DISQUS

RitornaVincitor · 4 months ago

I got another one of those letters from the Democratic Party asking me to make another contribution. I sent the form back with a note letting them know that I would be making no more contributions until Mr. Obama makes good on his promises to the gay community to repeal DADT and DOMA.

wbnyc · 4 months ago

it's funny how the dnc never answers these letters we send, and i've sent many. they could learn alot!

RitornaVincitor · 4 months ago

It's true. They never answer. I just hope somebody in the Party is paying attention and making a note somewhere about the discontent within the ranks. They sure like it when we give money. Maybe they actually care if we don't.

Greensburg · 4 months ago

I can't seem to get the presidents personal attention to remind him, however, I am planning on getting the personal attention of the following: Arlen Specter, Bob Casey Jr., John Murtha, Tim Murphy, and Jason Altmire. All represent southwestern PA in one way or another. I am setting up meetings at their offices this month to meet with each and every one of them. I will use personal vacation days in order to do so. The idea is not original, it came from HRC but I have no intentions in following the HRC agenda. I thought to myself, hell, I can do this on my own. I want them to look me in the eye and tell me why they think I deserve to be a second class citizen, why I as a gay American am not equal to the least in society? I want them to tell me how they as public servents can sit there and let this inequality continue. I want answers on civil rights and will not tolerate any mention of religion or morality from any of them. The need to address the issue based on secular/legal arguements, not religious ones. This pretty much covers doma, dadt, and health care reform as I see. I dont know how long they will schedule me, but I plan on making the most of it. They will be aware that unless they take action now, my money and my votes go else where.

Jophus · 4 months ago

Be sure to update all of us after your meetings.

magnolia49 · 4 months ago

Looking forward to the updates!
And good luck!

mwfolsom · 4 months ago

Look this is just like healthcare, domestic partnerships and everything else - its over. Obama is a spinless disappointment. We made a mistake choosing and supporting him. Its pretty much all over for the next 3 years. My only hope is that he will have the good sense not to run again.

Jophus · 4 months ago

Thank you, AmericaBlog, for putting this on the main page.

caphillprof · 4 months ago

I am wondering whether Americablog's segregation of gay news is the result of pressure from its adveritizers?

Jophus · 4 months ago

Well, sometimes I see a banner on this site from like manhole or adam4adam or some other gay hook up/dating place... I sincerely doubt that is an issue. If it was, I really have enough faith that they wouldn't budge.

magnolia49 · 4 months ago

Amen. (Not meant in any religious way...LOL)

Dateline_Molly · 4 months ago

I'm not buying that 1993 crap. The guy running the entire show (and his "team") supposedly ran a "brilliant postmodern postracial all inclusive" presidential election campaign. Even if it's congress that is "behind the times," why the hell hasn't Obama stepped up?

Because Rick Warren isn't giving him permission to do so, maybe?

magnolia49 · 4 months ago

Permission from Rick Warren. Funny. Though not really.

Butch1 · 4 months ago

Why do we think we need to follow the retrograde thinking of the "Beltway"? I care less what these bible thumping mouth breathers think anymore. This country is so intent on listening to a bunch of people who do not know what they're talking about and it's pathetic. The rest of us are supporting them most of the time with agricultural give-aways and other protections and we have to listen to them and follow their blathering as well.

Time we listen to both coasts for awhile.
(Perhaps, one less cup of coffee would help) ;-)

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

Butch1, at first you were making sense, then when you said: "The rest of us are supporting them most of the time with agricultural give-aways and other protections and we have to listen to them and follow their blathering as well." If you are part of the "us" that you refer to, then you are part of the problem. Either that, or I fail to understand what you were trying to say.

Butch1 · 4 months ago

It's probably in the way I said it.
We, ( the states that are most populated and the taxes from them, ) Subsidize these beltway states with handouts to keep them afloat. The media and this country seems to think that what these people have to say, is what we should be doing. I disagree. Why we give a minority of people who live in this area the moral authority and the final say as to what type of health care we will have doesn't make sense. We support them and they tell us how we should be living. I see something wrong in this. They aren't able to support themselves because there aren't enough of them. I was saying that we give them too much credence and we are allowing this committee of Blue-Dog belt-way representatives the power over us when we support them with money to prop them up by the taxes that come from other areas of the country.
I'm saying, we need to listen less to them and more to the people from the west and east coasts where the money in taxes to support the belt-way comes from.

