From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Brilliant Assessment, Guys
I love pulling this column out of mothballs every year. Six years ago today a gaggle of retired military brass---three generals and an admiral---wrote a column they probably now regret and got it published in The Washington Post. Its title: Gays and the Military: A Bad Fit. Their bold prediction, based on decades of honing their analytical skills to a fine point:
With the nation engaged in two wars and facing a number of potential adversaries, this is no time to weaken our military. Yet if gay rights activists and their allies have their way, grave harm will soon be inflicted on our all-volunteer force.
2010: Obama's vaporizes DADT.
Facts are facts, they said. So they fired up their rhetorical flame throwers and cleared a 778-word path to make America's military safe for heteros. Lift "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," they said, and it would destroy unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and "impact leadership at all echelons." And for good measure, they also warned that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would "break the All-Volunteer Force."
I'm sure retired General James J. Lindsay, Admiral Jerome Johnson, Lt. General E.G. "Buck" Shuler Jr. and General Joseph J. Went---and all their right-wing allies who supported them with religious argle bargle and junk science---are just as sorry as sorry can be for getting it so spectacularly wrong. I consider that column to be their Pickett's charge.
Not that there isn’t still work to do to achieve full equality in our Armed Forces. Transgender servicemembers---an estimated 15,000+ now serving---are still getting kicked out, although there seems to be movement in the right direction towards updating arcane policies. And same-sex couples still have to deal with "pockets of second-class citizen status."
The lifting of DADT is just one milestone of the Obama years that has led to a sea change in public acceptance of LGBT Americans. And it's just one more example of how the right always...always...gets it wrong.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Note: Washington, D.C. residents: yes, you have to pay taxes in exchange for no representation. But please enjoy the gorgeous views of the Tidal Basin year-round at no extra charge. ---Your Friendly Federal Government
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10 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Stephen Colbert takes over at
The Late Show:
176
Days 'til the
Kingman Island Bluegrass and Folk Festival in D.C.:
10
Percent of Americans who now have health insurance:
90%
(Source: Gallup-Healthways)
Number of brands now offered by the 10 largest hotel chains in the world:
113
(Source: AP)
Percent of taxpayers who will get a refund this year:
80%
Average tax refund:
$3,120
(Source: IRS)
Year Al Capone got busted for tax evasion and got sent to Alcatraz:
1931
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 180 (including 5 gogs and 1 re-emergence of End-Times prophet Michele Bachmann). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Corgi invasion!!!
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CHEERS to Tax Day! Not because of taxes, silly…because there's going to be a lot of people making a lot of angry joyful noises around the world today for more moolah. Via email:
C&J endorses this effort, but they're
going through with it anyway.
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Fast-food workers from Pittsburgh to Pasadena will walk off the job, while adjunct professors, home care, child care, airport, industrial laundry and Walmart workers will march and rally in what will be the most widespread mobilization ever by U.S. workers seeking higher pay.
The two-and-a-half-year-old Fight for $15 will go to college, with protests expected by students from 200 campuses. Activists organizing around #BlackLivesMatter will join in as the ties between the racial and economic justice movements deepen. And the marches and rallies will stretch around the globe, with protests expected in more than 100 cities, in 35 countries, on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo.
I think the press has actually been good at giving these protests a decent amount of ink and screen time. The Republicans will ignore today's events, of course, but if Hillary Clinton makes a statement in solidarity with them (maybe from the lobby of a Chipotle?), that would shine a bigger light on the rallies and snag her some major goodwill from the left. Since her
campaign manager and I are both gay, I'll send him a voicemail telepathically. We can do that.
Bon voyajee...
CHEERS to gravity defiance. Picture-perfect liftoff yesterday for the SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket, which carried a
Dragon pod loaded with supplies
into orbit so it can dock with the International Space Station Friday morning. There's some bad news and good news in the wake of the launch: the stage-1 rocket booster failed to land itself on that drone-ship platform in the Atlantic---it went boom instead. But the good news is that the world witnessed the
first espresso machine to be catapulted into outer space. I understand that they'll be able to customize the blend of their morning drink. You might say
NASA has given grounds control to Major Tom.
