Think Progress

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

With polls showing that the war in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly unpopular, members of Congress have begun to express skepticism about the administration’s strategy there. Military officials believe that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, may ask for as many as 20,000 additional troops. ABC News reports today that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has called on President Obama to announce a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan:

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, called on President Obama to announce a timetable for withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. “This is a strategy that is not likely to succeed,” Sen. Feingold said about the troop buildup in Afghanistan. [...]

“I think it is time we start discussing a flexible timetable so that people around the world can see when we are going to bring our troops out,” said Feingold. “Showing the people there and here that we have a sense about when it is time to leave is one of the best things we can do,” he added.

Source

The Daily Beast

by Jason Bellini

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand could force the Senate to take up the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy this week, The Daily Beast has learned. Jason Bellini on the plot to halt the ban on gays in the military.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is considering bringing the battle over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the Senate this week, by introducing an amendment that would put an 18-month moratorium on the discharge of gays serving in the military, The Daily Beast has learned.

It would be the first time since the implementation of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1993 that senators are forced to declare their position on the gay ban. A Senate staffer familiar with the matter says Gillibrand may introduce her amendment on Tuesday to the Defense reauthorization bill. If the amendment were to pass, gay-rights leaders expect it would stand a strong chance of being approved by the House and could be signed into law by President Obama, who has expressed his desire for the ban to be lifted. Rep. Patrick Murphy is trying to build support for a bill that has already been introduced in the House that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

But Gillibrand’s move would circumvent a long legislative process at a time when an average of two gay soldiers per day are being discharged.  Source Article

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~

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

NY Times

Courtesy Rawstory:

Al Franken’s campaign says the Democratic senate challenger is up by four votes after completion of a hand recount in Minnesota. 

All precincts in the state had completed their recount except for one Minneapolis polling place where 133 ballots have gone missing since Election Day. Franken campaign attorney Marc Elias said he was optimistic that the ballots would be found. 

The ballots are believed to have been in an envelope marked “1/5″ on Election Night, and local officials are searching for that envelope. Elections officials turned up four other envelopes — marked 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5 — and 133 more people signed in on Election Day than there were ballots during the recount.

The hand recount in that precinct is still technically ongoing while the search for those ballots continues. Elias scoffed at claims from Republican incumbent Norm Coleman’s campaign that the ballots might not be missing at all.

“I’m pretty sure there’s no one here now who genuinely believes these ballots are not missing,” he said during a press briefing Friday afternoon. 

-Article continues @ Sourced Site.

Courtesy  The Army Times:

Tammy Duckworth, who earned the Purple Heart for her service in Iraq, may be moving up with President-elect Barack Obama.

Duckworth, now the Illinois Veterans Affairs director, has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Obama in the U.S. Senate or as Veterans Affairs secretary in an Obama administration.

She accompanied Obama yesterday as the Illinois senator marked Veterans Day by placing a wreath at the bronze soldiers memorial between the Field Museum and Soldier Field in Chicago.

Duckworth, then a pilot with the Illinois Army National Guard, lost both her legs in Iraq in 2004 when her Black Hawk helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

She has said she would be interested in either the Senate seat or a post in Obama’s administration.

“I would be honored to be able to do that on a national level,” Duckworth told The Associated Press recently about the prospect of helping veterans.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, following a Veterans Day ceremony yesterday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, said Duckworth’s experience and the respect she has garnered from other veterans would make her an excellent choice for Veterans Affairs secretary.

Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said Duckworth has appeared in front of his committee and has proven to be knowledgeable of the challenges facing military veterans and their families.

“She’s smart and she would be able to deal with the problems facing our veterans,” he said. “She has a feel for veterans issues. She’s one who has been through it and feels the needs.”

-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.

TPM Election Central

VoteVets goes up, mostly in Virginia, with a new spot that quotes a young veteran lambasting McCain for skipping a vote on Jim Webb’s G.I. bill.

“When John McCain was about my age, our country paid his way through college,” says Iraq vet Jason Bensley:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnvQ_4G8l4w]

Source Article

Huffington Post

Luis Carlos Montalvan

Posted October 2, 2008 | 03:26 PM (EST)

To gain the sympathy and cooperation of the American people come election day, the robust presidential candidate McCain machine is working hard to quiet the anti-McCain fervor among “new veterans” that until recently has lurked just beneath the surface of America’s watchful eyes.

Trumped only by the looming Bush/McCain-caused national economic catastrophe, the topics of war, foreign policy, and veterans issues are at the forefront of the debates.  Source Article

Huffington Post

Paul Rieckhoff

Posted September 26, 2008 | 02:09 PM (EST)

You wouldn’t think that anyone would knowingly threaten the voting rights of our nations’ deployed service members and hospital-bound veterans. But an attempt is being made right now that could risk the absentee ballots of thousands of troops and veterans from and in Ohio.

Existing Ohio law allows citizens to register to vote and cast an absentee ballot on the same day, as long as it happens 30 days before the election. But a ridiculous new lawsuit brought against Ohio’s Secretary of State is trying to prevent the two actions of registering to vote and submitting an absentee ballot from happening simultaneously. If the lawsuit succeeds, it could nullify the votes of potentially thousands of veterans in VA hospitals and deployed military personal that took advantage of this opportunity to register and vote at the same time.    Source Article