Texas Army National Guard, the Commander in Chief, Money, and Lack of Purpose or Limits

From concern about little children to militarizing the Army within the boundaries of a sovereign nation. 

After the War Between the States, the US Congress agreed to demilitarize the former Confederate states with the intention that the military would never be activated again. Exceptions have been made by the Federal Commander in Chief (the US President) if a governor fails to protect constitutional rights, as did Eisenhower when he sent National Guard troops to Little Rock to protect citizens from violence by other citizens.

The essence of posse comitatus is to demilitarize the nation, to protect the citizens from an over-reaching sovereign, as explained in the original law of 1878:

Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress ; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section and any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Yet the Neocons -- those protectors of small government and prophets of the FedGov's conspiracy to activate the military to control the states -- can up-end the argument when it suits their needs, especially against Ebola/tuberculosis-carrying-brown children. As long as they're not our children. Our white children. Our Christian [sic] children. Our Standard American English-speaking children. 

The Press Conference

Best line of the conference:

"I cannot stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor," the governor said. "We are too good a country for that."

OK. So why send 1,000 National Guard to the border, then? If we're so good a country, why don't we send 1,000 teachers to the under-educated children in Brownsville? or Houston, for that matter? Why not send 1,000 nurse practitioners to the border? Because our citizens are "under assault." Hmmm. Where? Oh yeah, in Texas, where this month a gun-toting Standard American English speaking, non-Ebola/tubercolosis white guy slaughtered four small children, their parents, and shot a 15 year old girl in the head, who survived. Also in Texas, where others have been killed or injured by guns in the past week:

		City	Address	Killed	Injured
22-Jul-14	Texas	La Joya	9 1/2 Street and Leo Avenue	1	2
21-Jul-14	Texas	Beaumont	2400 Liberty Ave.	0	1
21-Jul-14	Texas	Houston	Hilcroft and Windswept	1	0
21-Jul-14	Texas	Houston	9400 Clearwood St.	1	0
20-Jul-14	Texas	Arlington	2300 Silverbook Lane	1	0
20-Jul-14	Texas	Hale County	County Road V	0	2
20-Jul-14	Texas	San Antonio	3700 East Commerce	1	0
18-Jul-14	Texas	Carthage	1086 Highway 59 South	0	1
16-Jul-14	Texas	Edinburg	2820 E. University Avenue	1	0

 (source: Gun Violence Archive)

Or, we could attend to a myriad of "Texas Ranks in the Bottom" issues such as

Average Salary of Public School Teachers	31st
Average Teacher Salary as a Percentage of National Average	31st
Current Expenditures per Student based on Average Daily Attendance	42nd
Percentage of Elementary/Secondary School Funding from State Revenue	35th
Average Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) Scores	47th
High School Graduation Rate	44th
Percentage of Adults with at Least a Bachelor’s Degree	30th
Per Capita State Spending on State Arts Agencies	48th
Pupil-Teacher Ratio in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools	26th
Percentage of Population Graduated from High School	50th

(Source: Texas Legislative Support Group, 2013 "Texas on the Brink")

With the $12 million/month Governor Smart Glasses expects to spend, let's say for 12 months, we could pay for:

1. 2,880 new public school teachers in our overcrowded, underfunded schools
2. Provide 1,920,000 hours of private tutoring from certified teachers to struggling public school students
3. Pay a full year tuition for 48,000 community college students
4. Buy books for 70,796 community college students
5. Provide 3,592 full-time mental health counselors to community colleges
6. And ... yeah ...

But no, instead ...

Gov. Perry Deploys Texas National Guard Troops to Border

Monday, July 21, 2014  •  Austin, Texas  •  Press Release

Gov. Rick Perry today directed Texas Adjutant General John Nichols to immediately begin preparations for the deployment of up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border. These troops will support the Texas Department of Public Safety's (DPS) ongoing law enforcement surge, Operation Strong Safety, which is focused on combatting criminal activity in the region resulting from the federal government's failure to adequately secure the border. 

Since 2008, more than 203,000 criminal aliens have been booked into Texas county jails. Over the course of their criminal careers, these individuals have committed more than 640,000 crimes in the state of Texas alone, including more than 3,000 homicides and nearly 8,000 sexual assaults. 

"There can be no national security without border security, and Texans have paid too high a price for the federal government's failure to secure our border," Gov. Perry said. "The action I am ordering today will tackle this crisis head-on by multiplying our efforts to combat the cartel activity, human traffickers and individual criminals who threaten the safety of people across Texas and America." 

This deployment builds upon Operation Strong Safety by providing additional personnel that will work seamlessly and side by side with law enforcement officials. It also builds on the National Guard's existing border presence, which has been utilizing air assets to patrol the region looking for illegal activity.
Texas has already seen results from Operation Strong Safety - from week 1 to week 3 of operations, apprehensions of illegal immigrants have dropped by 36 percent, from more than 6,600 per week to 4,200 per week in the area of operation. 

Two weeks ago, Gov. Perry met with President Barack Obama to discuss the ongoing humanitarian and national security crises occurring along the Texas-Mexico border. At this meeting, the governor reiterated his request for the president to activate 1,000 Title 32 National Guard troops to temporarily support border security operations until 3,000 additional Border Patrol personnel can be trained and deployed. Unlike the governor's activation which will be paid for by Texas taxpayer dollars, a Title 32 activation would have provided additional, federally funded personnel to be used at the state's discretion.

Regarding those crime statistics:

The claim is that these "aliens" have committed 640,000 crimes, 3000 murders, and 8,000 sexual assaults (note that the DPS only reports "rapes," not "sexual assaults." Also note that 2013 and 2014 data are not available, so I don't know where these numbers come from).

