Not enough votes to end DADT filibuster?

[T-Rexx]

Not at all Jock. I think Reid was insincere in wanting a vote on this combined with the other laws he added to this bill. He wanted some talking points in his and other political races.

If my memory serves me correctly the report from the military is due the end of the year.

A vote should have been scheduled at that time -- this is just grandstanding.

I expect it to pass.

So, if the military decides in their report that repealing DADT will just be too traumatic, then will Republicans recommend continuing DADT?

DADT has already been found unconstitutional in federal court.

What if the military had decided in 1948 that integrating Blacks into the service would just be too traumatic to the average white serviceman? Should that have stopped Truman from ordering integration?

Will the military's DADT "report" mean anything at all? Don't we already know how this has to turn out - regardless of what military leaders or even the average rank and file serviceman wants? Isn't waiting on the report just grandstanding?

How many more excuses will you Republicans find to delay progress in the name of hatred?

 

[hotatlboi]

So, if the military decides in their report that repealing DADT will just be too traumatic, then will Republicans recommend continuing DADT?

DADT has already been found unconstitutional in federal court.

What if the military had decided in 1948 that integrating Blacks into the service would just be too traumatic? Should that have stopped Truman from ordering integration?

Will the military's DADT "report" mean anything at all? Don't we already know how this has to turn out? Isn't waiting on the report just grandstanding?

The military leadership knows how the report is expected to come out. It is a study on how not if.

Therefore the report will not say that it should not be done. That would pretty much be openly defying the CiC, and we've seen what happens when generals do that.

And yes it is grandstanding. It is not PC to say that you think gay people are disgusting and should be treated as inferior, so the excuse has to be something else (waiting on the report, not the right time because of war, whatever).

 

[T-Rexx]

The military leadership knows how the report is expected to come out. It is a study on how not if.

Therefore the report will not say that it should not be done.

Exactly. So, there is NO reason to wait for the report in order to vote for the repeal of DADT, is there? It is the Republican Party that is grandstanding this issue - and lying shamelessly about its motivations in putting off the vote.

And yes it is grandstanding. It is not PC to say that you think gay people are disgusting and should be treated as inferior, so the excuse has to be something else (waiting on the report, not the right time because of war, whatever).

Exactly. I wonder how many more reports and studies the Republican Party will demand, in order to keep putting off repeal of DADT and sustain their hatred of us with policy.

 

[Kulindahr]

Exactly. I wonder how many more reports and studies the Republican Party will demand, in order to keep putting off repeal of DADT and sustain their hatred of us with policy.

The military has long been a Republican stronghold. But I can't help but think that by this blatant show of disrespect for not only the top commanders but the rank and file, they're going to lose ground big time. Constantly whining that the troops can't handle it is going to make the troops decide they bloody well can, and the politicians who think they can't can go take a flying leap onto an IED.

Where did the Republican yearning for self-destruction come from?

 

[altlover85]

Excellent video Knucklehead! It was so funny, but actually sad.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Republican hypocrisy, no surprise really. The amendment would have allowed the military to immediately initiate it's recommendation in how to unwind the DADT after the report was filed. It didn't "end" it other than taking it off the books.

And secondly, Republicans whining about it being attached to the defense authorization bill are forgetting that the original DADT bill starting the whole damn thing, was attached to a defense authorization vote! SSDD.

 

[hotatlboi]

Once again, two wrongs don't make a right.

How is it wrong?

The Defense bill deals with military issues of all sorts.

DADT is clearly a military issue.

If you are saying this because you think it should be dealt with separately, that process is no different really than if it were a standalone bill. There was a separate committee vote on it, and there will be a separate floor vote on it whenever the bill is taken up.

 

[TickTockMan]

Once again, two wrongs don't make a right.

The problem is that to the average person, who doesn't know much about how Congress works day in and day out, it seems sneaky to group policy changes on controversial "social issues" along with authorizations for spending on, say, servicemembers' salaries. The average person is likely to interpret this maneuver as 'hostage holding' in order to promote a particular social agenda.

Why give the opposition support for this talking point?

It's easy enough to put the DADT repeal language into a bill on it's own.

Why shouldn’t the average person learn how things are done? Why should things get dumbed down for the lazy to understand? Overall government can get hard to understand, but this part is very easy too.

