'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal Decision Kicked Back Until After Mid-Terms
Looks like President Obama is punting on a campaign promise until after the mid-term elections. If I was completely sure he'd back the repeal, I wouldn't care - but I'm never quite sure with him.
I'm really tired of gay issues being sent to the bottom of the agenda. How can we keep asking gay people to support the Democrats when they get so little in return?
President Obama has endorsed to a "don't ask, don't tell" compromise between lawmakers and the Defense Department, the White House announced Monday, an agreement that may sidestep a key obstacle to repealing the military's policy banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.
The compromise was finalized in meetings Monday at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers will now, within days, take a series of votes on amendments that repeal the Clinton-era policy, with a provision ensuring that any change would not take effect until after the Pentagon completes a study about the impact on troops. That study is due to Congress on Dec. 1.
In a letter to lawmakers pushing for a legislative repeal, White House budget director Peter Orszag wrote Monday that Obama's administration "supports the proposed amendment."
"Such an approach recognizes the critical need to allow our military and their families the full opportunity to inform and shape the implementation process through a thorough understanding of their concerns, insights and suggestions," Orszag wrote.
While gay rights advocates hailed the move as a "dramatic breakthrough," it remained uncertain whether the deal would secure enough votes to pass both houses of Congress. Republicans have vowed to maintain "don't ask, don't tell," while conservative Democrats have said they would oppose a repeal unless military leaders made clear that they approved of such a change.
Even if the compromise language passes, a legislative repeal would go into effect only after Obama certifies that the change does not harm the nation's military readiness.
But trying to keep it from being a campaign issue at mid-terms.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
But once mid terms are over the 2012 presidential candidates will start getting out in droves and it will still be an issue, maybe even a bigger issue.
i guess as a gay person, i will compromise
my vote for 2010 and 2012 by not voting
for those who keep breaking their promises,
you pass DADT now and i will vote, don't
pass DADT now and i don't vote until you
keep this promise.
both parties are fucking LIARS.
Why should I care? I'm tired of being an ally on LGB issues only to be thrown under the bus by those very same people when it comes to my issues. None of this addresses the two pay grades I was stripped of, the pay or the benefits that I had earned and was unceremoniously divested of, nor is there any suggestion that it ever will be an issue for a bunch of LGB people who didn't even serve but like to whine about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I only WISH I had it as good as people who are thrown out under DADT.
EDIT: In response to but not directed at dadams
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
I swear that you are quite often the only one here that ever makes any sense. I don't blame you for not caring about those issues. I really don't care either because it is very obvious that nothing is ever going to be done if the politicians think for a minute that they might lose a precious vote. It's just the easiest way to keep the country divided into even more groups. They all "promise", and the different groups fall for it, and then once elected, they quickly forget that "promise". It's just an insane revolving door that never stops!!
Do you think they care? As long as you don't vote against the Dems, they don't think it matters.
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
Took the words right out of my mouth. Reading about the oil spill today reminded me of how many times Obama has disappointed me (outright lied would be a more direct way of putting it) and this post was the icing on the cake. The spill is a lost cause - he owns it now (along with Iraq and Afghanistan) and it may prove to be his Katrina. He does still have time on DADT though but I hold little hope and I too will vote by not voting in '10 and '12 too if necessary unless I see some concrete action taken before the election.
Don't think that much, citizen. Remember, it's just Obama playing chess, right?
[People just don't want to accept that we're the pawns.]
... Mark 1 Mod 0 COWARDICE.
"Sorry, we know it's an important issue and we want to end discrimination in the military, but there are MORE IMPORTANT issues to be addressed during the campaign."
(In other words, gays are still the red-haired, left-handed stepchild and why the hell can't they just go away?)
In the end, it comes down to this: we have gay and lesbian service members right now, fighting in wars and performing their duties admirably. So what would change if they were to suddenly reveal their sexual orientation? Would they become LESS competent? Would they suddenly want to wear pink camo BDU's and mince about carrying purple handbags? Nonsense.
The only change would be in soldiers inculcated with religious gay-is-bad horseshit and soldiers whose identity is tied up in the macho-John-Wayne-war-hero baloney.
The difference is that straight service people are not as a rule thrown out of the service with a less than honorable discharge because they bragged about having sex with a 14year old girl they got drunk.
Even though that is a crime and consensual adult homosexual sex is not.
There are vastly different rules applied to straight and homosexual. Even though they are asked to do the same jobs and make the same military sacrifices, except that homosexuals have a muzzle rule that applies only to them. And even straights, if they don’t brag about their heterosexual acts are presumed homosexual and may be subject to the same harassments as homosexual endure.
Harassments that overtly straights mete out but are not themselves subjected to.
Is anyone really surprised by this?
There will be no progress until the HRC is dismantled.
If corporations could be gay, this would never have been an issue.
... nothing good would come of it. The common thread in the death spirals we're enjoying are all born of corporations: banking, the oil biz, political corruption.
on homosexuals yet again. And not in the good way.
One more reason I registered as independent.
