Posted on 18 May 2009 by trouble97018
Michigan Messenger
White House has declined to use ’stop loss’ provisions to circumvent ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ discharges
By Todd A. Heywood 5/18/09 12:23 PM
DETROIT — U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the Detroit Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, says it is time to repeal the 16-year-old ban on openly gay service members in the U.S. military. The controversial policy has become an issue for the White House since President Obama took office in January. During the 2008 campaign, Obama had promised to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, but recently, the president has appeared to be backing off that statement.
“Why is he becoming so conservative now that he’s got the job?” Conyers asked during an interview with Michigan Messenger at a gathering of progressive activists on Saturday. “I think he is getting a lot of pressure put on him from the right, from conservatives. And he is trying to prove to the Republicans that he is bipartisan.” Source Article
The President is running the risk of losing the support of his party. He had better watch it!
~Susan~
Posted on 16 May 2009 by trouble97018
NY Times
Published: May 16, 2009
TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.
That’s why the president’s flip-flop on the release of detainee abuse photos — whatever his motivation — is a fool’s errand. The pictures will eventually emerge anyway, either because of leaks (if they haven’t started already) or because the federal appeals court decision upholding their release remains in force. And here’s a bet: These images will not prove the most shocking evidence of Bush administration sins still to come. Source Article
Posted on 07 May 2009 by trouble97018
The Daily Yonder
It’s not enough to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. The goal is to build a new Appalachia.
Michael Richie/Bob Kincaid Ansted, West Virginia, near the home of the author, Bob Kincaid.
When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 3 April 1968
It is April 4, 2009, as I write. A year ago, a handful of community residents gathered on a mountain here in Fayette County, West Virginia, to pray for a mountain that has stood sentinel over our homes for generations. We prayed because, like so many other mountains in Appalachia, it, and we, are under attack.
That attack is prosecuted is by a coal company willing to sacrifice us for a load of coal. A day more than forty-one years ago, Dr. King said, “It’s all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”
In the last speech of his life, made in Memphis at the confluence of civil rights and labor rights, Dr. King staked out new ground that took his movement beyond the struggle for basic civil rights. He said he had been to the mountaintop; that he had looked over Jordan.
The New York Times recently described mountaintop removal as “Appalachia’s Agony.” Understanding the destruction that comes when mountaintops are sliced away to get to the coal below is important. But I believe Dr. King would have called us to talk about a New Appalachia.
We must begin the building of the New Appalachia while we still have mountaintops worth climbing. Source Article
Posted on 07 May 2009 by trouble97018
Huffington Post
Aaron Belkin
Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Palm Center at UCSB
Posted May 7, 2009 | 04:52 PM (EST)
Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about to fire him. Why? Because he came out of the closet as a gay man on national television.
Some readers might think it unfair to blame Obama. After all, the president inherited the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law when he took office. As Commander-in-Chief, he has to follow the law. If the law says that the military must fire any service member who acknowledges being gay, that is not Obama’s fault.
Or is it? Source Article
Posted on 06 May 2009 by trouble97018
NY Times
Published: May 6, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama was noticeably silent last month when the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
But now Mr. Obama — who has said he opposes same-sex marriage as a Christian but describes himself as a “fierce advocate of equality” for gay men and lesbians — is under pressure to engage on a variety of gay issues that are coming to the fore amid a dizzying pace of social, political, legal and legislative change.
Two of Mr. Obama’s potential Supreme Court nominees are openly gay; some advocates, irked that there are no gay men or lesbians in his cabinet, are mounting a campaign to influence his choice to replace Justice David H. Souter, who is retiring. Same-sex marriage is advancing in states — the latest to allow it is Maine — and a new flare-up in the District of Columbia could ultimately put the controversy in the lap of the president. Source Article
Posted on 01 May 2009 by trouble97018
Policy change, or poor editing?
In a move that many people I’ve spoken with see as a shift in policy, and a backward step from a clear campaign promise that was reiterated during the first days of January of this year, the White House has changed the language on its “Civil Rights” page, as it concerns gay civil rights. The changes were first noted yesterday by gay blogger JoeMyGod. And while most of the deletions noted yesterday have since been un-deleted, the new language on President Obama’s commitment to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy appears to indicate a significant change in policy, for the worse.
Source Article
