Gays are more willing to question authority than straights.

Why would the military invite that kind of headache?

Smart alecks might refuse illegal/immoral orders!

Easier to go with the ‘enlistment-as-path-to-naturalization’ plans.

Actually, I would prefer to see a whole Brigade of openly gay Marines happen upon Osama, in broad daylight.

And this quote?

”Now is not the time,” the in-house legal counsel for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote recently in a memorandum obtained by The Associated Press. “The importance of winning the wars we are in, along with the stress on the force, our body of knowledge and the number of unknowns, demand that we act with deliberation.”

Now we know where Rumsfield wound up at.

During the Korean War, we had a Commander in Chief who had the stones to get the job done anyway.

Hell, the U.S. can’t even get real meaningful universal health care reform after trying for nearly 90 years. No one should hold their breath for a repeal of DADT. Instead there may well be some meaningless “comprimise” that assuages the delicate sensitivities of the Joint Chiefs.

DADT compares to health reform?

It compares only as another example of how the U.S. is trapped by it’s conservative ideology and is unable to move forward in any meaningful fashion, whether it be on health care, gays in the military or global climate change.

“allow an openly gay woman or man be involved in capturing Osama bin Laden or other terrorists or the latter win.”

fixed it for ya

In overall fuckeduppedness of situation? I’d say yes.

Good morning, pups. It’s Collins and Kristof today. Ms. Collins, in “The 10 Percent Rules,” says if there was a terror alert code for the special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, it would be at orange with dark tints. Mr. Kristof, in “Google Takes a Stand,” says by refusing to censor search results in China, Google is showing spine — a kind that few other companies or governments have shown toward Beijing.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got toasted Thomas’ English muffins with your favorite jam. My inward arrangements are in a bit of an uproar so I shall take my leave. Have a great day.

Obama does whatever the military leaders tell him to, like increased drone attacks regardless of civilian casualties, a “surge” in Afghanistan, despite urgings to the contrary by world leaders and experts in the local politics, the assignment of McChrystal to Af-Pak despite his cover-up of the Tillman fiasco and his penchant for “death squads”, etc. Obama has abdicated authority over the military and handed it to Gates (as we saw when he actually went so far as to gut the Freedom of Information Act in order to give Gates the brand new authority to deny FOIA requests whenever the whim strikes him).

At the same time, Obama has made a point of reversing every position he claimed to hold during the campaign, apparently because he and Rahm get a big charge out of pissing all over the “little people” who put them in office.

All things considered, it’s more likely that Obama-Rahm will propose that we adopt the Ugandan strategy on this, which could be encapsulated as “Don’t Tell Or You Die!”

Obama has proven himself to be basically for sale to the fattest cat, and willing to cave on anything the uttermost right is willing to make noise about. If DADT is NOT still in place at the end of Obama’s single term, it will be because it has been replaced with a more punitive regimen.

more than enough of them to be ready to assist a GOP talking point that makes no sense whatsoever:

When there is an all volunteer military one tends to end up with right wing crazies…the rest of us join the peace corps or go to college or do something useful with our lives. I mean why in hell would one volunteer to go and murder people unless you were 1/ crazy or 2/ really bloody crazy 3/ fucking nuts.

Obama’s bipartisanship fetish and his lack of leadership on health care reform that would benefit the “people” (he’s shown excellent leadership in promoting corporate interests) has completely demoralized Democrats in MA. Given that the sophistication and knowledge of the “average” voter is as deep as a bumper sticker it’s not surprising that the Dem in MA could well be in trouble. Push a few hot buttons and the rubes are dancing at the ends of a marionette’s strings.

You left out (4) you’re 18 years old, just out of high school with no clear plan for the future and a vague sense of patriotism urging you to do something heroic for your country.

It may sound silly to those of us well beyond 30, but I remember almost joining the Navy at age 19 for lack of a better plan, and I had to do some serious talking (25 years later) to dissuade my eldest son from signing up to go to Iraq when he graduated from high school. The sales pitches made by recruiters don’t talk about killing and dying, they talk about learning to be “tough” and making money for college.

sense of patriotism urging you to do something heroic for your country.

There are many other opportunities to “display” your patriotism other than going to a foreign country to murder people. One could go to that very same country and volunteer to help people, build houses, plow fields, tend to the sick, the poor…. hell the list goes on.

Push a few hot buttons and the rubes are dancing at the ends of a marionette’s strings.

Therein lies the problem with coakley. She is a political hack, she will spit on her mother and piss on her grandmother to advance politically and many, many of the voters can see through her. She will do the bidding of Washington Dem “leadership” and to hell with her constituents. Kennedy was very much in tune with his constituency, worked very hard for the people of Mass and would buck the “leadership” if he had to. Coakley is a political animal. She has already said that she would vote for the piece of trash Oh Bummah! has called Health reform and the people of Mass plainly do not like her.