Jophus · 4 months ago

So Carrol Channing sang in the musical adaptation of Alice in Wonderland about jam. She tried to negotiate a deal with alice and said she could have jam every other day. When Alice said she doesn't want jam, Channing tells her she couldn't have it anyways, and sings something along the lines of:

'Jam tomorrow. Jam yesterday, but never ever jam today. It is free jam every other day, and today will never be any another day.'

omen · 4 months ago

that's right, let's relentlessly hammer him from both sides, left & right, until his approval ratings are down to nothing and he's been reduced to a premature lame duck. we've already succeeded in putting up roadblocks, drying up his capital and slowing down his momentum in passing healthcare. great idea. why even republicans couldn't think of a more diabolical plan. congrats.

jpjones · 4 months ago

Hey troll, OBAMA is the one slowing down his momentum. The vast majority of the public supports repeal of DADT - and no one here expects him to do anything other than what he PROMISED during the campaign.

As for passing health care, the public is souring on Obama because he promised a public option - AGAIN supported by an overwhelming majority - and then IMMEDIATELY backed off of it at the first rumbling of discontent from ... THE REPUBLICANS? Who does he think VOTED for him???

Why are you criticizing US for HIS utter ineptitude when it comes to governing?

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

jpjones, I know that everything cannot be done at once. I am sure that you can understand that, however, if you keep shooting him in the foot (or slitting his throat) while he tries to get other things done, nothing that any of us want will get done and Gingrinch, Bush, Cheny, Laimbrain, Rumsfeld, etc. will have won again."

rf7777 · 4 months ago

Obama is ending up being a very weak president. He is gonna make Carter look like FDR. He is nuancing and compromising his way to political impotence. He doesn't stick to his guns on anything. Reversing Bush policies... meh. Health care reform with a public option... he has not provided one ounce of leadership, has not provided his own plan and now will basically accept anything. DADT, DOMA promises... he passes the buck to congress yet again.

I certainly won't vote for a republican in 2012 but am starting to wish I had another choice!

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

omen, you nailed it. Much later, though before I read your post, I posted: "While I support your desire for repeal of DNDT, I also know that everything cannot be done at once. I am sure that you can understand that, however, if you keep shooting him in the foot (or slitting his throat) while he tries to get other things done, nothing that any of us want will get done and Gingrinch, Bush, Cheny, Laimbrain, Rumsfeld, etc. will have won again."

editht · 4 months ago

When I met with my Congressman's Chief of Staff this past Monday, he said Congressman Murphy's DADT repeal bill is currently in the Armed Services Committee, chaired by Congressman Skelton. The Chief of Staff said we all need to be calling Congressman Skelton to get the committee to mark up the bill to move it forward. Let's get on the phones.

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

Finally, editht, you are someone recommending something positive, instead of beating on those who have not solved all the problems of the USA.

jerryCA · 4 months ago

Let's stop boo hooing that Obama promised many many times to repeal DADT and DOMA. We need to spur ourselves into actions against Obama and Democratic leadership. First demand to demand Obama his chief of staff. He is way too cozy with Blue Dogs. Demand loudly that Obama stop defending DOMA with obnoxious language. DO SOMETHING and let's quit whinning.

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

Actions agains Obama? you are playing into the hands of, Bush, Cheney, Gingrinch, Rush Lamebrain, et. al. or are you a closet or deep throat, undercover Neocon, trying to dhelp the GOP?

HelenRainier · 4 months ago

Does "inside the Beltway" mean the people of DC or the Congress? If it means the Congress, who gives a rip how it is perceived by them? They are not the ones who matter. It is the country and our military that matter. If the Pentagon and over 100 admirals and generals believe it is TIME to repeal DADT and change the law so that homosexuals can serve their country, then that should be the guiding force, not that of stupid Congress members who are afraid of offending their Bible-based family-values constituents. Obviously, there are numerous examples of people who have served honorably in the military -- most recently LTC Fehrenbach and the many others who are/have been discharged.

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

Inside the Beltway, last I knew, refers to all those who live and/or work "inside the beltway," or in the DC metropolitan area which includes much of VA and MD.

I used to be what is often called a "Beltway Bandit," working out of Silver Spring, MD, and performing my work in Crystal City complex, which as I remember it is actually in VA. There I tried to keep a corporation from ripping off the U.S. Navy, an almost impossible job. Now I trust neither politicians not corporations.

HelenRainier · 4 months ago

I think of it as those primarily associated with the federal government, such as Congress, lobbyists, pundits but not the every day citizens.

