See What Obama Has Meant?

So, here are some news stories that matter a lot, and in the course of the 2016 election stuff, I might not have given them each the attention they deserve--but here goes:

Eric Fanning, a gay man, has been confirmed by the US Senate for the position of Secretary of the Army.  DADT was only ended in President Obama's first term. His hold for several months was not due to his orientation, but because a Republican Senator wanted assurances that Guantanamo prisoners would not be transferred to a certain US facility. In other news, the GOP is really the reason why we never closed GITMO. We would have GITMO squared under any GOP president.

Obamacare has been a success, reducing the percentage of US uninsured to single digits.  We could do better, especially if states (all with Republican governors, by the way) all accepted the Medicare expansion to cover some of the poorest and sickest. Obamacare would be under the gun in the first term of a Republican President.  Hillary Clinton would like to build on this success with a Medicare buy-in program.  This is a really great idea.

The Obama Administration has doubled the salary threshold of workers who benefit from the overtime rule, meaning more middle/working class people get compensated for the hours they work. The Obama Administration has supported fair pay, higher minimum wage, and decent working conditions. Hillary Clinton will do the same. You are not getting that assurance from Donald "wages are too high" Trump no matter what the hell he says.

In just a day, the news stories remind us of what significant things President Obama has been doing, and still does, even in what should be considered the "lame duck" period of his administration. These are meaningful things to real people. They aren't "paper" signifiers.

Voting matters, and who gets hold of an office matters. And a President needs a sympathetic Congress to get his larger agenda through. It bears repeating and rinsing and repeating. It really matters. A lot. There is no "principle" respected by sitting the election out that compares to the damage that gets done when people don't aim to at least prevent harm, if not root for an active good. So that's where I stand.

Iconic symbol of the end of DADT--

I've read a few comments here and there on-line about the lack of an iconic photo to mark the end of the Iraq War like the Times Square kiss marked the end of WWII. But here's your real photo about the end of a different war--I think this is it for the culture war. These two sailors kissing has me kvelling.

It's just about damn time.

McCain discusses DADT

I really think DADT is broken if 13,000+ people have been separated from the military for no other reason than their identity. I think there's reason to believe it's broken because of the men and women who have served in the military and are LGBT who have become activists on this issue. I think it's broken because as a society we've moved on, and the people who serve our country deserve nothing less than our respect--which must include our respect of who they are.

It's not just that he doesn't get it--it's that he is so everywhere on tv very postively not getting it. And yet I'm really hoping when this thing comes to a vote Saturday, that Sen. Lieberman is right and they have the votes in the Senate to repeal this injustice. Sen. McCain is just on the wrong side of history, here.

AC360--Keeping them Honest About DADT

Admiral Mullen and Sec Def Gates are being awesome, Senator McCain is truly....uniquely awful. Even Sen. Lieberman, with whom I've totally had some gripes over policy issues in the past, is totally talking sense about this issue. I really don't get what McCain's deal is. There are so many talented, committed men and women whose desire to serve--whose patriotism, is being maligned. They are getting bounced from the military for no good reason. That itself should be proof enough to Senator McCain that this is not effective, and not a good strategy while we are at war.

I have a tendency to believe McCain's dishonorability on this is bad faith from his 2008 drubbing. I really wish he would get over himself. But in the meanwhile, I am glad so many people are addressing this issue sensibly. For once.

McCain wants a hearing to study the study that didn't do what he wanted in a hole in the bottom of the sea.

Okay--you don't have to watch all ten-plus minutes of Grampy droning on about the wars. About three minutes in, he's talking about DADT and the recently leaked study, which strongly suggests that our military woud be just fine if gay servicemembers were able to serve openly. There was a study. It was totally about "what would happen". That it was leaked does not invalidate the study, anymore than telling people what you wished for invalidates blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. And he wants to study the study to see if the study was the study he was studiously....

Right. I'll believe that he wants more "study" like I believe Cindy McCain isn't a grown woman who got told. Or like I think John McCain really had a plan for--anything (winning strategy for Iraq, Afghanistan? Ideas for the banking crisis just before the election?) Or like I believe Bush's lack of support was something other than having gotten to where he sort of hated McCain's guts. Or like I believe Sarah Palin would be ready at 3 am to do some serious "presidenting."

In other words: Something like this (sorry, link, can't embed), and something like this(Maddow totally nails McCain). What astonishes me is that he still goes on Meet the Press like a couple dozen times a year, but he has no consistent or realistic viewpoint, on anything, ever. Where's the value? What's the point?

WTF--I get to like Cindy McCain for an hour?

So, I just complete a post linking to a pretty good PSA from NO H8, which I think is good and all that, and then I go to Americablog and I have to think, what, now?



