Flashback: Obama Threatened Governors He’d Hollow Out National Guard If They Crossed Him

Interesting and relevant flashback about the president’s priorities:

Last February, Governor Perry expressed his dismay at the president’s “troubling tone” during the meeting with the nation’s governors, charging that  Obama had threatened to hollow out the National Guard, if Governors – Democrats and Republicans alike – stepped out of line and criticized him.

“I hope we’re not about to make a tragic mistake in this country by hollowing out our Guard in our states in some political statement of ‘you’re all going to feel the pain.’ Because that’s certainly what I heard from POTUS, today. As a matter of fact, he said in that meeting. If I hear any of you pushing back – making statements about Washington spends too much money - you’ll hear from me.”

Perry said the governors – whether Republican or Democrat – should be  “highly offended by that,”  and concluded that Obama “making a political statement about the Guard is not in the best long-term interest of this country and it’s certainly not in best long-term interest of those men and women who have committed and often times sacrificed greatly for this country.”

Hat tip Dan Calebrese of CFP

Meanwhile, va Ken Klukowski of Breitbart News:

Governor Rick Perry is asking  Barack Obama to foot the bill for Texas National Guard operations on the U.S.-Mexico border. But Perry will go it alone if Obama says no, funding the entire operation out of Texas coffers.

Perry has deployed 1,000 members of the Texas National Guard to the southern border in Operation Strong Safety. They will primarily support police officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety and other state personnel as those officers try to maintain public safety and protect public health. The guardsmen will also have authority to apprehend people under certain circumstances.

The National Guard can be used by a chief executive under federal statutes in three ways. Title 10 of the United States Code governs the U.S. military. Title 32 governs the National Guard. If a president federalizes a National Guard unit, that unit transfers to Title 10 and comes under presidential control as part of the regular military. The National Guard usually acts under Title 32 as a pure state body, under the control of its state’s governor as its commander in chief.

Then there is a hybrid model. A president and a governor can agree to have National Guard units work in tandem with federal agents. In this sort of operation, the National Guard units stay in a Title 32 capacity as state troops and thus continue to answer to the governor as their commander in chief, but the federal government funds their operations.

 http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/flashback-obama-threatened-governors-hed-hollow-out-national-guard-if-they-crossed-him/