There’s a lot going on today at the capitol. DREAM, unfortunately, has already failed, though DADT is on the verge of repeal. As for the latter, I’ve said my piece here before (most immediately, that it’s ludicrous that continue the charade when almost every single one of our allies that are fighting, dying, and, dare I say it, cohabitating with us in the mountains of Afghanistan allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in their organizations). It’s already pretty late into the night on my side of the planet and this will all be old news by the time I wake up, so I guess consider this an open thread.
DREAM, START, and DADT on Senate’s Plate Today
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17 responses to “DREAM, START, and DADT on Senate’s Plate Today”
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He got called out, and now he apologizes. Sorry, don’t care, and I don’t buy his apology– which sounds insincere at best.
He’s a damned Senator now. He should know about these types of things. For crysakes Ron Wyden was voting the weekend before some major surgery. Ya know to get rid of his cancer.
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Steve: FYI
“Manchin Apologizes for Missing Votes
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) apologized for missing two key votes over the weekend while attending a Christmas party, according to West Virginia Metro News.Said Manchin: “Let me apologize to anybody and everybody within our listening and reading areas. I’m very sorry for missing the two votes… In the future, I will make any adjustments and all adjustments that need to be made so that it doesn’t happen again.”
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Meant to put quotes around that. Google that paragraph and you’ll get taken to the GT page. Seriously, read GT’s political forum. Lulz are guaranteed.
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Yeah, let’s call it for what we now know it to be: Idiocy. Rank bigotry & mindless, insidious, idiocy.
First there’s what? Some 2000 years of recorded history here. Of course no one seems to recall that. From the Spartan legions to Alexander the Great to Churchill ruefully decrying that everything he knew about the storied British Naval tradition amounted to little more than “Rum, sodomy & the lash”, when stymied trying to modernize the British Navy in the early 20th Century. (As 1st Lord of the Admiralty). There’s been gays fighting wars for yes eons by now. Fighting in every major American War since the Revolution. (Ditto for cross dressing women basically up & until WW1 too).Disregard that history. What about the Recent & highly relevant experience of our allies? Like here:
They’ve studied the Israeli experience and found none of these claimed detrimental effects. Ditto for the 22 other nations in our Nato Alliance:
“According to Nathaniel Frank, Communications Director of the CSSMM, “It has been 27 years since the Dutch military became the first to lift its gay ban, and twenty-two other nations have followed suit in the intervening years. If opponents of gays and lesbians in the military actually believe that lifting the ban would undermine the armed forces, why haven’t they produced any studies showing this to be the case?” [End quote].
More updates on the Media angle here via Media Matters: equalitymatters.org/
What’s more significant for the average Marine? More detrimental to his/her well being & unit cohesion? Try ‘hope as an operational plan’ under Bush & Rummy in Iraq. Ergo No adequately armored Humvees in Iraq for the 1st several Years. Ditto for personal Body amour. Ditto for non working, poorly covering & barely effective helmets to protect against the modern scourge of TBI’s. Ditto for inadequate treatment of same, leading to increased suicides. Are we counting here yet? That’s about 1000 deaths for the boots on the ground. In & from Iraq alone. Making perhaps a few ignorant, inexperienced young troopers temporarily uncomfortable or even ’embarrassed’ about goodness knows what low level locker room BS? Pretty damn minor in the grand scheme of things. And really? Where is a similar concern for the outright sexual assaults we do see on Women soldiers? Which is a documented criminal epidemic in some quarters? Crickets we hear crickets from the bigots. If you’re really, truly concerned about all that nasty, coercive sex stuff? There’s a good place to start to show some initiative. But of course, that’s really not the case. Their bigotry & hypocrisy is constantly showing. But I repeat myself.
(And yes, this is the short version of the rant here.) 20 damn years in coming &Happy Holidays! JMP -
Dear DF..
Have you lost your mind or it that wishful thinking?
Considering that none of what you just typed out has come true with any of our allies in both battlefields, I’d say it’s unlikely that will happen.
I think you were trying to be a smartass-but one never knows these days with you.
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It would be a mistake to focus on Hagan et. al, exclusively or even primarily. Yes, she joined the Republican Party to kill it, but neither she nor the Republican Party were the only ones responsible: those who support the filibuster that prevents passage of legislation with majority support killed it, too.
Akaka, Feinstein, Landrieu, Levin, Rockefeller, etc., all voted for the legislation – but given their support for the filibuster, they were no less instrumental in stopping it than those who vote no. And their continued support for the filibuster will ensure its failure in the future.
Those who voted no are bigots, or in thrall to them. But those who claim to oppose bigotry, and thus support DREAM, nevertheless enable the bigots by supporting the rules that give them power; and they support those rules not because they are just, but because those rules enable them to engage in similarly petty behavior, like Landrieu’s use of them to block an Obama nominee until he ended the offshore drilling moratorium.
So we have Senators who are bigots and Senators who endorse rules that enable bigots: the effect of both is more bigotry. So why blame only the former? The latter deserve the blame, too.
And the latter would be more productive targets for lobbying. Both have done the math: those opposed believe that it is in their best interests to oppose the law; those supportive believe it is in their best interests to support it. Both are probably correct.