I've been to Silver Spring years ago when I went home for the weekend with a female Army buddy. Her family lived there. I don't remember a lot about the trip there as it's been over 30 years ago now, but I do remember going to Arlington and watching the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was very impressive what with totally silent ceremony and the precision with which it was executed. I also find the silent inspection drill the Marines do with their weapons. The precision and synchrocity with no commands is amazing.

Indigo · 4 months ago

In other words, don't ask. We're not telling.
"Mmmmmkay," said Mr. Mackie.

UAFA_NOW · 4 months ago

Citizen Crain has a great piece on how the Obama Administration should go about repealing DADT.

http://citizenchris.typepad.com/citizenchris/20...

johninsd · 4 months ago

Having read Citizen Crain's well thought out plan, I still don't think Mr. Obama will do anything to make sure that DADT or DOMA will end. The dems are just too weak.

1JimL1 · 4 months ago

While I support your desire for repeal of DNDT, I also know that everything cannot be done at once. I am sure that you can understand that, however, if you keep shooting him in the foot (or slitting his throat) while he tries to get other things done, nothing that any of us want will get done and Gingrinch, Bush, Cheny, Laimbrain, Rumsfeld, etc. will have won again.

Over Them · 4 months ago

I'm shocked, Joe, that after writing a couple of weeks ago about the Palm Center's report "Self-Inflicted Wound: How and Why Gays Give the White House a Free Pass on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" you would still consider SLDN "the source" for credible information about the status of DADT.

Perhaps it is because the report didn't name names of those that have pushed the single strategy of repeal at the expense of a dual strategy including a legal freeze by Obama. But SLDN was one of those subsequently identified by Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin in a "Washington Blade" article about their analysis of how the momentum of pressure on the President that resulted in that out-of-the-blue White House Tea for the Gays and Secty of Defense Gates suddenly talking about possibly being more "humane" was stopped by some in our own community.

Until this report, ironically by the same UCSB think tank upon whose research and advice they have depended for years, SLDN’s indefensible (and inexplicable) role in this folly flew under the radar while some attacked HRC. But on the Chris Matthews show on June 4th, HRC unequivocally called for the President to use his thoroughly legal powers to freeze discharges until repeal happens while more than two months later SLDN is still telling everyone—including their own gay GI clients—that we have to wait on the House and Senate...when it still looks like it will be a very long time before enough of those cows come home. Senators don't even have a repeal bill to come home to.

One doesn't have to study the endless "repeal only" articles on SLDN's site, the evidence is right here for, despite his bleating about "urgency," note Nix says NOTHING about a freeze.

Palm:

"Every ounce of activism directed towards the exclusive legislative strategy as opposed to the two-part strategy enhances the ability of the White House to invoke its old pass-the-buck defense which was so effective for the first few months of the administration, before the two-part strategy was raised in public. Calling for an exclusive emphasis on legislative repeal is perhaps the greatest gift gay rights groups could give the White House. And it’s a slap in the face to service members like Lt. Dan Choi, whose careers are in peril right NOW.

The two-part strategy was working. As soon as the public learned that President Obama could suspend the gay ban with the stroke of a pen, the tone of media coverage shifted immediately from “isn’t it terrible to fire gay Arabic linguists” to “why isn’t President Obama doing anything.”
. . . Sadly, at the very moment that discussion of the two-part strategy started to disable the political stalemate surrounding “don’t ask, don’t tell,” some gay and gay-friendly activists, journalists and politicos have let up pressure on the White House by resisting executive action, and insisting on an exclusive focus on legislative repeal. . . .

If a unified community held the President accountable for his recent, misleading remarks about why he will not sign an executive order, redirected the national conversation to the two-part strategy and demanded immediate executive leadership as the first step in a multi-stage effort to lift the ban, we would maximize the chances for unlocking the stalemate in Washington and again see momentum toward an outcome that has been elusive for more than fifteen years."

SLDN is strategically bankrupt and it's time they were held accountable for it. No wonder Servicemembers United, made up of recent vets, has partnered again with HRC rather than SLDN for their anti DADT voter education tour.

BrianHMB · 4 months ago

A friend of mine is in the Navy. He said that when he signed his re-enlistment papers last week, he had to check a box that read "I am not gay". If he didn't check the box, he could not re-enlist. He said that DADT has been repealed. Even closeted gays, are no longer allowed to serve their country.