Mizzou: White House, “Its on Us”

Fabricate a problem and then ride in on a white steed to solve the problem and those invited to the White House and willing accomplices or rather useful idiots to have their own individual moments in the sun.

There are countless moving parts including ‘The Hunting Ground’.

UMN student govt: 9/11 remembrance would violate our safe space

From the White House press office: FACT SHEET: Launch of the “It’s On Us” Public Awareness Campaign to Help Prevent Campus Sexual Assault

Proof this is the White House when it comes to Mizzou and other campuses? It also involves the NCAA, meaning football hence the reason the football team went on strike an did not practice.

From the White House website: President Obama Launches the “It’s On Us” Campaign to End Sexual Assault on Campus

It’s on us — all of us — to stop sexual assault. Here are a few tips on what you can do to be part of the solution:

  1. Talk to your friends honestly and openly about sexual assault.
  2. Don’t just be a bystander — if you see something, intervene in any way you can.
  3. Trust your gut. If something looks like it might be a bad situation, it probably is.
  4. Be direct. Ask someone who looks like they may need help if they’re ok.
  5. Get someone to help you if you see something — enlist a friend, RA, bartender, or host to help step in.
  6. Keep an eye on someone who has had too much to drink.
  7. If you see someone who is too intoxicated to consent, enlist their friends to help them leave safely.
  8. Recognize the potential danger of someone who talks about planning to target another person at a party.
  9. Be aware if someone is deliberately trying to intoxicate, isolate, or corner someone else.
  10. Get in the way by creating a distraction, drawing attention to the situation, or separating them.
  11. Understand that if someone does not or cannot consent to sex, it’s rape.
  12. Never blame the victim.

If you are a victim or survivor, or helping someone in that situation, go to notalone.gov to get the resources and information you need. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. 

The NCAA, Big Ten conferences, MTV, VH1, and a few others you might recognize have already made a personal commitment to help stop sexual assault. See why — then join them in taking the pledge at ItsOnUs.orgThe full document is here.

There is more from the White House, ‘Get off the Sidelines’.

Summary:
Our responsibility is to get off of the sidelines. Don’t just be a bystander: Intervene when you see someone who might be at risk of sexual assault. That’s what this It’s On Us message — narrated by actor Jon Hamm — is all about.

It’s estimated that one in five women is sexually assaulted while she’s in college. It most often occurs in her freshman or sophomore year, by someone she knows.

And it’s on every one of us to stop that trend.

Our responsibility is to get off of the sidelines. Don’t just be a bystander: Intervene when you see someone who might be at risk.

That’s what the new It’s On Us message — narrated by actor Jon Hamm — is all about. Watch the video, then take the pledge to help prevent campus sexual assault. The full document is here.

VA Paid out $142 Million in Bonuses in 2014

VA gave 156,000 employees $142 million in bonuses in 2014

WashingtonExaminer: The Department of Veterans Affairs VA shelled out more than $142 million in performance bonuses in 2014, the same year that the VA’s healthcare scandal exploded and revealed the VA was systematically denying veterans access to health care.

The average individual payout was over $900 for the thousands of employees. A total of 156,000 VA workers qualified for bonuses as a result of being rated them “fully successful” or higher at carrying out their responsibilities last year, including officials at delay-prone hospitals. But those ratings were later found to be inflated, as the vast majority of workers were getting rated highly enough to get a bonus.

More than 325 were compensated with $5,000 to $13,000 in year-end bonuses, according to data given to the Washington Examiner by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Before he resigned, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he’d stop bonuses at the troubled agency. But in the summer of 2014, Congress approved legislation allowing the agency to hand out up to $360 million in bonuses each year.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said the bonus awards are part of a “disturbing trend” of rewarding workers even when they haven’t earned it.

“VA loves to tout its bonus program as a way to attract and retain the best and brightest employees,” Miller wrote. “Unfortunately, often times the employees VA rewards with thousands in taxpayer-funded bonuses are not the type of people the department should be interested in attracting or retaining.”

