit that the announcement of the building of new housing in Jerusalem during Vice President Biden's visit was ill timed, but to call out Israel and to cancel high level visits is just unprecedented. The Palestinians are on the verge of a third Intifada and the image of conflict in American-Israeli relations only encourages such action. Hamas has called for an Intifada against Israel and will use this ruse to unite Palestinian voters in Gaza and the West Bank to support Hamas versus Fatah in upcoming elections.
Israel is under a continued threat from the North with Iranian-Syrian backed Hezbollah, Iranian backed Hamas in Gaza and from Iran itself and their quest for nuclear arms to annihilate the Jewish state. President Obama may not agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu, but Obama needs to understand that the terrorist elements are taking this cue as a weakness in our relationship with Israel and will try to exploit it.
The election of President Obama and his inexperience in foreign policy just shows what can go wrong when you let emotion rather than substance guide your vote. Israel is our only true friend in the Middle East and to treat them as our enemy is just a huge mistake and one we will pay for in the near future. The animosity that this Administration shows towards Israel needs to be reined in and more support should be offered. Israel does our bidding in the turbulent Middle East and we need to show our support, whether it be militarily or financial , but encouragement nonetheless.
UPDATE LINK: This just goes to show the disdain that this White House for Likud. LINK