All murder is too high and any rape is evil. But "aliens" commit neither the majority of murders or rapes (or any other crime) in Texas.

The Governor as Commander in Chief over Armed Forces

4.3

Military and Police Powers

The Texas Constitution names the Governor the commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard when the state's units have not been placed under the command of the U.S. President. (Article II of the U.S. Constitution names the President commander-in-chief of the state national guards when they are mobilized for national service.) The Adjutant General, whom the Governor appoints, heads Texas Guard units. Though Texas Guard units can be dispatched to respond to situations such as civil unrest, they are more commonly used to aid in natural disasters or other forms of emergency relief in which local emergency services need additional resources.

Though most law enforcement and police investigation responsibilities rest in the hands of city and county governments, the Governor also has limited police powers. The Governor (with Senate approval) appoints the members of the Public Safety Commission, which directs the Department of Public Safety (DPS). The Governor can also assume command of the Texas Rangers (a division of the DPS) under some circumstances, although this is a rare event. <http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/1_4_3.html>

Letter from Texas Adjutant General, Major General John Nichols

http://www.txmf.us/Data/Sites/1/media/pdf/other/letter-from-tag/signed-tag-border-letter-to-troops.pdf

All I have to say about this is, I always hated this military rah-rah stuff. Generals can be such asses. "Texas Strong!" OK. 

Operating Budget of Texas Department of Public Safety

After calling my legislator's office once (nice woman; didn't know much), I learned that at least for now, the 1,000 National Guard will be paid from the DPS operating budget. Note that FY 2014 budget for "Border Security" is $17,750,136. Let's see ... at $12 million/month, that means that this operation will be over in about five weeks.

2014 Operating Budget

2014-15 Exceptional Items

Of course, Governor Good Hair will move some moneys around. He can do that. He will very likely move money from the Rainy Day Fund, which, as of 7 January 2013 had $8.1 billion. -- 8.1 BILLION dollars of Monopoly money he can play soldiers with until the 2016 election. He won't use it to better education in Texas, but you can bet he's excited about the chance to spend  8.1 BILLION dollars because "I cannot stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor," the governor said. "We are too good a country for that."

Day 1: National Guard Would Have Limited Powers

'Operation Strong Safety' details less dramatic than the rhetoric

A Mexican boy looks at a member of the U.S. Border Patrol standing guard on the border between El Paso in the United States and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico,

By Kevin DiazJuly 22, 2014 | Updated: July 23, 2014 12:36amJESUS ALCAZAR, Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON - The Texas National Guard troops headed for the Rio Grande Valley are expected to provide a high-profile backstop for border agents dealing with the surge of child immigrants that has captured the nation's attention.
But one thing they can't do is catch people crossing the border illegally.
Despite calls by Gov. Rick Perry and others for Guard troops with arrest powers to beef up the border, "Operation Strong Safety," which the governor announced Monday, does not grant the troops that authority.
Critics say the Guard's presence will do more to send a political message than send anyone home, but Perry's office says the troops will free federal agents to do their jobs better.
The details of the operation, which could involve as many as 1,000 troops, are much less dramatic than much of the political rhetoric leading up to the deployment would suggest.
Experts say that's because of the Posse Comitatus Act, a post-Civil War Reconstruction law that has historically limited the military's role in domestic law enforcement."If anybody thinks National Guard is going to be at the border with rifles they're wrong," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents the border region around Laredo. "I can't speak for Governor Perry, but the authority the National Guard has is provide support service. They can provide intel support. They can be lookouts. But can they go out there and apprehend? Absolutely, under the law, they cannot do that."

Day 3: Senator Cruz Proposes to Gut Posse Comitatus 

Cruz revives plan for Guard police power at border
By Kevin DiazJuly 24, 2014 | Updated: July 24, 2014 10:07pm

A U.S. Border Patrol agent assists an unaccompanied 13-year-old from El Salvador after he crossed the Rio Grande into the United States on Thursday near Mission, Texas.

WASHINGTON - Three days after Gov. Rick Perry announced the mobilization of Texas National Guard troops at the Mexican border, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz unveiled legislation Thursday that would give them the federal arrest powers needed to stop illegal immigrants.
Under current law, the Guard is only authorized to enforce state laws.
The proposal represents a turnaround for the Texas Republican, and is likely to be shot down by Democrats who control the Senate. His office rejected reports earlier this week that he planned to seek arrest authority for guardsmen, whose domestic police powers are restricted under U.S. laws and customs.

18 U.S. Code § 1385 - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Of course, Cruz writing the law meets the demands of the law -- if Congress says so, then the Army can act.

But consider this. After Sulla's rise to power in 89 BCE and his tyrannical rule of Rome, no legion was permitted to enter the city or even stationed in Italy. As tyrannical as Sulla was, he was no fool -- the military and the state must be separated, by decree and distance, or too easily a coup or enslavement will ensue. It was Augustus who reintroduced the militarization of Rome in 27 BCE and it was Augustus who became first emperor of Rome. We glorify Rome, its history, its expanse, its culture. But we too easily overlook the crass corruption of the emperor and the Senate when given such power. I'm not implying anything like Perry using the Guard to enslave Texans -- brown, black, or white. But this is his first call for the Guard to do anything more than disaster assistance -- limited time and purpose. Now he has soldiers. Now he has military power, whether Cruz's bill succeeds or not. Hurricanes are one thing. Being an active Commander in Chief of a small army without limits is another thing altogether. Sounds just like his former boss, George W Bush who likewise had an unlimited expense account, no limits, no boundaries, and no oversight.

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