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UPDATE (Dean): Here's a shocker - Rotating Villain of the Day Susan Collins will still hold our nation's security and the civil rights of patriotic Americans who want to serve hostage until they feed the rich first:
Collins reminded Reid that Republicans don't want to debate anything until the tax issue is resolved. "I have urged the majority leader to postpone the vote...so that we could get the tax bill considered first -- which I believe could be on the floor tomorrow -- and completed by Saturday, and then move immediately to the DOD bill, but under a fair agreement."
I think the funniest (saddest?) part in all this phony theater is that I got a call from OfA Urging Me to Call Gregg!!! about one second before learning this. END UPDATE.
From TPM
Harry Reid may attempt to push a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell onto the Senate floor today, a move that few expect to result in an end to the ban on openly gay servicemembers in the military.
This morning, Reid announced on the Senate floor that a push for cloture on the defense spending bill that includes a repeal of DADT could happen as early as this afternoon.
No one expects this to go anywhere. Why is Reid so eager for a defeat?
I took a couple of weeks off, as Thanksgiving and snow came around (a subject we'll address in a day or so), but we are all again occupied as lots of things we've been talking about either will or won't come to pass, and it seems like all that's happening all at once.
Today we'll take on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT); this because the Pentagon's top leadership just came out and reported that revocation of the policy, following a period of preparation, would be their preferred way to go.
There will be lots of others who will take on the question of what's right and wrong here, and exactly how implementation might occur; my interest is, instead, to focus on one little fact that makes all teh rest of the conversation a lot more relevant.
That is the fact that about 70,000 LBGT troops serve in the military today, DADT notwithstanding, and, that if it wasn't for DADT, almost 45,000 more troops would be serving that aren't today.
And that one little fact leads to today's Great Big Question: exactly how much military would 115,000 troops be, exactly?
Jeanne Shaheen was one of the senators present in Lieberman's press conference today when he claimed to have the votes to repeal DADT.
She minced no words about the Party of Never strategy of McCain and others in blocking a DADT repeal that is broadly popular in and out of the military:
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said that the demands for a fair amendment process were simply cover for efforts by Mr. McCain and others to block repeal of the policy.
"This is not about how many amendments are we going to do, or how long we are going to debate," Ms. Shaheen said. "This is about those who oppose this policy wanting to kill it and taking every opportunity they can and using the Senate rules to do that. That's exactly what is going on."
If you want to know how duplicitous McCain has been on DADT, look no further than here.
Stories begat other stories, or at least they do for me; this two-part conversation came from a comment that was made after I posted a story suggesting that voting matters this time, especially if you don't want environmental disasters like the recent Hungarian "toxic lake" that burst from its containment and polluted the Danube River happening in your neighborhood.
Long story short, we are going to be moving on to ask what, for some, is a more fundamental question: if you're an LBGT voter, and the Democratic Party hasn't, to put it charitably, "been all they could be" when it comes to issues like repealing "don't ask, don't tell" or the Federal Defense of Marriage Act...what should you do?
Now normally I would be the one trying to develop an answer to the question, but instead, we're going to be posing the question to a group of experts, and we'll be letting them give the answers.
And just because you, The Valued Reader, deserve the extra effort, for Part Two we've trying to get you a "Special Bonus Expert" to add some input to the conversation: a Democratic Member of Congress who represents a large LBGT community.
This morning on NPR Linda Wertheimer was interviewing a founder of the Log Cabin Republicans. She noted that Senator John Cornyn has recently appeared before a gay rights group and wondered, is it time for you to declare victory?
Last week a young Republican activist here said that, after voting for Charlie Bass and Kelly Ayotte, he would be in a good position to urge them to change their positions and support equal rights for gays.
BRRRINGG! This is your wakeup call.
Today EVERY Republican Senator voted to block consideration of a measure that would have simply authorized the President and the military to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The so-called "moderates" from Maine, Dick Lugar, John McCain: it was unanimous.
The Republican Party is solidly against equal rights for gay Americans. If you're comfortable in that crowd, so be it.
Adding (Dean): Why is someone who got out of Vietnam due to acne and bad knees keeping patriotic Americans from serving their country? Disgraceful.
Removing DADT is almost a foregone conclusion at this point. But not a year ago, when Carol Shea-Porter was at the vanguard of exposing the stupidity of a policy that excludes patriotic Americans who want to serve this country:
This post is dedicated to the out-of-state haters who are descending on New Hampshire today to protest the fact that we are one of the few places in America where some tax-paying, patriotic citizens are afforded the same right of marriage under the law as I am.
