On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:11:08 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:

Uh, yeah, it is, precisely. Officers of the states' National Guards are
appointed by the respective governors (through their surrogates, of course).

Since 1903, nearly all NG officers have held dual commissions - both state
and federal. The federal commission is required for federal funding.

The primary exception is the State Adjutent Generals - who work directly
for the Governors. And who, AIUI, resign their federal commissions when
they accept the appointment.

--
When...[government] gets into difficulties it can raise money by seizing
it, in the form of taxes, from those who have earned it. So long as
such persons confine their resistance to academic protests, it will
continue well-heeled, and ready for ever new and worse extravagances.
Even when it finds, on trying to shake them down, that their pockets
are quite empty, it can still borrow on the security of their future
earning power. Legally speaking they are its slaves. It can dip into
their bank account whenever it pleases, and if those bank accounts turn
out to be too scanty for its needs, it can mortgage whatever money they
seem likely to accumulate tomorrow, or next month, or next year...It is
a millstone around their necks that grows heavier every time they try
to throw it off...The Bill of Rights gives a long list of things that
the government may not do to the citizen in his person...There is only
one provision dealing with his property: the government is forbidden to
take it without paying for it. It seems me that there is a hint here.
Why not a new Bill of Rights, definitely limiting the taxing powers of
the government? Why not...[an] Amendment restoring it to its simple
and proper functions, and forbidding it forever to collect or spend a
cent for any purpose lying outside them?
- H. L. Mencken