In the current Congress, the House has passed a number of bills that include language to rein in the department until better results are obtained, including recouping bonuses paid to employees, changing the cap on bonuses from $360 million to $300 million, and limiting senior-level bonuses to $2 million per year.

The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is currently considering three of the House-approved bills.

“Rewarding failure only breeds more failure. Until VA leaders learn this important lesson and make a commitment to supporting real accountability at the department, efforts to reform VA are doomed to fail,” said Miller.

*** Some other truths about the VA: 300,000 Veterans Die Waiting

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In a Fox 17 Waste Watch investigation, government findings finally confirm reports you’ve seen on Fox 17 News about US veterans dying while waiting for healthcare through the VA.

To make matters worse, the number of those who have died while waiting for this care is six times higher than originally estimated.
Even with an increase in funding, the VA’s Office of Inspector General is calling for an overhaul.
Midstate veteran David Jones says he’s among the more than 800,000 veterans whose file is stuck in a “pending” status.
Jones says, “People are trying to get well, they’re trying to get benefits and it’s next to impossible.”

Jones is unable to get the care he needs because his application to the Veterans Health Administration’s Health Eligibility Center is backlogged in its Enrollment System.

This VA Office of Inspector General report confirms that not all of these applicants are for veterans actively seeking enrollment in VA health care.
It says the applications of these veterans have been “inactive” for years and more than 300,000 veterans died during this time.
Congressman Diane Black (R-TN, 6th District) says, “I was surprised.  I thought we’d see a different number than what we did.”

Since reports of this VA issue initially surfaced about two years ago, the President has named a new head of the agency.  Congress has approved for VA Secretary Robert McDonald to fire employees not doing their jobs.

The agency’s data system has changed and it’s received a 5.5 percent budget increase with the President allocating more than $168-billion dollars to the VA in his 2016 budget. Fox 17 News has also found this OIG report calls out VA employees for incorrectly marking unprocessed applications as “completed” and may have deleted more than 10-thousand transactions from its system.

The government’s Human Resources Office and General Council are now determining if administrative action should be taken against any senior officials in the Veterans Health Administration or Office of Information and Technology.

Fox 17 News will continue bringing you updates on this developing story.

Afghanistan: More to the Tea Boys and Martland

Ignoring Abuse of Afghan Children Is a Strategic Failure

More than morality at stake

The Afghan police commander laughed at them. But Capt. Dan Quinn and Sgt. First Class Charles Martland didn’t find anything funny about the situation.

Throughout their deployment, members of the U.S. Army Special Forces detachment under Quinn’s command became troubled by the behavior of the Afghan Local Police forces they were supposed to be mentoring. The team reported several incidents — one involving a police commander who raped a teenage girl — to their commanders and to Afghan authorities.

In each case there was either no consequences or a slap on the wrist.

But late in the deployment, a woman came to the soldiers’ base. She told them an ALP commander chained her son to a bed and raped him, then beat her. She begged the Green Berets for justice.

When Quinn and Martland confronted the ALP commander, he readily admitted to doing it and even joked about it. Furious, Quinn and Martland shoved him to the ground and allegedly beat him.

Not long after, Army brass reprimanded both soldiers and sent them home. Quinn left the Army, while Martland became an Army scuba instructor in Florida where he continued to receive high marks. He previously received two Bronze Stars for valor.

But the incident remained in his files, and the Army decided it was enough to warrant kicking Martland out through its force reduction program. He defended his actions in a January 2011 letter to the Army Human Resources Command, stating he and Quinn “felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALPs to commit atrocities.”

On Oct. 28 the Department of Defense’s Inspector General office released an announcement that it will be investigating cases of Afghan officials abusing children, and whether American officials could have — or should have — done more to stop it.

The investigation comes after a series of allegations made headlines, as several American military personnel face discipline for either whistleblowing or taking unauthorized action against predators.

The most high profile case has been Martland’s. Nov. 1 was to be his last day on active duty, but the Army is currently reviewing his case on appeal after a media storm and pressure from congressmen, including fellow Afghanistan war veteran Rep. Duncan Hunter of California.

While the decorated special operations warrior may very be vindicated, the case remains part of a troubling chapter of America’s longest war.