Basically, what Granite State Progress said in an email yesterday:
Be a silent witness to marriage equality tomorrow, Thursday, July 15th when NOM brings its hate campaign to town. Bring a sign or make one there as we remember and celebrate the great Live Free or Die tradition that has led New Hampshire to continue to support equality for all loving, committed same-sex couples.
Tomorrow, Thursday, July 15, 2010
Noon - 1 p.m.
City Hall Plaza
900 Elm Street, Manchester, NH 03101
It's CSP Week on BH. Learn more here about it. Get involved, and give what you can.
Oh, boy. This is really going to put a damper on the Petraeus for President 2012 chatter so often heard among the state elephants:
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus said "the time has come to consider a change" to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
...Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified last month that repealing the policy "would be the right thing to do."
"For me, personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals and ours as an institution," he said.
Republican Karen Testerman is running for governor of New Hampshire.
Back in the day, Ms. Testerman was head of Cornerstone Policy Research, which opposed the current, discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell military policy. Opposed it not for going not far enough, but for going too far.
Here are some statements from Cornerstone's document (click on the .pdf at the link) on "Gays in the Military":
The presence of homosexuals in the armed services threatens the military's highly regarded merit-based system. Sexual attraction encourages special relationships without regard to rank and increases the risk of favoritism.
and concerning HIV/AIDS:
Military men and women willingly accept risks not found anywhere else in society, but should they be needlessly exposed to a disease that is 100 percent fatal?
and my personal favorite:
Other behavior that harms military effectiveness, such as drug abuse and sexual harrassment, is not tolerated in private; there is no reason why homosexuality should be dealt with differently.
To repeat, Karen Testerman is a Republican candidate for governor of the Live Free or Die State.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen also are expected to announce the creation of a group to assess how to carry out a full repeal of the decades-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which requires gay soldiers to keep their sexual orientation secret.
But Gates and Mullen are also expected to tell senators that it could take years to integrate gay men and lesbians fully into the military, defense officials said. Two appointees will be named to oversee a group that will draw up plans for integrating the armed forces, according to sources familiar with the Pentagon's deliberations on the subject. The planning effort is expected to take up to a year.
Among the issues to be addressed by the group: whether gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will face any restrictions on exhibiting their sexual orientation on the job; whether the Pentagon will be obligated to provide for their domestic partners; and whether straight military personnel could be compelled to share quarters with gays
What a foot-dragging, anemic, crock of shit.
"Years to implement?" It's really very easy: Just end it.
The military already has MANY gay and lesbian members SERVING AND FIGHTING AND DIEING. It is NOT a question of figuring out "how to let them in." THEY ARE IN ALREADY. Straight soldiers are ALREADY COMPELLED to share quarters with gay soldiers, just as white soldiers are COMPELLED to share quarters with black sodiers (gasp!)...and military preparedness and unit cohesion does not suffer.
But individual soldiers do suffer.
A group of soldiers are on leave or having a little down time at a local watering hole. Many of them comment on the tail they hope they get, or wolf-whistle at the waitress they call 'sweetheart,' and comment among themselves as to how hot she is. This of course, is normal, red-blooded American Boy-talk, right?
But one of the soldiers in their midst has to pretend. He has to force a smile, or force a stupid comment or become 'suspect' by the others. He can't be who he is, or say what or how he feels. Because if he does, he loses his job, his health insurance, his honor, his pension.
Elsewhere, a group of soldiers are talking about how they miss their wives and children, and sharing stories of Christmas and breakfasts and vacations, and how they can't wait to see them again. But another soldier is forced to lie, saying there is no one in his life, no one to go back to. If he admits to having a partner, he avoids or invents that partner's name...becasue if he shares his longing, too, he loses his job, his health insurance, his honor, his pension.
Oh, he's good enough to shoot and fight and die. He's good enough to serve, and receive medals and honors - As long as he lives in a closet of denial, as long as he shares nothing, as long as he avoids friendship with others in his platoon, as long as he holds everything so close to his chest that no one gets in.
President Obama, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and as the Head of the Executive Branch, with one penstroke you can end DADT dismissals just as Harry Truman integrated the military. It's time to do it NOW, before another American hero loses his or her lifetime contribution to our nation because of your cowardice.
