by Kristina Wong, Breitbart
During negotiations with the Senate on a final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, conservatives were able to extract key concessions from Democrats that would have been huge victories for the Biden administration’s woke military agenda.
As it originally stood, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would have required women to register for the draft, allowed military courts to confiscate firearms from service members without due process, and created a new office in the Pentagon to focus on “extremists” in the military.
And although there was a provision authored by Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) to ban service members from being dishonorably discharged for declining the COVID-19 vaccine, the Biden administration had called for it to be removed.
But conservatives in Congress succeeded in killing those provisions and maintaining the ban on dishonorable discharges during negotiations with the Senate on the compromise version of the bill, which was released Tuesday evening and passed by House.
Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has been credited for leading the fight against the draft provision in the House.
He said in a statement Tuesday evening that the bill still “contains and extends far too many troubling provisions that advance wokeism at the expense of military excellence,” but said he is “extremely grateful for the hard work of my Republican colleagues to dramatically improve this bill.” He said:
In particular, I am grateful that the provisions that would draft my daughter along with other young women across the country were removed from the legislation. This is a drastic improvement and I want to thank Senators [Josh] Hawley, [Mike] Lee, & [Tom] Cotton, [Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and [House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mike] Rogers, and a number of my other colleagues, particularly those in the House Freedom Caucus who are always willing to do the hard work of fighting for the people while some others often just talk about it.
Credit is also due to those who worked to remove the so-called ‘office of extremism,’ as well as gun-grabbing ‘red flag’ laws that would trample upon our service members’ Second Amendment rights. A nation founded on certain unalienable rights should never seek to infringe those rights.
He also said he was grateful to Green for his provision to eliminate dishonorable discharges for troops declining the vaccine.
Green, another member of the House Freedom Caucus and a combat veteran, said in a statement, “We must always stand for our brave men and women in uniform all around this world. These victories are a testament to everyday Americans all across the nation who made their voices heard in the halls of Congress.”