I was not suggesting that young people SHOULD join the military, merely pointing out that it’s understandable that they do. Your insistence that all military volunteers are mentally unstable and only in it for the violence doesn’t match my personal experiences, hence my comment.

I must admit that my military experience was between 1966 and 1972 and I can assure that the volunteers I met up with were all bloody nuts, could not wait to go kill “gooks” and were as violent a bunch of people as you would ever want to see. Just as crazy as the idiot suicide bombers of today.

Good morning. Waiting until I consume my second cuppa before joining the fray.

CIA involved with google according to caller on WJ. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

Here’s a rare event: Beck calls out Palin.

Shocking.

Heh.

She is stunningly ignorant.

[Snort] To quote the first comment over there, “her depth of knowledge isn’t very deep.” But amazing that Beck called her out.

No, no, no. She just doesn’t play favorites. She likes all things. All books. All Founding Fathers. When asked what her favorite color is, she responded the same. /s Yellow is just so sunny and blue is so calming. See?
G’morning, Ecahn. Sorry to get snarky so early. Couldn’t help it.

Cass Sunstein thinks the USG should infiltrate conspiracy groups like 9/11 Truthers. The don’t already?

Perfectly fine. I’ve my 2 cups so I’m ready for whatever.

“the rest of us” bullshit, where do you get off with this elitist crap?

Watch those bloodthirsty Marines and what they do in Haiti, just like they did after the Tsunami.

I had understood you to say earlier that you immigrated here from Ireland during that period, when the draft was still in place, and managed to stay out of the military while acquiring dual citizenship. You once implied that you had immigrated in order to oppose the Vietnam War. That seemed strange to me in that Ireland definitely had it’s own problems with paramilitary volunteers, intractable religious fanatics, and apparently insoluble political differences and could have stood the participation of conscientious peace loving citizens with reasonable answers.

His bullshit is on par with Rush.

Swim is up…

Did you see what Rush said about Obama using the Haiti crisis to rally American Black’s support? Stunning.

That’s exactly what I am talking about.

What I figured. I usually don’t watch morning joe, but had turned on the news to get an update. Seems like people like Rush and Robertson are as dangerous as the actual earthquake.

By “military experience” you mean people you met who had actually served. If not you are going to have to explain which service drafted for a term of 6 years or how you were so screwed as to be drafted about 3 times. If none of the above, you volunteered somewhere along the line.
A lot of people join the military even in times of conflict hoping like hell they never get anywhere near combat. The chances are actually quite good you never will. It helps explain why so many have multiple tours in dangerous places.

When there is an all volunteer military one tends to end up with right wing crazies…

FWIW, I was one of those volunteers in the USAF. For the most part, the folks I dealt with who also volunteered were joining for education, upwardly mobility, some work experience. Not sure if anyone I ever dealt with had anything at all to do with right wing crazies. Most were small town folks trying to get ahead.

Of course, Scarborough and that other guy (not buchanan, but i forget his name) had to say that that type of hateful comment comes from the left as well.

Heard that, but they didn’t have an example or a clip did they? I’ve heard some pretty angry comments here, for instance, but not the kind of hate speech they were referring to.

Of course they had no examples, they never do. They were trying to spin an apple in to an orange.

I know. I was just trying to use a wide-eyed, innocently ignorant approach to calling bullshit.

Hmmm. Interesting. Isn’t Haiti on the other half of the island Rush does his whoring on?

Twitter the devil and ask him. Oh, brother.

I was referring to an account of Rush’s comments re whoring that I found by googling

but looking at the transcript of Rush’s show, that comment doesn’t
appear, so don’t know if he actually said it. He made despicable enough comments without that one added.

edit: oops link didn’t appear. here is the google result I first saw on Rush’s nasty comments: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/rush-limbaugh-comments-on-quake-struck-haiti_100303876.html

The funny thing is that those-who-are-not-to-ask and those-that-are-not-to-tell have been making themselves known to one another informally and getting on with military life for who knows how long. Down in the ranks, under the stresses of military life in peace and war, being dependable and competent seems to count for a lot more than one’s dating habits.

When a family member was in the Navy back in the Raygun years, he and his other bunkmates knew that they had a gay guy berthing with them pretty early on. They were not particularly politically correct and no doubt had varying views on the aesthetics if not the morality of homosexuality. But, according to my relative, so what? It wasn’t like they were there to date each other. They all had a hard job to do under often less than pleasant circumstances, often with too little time to do it. They weren’t fussing over who a guy slept with as long as he could be relied on to hold a wrench or a fire hose when necessary. And none of them had any sympathy whatever for the NIS types that came around hunting for guys like their bunkmate.

So, if the brass are still flogging this dead horse, I suspect it is, at best, a reflection of how far they are from the rank and file who do the actual work. At worst, it is merely pandering to their perceived political allies on the far right. Either way, they shouldn’t be in command of real soldiers, sailors, and airmen.