Political Quotes

“as we wait for our colleagues to join the floor so they can have their floor time, I wish to address a few of my colleague's concerns. Some of the technical concerns she raised--we actually took some of those concerns and revised them in the bill that has actually been presented, so some of those concerns have been actually fully addressed. For example, as to her concern about the convening authority, the disposition authority, our bill is very specific. The disposition authority is the decisionmaking authority. That goes to the trained military legal prosecutor, the JAG counsel, so they actually get to make the decision about whether to proceed to trial on the evidence. The convening authority, which is a different right, a different duty, is left intact as it is. So the convening authority still will decide judges, juries, and all the details of what the court and the trial will look like. It is two separate authorities in two separate places. That has been clarified in the bill so there is no concern there. One other concern my colleague raised is this issue of nonjudicial punishment. Our bill is very specific. We exclude 37 specific crimes, including all article 15 crimes, all of the crimes that one would be using nonjudicial punishment to enforce.…”