Gates: I’m looking at ways to ensure gays are not kicked out of military based on personal vendettas.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was considering a temporary solution that would allow gays to serve in the military until the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is changed by Congress. Gates said he was looking for “a more humane way to comply with the law until the law gets changed.” Last night, Gates delivered an address at the Economic Club of Chicago, where he fleshed out his views in greater detail. “This is a difficult challenge for us, and there’s no reason to soft-pedal it,” Gates said. He went on to explain examples of “humane” applications of the law that he’s looking at: LinkHere
Bilbo Hussein Baggins says: I'm sorry, but I don't understand how Gates and others in the military can make it so complicated.
Among the 19 NATO member countries, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and the United States are the only six that do not allow gays, lesbians and bisexuals to serve openly. Foreign militaries that have lifted their bans include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
So, Mr. Gates, why is it so complicated in the USA. Is it because we are a more homophobic nation than all the others or is it because people like you are making it complicated when it is in fact very simple. JUST STOP KICKING GAYS OUT OF THE MILITARY.
GOP Rep Tiahrt Asks Whether Obama's Mother Would Have Had An Abortion
Typical GOP racist, to bad his mother didn"t abort him. How racist is that comment?
The comments, pointed out by an eagle-eyes CSPAN viewer, are a classic charge of abortion opponents, though, in this case, rife with political sensitivities. Usually it is Beethoven, not Obama, who plays the role of the fortunately non-terminated fetus. But for Tiahrt to group the president together with another minority figure - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - is to invite another round of questions over how the GOP is actually relating to minority communities. Just this week, Michael Steele was asked how to woo black voters to the Republican tent by a questioner who offered up collard greens. I'll bring the "fried chicken and potato salad" the RNC Chairman, himself an African-American, responded. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., meanwhile, told Sonia Sotomayor, a Hispanic, that she had "some 'splaining to do." LinkHere
Sen Graham To Sotomayor: Do You Have A Temperament Problem?
"When you look at the evaluation of the judges on the second circuit you stand out like a sore thumb in terms of your temperament," said the South Carolina Republican, who went on to call Sotomayor a "bully."
As Ian Millhiser, a Legal Research Analyst with the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund, points out, Graham didn't publicly object to two other judges with reputations for being a bit brash: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia. LinkHere
Obama On Responsibility For Economy: "Give It To Me"
WARREN, Mich. — Conceding unemployment will get worse before it shrinks, President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled a $12 billion plan to help community colleges prepare millions of people for a new generation of jobs. Challenging critics, he said he welcomed the task of turning around the economy. "I love the folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, 'Well, this is Obama's economy,'" the president told an outdoor crowd at Macomb Community College, veering off his scripted words. "That's fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe." Obama did not identify his target for those comments, but he has been under increasing fire from Republicans over the pace of the economic recovery and the soaring deficit. He brought his message to a state reeling from the loss of auto jobs. Michigan's unemployment rate is 14.1 percent, the nation's worst. "The hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won't be coming back," Obama said. "They are the casualties of a changing economy." To that end, he proposed an "American Graduation Initiative" to bolster the two-year community college field that serves millions of students as a launching point for careers or a step toward expanded higher education. The idea is to train people for jobs, such as those expected in the clean energy industry, when the economy turns around and begins to create jobs again instead of shedding them. LinkHere
Seymour Hersh Stands By Reporting On Cheney Assassination Squad The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick Cheney’s secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight. "Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us." "I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn’t torture, this time it's the government doesn’t assassinate." LinkHere
wpiv926 This whole process makes a mockery of our system. It is all for the cameras. Judge Sotomayor visited privately with 89 of the 100 senators. It would seem to me that they would have had enough time to ask their questions in a timely manner before now. This is nothing but a show for the cameras and a stroking of oversized senate egos. And the American people are not amused. 2008FedUP
Dear GOP, Your "Session" is over. Be gone.
Sotomayor Surprises Sessions with Cedarbaum Friendship
Sotomayor Surprises Sessions
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 “wise Latina” speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who “believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices.” Associated Press Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, during her confirmation hearing before the committee Tuesday. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) is at left. “So I would just say to you, I believe in Judge Cedarbaum’s formulation,” Sessions told Sotomayor. “My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here,” Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’ apparent surprise. “We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts.” Cedarbaum agreed. “I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no effect on her approach to judging,” she told Washington Wire. “We’d both like to see more women on the courts,” she added. Cedarbaum, a pioneering woman lawyer who graduated from Columbia Law School in 1953, goes way back with both participants in the colloquy. Cedarbaum mentored Sotomayor after she joined the federal district court in Manhattan in 1992, and they have been close friends ever since. In 1986, Cedarbaum and Sessions were both nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, and were members of the same orientation class for future judges. Their paths then diverged, however. Cedarbaum was confirmed, but Sessions nomination floundered over a controversy surrounding comments he made involving the Ku Klux Klan and the NAACP.LinkHere
Durango
Isn't it amazing that a man who is not qualified to sit on the Federal bench is criticizing a woman who has reached the height of her profession. Too bad they don't have review and qualifications for Senators like they do for Federal judges. Sessions would have failed that also.
kevsters None of the arguments that these Republican Senators are going to hold water. Here is a great analysis of the New Haven Firefighters case, as Justice Ginsburg saw it in her dissenting opinion. http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2159
Sotomayor Tied To Bill Ayers In New Conservative Ad
Sessions Becomes The Subject Of Sotomayor Hearings
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 “wise Latina” speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who “believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices.”
