Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
U.S. Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would have repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allowed gay troops to be open about their sexual orientation. Democrats failed Thursday to cinch a procedural deal with Republicans in the waning days of the lame-duck session. The 57-40 test vote fell three votes short of the 60 needed to advance. The vote ends months of political wrangling about the bill and makes congressional action on the repeal provision unlikely any time soon. The 1993 law bans gay troops from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation. A repeal provision was included in a broader defence policy bill and passed last spring in the House.
In what kind of fucking mathematical fucking system is forty larger than fifty-fucking-seven?
Fuck you, United States. Fuck you Senate. Fuck you Republican party. You deserve the shithole your country is becoming.
I will return to my usual level of language tomorrow.
I still fail to grasp how anything gets past in the American super-majority system.
Also, I hope you saw this piece: In latest compromise with GOP, Obama agrees he is a Muslim.
I obviously don’t agree with the decision at all. But I’d be interested on your take on the following from the yahoo news article:
“I think it’s going to happen and probably should happen as far as our repealing it,” he said. But “it’s a timeliness issue with me. There’s a war going on.”
And they also quote a survey: While most troops signaled they didn’t care if gays served openly, nearly 60 percent of the Marine Corps and Army soldiers in combat arms units predicted problems would arise.
No specifics on problems or how an ongoing war could be affected exactly. Sounds like more stalling from the GOP to get this issue to go away or a legitimate argument from their perspective. I can’t tell.
Anyways really disappointing day.
Unfortunately, they may well end up burying us in their shit. 🙁
Dear Republicans:
Stop making foreigners hate my country. Also, please stop shitting on the revolutionary principles this country was founded on.
Sincerely,
Katherine
The thing that’s been keeping me sane is that DADT is going to die, period. It’s going to be the longest, ugliest possible fight but it is going to happen.
Whatever problems arise (and I suspect that they’ll be minimal) can be used as political ammunition against the republicans who insisted on causing them. Most dems will be painfully inept at using that ammunition, but some are getting with the program.
The other thought in my head these days is less cheerful: This is the hand we’ve been dealt. Things are very, very bad right now but if we allow ourselves to slack off even a little bit they will get much worse.
This is a very long game progressives in the US are playing, and unfortunately it involves accepting a lot of small victories and big defeats.
I am skeptical of the claim that being openly gay will affect combat readiness, simply because there are many troops currently serving as de facto openly gay, but whose commanding officers simply don’t care. It has not been shown to actually affect troop morale. There is the counter-argument that the policy is already affecting combat readiness, since a) gay soldiers are being forced to lie and constantly under the threat of expulsion, and b) gay soldiers are being expelled, thus disrupting unit cohesion.
It is definitely just stalling from the GOP, and appealing to their base.