Pop Quiz!

What's an 11 letter word that begins with "chicken" and ends with "it"? Obama Administration. OK, there's another one - Democrat.



They're doing it again. Candidate Clinton promised to lift the ban on gays in the military in 1992. We elected him partly on this promise (and others he didn't keep, either). Even in the military, not known for its openness on same-sex issues - as my friends inside will verify - there are voices in favor, some privately, some more publicly.

"Forty-three years ago, I was discharged under honorable conditions from the United States Marine Corps. [...] It’s time for the American military to catch up with our society. Repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Those of us who have been discharged for homosexuality have paid dearly." -- Scott Killborn

"The units in which I served those 14 years did not suffer impaired cohesion or morale dueto my mere presence. If anything, my honesty enabled closer relationships with my shipmates because I no longer needed to distance myself from them due to fear of discovery and potential loss of my career. I continued to serve, sleep, shower and perform alongside my fellow unit members without incident because I was a professional officer and conducted myself as such. Being “out” did not change that." -- Zoe Dunning

"I was enlisted in the Navy in the early 1960’s in a squadron of around 200 souls. My little division included a half and dozen gay guys. We knew who they were, they knew we knew who they were, nobody got excited and we all worked together and went on together just fine. They would go to gay bars and we would go to girl bars, and none of us cared. Only the super paranoid Navy investigators cared, and when they came around nobody knew anything. Get over it, there’s some important stuff to do." -- George Chandler

Now top military brass are publicly 'coming out' * in favor of lifting the restrictions altogether.

"It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals, and ours as an institution." -- Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Obama Administration says it wants to. But they need more time to study the issue! *

"The review could take up to a year and will fuel concerns among advocates for gay service members that any change will be slow in coming about." - LATimes

When the P.O.P. (Party of Palin) gets in they get to work, making hay while the sun shines. For them that means slash and burn everything that's good and decent about the country, including what's left of our world image. But at least they go ahead and do it. The Democrats? Not so much.

Jobs? Bail out Main Street? Hold banks accountable? Employee Free Choice Act? Universal health care? Close Guantanamo Bay? Close the school of the Americas? Out of Iraq?

And these are just the things they led us to believe they'd snap to work on (and we're still waiting) -- let alone the ideas that we keep bringing up (and they react like we barfed on their shiny shoes!!!): single-payer; massive public works to get people back to work; nationalize the banks; too big to fail = too big to exist (break 'em up); and US troops out of Iraq AND Afghanistan-Pakistan NOW.

[* Note: both these articles are misleading, at best. The RadioFreeEurope article claims 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was enacted by Congress in 1983, which is just plain false: it was a Clinton-era backtrack. The LATimes article, along with others, suggests that Clinton really wanted to lift the ban, but he had to listen to Colin Powell and others he was supposed to be able to order around, who "forced" him to compromise, or "derailed" his plans. Ha! My only question is: Who is the Commander-in-Chief?

WHO has no trouble sending troops all over the world to die in stupid, ugly battles to milk the world for corporate profits, the same corporate profits that have been shipping our jobs overseas, taking our homes and farms, squeezing our kids, sucking down our money in corporate welfare subsidies and then pinching pennies when it comes to real human needs?

Does the President or does the President not have the authority to give orders to the US military? This was the question I had for Clinton. It is now the same question I have for Obama:

Who is the Commander-in-Chief?