Well by Monday we may have a new Supreme Court Justice as the Senate should vote on the nomination of BrettKavanaughh to the court on Saturday.
The Senate this week passed the FAA reauthorization bill by as vote of 93-6. The six "no" votes were:
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Ed Markey (D-MA)
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
See here for details on this bill.
Last week, Senator Rand Paul tried to attach language to an anti-human trafficking bill that would have blocked U.S. taxpayer funds from going to Afghanistan police and military units whose members sexually abuse young boys — a common practice in Afghanistan.
This amendment, which should have sailed through, was blocked by Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) and Ranking Member Bob Menendez (D-NJ) who offered a substitute amendment studying the problems.
Breitbart has more:
However, Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) and Ranking Member Bob Menendez (D-NJ) backed a counter-amendment to require the Departments of Defense and State to report on implementation of recommendations made by SIGAR on ending the practice.
Corker said he had “major concerns” with Paul’s approach, calling it unachievable.
“While I enthusiastically support the spirit of Senator Paul’s amendment, and understand what he’s trying to do, I have major concerns with the approach his amendment takes. It would guarantee the withdraw of U.S. support for Afghanistan by setting an unachievable standard requiring the SIGAR verification that there are zero cases of sexual slavery or the utilization of child soldiers by any unit or even individual within the Afghan military or police forces,” he said.
Corker added that such a withdrawal of U.S. support would be problematic from a “broad U.S. national security standpoint,” and eliminate the U.S.’s ability to try to end the practice.
Paul argued that blocking U.S. funds would provide some punishment for the practice and have some effect, whereas requiring a report would have “no effect.”
“Having a report on this will have no effect, and I think essentially turns a blind eye to a horrific practice that’s going on there,” he said. “I think many of us here would say we should have zero tolerance for having sex slaves.”
“We can’t have zero tolerance for sex slaves? Sure, we should, and if there’s evidence of it, they shouldn’t be getting any of our money. And so I absolutely think that we need a stronger version of it, and that the second degree would gut it and make it meaningless and in essence show tacit support for allowing the practice to continue,” he added.
I would take Senator Corker's concerns about how ending support for the abhorrent practice of abusing children seriously if the U.S. military did not discipline U.S. soldiers who intervene to save children from abuse or didn't instruct troops sharing barracks with Afghan soldiers to ignore the cries of young boys kept as sex slaves.
The fact that your tax dollars are supporting g this type of activity is truly abhorrent and should be remembered the next time some interventionist talks about how the U.S. is bringing democracy to Afghanistan.
Read the whole Breitbart piece here.
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