Many American officials have defended the military’s hands off approach to Afghan forces committing rape, insisting that it’s a cultural issue and a matter for Afghan law. But many of the Afghan police tasked with enforcing that law are in fact guilty of much of the abuse. And they do so while receiving American training, weapons and funds.

Several experts and special operations veterans War Is Boring spoke to argued that allowing rape isn’t merely a moral failure, it’s a strategic one that undermines America’s mission in Afghanistan — and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Afghan culture.

A dishonorable act

Forms of pederasty involving relationships between influential men and young boys aren’t new and they’ve never been limited to central Asia. “You see this going all the way back to Greece and Rome,” explained anthropologist Thomas Barfield, an Afghan culture specialist at Boston University.

But he said war and weak rule of law have allowed it and other forms of abuse to thrive.

In Afghanistan, the practice of “bacha bazi” — meaning “boy play” — is typically associated with rich and powerful Afghan men, some of whom use it as a means to flaunt their wealth and power. One form of bacha bazi involves concerts in which teenagers and boys dance for older men who then sexually abuse them.

“You cannot try to impose American values and American norms onto the Afghan culture because they’re completely different,” Col. Steve Johnson told the Tacoma News Tribune in August. “We can report and we can encourage them. We do not have any power or the ability to use our hands to compel them to be what we see as morally better.”

But while bacha bazi has existed in Afghanistan for generations, Barfield argues that calling it a “cultural norm” is misleading. He said that while powerful men may take part, it’s not something that Afghan culture celebrates.

“If you’re talking to regular people they wouldn’t find it acceptable,” he said. “It violates Islamic law and cultural norms.”

Many special operations veterans who’ve spent time living among Afghans have come to the same conclusion. “When you get to the point where you have to admit that this is something ‘powerful men’ do, you’re automatically admitting this isn’t normal,” said one veteran.

Barfield recalled a murder he learned about during one of his visits as a researcher in Afghanistan. Afghans told him about how an enraged man had killed his brother after learning he was participating in bacha bazi. “The story of these two brothers was considered a family tragedy,” he said. “Afghans have a very strong conception of honor and this is a stain on that honor.”

Barfield said that while some elites will take part in or watch these acts, most would deny taking part. “It’s something people would rarely admit to,” Barfield explained. “It’s actually used as a pretty common insult, to accuse powerful people of bacha bazi.”

Bacha bazi comes in various forms. During his field research, Barfield interviewed what he called “professional bachas,” typically young adults and teenagers who make a living in a seedy underworld often discussed in whispers.

“If you want to go to see a dancing boy concert they’re usually held out in the middle of nowhere,” Barfield explained.

“But in this case what we’re actually talking about is kidnapping,” Barfield said of the scandal that’s rocked the Pentagon.

Decades of war in Afghanistan have given rise to a much more predatory class of pederasts. Barfield explained that for some powerful Afghans, bacha bazi can be a way of demonstrating their might and asserting that rules don’t apply to them.

“[These people are often] warlords and commanders, so these are people who are used to making their own rules,” he said.

Rape and other crimes were hallmarks of both the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and subsequent Afghan Civil War of the 1990s. When the Taliban seized power, its puritanical worldview demanded an end to vices. One of the group’s top priorities was putting an end to bacha bazi. They executed many of the worst offenders, sometimes publicly.

One Special Forces veteran explained in a conversation with War Is Boring that many Taliban fighters were also once raped by older men, and that for some it was huge reason why they joined the movement. “When the Taliban came to power they put a stop to this shit,” he said.

The militants considered it part of their campaign against immorality, particularly a crackdown on gays and lesbians. However, men who partake in bacha bazi don’t typically consider themselves gay. “Most of these men would consider themselves straight,” Barfield explained.

But the Taliban’s moral campaign soon extended much further. The Taliban banned music, women’s education, kite flying, most sports and destroyed anything the group deemed “un-Islamic.” The goodwill the Taliban earned among Afghans from its crackdown on pedophiles and rapists quickly faded as the group’s repressive puritanical rule took shape.

