Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

Do you remember this?: 

==According to the February 2005 GAO report, seven hundred fifty-seven (about 8 percent) of these separated servicemembers held critical occupations ("voice interceptor," "data processing technician," or "interpreter/translator"), as defined by the services. Also, 322 members (about 3 percent) had some skills in an important foreign language such as Arabic, Farsi, and Korean. Government Accountability Office, February 2005. http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05299.html ==


It makes this criminal:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/afghanistan-whistleblower-claims-us-interpreters-speak-afghan-languages/story?id=11578169>
It's long past the time for Obama to stop being a politician and start governing, become president to all the People.  It would also go a long way to saving both the November elections for Democrats and his presidency.
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Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

A group of experts in military law concluded Obama can end DADT with the stroke of a pen:

http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/Executive%20Order%20on%20Gay%20Troops%20-%20final.pdf 

Congress can continue to work on ending it through legislation, while individuals and groups go about ending it through the courts (the Log Cabin Republicans lawsuit has taken 6 years to get to last week's decision in the federal court; it's nowhere near over).  

There's no reason all can't happen simultaneously, and should. 
 
One of the many benefits of an executive order ending DADT is that its implementation begins to knock down the fallacies that exist about gay men and women serving in the military.  It gets people used to it, which would go a very long way in bringing this latest chapter in our nation's shameful history of big0try to a close, but not to an end.  This past May, the House and a Senate panel passed a plan to repeal DADT, but with the usual slick out-clause or backdoor.  The plan by politicians in our 2-party system has always been to use gay rights as a wedge issue for both parties' base's turnout each election, kicking the can down the road as long as possible by keeping gay Americans disenfranchised.  

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-28/politics/gays.in.the.military_1_larger-defense-authorization-bill-repeal-white-house?_s=PM:POLITICS>
WIth a stroke of a pen, Obama can go a long way to healing some of the problems in this country in many different ways.  It's good for gays, it's good for the military (we're having problems retaining troop strength, and gay soldiers skills' sets save all soldiers' lives), it's good for the war effort (it is "war time", or so we've been told often enough), it's good for the American people, and it's good for the world.

It also refocuses attention where I think it always should have been:  The purpose of our military and our true state of preparedness.  

How is it that this nation, that allegedly stands as a beacon for individual liberty and universal justice, can justify separating any competent professional soldiers from service for their sexual orientation in this time of war?  
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Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

We each must do what we can, and with what a president can do (a lot), the buck stops at Obama.

There is no higher authority in the US than our government.  Three co-equal branches, one of which (the executive branch) has authority and control over most of the US government.

When the president obfuscates and avoids doing what he can, what is within his power and ability to end discrimination against one group of Americans, it's a cowardly dereliction of duty.  

He's the Role-Model-in-Chief, and it's scandalous.
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Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

The largest part of the responsibility at this moment in US history goes to Obama.  As president and Commander-in-Chief, can end DADT with an executive order (A group of experts in military law concluded Obama can end DADT with the stroke of a pen: http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/Executive%20Order%20on%20Gay%20Troops%20-%20final.pdf ).  

It's unconscionable that a president of the United States has allowed any department of government under his authority to practice discrimination. Every day that big0ted government policies like DADT continue is the government giving a nod and a wink to the most ig.no.rant among us, and saying that gays are lesser Americans and not deserving of the full rights and responsibilities of citizens.  

Congress can continue to work on ending it through legislation, while individuals and groups go about ending it through the courts (the Log Cabin Republicans lawsuit has taken 6 years to get to last week's decision in the federal court; it's nowhere near over).  

There's no reason all can't happen simultaneously, and should.  
About Ellen Degeneres
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Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

All over the media, I'm hearing this story reduced to "concern" by faculty and administrators at colleges and universities around the nation, about "over-sharing online".  That wasn't the cause.  That was the means by which Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei assaulted Tyler Clementi (Ravi's roomate) for his sexual orientation.  

To be so comfortable in their bias that they didn't think twice about, 1) violating Clementi's privacy by taping him in the first place, and then 2) broadcasting it on the internet without bothering to hide their own identities, Ravi and Wei had to have felt strongly reinforced in their bias (not just by their families or religion, but by the culture) and that there would be no blowback.  They had to believe that everyone thought the same thing as they did about homosexual behavior and wouldn't fault them for invading Clementi's privacy and broadcasting it online.  When the US government itself practices discrimination through policies and laws like DADT and DOMA, what other message would Ravi and Wei have gotten, but that gays are lesser beings, not even human.  I say that because what Ravi and Wei did was what we do with our pets and other animals and then upload to YouTube.  

I used to believe that political leaders didn't realize how laws like DADT and DOMA set gays up for abuse and bullying and violent acts against them, but I don't any longer.  

I think now of political leaders as partners to the abusers & bullies.  They exploit intolerance and ig.nor.ance of their constituents, for their own parties' benefit, as well as for their own personal political power.  Both parties keep the denial of gays' rights a wedge issue, to activate their bases each election season.   
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Ellen's Emotional Plea: Stop Teenage Bullying (VIDEO)

All over the media, I'm hearing this story reduced to "concern" by faculty and administrators at colleges and universities around the nation, about "over-sharing online".  That wasn't the cause.  That was the means by which Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei assaulted Tyler Clementi (Ravi's roomate) for his sexual orientation.  

To be so comfortable in their bias that they didn't think twice about, 1) violating Clementi's privacy by taping him in the first place, and then 2) broadcasting it on the internet without bothering to hide their own identities, Ravi and Wei had to have felt strongly reinforced in their bias (not just by their families or religion, but by the culture) and that there would be no blowback.  They had to believe that everyone thought the same thing as they did about homosexual behavior and wouldn't fault them for invading Clementi's privacy and broadcasting it online.  When the US government itself practices discrimination through policies and laws like DADT and DOMA, what other message would Ravi and Wei have gotten, but that gays are lesser beings, not even human.  I say that because what Ravi and Wei did was what we do with our pets and other animals and then upload to YouTube.  

I used to believe that political leaders didn't realize how laws like DADT and DOMA set gays up for abuse and bullying and violent acts against them, but I don't any longer.  

I think now of political leaders as partners to the abusers and bullies.  They exploit intolerance and ig.nor.ance of their constituents, for their own parties' benefit, as well as for their own personal political power.  Both parties keep the denial of gays' rights a wedge issue, to activate their bases each election season.   
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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TARP Bailout Could Cost Less Than $50 Billion -- Or Even Turn A Profit, Treasury Says

Ratigan & Spitzer:  TARP's Only a Tiny Piece of Subsidies to Banks

"Why Aren't We Demanding Restitution?" 

On Dylan Ratigan, Eliot Spitzer and Larry McDonald explain how banks paying back TARP monies doesn't begin to cover what's been stolen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Rt_cCFenI>
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