Various gay rights groups are also tired of coughing up their hard-earned cash to support Democratic candidates only to be left in the cold when strong leadership matters most on these issues that allow discrimination. Sometimes I wish all the military gays would "tell" all at once. Would they really sack ALL of them? There is no way it could happen.
Actually something like that is happening
and the military and political leaders are
not sure what to do about it.
When I was in the navy, it was a running joke that if they asked all of the gay sailors to leave, there wouldn't be a navy.
Like withdrawing the troops. The sooner he does it the sooner the uproar will die down.
The Repos will scream anti-American butthe toops will say how great it is to be back in America.
No matter how unpleasant the surgery if your have cancer, gangrene, even a bunnion. The sooner you remove it, the sooner you start to feel better and sooner the stress that the whole organism has been under is relieved and healing can begin.
... the government would accept chickens in trade, but it seems they have too many chickens already.
Ooh! How 'bout we send in chickens for taxes?
but Obama said he's a "Fears Advocaat".
I agree, and this is kicking the can down the road some,but IMO, it's at least being kicked in the correct direction.Not every play can be a 50 yard touchdown pass those 12 yard hard routes over the middle and 5 or 6 yard runs will get you there it just won't be as quick or as spectacular.In one of his novels Frank Herbert posits the existence of a quality he calls spannungsbogen-which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. I think that applies here and in the case of the removal of all American occupation forces from everywhere.
They're voting on whether to repeal DADT the day after tomorrow. How is that pushing the decision back until after the midterms?
"Looks like President Obama is punting on a campaign promise until after the mid-term elections. If I was completely sure he'd back the repeal, I wouldn't care - but I'm never quite sure with him."
Since she can never be quite sure, neither can her readers.
"While gay rights advocates hailed the move as a "dramatic breakthrough" Susie either does not understand what voting day after tomorrow means or that not having enough votes means the problem is with Congress not the President.
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
The new policy wouldn't go into effect until December at the earliest, assuming the Pentagon report concurs with the repeal.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs both publicly support repeal.
But then I not only read the story, I understood it and understand how Congress works.
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
Seems like a workable strategy, actually. If they do it now, it'll pass. If they try it after November, probably not. Enough of the military is onboard now, and frankly, they need the cannon fodder, and know it.
Repeal it now, and the military will ratify it in December.
this change in the law would be whistling through Congress were it not for the devious work of the President in holding it back?
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
Why do homosexuals want to serve anyways? So they can go into other countries, occupy them under illegal or false pretenses, and slaughter their native populations just like the heteros?
Maybe they want in on the blood-baths that the Military Industrial Complex is throwing for us all?
They want equal rights to pull a trigger and take away the rights of those people that they kill.
brings to mind an old steppenwolf song
"This never ending power play
Tween Jealous greed and vicious hate
Is grinding us like giant millstones
But it can't be our only fate
It's time we got our heads together
And let'em know that we're awake"
john kay could write him some lyrics.
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/steppenwolf-pow...
to eat at Woolworth's?
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
all US citizens are entitled to equal protection, that is a no-brainer, you don't even have to have gay rights as your particular issue to figure that one out.
i am agreeing with truth hurts point about the wars, which grind on day after day, year after year, with no resolution. of course the wars are in countries that have no respect for gay rights, so there is that; but we live in the US, this is our country, and we need to take care of home base.
i simply agree with truth hurts looking at all sides of the issue.
all US citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law.
This sucks...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
They will agree to end DADT, but implementation will be deferred to some time in the distant future.
December comes but once every millenium.
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
Just when I thought I had seen everything. Now we can repeal a bad law, by NOT repealing it. And the douches can claim victory while delivering ... precisely NOTHING. What a bunch of cowards.
How can we keep asking
gay peopleanti abortionists to support theDemocratsRepublicans when they get so little in return?That's why they call it politics.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
No, it is not called politics, its called diversions. Both sides play with us with emotional hot-button issues, maybe throw a few crumbs, and then FEED the emotional issues so that it will consume the time of people on subsidiary issues (at best) when the elites and the power-brokers continue raping your wallet, and continue slaughtering people to finance their MIC goons.
Yeah..and?
You sound upset by this. Have you tried therapy or medication?
I'm just rattling your cage here. The point is, who cares if you or I are upset? You can be as pissed off as you like, as long as it doesn't disturb the status quo.
Why are the militias being cowtowed to? Because they carry guns and guns can really screw up the elites potential to hold power and make money.
Now, I'm not advocating violence. What I am advocating is if people want change, then they have to do more than just sit and whine about it.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
I'm straight , have a great wife etc. but I don't understand what the hell the problem is . For cryin out loud , let people be themselves and accept that they may be different from yourself in some aspects , live / let live and carry on with your own stupid life , is that so friggin difficult !?? Damn , people , human beings , are so stupid !
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
...Obama sucks.
a Readers' Digest notification of prize eligibility.
Is there any issue that President Obama won't start with a weak ass compromise with?
I am sorry, but I want a President who will fight for the minority, just as he/she fights for the majority and President Obama is not that President.
