How and why to repeal Don’t ask, Don’t tell.

How and why should we repeal Don't ask, Don't tell? Everything you need to know is here, in this presentation by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley of the Center for American Progress. Here's the pdf. Here are some of the facts worth considering:

More than 32,500 gay and lesbian service men and women have been discharged from military service since 1980.

This policy may have cost the U.S. government up to $1.3 billion since 1980.

“No reputable or peer-reviewed study has ever shown that allowing service by openly gay personnel will compromise military effectiveness.”17

Twenty-four countries allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. None of these have reported “any determent to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality,” according to the Palm Center, and “in the more than three decades since an overseas force first allowed gay men and lesbians to serve openly, no study has ever documented any detriment to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality in foreign armed services.”

Even the British, whose military structure and deployment patterns are most similar to ours—and who fiercely resisted allowing gays to serve in the military—were forced to do so by the European Court

What is step ONE for ending the deplorable status quo? "Issue an Executive Order banning further dismissals on the basis of DADT and send a legislative proposal on DADT repeal to Congress." We're waiting, Mr. Obama.

Continue ReadingHow and why to repeal Don’t ask, Don’t tell.

Bravo, NPR, for keeping an eye on the lobbyists

While others were photographing the senators at the front of the room, NPR turned its camera on all of those people sitting in the back of the room, in an attempt to identify all of the health care lobbyists in the room. What ARE the names of all of those people trying to subvert our political process? NPR has invited an interested parties to review their photos and to help them nail these bastards figure things out.

Continue ReadingBravo, NPR, for keeping an eye on the lobbyists

Barack Obama still not shooting straight on the economy

In the June 19 edition of The Nation, William Greider, a political journalist, argues (in "Obama's False Financial Reform") that Barack Obama needs to stop running interference for politicians and Wall Street. The proper parties to blame for the economic meltdown and a legitimate long-term fix are two sides of the same coin. Greider argues that Obama's "reform" is merely "kicking the can down the road." Greider pulls no punches:

The most disturbing thing about Barack Obama's call for financial reform was the way in which the president falsified our predicament. He tried to make it sound as though everyone was implicated in the financial breakdown and therefore no one was really to blame . . . That is not what happened, to put it charitably. Unlike some other presidents, Obama is much too intelligent not to know this. The regulatory system was not overwhelmed by historic forces. It was systematically gutted and dismantled by the government in Washington at the behest of the banking interests.

If you want specifics, Greider's article has lots of them. Consider what to do about Obama's false solution to unregulated mortgage securitization. As Greider explains, Obama's proposed solution is clearly bogus, yet there is a real solution:

Obama's answer is to require the originating lender to retain a 5 percent interest in the mortgage and pass on the rest. That seems ludicrous and innocent of how that cutthroat world actually works. The financial geniuses who created the subprime mortgage scandal could hide 5 percent of the mortgage value with a couple of keystrokes--adding fees, closing costs or other dodges. To hold lenders genuinely responsible, they should be made to hold onto something like 50 percent of liability for the original loan with perhaps the other 50 percent assigned to whatever bank or investment house packages the mortgage security and sells it to financial markets. That would be "responsibility" with old-fashioned force.

Continue ReadingBarack Obama still not shooting straight on the economy

Bill Moyers: Thomas Paine is still too dangerous

I highly recommend this 25-minute discussion led by Bill Moyers in order to learn Thomas Paine's story. Why is Paine so under-appreciated? Moyers discusses Paine's deeply democratic ideas with author Harvey J. Kaye and National Review senior editor Richard Brookhiser. What did Thomas Paine advocate for? An exceedingly progressive agenda:

  • Ending slavery
  • Granting women total equality
  • Complete separation of church and state.
  • Establishment of public education
Paine was also a deist (not an atheist), who, in The Age of Reason, unrelentingly attacked organized religions, which he considered to be fraudulent. He claimed that all books are written by men, not God. On the other hand, he believed that the creation was God's presence and that people who want to know God should study creation rather than reading supposedly sacred writings. Ironic, then, that Thomas Paine was held in high esteem by Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich.

Continue ReadingBill Moyers: Thomas Paine is still too dangerous

Tobacco money at work at Congress

When a product kills 450,000 Americans every year, don't you think it deserves a high level of scrutiny and regulation? I mean, aren't you a bit surprised that it's even illegal, given that marijuana, which kills nobody (except due to insanely reactionary law enforcement), is completely outlawed? Consider that the bodies of the people killed by tobacco every year would stretch more than 500 miles, if laid end to end. Every one of those dead people were using tobacco products exactly as anticipated by the manufacturers. Those dead bodies could stretch from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina (or pick your own 500 mile radius). Can you imagine the tobacco executives walking along one of those 500 mile lines of dead bodies, justifying the carnage? Walking, whistling and thinking, "Just look at all of those people who were dumb enough to buy that highly addictive product that I promoted and sold . . ." And now consider the morals of some of our politicians. Step forward, Senators who oppose the new law that subjects tobacco to FDA regulation. Thanks to McClatchy Newspapers, we know that many of you are tobacco whores:

Among the 17 senators who voted against allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco are some of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the tobacco industry, which has donated millions of dollars to lawmakers in the past several campaign cycles.

If you want more details who which tobacco whore has received how much money, visit OpenSecrets.org. Consider, too, that the corruption that exists with regard to tobacco, also exists with regard to any major industry. For instance, consider health care, defense contracting, farming (including wasteful corn ethanol subsidies), and last but not least, the financial "services" industries. Serving themselves to our tax-dollars. Now I'm not for outlawing tobacco. But I am for unleashing a torrent of high-profile prime-time advertising that would show the death and destruction caused by tobacco up close and in nauseating detail. And I am for allowing the FDA to join in the war against smoking. Why? Consider this comment from Dick Durbin from a report by MSNBC:

"This is a bill that will protect children and will protect America," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a leading supporter. "Every day that we don't act, 3,500 American kids — children — will light up for the first time. That is enough to fill 70 school buses."

Continue ReadingTobacco money at work at Congress