JEERS to Deputy Moneybags. About Robert Bates, that 73-year-old Oklahoma insurance guy who runs around as a part-time deputy who mistook his gun for his taser and shot a pinned-down suspect to death: turns out he was on the force because he was a Thurston Howel III with a Joe Arpaio complex:
Deputy Thurston
Howell III
The deputy wasn’t an active member of the sheriff’s Violent Crimes Task Force, which was responsible for the bungled sweep. But Bates has donated thousands in gifts to the office since 2008, the Tulsa World reported.
He is one of many “wealthy people in the reserve program,” which includes 130 volunteer deputies, Maj. Shannon Clark of the sheriff’s office said. “Many of them make donations of items. That’s not unusual at all,” he added. … Clark said Bates was an “advanced reserve” and his duties included “anything a full-time deputy can do.”
The technical term for what Bates did is called “slip and capture,” where sensory overload kicks in and people do the opposite of what they wanted to do. Also known as: "fuck and up."
If it sank today there would be
buoyancy-change deniers.
JEERS to the unsinkable ship---the one that's in the process of sinking, I mean. 103 years ago this morning, the
Titanic plunged to the icy depths of the Atlantic after getting its side split open by an iceberg. (Photos of the rescue
here) Today it seems an apt analogy for the Republican party: a once-proud icon thought to be invincible that, because of poor design, shoddy workmanship and an air of arrogance on the part of the people in charge sank itself because it wasn't looking where it was going and is now a rusting hulk stuck in the mud and you can't do anything with it but re-arrange the deck chairs. But, hey, the movie was pretty good.
JEERS to buffoons endorsing buffoons. Henry Paulson, the guy who was on duty at the Treasury Department when the economy went to shit during the final days of George W. Bush's presidency, and who bailed out Wall Street while doing nothing for Main Street, wants the world to know that he's throwing all of his support behind Jeb Bush for president. Said Jeb: "Not helpful, Hank."
CHEERS to 'Publicans on parade. On the heels of the news that Dr. Ben "Obamacare Is Worse Than Slavery" Carson thinks he's almost ready to enter the presidential race comes news that Chris "Time For Some Traffic Problems In Fort Lee" Christie has deemed himself fit to be Commander-in-Chief. So the current list of runners and gonna-runs consists of Ted, Rand, Marco, Rick, Ben, Bobby, Chris, Jeb, Carly and GoogleSantorum…with The Donald and Fussbucket Lindsey on the "please, oh please" list. They're gonna need a bigger clown car.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 15, 2005
CHEERS to bona fide heroes. Right-wing nutjob Eric Rudolph pleads guilty to planting the bomb that killed two people and wounded 120 at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta (and other bombings). Which means that security guard Richard Jewell, who found the bomb in a knapsack and moved people away from it---yet was later hounded by the FBI and the press as their prime suspect---really was a hero. Golly, if only there was some sort of item related to the Olympics that could be given to him for superior achievement. Hmm….
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And just one more…
CHEERS to snappy answers to simple questions. My partner Michael has spent more time with doctors over the past few months than he has in the 22 years we've been together. It's a familiar story: decades of smoking (which he gave up five years ago, and fuck you tobacco companies) have caught up with his lungs, and now he's got the dreaded COPD and the men and women in white lab coats are diagnosing the severity and figuring out the best treatment. This week Michael got a CT-scan---a one-way trip through the magical doughnut hole. As they were going through the pre-scan checklist, the technician asked if he had any allergies. Without missing a beat Michael said, "Yeah---Republicans." It got a little quiet after that. But I figure since they're specialty is internal medicine, they were all just laughing on the inside.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Do you think that if I smiled more at Bill in Portland Maine, he would put me on his Christmas card list? Give me a break."
---Sen. Elizabeth Warren
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