Defense

Reps. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) are circulating a letter among other House members that calls on the Department of Defense to fully enforce rules ensuring that military uniforms and other items are made in America.

A letter that members plan to submit to DOD says the so-called Berry Amendment requires DOD to buy U.S.-made items, but says this policy appears to have slipped, and that members of the Armed Forces are wearing some articles of clothing made in China.

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) urged the Department of Defense to support an anti-hazing statute Tuesday.

The two lawmakers wrote a letter to Jeh Johnson, the general counsel of the DOD, asking him to change the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) of military criminal laws that cover all U.S. service members to make hazing a criminal act.

Republican congressional leaders bashed President Obama’s purchase of a prison from Illinois Tuesday.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called it “a backdoor move” to bring prisoners housed at Guantanamo Bay into the United States.

Chairwoman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Monday that she wouldn’t tolerate the kind of waste discovered by the inspector general (IG) at the Veterans Affairs Department.

The IG’s report found that the agency spent $6.1 million on two conferences held in Orlando, Fla., causing some VA Human Resources staff to resign.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) criticized President Obama on Monday for encouraging employers not to notify workers of expected layoffs ahead of the election.

The Obama administration last week for a second time guided employers, such as defense contractors, not to follow the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act — a federal law requiring employers to give workers notice if mass layoffs are likely due to federal budget cuts.

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrote separate letters to the Army calling for answers in response to reports that secret Cold War-era experiments exposed Missourians to potentially harmful chemicals.

In Blunt's letter sent Thursday to Army Secretary John McHugh, he asked where the area of exposure was, the potential health effects and whether there was a radioactive component to the testing.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) accused an anonymous Republican senator of blocking a bill that would increase the cost-of-living benefits for veterans with disabilities.

“This is stunning,” Murray said in a statement Thursday. “Particularly because we still don’t have any indication why someone would block a cost-of-living adjustment for veterans and their surviving spouses, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) on Thursday put out a call for people to drop off ballpoint pens in his two district offices to be sent to children in Afghanistan.

"Did you know that in Afghanistan, a ballpoint pen in a breast pocket lets the world know that the bearer is literate?" McKeon asked in a post on his Facebook page. "Ballpoint pens are highly coveted. Children in Afghanistan are especially in need of ballpoint pens in their schools."

Rep. Becerra suggested other nations help pay the costs of the U.S. military presence abroad

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) praised Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s announcement that the Department of Defense will improve sexual assault prevention training among service members. 

"Right now there are dozens, if not hundreds, of survivors who are either quietly suffering from an attack or seeking to move the military justice system to hold an offender to account,” Collins said in a statement released Wednesday. “We cannot rest until the military's policy of zero tolerance is matched by a true culture of zero tolerance."