The biggest story of this past week isn’t that the House passed the military spending bill — or even that they passed it with language that beats back President Biden’s woke policies.
The biggest story is the one that won’t be told: of House conservatives refusing to give an inch.
Former Congressman Jody Hice, now a special advisor to the president at Family Research Council, was blown away by the sea change in how this new Republican majority is doing business.
For the last couple of years, Hice watched his party buckle under Democratic pressure, especially where military policy is concerned.
“Progressively,” he told The Washington Stand, “the NDAA bills were becoming more and more woke. And we, as a Republican conference, were compromising to the demands on the Left. To see what took place Thursday night, I was just blown away. This is a major shift — not only from the woke agenda push from this administration — but this is a major shift from the direction of our own conference over the last several years, as it pertains to the NDAA.”
Late Thursday night, Republicans finally went to sleep after accomplishing what seemed impossible only hours before: adding a slew of pro-life, pro-military, anti-gender transition amendments to the bill.
Democrats and the media spent the wee hours of the morning blasting the conservative changes, vowing it would never pass with such “poison pills.”
They were wrong.
Barely nine hours later, the entire NDAA — anti-woke language included — had squeaked by in a 219-210 vote, thanks to an even swap of Republicans and Democrats (four) trading sides.
Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), and Don Davis (D-N.C.) all threw their support behind the GOP-led bill.
Of course, the most jubilant celebration came Thursday afternoon when Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) managed to include language rolling back the Pentagon’s taxpayer funding of abortion — an absolute defiance of the law.
In one of the most powerful moments of that debate, mom-to-be Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) stood on the House floor and made it clear:
“I am a United States veteran and a woman elected to Congress while pregnant. Advocating for a service member to have a child ripped from her womb completely destroys everything this military stands for.” . . . .
. . . . Along with crushing the Biden abortion policy, Republicans also held the line on the avalanche of diversity training and wildly inappropriate mission creep like taxpayer-funded gender transitions. Amendments to:
- Outlaw the flying of Pride flags on military property (Norman Amendment #34) passed 218-213;
- End the indoctrination of children in Defense Department schools by banning pornographic and dangerous gender ideology books (Boebert Amendment #35) passed 222-209;
- Ban taxpayer-funding of gender transition procedures (Rosendale Amendment #10) passed 222-211;
- Strip the funding for Chief Diversity Officers or Senior Advisors for Diversity and Inclusion from the ranks (Roy Amendment #30) passed 217-212; and
- Outright block the DOD from creating new DEI administrator positions or taking action to fill existing DEI jobs (Burlison Amendment #62) passed 218-213.
One lone Democrat — Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) — voted with conservatives to stop the president’s out-of-control extremism on abortion and transgenderism.
And while he refused to comment about the decision, he probably heard from the same constituents that his neighbor Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) did:
“The American people I’ve talked to back home don’t want a weak military; they don’t want a woke military; they don’t want rainbow propaganda on bases; they don’t want to pay for troops’ sex changes.” . . . (read more on The Washington Stand)
5 Lies about the NDAA (and Why Senate Republicans Shouldn’t Fall for Them) (The Washington Stand, 17 JUL 23)
This isn’t your grandma’s Republican Party. If anyone doubted it, the latest debate over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) should have made it abundantly clear: the new House majority is no pushover.
After years of letting Democrats pound them into submission where military policy is concerned, the Left is coming to grips with an unfortunate reality.
Without squishy Republicans to do their bidding, they have to find another way to keep good bills down. In this case, they’ve chosen a reliable friend — deception.
Last week, House conservatives fought their hearts out to crush the wokeness that’s infiltrated the military under this president.
Despite the dire predictions that Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) party would never pass a version with such strong limits on abortion, gender ideology, LGBT Pride, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Republicans stuck together and did exactly that.
Now, desperate to save the gains they’ve made for extremism in our troops, the Left’s misinformation machine is in its highest gear, cranking out lie after lie about the NDAA the House passed.
Here are some that Senate Republicans will have to confront if they want to see the radicalism of the military reversed. . . . (read more)
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