Posted on 12/08/2010 9:30:45 PM PST by Red Steel
Senate Republicans have been playing a neat trick to squeeze Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal off the Senate calendar. On the one hand, as the year comes to an end, they're eating up the last days of floor time and refusing to debate any issues until the tax cut fight is resolved and the federal government is funded into next year. On the other hand, they're laying out arbitrary -- and totally new -- benchmarks for how long it should take to debate the Defense Authorization bill (the vehicle for DADT repeal) to argue that there isn't enough time to debate it this Congress.
Speaking on the Senate floor back in September, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed, "The Defense authorization bill requires 4 or 5 weeks to debate."
This weekend on "Meet the Press," he revised that figure down to two weeks. "Once you get on the defense bill, it typically takes two weeks," he claimed.
Other Republicans want two weeks of debate as well -- including moderate members who say they'll support repeal but only if the process meets their specifications.
But a senior Democratic aide went back 20 years and found that spending two weeks on the defense authorization bill is a rarity.
Since 1990, the Senate has never spent anywhere close to four or five weeks debating that bill. Four times its taken longer than seven days -- thus approaching or exceeding the two week threshold.
The Senate has spent five days (or fewer) debating the defense authorization bill nine times. And, once, back in the friendly days when Bill Clinton presided over majorities in the House and Senate, it took one day. On average, the process includes votes on about 12 amendments -- though sometimes they vote on as many as 20 or 30 or as few as one or two.
Given all this, Democrats are steamed.
"Let's remember that when we first voted on the bill in September there were no limitations on debate or amendments and Republicans still blocked it," says a Senate Democratic leadership aide. "Now, with another chance to vote on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the GOP is demanding one to two weeks. They know full well that we don't have that kind of time left on the calendar but it remains their enduring excuse for not voting for a repeal of this law that our senior military officials and a vast majority of Americans want."
Well, why don't all you jerks go home and have a nice Christmas then.
The urgency to have peter pipers and fudge packers serve openly in the military is urgent to the Democrats. The American people like things as they are.
There are several important issues concerning DADT, which have been obfusated so far, and in particular by the falacious Pentagon report. However, I will just point out one; the one I sent the Senate an email about yesterday.
Military service means submitting to discipline restricting Constitutional guarantees. However, expressing religious faith has not been among them. Religious faith provides a critical foundation for surviving the grinding stresses and shattering experiences of warfare. However, this issue was never addressed in the Pentagon study.
Basic theology explains why Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers find their religious freedom evaporating by repeal of U.S. Code Section 654 of Title 10 known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Followers of desert religions, who send their pastors into the chaplaincy and believers into military service, consider homosexual behavior unacceptable. It resides among the myriad sins entrapping fallen humanity.
For tens of millions “People of the Book” foundational Old Testament scholarship concludes homosexual relationships separate believers from God. When speaking of the character, identity, and purpose of God, He is spoken of as masculine, and all humans become feminine in relation to Him. Besides creating all things, God created heterosexual marriage as the earthy manifestation of the absolute unity and love He seeks with each person.
Classical Semitic theology emphasizes identifying with God in spiritual intimacy. Therefore, worthy actions and thoughts are those which reinforce the faith commitment to spiritual relationship. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers find any subsequent reasoning must proceed from that basic understanding.
Therefore after repeal, when believers reject homosexuality in counseling rolls and normal life activities, these people reside outside Constitutional boundaries guaranteeing religious freedom. They would see themselves becoming guilty of at least cultural prejudice, if not criminality.
The debate should continue well into next year until Congress has to fully address this issue.
Even if the Dems get their cloture vote. There will be 2 weeks of debating (LoL), and amendments and they still have to reconcile the House Defense Bill with the Senate’s Defense Bill that was passed (House) in May before the final votes.
"Full text of the letter:
Dear Leader Reid,
The nation’s unemployment level, stuck near 10 percent, is unacceptable to Americans. Senate Republicans have been urging Congress to make private-sector job creation a priority all year. President Obama in his first speech after the November election said “we owe” it to the American people to “focus on those issues that affect their jobs.” He went on to say that Americans “want jobs to come back faster.” Our constituents have repeatedly asked us to focus on creating an environment for private-sector job growth; it is time that our constituents’ priorities become the Senate’s priorities.
For that reason, we write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.
Given our struggling economy, preventing the tax increase and providing economic certainty should be our top priority. Without Congressional action by December 31, all American taxpayers will be hit by an increase in their individual income-tax rates and investment income through the capital gains and dividend rates. If Congress were to adopt the President’s tax proposal to prevent the tax increase for only some Americans, small businesses would be targeted with a job-killing tax increase at the worst possible time. Specifically, more than 750,000 small businesses will see a tax increase, which will affect 50 percent of small-business income and nearly 25 percent of the entire workforce. The death tax rate will also climb from zero percent to 55 percent, which makes it the top concern for America’s small businesses. Republicans and Democrats agree that small businesses create most new jobs, so we ought to be able to agree that raising taxes on small businesses is the wrong remedy in this economy. Finally, Congress still needs to act on the “tax extenders” and the alternative minimum tax “patch,” all of which expired on December 31, 2009.
We look forward to continuing to work with you in a constructive manner to keep the government operating and provide the nation’s small businesses with economic certainty that the job-killing tax hike will be prevented.
###
SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER"
Knob Nibbling Democrats are in a last gasp effort to destroy the military.
You got one. I got one. Seems bipartisan.
Hold their feet to th efire— or our a-— is grass
SO- after this— I guess— I will keep my big mouth shut-and
just let you reply. I muck it up— but I do so agree with what you said —T’anks.
"It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.The first stage being "demoralization"... "[snip]" ....Reach filthy rich movie makers, intellectuals in so-called academic circles.Cynical, ego-centric people who can look into your eyes with angelic expression and tell you a lie...
...This are the most recruitable people; people who lack moral principals - who are either too greedy or too, uh, suffer from self-importance, uh, they feel that they matter a lot. Uh, these are the people who KGB wanted very much to recruit."[snip]
You just keep going after them. We all convince or irritate different people in different ways. Me, I write letters, because I am hopeless over the phone.
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