Many welcomed American forces as they ousted the Taliban after 9/11. Schools reopened and kites returned to the skies.

But American troops and operatives often had to work closely a motley collection of Northern Alliance fighters, Pashtun rebels and other armed groups. The Americans soon learned that not all were as trustworthy as others. And some of them had dark pasts that would soon come to shape Afghanistan’s future.

A symptom of corruption

Afghan children have long been central to the narrative of the war in Afghanistan. When the Taliban was ousted in 2001, American officials touted the return of Afghan children to schools. Educating the next generation was a major emphasis — the children of today will be the leaders of Afghanistan tomorrow.

But with new opportunities came the return of old problems. Former warlords became military commanders, police officers and politicians. “It reflects that the Americans didn’t know who they were dealing with,” Barfield explained. “They unwittingly allowed some of these bad actors to regain power.”

Barfield said that provincial politicians and warlords would often exaggerate their ties to the Americans and present themselves as stronger than they actually were.

“They’d say ‘do as I say or I’ll send the Americans to burn down your village,’” Barfield explained. “The Afghans didn’t necessarily have the information to know that they were lying … the Americans of course had no idea.”

Corruption has been endemic in the new Afghanistan with aid money constantly going missing or wasted on lavish projects. The quality of Afghan security forces has been inconsistent. Soldiers and police officers often do not receive regular paychecks and must depend on shoddy equipment, a consequence of corruption. There’s also problems with abuse and misconduct.

Some Afghan troops and police have been known to engage in extortion, smuggling and kidnapping. In many cases that’s included the kidnapping and sexual abuse of children — sometimes even on U.S. bases. And that was far from a secret before Martland’s case blew up.

In 2012, a 17-year-old Afghan boy kept on a U.S. Marine base by police commander Sarwan Jan got ahold of a weapon and killed three Marines in the base gym. Prior to the killings, junior Marines — including some of those killed — had expressed concerns about Jan. The commander had a long history of corruption and child abuse.

A year later Vice documentary This Is What Winning Looks Like portrayed U.S. Marines candidly telling filmmaker Ben Anderson that the Afghan police they work with regularly kidnap and rape children — and frequently murder them.

The Marines expressed frustration that nobody seemed to take the problem seriously despite their repeated reports.

Johnson, who was a battalion commander with the 1st Special Forces Group at the time Martland and Quinn beat the Afghan policeman, has defended the decision to discipline the two. Johnson asserted the soldiers beat the Afghan commander nearly to death.

However, other Afghans — including a well regarded interpreter — allegedly told officials the injuries were minor and that the commander was walking around the next day.

It’s hard to know exactly what happened. The case was never put through the military criminal justice system and the Afghan police commander later died in a Taliban ambush.

The crux of the arguments against Martland and Quinn is that they acted rashly and potentially could have damaged relations with the Afghans cops — and possibly drive them to join the militants.

One former Green Beret told War Is Boring that the actions of the Afghan police would reflect directly on the advisers. After all, the ALP is trained, paid and equipped by the Americans. According to the veteran, the team had to show the Afghan villagers that they too cared about honor, otherwise villagers might start supporting the Taliban.

“When [Martland] beat the shit out of that police commander, that’s actually something a lot of Afghans would really respect,” Barfield said. “That’s a form of justice that Afghans understand very well.”

Afghan Local Police candidates form up to conduct a patrol drill during a class in Kajran district, Daykundi province, Afghanistan, Jan. 11. The class is part of a three-week ALP training course that covers basic policing procedures, weapons handling and other skills necessary to protect and defend Afghan citizens and maintain stability in the region.

 

Playing by the rules

“I think this really reflects the state of law and order in Afghanistan as a whole right now,” Barfield said. “After 30 years of war, it’s allowed these sorts of bad actors to thrive.”

In the years since Martland and Quinn left Afghanistan, the military has put more and more emphasis on the ALP. These militia-turned-police played a huge role in the security of Kunduz … as well as its recent fall to Taliban militants.

These militias were responsible for protecting the people of Kunduz and maintaining order. But were also notorious for extortion, theft, assault and of course … bacha bazi. The Taliban took advantage of resentment among the locals to reestablish a foothold in the area before delivering a humiliating blow to Afghan forces this summer.

