AP Photo/Eric Gay
By Bob Hoge
In yet another power grab by the Biden Administration, the Defense Department in March asked Congress to override an existing law that requires governors to approve changes to National Guard units. The proposal would allow the Defense Department to have unilateral power to transfer units to the Space Force because perhaps they’re preparing for an alien invasion or something.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), long a thorn in the side of Biden on the illegal immigration issue because the president refuses to protect our borders while the Republican governor takes the border invasion seriously, is fighting back and pointed out in a letter to the White House that the move would shatter long-time precedent.
“Although the Texas Air National Guard does not have these types of missions, I strongly oppose any attempt to sideline governors when it comes to their respective National Guards,” Abbott wrote in his letter, dated May 3. “Congress has long required the consent of a governor before units can be transferred out of the National Guard he commands.”
Abbott argued that the proposal would set a dangerous precedent and was nothing more than a “power grab.”
“By departing from this sensible arrangement and allowing the Secretaries to dismantle National Guard units on a whim, Legislative Proposal 480 would set a dangerous precedent. Members of the Texas National Guard must always stand ready to respond to natural disasters, civil disturbances, and cartel activity that threaten our way of life,” Abbott continued.
The idea seems to be universally loathed by the nation’s governors of states, territories, and commonwealths, a majority of whom (including even leftist CA Gov. Gavin Newsom) signed a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on April 29 expressing their “strong opposition” to the change, saying that it “undermines over 100 years of precedent as well as national security and military readiness.” Notably missing—Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but now Abbott has responded and DeSantis did separately as well.
One can only speculate as to why Biden Inc. would try to reclassify National Guard units to the Space Force, but it seems more than coincidental that more than a dozen Republican governors have sent state National Guard soldiers to help cope with the disastrous Biden border since 2021. Hmm.
One way for Biden to stop that upstaging and embarrassment is to simply move those personnel into the Space Force and prevent them from helping at the border.
While the media and wild-eyed progressives continue to claim that Trump would be the next Hitler should he be reelected, it’s actually Biden—or whoever is controlling him—who has weaponized the Justice Department, defied the Supreme Court, and made heavy-handed moves like this one that reek of an effort to give the federal government more and more power at the expense of the states and their citizens.
If there’s a wannabe tyrant in this race for the presidency, it’s clearly Joe Biden.