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The Democrats' legislation recently added the following text to Section 203 of the Public Health Service Act: '(b) Assimilating Reserve Corp Officers Into the Regular Corps- Effective on the date of enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, all individuals classified as officers in the Reserve Corps under this section (as such section existed on the day before the date of enactment of such Act) and serving on active duty shall be deemed to be commissioned officers of the Regular Corps. '(c) Purpose and Use of Ready Research- '(2) USES- The Ready Reserve Corps shall-- '(A) participate in routine training to meet the general and specific needs of the Commissioned Corps; '(B) be available and ready for involuntary calls to active duty during national emergencies and public health crises, similar to the uniformed service reserve personnel; '(C) be available for backfilling critical positions left vacant during deployment of active duty Commissioned Corps members, as well as for deployment to respond to public health emergencies, both foreign and domestic; and '(D) be available for service assignment in isolated, hardship, and medically underserved communities (as defined in section 799B) to improve access to health services. '(d) Funding- For the purpose of carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the Commissioned Corps under this section, there are authorized to be appropriated $5,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014 for recruitment and training and $12,500,000 for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014 for the Ready Reserve Corps.' Commissioned officers of the ready reserve corps are appointed by the president, and commissioned officers of the regular corps are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.
I guess the only question is: What color shirts will they wear, brown or black. My money is on brown since it's obama's personal detachment.
Look at this from 1991. They are doing the same thing with (regular) and (reserve) corps for the emergency? This is something that is part of the USA for a long time, true? http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:H.J.RES.128.IH:
He mentioned that he didn't see it in the bill. That no one mentioned it. Maybe everyone just overlooked it. However this is why you have to vote on the final bill. Otherwise, who's to say that he didn't have that added by his staff to the bill he signed without anyone seeing it?
Private army? That is beyond political distortion. First of all it is mindless to believe that zero Republican's or there staffers did not discover this. They discovered it, however they knew that it would be politically irrelevant. Why? It would be irrelevant because there are presently 105,000 federal officers in a wide variety of departments. If you have a problem with this 6,000 then why haven't you been complaining about the other 105,000? Secondly there is a great possibility that the general public will actually welcome such a "private army". Polls and statistics have shown almost every year throughout decades that the general public desires stronger law enforcement in the local, state and federal levels. Surprisingly to some, and not to those who understand the pyschological impact of fear, the general public has a strong and irrational fear of crime. This irrational fear of crime means that they advocate more law enforcement than is actually needed. You would have better luck convincing a nutritionist to eat bacon and drink beer all day than convincing the public that they need less law enforcement. This specific argument isn't a double edged sword, it is a single edged sword aimed at your own belly because it is completely against the general public's wishes.
so who gets to define what is needed? I didn't read much law enforcment in the above, it looks more like a medical corps than law enforcement. It would be used to give the looting and shooting losers of people in Katrina-like disasters free medical care of some sort. Most of the smarter ones would have left and found their own.
Let's hope you are right and they remain "public servants". The fear among some is one day groups like this become "gestapo" or jack-booted thugs in the land of the free and home of the brave.
Congress decides what federal law enforcement is needed based on the standard of review of mere rationality. The court will consider anything constitutional as long as the government is pursuing a legitimate governmental objective. The passage of the patiot act is a perfect example. A legitimate governmental objective is any type of health, safety or general welfare of the general public. That is why the healthcare bill is constitutional and why this relatively small addition to the department of justice is constitutional. It is simply illogical to call this small addition of 6,000 to the department of justice a private army when there are already 105,000 federal officers. Are the 5,000 employees working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives considered Obama's or anyone elses private army? What about the post office?
You can start worrying about that once freedom of speech and due process is denied. With freedom of speech and due process in place it would be political suicide for politicians to organize a force of thousands to commit crimes against their own people.