 

During an interview with War Is Boring about his book The Tigers and The Taliban in 2013, Danish army veteran Lars Ulslev Johannesen explained how corruption and instability drove many Afghans to sympathize with the militants, even those who disliked their repressive ideology.

“Predictability is important,” Johannesen said. “They know the Taliban rules, and prefer them even though they do not like them, because they know what they need to do in order to survive.”

Since the Taliban fell, there have indeed been strides in education — and Afghan artists and activists have far more freedom than they’ve known in decades. But when police kidnap and rape the children with impunity, it fundamentally undermines the rule of law and the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s fledgling government.

For many of the soldiers who fought there, despite the battles they won, corruption and sexual abuse undermines America’s purpose and reason for being in the country. “We’re not being outfought,” one veteran bitterly remarked during research for this story. “We’re being outgoverned.”

CIA’s Fugitive Banker in Idaho

This is a story that makes for a great movie script but there are some that would push back especially those involved during the Reagan years and the Contra arms deal.

The newspaper article found here expands even further, naming more names.

A Nugan Hand branch in the Thai opium-producing country, for example, abutted the office of the American Drug Enforcement Administration – and even shared a receptionist with it. Important American companies in Saudi Arabia backed Nugan Hand’s aggressive sales there to American workers; big investment money was raked in, sometimes being carried away in plastic garbage bags, much of it disappearing forever. In 1979, Nugan Hand hoped to gain United Nations money to settle Indochinese refugees in the Turks and Caicos Islands, seen as ideal Caribbean transshipment points on the narcotics routes from South America.

FOUND After 35 Years: CIA’s Fugitive Banker

By Raymond Bonner, Special to ProPublica

It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times.

Amid a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand Bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the CIA, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller.

Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, Merchants of Menace, discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery.

If finding Hand, now 73, solves one mystery, it raises another. How could he have lived in the United States so long without being detected? He changed his name only slightly, from Hand to Fuller, and did not get a new Social Security number, according to Butt.

Hand’s company, G.M.I. Manufacturing, is registered with the Idaho secretary of state. The company “now manufactures tactical weapons for US Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters,’’ Butt writes. Has Hand/Fuller been brazen, foolish, or, as Butt asks, does he belong “to a protected species, most likely of the intelligence kind?”

Two years after fleeing Australia, in 1982, when the CIA was involved in a covert operation to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Hand was working as a military adviser in the region where the anti-Sandinista “contras” were based, according to an Australian intelligence document, which was declassified earlier this year.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The CIA has previously denied it had any links to Hand.

Hand had been a Green Beret in Vietnam and a CIA operative in Laos before moving to Australia, where he and Frank Nugan, a wealthy playboy, established the Nugan Hand Bank in 1973, with $80. Hand fled Australia seven years later, after Nugan was found dead inside his Mercedes-Benz, his left hand holding the barrel of a .30-caliber rifle a few inches from his head, his right hand near the trigger.

During an inquest into Nugan’s death, Hand testified that the bank was insolvent, owing investors large and small some $50 million. The inquest ruled Nugan’s death a suicide, a finding many Australians found dubious.

With depositors and law enforcement authorities in pursuit, Hand, with assistance from a former CIA officer, secured a forged Australian passport, donned a false mustache and beard, and fled Australia in June of 1980. He flew to Fiji, then on to Canada, from which he could cross into the United States without a visa.

The Sydney Morning Herald first reported on Butt’s findings on Monday. In a segment that aired Sunday night, Australia’s 60 Minutes filmed Hand/Fuller emerging from a pharmacy at a shopping mall in Idaho Falls. He has a full beard and neck brace, and was wearing sunglasses and a blue checked shirt. He refused to answer any questions or speak at all when confronted by 60 Minutes reporter Ross Coulthart.

Suspicions about the bank’s links to the CIA arose almost immediately after Nugan was found dead. His wallet contained the business card of William E. Colby, who had been director of the CIA from 1973 to 1976.