Why play into the hands of the ones that don’t want to learn anything, when the outcome is basically the same?

 

[hotatlboi]

Why did the cloture vote fail on Tuesday?

two reasons

1. most Republicans are homophobes and will never vote for anything that treats gay people equally

2. The few Republicans that are not homophobes and would vote for it were pressured into voting against it by their party leaders because they knew that a successful vote could help to energize the Democratic base which could hurt them in the elections. These people might be more reasonable after the election.

 

[TickTockMan]

Because we live in the real world, not the world of shoulds and oughts.

So does the average person. The real world is the world of shoulds and oughts.


Again, why dumb down things to pander to the lazy? Are you saying because certain people don't understand something that everything they don't understand should be changed until they do understand it?

 

[hotatlboi]

I should have been more specific in my question:
Why did the entire Defense Authorization bill cloture vote fail on Tuesday?
Was it only because of the DADT issue, or was there something else that was a problem?

yes, #2 in my response is the other issue.

It was the fact that the vote was before the election, and the Republicans did not want to allow the Dems to be able to campaign on keeping one of their promises.

 

[TickTockMan]

Because being successful in politics means convincing your opposition to agree with you. Generally the only way to do that with recalcitrantly dumb people is to dumb things down.

Except they may not necessarily disagree, they just don’t understand how it all works. Congress should not change the way they do things just to keep someone from reading a book or web page. If they care so much they should learn how government works.

 

[TickTockMan]

That's the kind of attitude that gets a George W Bush elected instead of a John Kerry.

No, its because the dems didn't fight back enough. There is a huge difference between having someone looking up something to understand it vs. putting out the info in the first place enforce. It’s hard not to notice coverage during an election.

Besides, as usual liberals get soft when they think something is in the bag. Our own laziness did it to us, not trying to get others to do their homework.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, its because the dems didn't fight back enough. There is a huge difference between having someone looking up something to understand it vs. putting out the info in the first place enforce. It’s hard not to notice coverage during an election.

Besides, as usual liberals get soft when they think something is in the bag. Our own laziness did it to us, not trying to get others to do their homework.

It's not the telling people to do their homework, it's the attitude that others are so stupid they aren't worth expending the effort of explaining things.

 

[TickTockMan]

It's not the telling people to do their homework, it's the attitude that others are so stupid they aren't worth expending the effort of explaining things.

Which is why I said it was in part our own laziness. Just a little PR could go a long way, but the dems always find a way to mess things up. A little teaching (PR) is better than changing the way things are done.

 

[yuengling]

Am I the only person that thought the DADT policy was instituted to protect homosexuals in the military from other people? It seems that this policy has prevented gay service members from being ridiculed, physically harmed, or hazed more severely.

 

[hotatlboi]

Am I the only person that thought the DADT policy was instituted to protect homosexuals in the military from other people?

Yes, as that would be a totally absurd position.

 

[construct]

Am I the only person that thought the DADT policy was instituted to protect homosexuals in the military from other people? It seems that this policy has prevented gay service members from being ridiculed, physically harmed, or hazed more severely.

It was instituted to protect homosexuals in the military from witch hunts carried out by command structures. It would do absolutely nothing to change their relationships with their peers.

 

[yuengling]

There are other people who have concerns about the repeal of DADT leading to gay service members being victimized.... http://leftface.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/dont-ask-dont-tell-dadt-to-repeal-or-not-to-repeal/

 

[scream4ever]

It's very obvious why this vote failed; Harry Reid. He blocked debate on all but 3 sections of the bill (which I suspect may have been for political purposes), which flipped many votes to No, including the following:

-Blanche Lincoln (stated that as her reason for voting to sustain cloture, but also said she supports the repeal language)

-Susan Collins (voted for repeal language in committee)

-Olympia Snowe (like Collins, she is one of the most liberal Republicans who frequently sides with Dems., she should not have been hard to convince to vote to break cloture)

-Scott Brown (while he voted against repeal in committee, he previously said he'd vote to break cloture)

-Richard Lugar (same as Brown, though he said he also supports the repeal language)

The repeal language in all probability played a very small role in the fillibuster being sustained.

I suggest everyone put pressure on Harry Reid (especially) and the previous 5 senators as well (and probably Mark Pryor too) to get the Defense Authorization Bill passed ASAP.