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.PhoenixJustice.com
Of course DADT has been shoved onto the back-burner, until after the mid-term elections. Rahm, Obama, and the DLC are counting on the continued unquestioning support of the Liberal Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, including the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender community, and they are holding all of these populist campaign issues hostage while they pursue their NeoLiberal Crony Corporatist agenda.
The entirety of the DLC-controlled Democratic Party leadership have made a conscious decision to suborn and embrace the Republican Party’s tactics and platform. The big prize is the lions share of Crony Corporate campaign funds, eliminating the need for that Howard Dean-inspired grassroots that brought election victories in 2006 and 2008. Doubt me ?? Check out this website:
[ http://www.therealdifference.org/issues.html ]
Consider all the Crony Corporatist legislation that has already passed, all while claiming “populist base” Democratic victories. Much of that legislation will not go into effect until after the mid-terms, or after the general elections in 2012, by design -- obfuscation of objectives.
It has nothing to do with maintaining the traditional populist platform that endeared the Average Joe and Jane to the Democratic Party, and everything to do with amassing greater political power for their (now) hijacked “New” (NeoLiberal) Democratic Party. There is news trickling out of the Obama administration that they already have their 2012 election campaign up and running. One might surmise that all White House decisions regarding “earmarks”, the order of addressing legislative issues, etcetera are all based upon garnering the maximum corporate campaign contributions while stringing along the Liberal Progressive base.
What are the Liberal Progressives going to do -- “waste” their votes by staying away from the polling booth, or (shudder) voting for 3rd Party candidates -- and risk those bat-shite crazy Reich-wingers regaining power?
The stronger the Reich-winger political gains appear to be, the more tightly bound is the Liberal Progressive wing as political hostages to the “New” (NeoLiberal) Democratic Party.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
It's obvious the Reagan Revolution can't be defeated electorally, as conservatives have control of both major parties. This movement is just going to have to play itself out over time, but progressives are unfortunately dragging the process out much further by supporting establishment candidates like Clinton and Obama. Had they stuck by their guns 10 years ago and not backed down on their support for Nader and third party candidacies, we would be much closer to the end of Reaganism.
Because they will never go Republican. This is realpolitik centrism through and though.
Here's the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solomonese, via Ben Smith at Politico:
[emphasis added]
The repeal of the current law by Congress is approaching quickly, before the mid-terms. It's only orderly implementation that awaits. You can bet your ass that the orderly implementation won't take as long as the 6 years between Truman's executive order to integrate the armed services in 1948 and the dissolution of the last segregated (all black) units in the armed services in 1954.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
"If I was completely sure he'd back the repeal, I wouldn't care - but I'm never quite sure with him."
Not quite sure? How many knives in your back does it take for you to BE sure?
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
-Warrantless wiretapping/telecom immunity: the "constitutional scholar" backs big business and says to hell w/ the bill of rights...
-Torture: The "U.S. doesn't torture" (even though we do)... and, in all truth, the quotation should be "the U.S. doesn't prosecute torture" b/c we're all about "looking forward, not back" in this administration.
-HCR: starting from a position of weakness (public option) instead of strength (universal coverage) => shitty, shitty compromise.
-Gitmo: Promises to close it, wingnut outcry = Prez backs down => still open.
-Wars in Iraq/Arghanistan: Promises to end them in a timely fashion only to escalate in Afghanistan. Some signs of draw-down in Iraq but zero sense of urgency/immediacy.
-Dealing w/ "Too big to fail" and promises to hold GS (et al) accountable: we're so far from this it's laughable...
-BP Gulf Oil catastrophe: The Prez. seems to think the government can do nothing more than stand idly by twiddling its thumbs while BP commits crime after crime while "cleaning up" their mess.
-And now this... putting DADT off until it is more expedient/timely to deal with it.
There is NEVER urgency in this administration. There is not a "can do/get it done now/damn the torpedoes" aspect to their "leadership." All we are treated to is inept (or indifferent) officials who do the bidding of big business and claim helplessness whenever the public demands action... We should've blown that well shut and fined the dickens out of BP. Stripped their licenses/leases. Publicly flogged their CEO. Instead, we put all the onus on them and then sit back "helplessly" while they fuck everything up more. And now, this DADT "compromise." I'm not gay, but it's clear that regardless of who is in power, the minority groups in this country are fucked. I'm sick to death of these corporatists and their empty promises and token gestures. Burn, Berlin, burn!
F@#k You!!!!!!!!!
Some stuff you can't make up!
Yep ... that about covers it.
It's a shame he's the only game in town.
*
I wonder what the political calculation here is - because we ALL know it's about the political calculation.
Does he think he'll get more independent votes this way? I would have thought that would about break even.
*
in my opinion the "Dont ask Dont tell" policy is a good policy for the Military. If they take that policy out of the Military it will cause more problems. If the policy is changed and a situation comes down to promoting a Gay service man/woman or a straight service man/woman and the straight person gets the promotion i believe that the gay service man/woman will say it is descrimination against them. i also believe that gay service/men or weman would get more promotions even if they are not as qualified as the straight service man/woman. and if that happens then it pretty much deffeats what the military is about which is working for what you earn.
i dont hold anything against anyone or discriminate i am just letting you know what i think.
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