Colby was forced to resign when it was reported that the agency had been engaged in illegal spying on American citizens. He became a legal adviser to Nugan Hand, and on the back of his business card were handwritten dates when someone, presumably Colby, would be in Hong Kong and Singapore.

As reporters began digging into Nugan Hand, they found that Colby wasn’t the only individual with an intelligence or military background involved with the bank.

“Nugan Hand had enough generals, admirals, and spooks to run a small war,” Jonathan Kwitny, an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, wrote in the definitive book about the bank, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA.

Iran Backs Up, Russia Wants Terror List

The talks for a resolution in Syria are on going in Vienna. John Kerry to date has sided with Iran against the positions of the Gulf States and Turkey while mostly playing mediator. Russia continues without consequence to support Basher al Assad of Syria. In summary, there is no progress except that no one from the West is challenging the new status quo and the hegemony in the region.

Iran came prepared for all possibilities on the table in Vienna and would walk away from the talks fundamentally if they did not get their way.

Tehran has warned it would quit the talks if it found them unconstructive and has complained about what it says is a negative role in Syria by its regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the factions of Western backed Syrian rebels along with countless factions of pro-Assad/pro-Iranian groups along with ISIS and al Nusra make up the real conditions on the ground and no one has full management of the situation. Now, Russia once again is taking the lead where Lavrov is making some key demands which would likely result Russian/Assad full control.

VoA: Moscow wants a second round of talks on Syria to come to an agreement on a list of terrorist groups operating in the country.

Speaking Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called such a list necessary “so that no one has any doubt in regard to the orientation of one or another armed group” in Syria.

Russia’s Tass state news agency reported Lavrov added it would be “impossible” to move forward without “full clarity on this issue.”

He said when a cease-fire is declared with the start of a political process “the cease-fire agreement will not apply to terrorist organizations, which continue to be considered legitimate targets.”

The second round of talks is scheduled for Saturday in Vienna.

The United States and other Western countries have been conducting airstrikes targeting the Islamic State (IS) group in Syrian and Iraq. While Moscow claims its own air campaign in Syria is directed against IS, Washington says 85-90 percent of Russian airstrikes in Syria since last month have hit the moderate Syrian opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

France’s Defense Ministry said French fighter jets struck IS oil facilities Tuesday in eastern Syria.

Diplomats from 17 countries, plus the United Nations and European Union, met in Vienna on October 30 for a first round of talks on Syria. They agreed to a U.N.-led process involving talks between the Syrian government and opposition, and also to explore a cease-fire that would still allow strikes against terrorist groups.

At least 22 people were killed Tuesday in a rebel attack in the coastal city of Latakia, a Syrian government bastion. Russian combat aircraft operate out of a base outside the city.

Meanwhile, Syrian state media reported government forces had broken a two-year IS siege of a military airport near the northern city of Aleppo.

The pressure on the White House is coming from a bi-partisan group in Congress calling on a tangible and viable strategy. So far the Obama administration has ignored the fight in Syria and Iraq where recently dispatched 50 special forces as a mere gesture.

Some members of Congress are calling for the United States and some of its allies to change the way they are waging war against ISIS.

A bipartisan slate of senators and representatives want Congress to pass an updated authorization for President Obama to conduct the war against ISIS in light of his decision to send fifty special operations ground troops to Syria.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz) brought up their draft Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which they originally proposed as an amendment in June, during a business meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday.

This measure would define the conflict as one to protect American lives and provide military support to regional partners in their fight against ISIS. It would also repeal a 2002 authorization of the Iraq war, which the White House has used as the legal basis for its airstrikes against ISIS. The administration has also cited a 2001 AUMF that authorized use of military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but the Kaine/Flake amendment does not repeal that measure.

The senators argue that Congress’s passage of an AUMF represents the fulfillment of its Constitutional duty under Article I to “declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.”

During the committee meeting, Kaine also presented a letter, signed by 35 House Democrats and Republicans, urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to take up an AUMF vote in the House.

“Given the recent announcement by President Obama of a deepening entanglement in Syria and Iraq, it is critical that the House schedule and debate an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) as quickly as possible,” the letter reads in part.