Those who oppose the law are unlikely to be moved by criticism of their position from supporters; if they were, they’d have supported it. But those who support the law are likely to be moved by that criticism – they’ve decided they need that support, and if they learn it isn’t enough to vote yes, but to support rules that make that yes vote meaningful, they’ll shift accordingly.
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Glock Talk never fails to deliver. And I’m really getting sick of what my own party says.
Well if this passes then you can see a very big major rewrite is coming cause there are about 10 Regs I see they would be in violation of! And as I said before I give them about 6 months and they will force the services to provide them with there own housing so they can bring all there lovers on base- Gay marriage will be next! Then they will say I’m gay I don’t kill! I don’t like guns! I want to wear a dress! Understand this is all about destroying the military and making it ineffective! Just another nail in the coffin that was America!
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Sad thing is that we had 5 Democrats vote NO on the DREAM Act. Had they not done that, it would have passed. We need to work on Hagan (NC), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Baucus (MT), and Tester (MT). The GOP largely killed it yes, but they had some Democratic help.
As for DADT Repeal, interesting that Burr (NC) and Ensign (NV) voted YES for final passage after supporting the filibuster. Guess they didn’t want to have “anti-gay bigot” beside their names in the history books.
For posterity, those anti-gay bigots are: Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC),Grassley (R-IA), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), LeMieux (R-FL), Lugar (R-IN), McCain (R-AZ),McConnell (R-KY), Risch (R-ID),Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)It would appear that TN, MS, GA, TX, and SC have never had Senators who could find it in their hearts to treat fellow citizens equally when the opportunity arose.
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Yep. The need for filibuster reform has been self evident for years, and it should be the 1st order of business for the new Senate going forward in the new year. It’s not in the Constitution, so even the teaparty should be hating on such abuse. I’m not holding my breath though. The Dream Act is long over due. We’ve been arguing about it in some form or another for a decade by now. JMP
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As usual, only in the Senate can a bill have the support of the majority (55) and still fail to pass. Note to Senators who place their love of the privileges the Senate rules give them over a path to citizenship for these children: regardless of how you voted on this bill, you’re to blame for this failure.
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Y’all are nuts to be sitting there watching that much C-Spam. Rot ‘yer brains & all. Still I really hope Manchin gets/becomes better. Byrd was an old decrepit crank by the time he left us, but he was still a careful & serious legislator with plenty of gravitas and flashes of rhetorical brilliance for much of his very long tenure. Let’s hope that Manchin is able to similarly ‘grow’ into the role, and not just relay on such things to avoid tough votes. But 8 solid hours? There’s the Geneva Conventions to consider here too. They kick in after 6 hours I suspect. But thanks for the report. McInsane’s still cranky, querulous, deeply hypocritical & forever cravenly crazy. SSDD. And Mitch’s always looking out for the Chinese Mafia first, I suspect. They’ve got an aircraft carrier soon now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/18/joe-manchin-dadt-repeal_n_798720.html
JMP
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@Steve, I watch 8 hours too, but usually it’s so dry that it’s easy… today however I was on the edge of my seat from about 9:30 am till well after 4. Plus keeping up with Twitter and FB.
Sad about DREAM and tomorrow is START, we’ll see how that goes.
Sen. Manchin will learn several hard lessons about his “family holiday” absence today. I know he received hundreds of calls, petitions and emails about DREAM, DADT and START. Yeah, this wasn’t the weekend to burp the kiddies.
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Jules, I watch at least 8 hours of C-SPAN daily. Sadly, I was out today, and didn’t see it. The one freaking day. Good job Reid.
On another note, I hope everyone reads my colorful statuses about Joe Manchin, who I believe to be the least honorable sack of you-know-what.
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Senate just voted, 65-31… several Republican’s crossed over to vote to repeal. Ensign and Burr two big surprises.
Sen. McCain embarrassed himself today-his comments were off the chain and over the top. I can’t imagine anyone continuing to call him a hero from this day forward. He insulted many of his fellow Senators and Representatives and looked bitter and nasty. On top of that the gay mafia on capitol hill is gunning for you Mitch McConnell.
Lots to say about this, lots… but I’m exhausted from watching nearly 8 hours of CSPAN.
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Done Deal. Woot!
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Yep. It still feels good though. But as Tip O’Neill said, Social Security & Medicare eventually made old folks so secure, finally for the first time, so they could easily vote for the Rethugs. And now? They don’t even recognize that all this ‘largesse’ from the Big gumminit is part of a social contract. And no, they did not now nor ever ‘pay for it all’ via taxes. Not nearly. But that point is & was lost with the entitlement. But hey, we’ll still be able to celebrate something for the Hols too. JMP
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For all of the anger about the loss of Democrats, both from their offices and from the Georgia party, it is heartening to think of how far the nation has come on gays in the military, and really gays in general. All of the attacks on DADT are now from the left, whereas they were from the right when DADT was passed. To think DADT was the liberal position (or at least Democratic one) on gays in the military and now it is the conservative one is astounding.
Of course, once this and gay marriage happen, we will start losing gays to the GOP and not just the closeted ones.
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