Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committees, called the bill “the most significant piece of defense reform legislation passed by the Senate in 30 years, containing major reforms to the Department of Defense that can help our military to rise to the challenge of a more unsafe world”.
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The White House has already issued statements objecting to the House and Senate bills’ inclusion of the defense language related to Executive Order 13,673.
I think I can speak for a good portion of American women when I say many of us were simply not cut out for the military.
The White House has called the limits “arbitrary” and said curbing number of staff number undercuts its ability to assist the president “in an increasingly complicated world”, according to the veto message.
Procedural squabbles effectively limited debate on almost all amendments, which prevented debate on an amendment stripping language that would compel women to register for a potential military draft – a historic first for the US.
Senator John McCain, R-Ariz. and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has expressed his frustration over how the Senate operations has been put at an impasse, saying he would support changes to the Senate’s rules so that “one individual out of 100 can’t bring everything to a screeching halt”.
The U.S. Senate has passed U.S. Senator John McCain’s National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017 foreseeing, among other things, up to 0 million in security assistance to Ukraine.
The House bill dips into a war funding account to provide an extra $18 billion for Pentagon programs, while the Senate bill keeps to levels set in a budget agreement Democrats and Republicans struck previous year. But some of the key amendments including the (SA 4618) even though they had bipartisan support could not be passed by the Senate. But only a handful have been considered because of what a senior lawmaker lamented as a breakdown in the way the Senate is supposed to operate.
The Afghans in question were interpreters, firefighters, construction workers and laborers who defied the Taliban by working for their enemy. Without the option to leave Afghanistan, they and their families risk being harmed or killed by militants, the top American commander in Afghanistan has warned.
Sen. Cruz co-sponsored an amendment proposed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., would extend the so-called special immigrant visa program through 2017 and authorize an additional 2,500 visas for the fiscal year that begins October 1 to meet the growing demand.
The bill includes funding for two F/A-18 Super Hornets built by Boeing in St. Louis.
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A separate bill was also approved by the House last month, requiring lawmakers to reach an agreement on how to merge the competing proposals. The House and Senate are both making rare election-year appearances in Washington this week. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said command influence has led to unfair treatment of sex assault victims and light punishments for perpetrators, but the military has argued commanders can make prosecutions a higher priority. She said it offered deploying troops “some much-deserved peace of mind” as they prepared to fight overseas.