I'm holding off on calling her a hater--just for a minute. I wasn't speculating about what was going on in her house regarding that. And I'm still not speculating about anything, except that participating in that video took more effort on her part than a Tweet after the fact. I'm not going to pretend I know where her heart lies, or what pressure anyone might be putting on her.

I pointed out that what I thought was the biggest part of her speaking out was the difference in position she was directly taking from her husband's. I don't think she was unaware of his position when she did the spot, and I don't know that she's necessarily trying to have it two ways--

I do know there is one person in that family famous for trying to have things two ways and who might think she needed to take it back. And until and unless anyone sets me straight on the matter, I am going to be ignorant and say I know what I suspect.

And if you know what I have posted about John McCain, you know what I suspect, and I don't have to write it out.

And she deserves better than that, and has my support if she wants it. But it would be nice if she un-volte face'd her volte face.

Cindy McCain speaks out against DADT in NO H8 PSA

I have mentioned that I think Senator McCain's position on this is disappointing, if not despicable. I appreciate Cindy McCain's support not just because it's the right position, but because it's such a volte face from the stereotypical "political spouse" role. The notion of a spouse being a kind of adjunct of their mate's office always sat poorly with me as being too much of a sacrifice of one's own conscience. I don't care to speculate about whether this is personally an issue between her and the senator. That she speaks out for what she believes in is the cool part. Brava!

McCain's tantrum when questioned about DADT.

He doesn't want to hear it, you think? In his mental space, there is a smooth, orderly little military world of people on one side not asking, and on another side not ever having to tell. It's nice world Senator McCain likes to live in.

It's not reality. The spirit of the law, just leaving alone what the letter of the law was supposed to do, still stigamizes gay servicepeople. It still implies there is something wrong with being gay, and wanting to serve your country. It still denies people that right because it asks them not to be themselves. And even if the question should never be asked--it gets asked. It gets speculated about. As a result, perfectly decent, capable people have been dismissed from the military, with considerable documentation of the flaws of this dumb law left in their wake.

If Senator McCain was interested in the matter, he could certainly check up on that subject. But as I've pointed out before, McCain views this as a "social issue" and not a military one. Because, um?

Um?

Yeah.

Steve Benen brings up the time-honored question regarding McCain's denial of what's going on--is he dumb or lying? I don't give McCain a lot of points for honesty, especially not since the 2008 McCampaign, but I'm going to call this one "willfully ignorant". He doesn't know, he doesn't want to know, he doesn't want to pretend to want to know, and, because he's still trying to run away from his reasonable 2000 persona, he'd just rather not even address any issue where he might plausably be called to do the right thing, over the expedient thing.

In other words, his decline as a person of honor continues apace.

A damn appropriate "backlash" at two haters.

(H/t to Huffington Post)

Kirkland, Smith face backlash on gay comments

Comments Republican congressional candidates Dr. Ron Kirkland and Randy Smith made about gays being "taken care of" in the military at a forum Thursday night in Paris prompted a backlash against the two on Friday, with an official from a state gay rights group saying the candidates should apologize.

A Kirkland campaign official says his candidate has no immediate plans to do so. Smith said in a phone interview Friday that he apologizes to those who took offense to his comment and that he has a gay daughter, but he maintained that he was "telling it how it is actually."

The two were asked about the potential repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy by members of the "Volunteers for Freedom" Tea Party group, who sponsored Thursday's forum in Paris. The question, at one point, asserted that gays have an extremely medically destructive lifestyle and, because of that, a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would lead to the federal government spending more on health care costs.

Kirkland, of Jackson, referred to his Army training during the Vietnam War and said: "I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can't describe to you."

Smith, a chef from Mercer who served in the Navy during the Gulf War, said: "I definitely wouldn't want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like (Kirkland) said."

What amazes me about that is the way in which both politicians seemed to be expressing their consent to, if not active participation in, gay-bashing. They might want to explain their discussion of it as "matter-of-fact", but isn't it entirely possible for a thing to be a fact, and also be an absolute disgrace that people need to stop doing? And does it make a difference if Mr. Smith has a gay daughter, if what he is basically saying is that he wouldn't stick up for, well, her rights if she were to serve?

If there were people "taken care of" in indescribable ways, I'd want to know of it if I was a CO because that would be a breakdown in the discipline in my unit, and that would mean I'd have people I could not rely on in some meaningful situation. I think that what they are saying actually proves the opposite of the position they want to uphold--if there was openness regarding orientation, this kind of indescribable abuse of a service member and breakdown in unit cohesion could be more swiftly addressed and rectified, because the affected party would be able to talk to his or her chain of command without fear.

But on another level, if they each witnessed the abuse of a fellow service member--do they even care what became of those actual human beings? That really bothers me. I'd like to think I would care. But they just see these "indescribably taken care of" people as examples. When they were patriots and soldiers, too--only different. In a way that never would have mattered in the field.