The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has said that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military is a settled issue and he wouldn’t try to reverse it even if Mitt Romney wins the presidency and the GOP captures the Senate. “We fought that fight,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), adding that his focus was on getting “the things that our war-fighters need.
Top priority is restoring funds to the Armed Forces’ budget after the latest defense cuts and a planned reduction of $487 billion over 10 years.
Congress is scrambling to come up with a way to avoid automatic, $1.2 trillion cuts in domestic and military programs over a decade. The failure of a bipartisan congressional super-committee last year to come up with a deficit-cutting plan will trigger the cuts, scheduled to begin Jan. 2.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned about the meat ax approach of the automatic cuts, arguing it would hollow out the force. The $492 billion, decade-long reduction would come on top of the $487 billion cut over 10 years that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last summer.
McKeon was one of those Republicans. He said Thursday it was a mistake, putting lawmakers in a difficult position.
The military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was repealed in December 2010 and took effect in 2011. This month, for the first time, the Pentagon marked Pride month with an official celebration and gay and lesbian service members have been able to attend rallies and parades in uniform.
HM
Filing this one squarely under “Believe It When I See It”. The GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of a consortium of wack job right wing political, economic and social groups. If Mitt wins and the Senate stays Dem, maybe we’ll be safe. But if he wins and the GOP takes Congress, forget it. They’ll be drunk on power. You may even see a reverse back past DADT to an outright ban and aggressive pursuit and discharging of gay service people.
kurt_t
The military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was repealed in December 2010 and took effect in 2011.
I think you mean “The December, 2010, repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy took effect in 2011.”
Otherwise you’re saying the policy took effect after its appeal.
And always remember: diagramming sentences is more fun when you do it with a glitter pen.
randy
No question the GOP will try to reverse. In Virginia, the GOP campaigned on issues of jobs and economy, and said that they were not interested in social issues. They, of course, lied. As soon as they took over, the very first bills they introduced were all anti-gay, anti-choice and anti-women.
The public was surprised at how brazen they were, and they were forced to back off most of them.
So if that’s any indication, we must assume that this guy is lying as well, and saying so only to soften opposition to the GOP so that they will win over the both the House and the Senate. Among the first bills they will introduce will be one not to reinstate DADT, but to bar all homosexuals from serving at all, whether openly or not.
In fact, they MUST do so, just to molify the religious right, which is their base. They will owe them big time for a win that big, and they know that they can win on this.
1equalityUSA
“diagramming sentences is more fun when you do it with a glitter pen.” God-I-love-this.
B
Re No. 1 · HM wrote “Filing this one squarely under “Believe It When I See It”. The GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of a consortium of wack job right wing political, economic and social groups.”
I suspect a more accurate model is that the GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the “0.1 percenters”, the tiny fraction of the population that has more money than anyone would know what to do with. The problem is to get enough votes to be elected. At one point, a GOP “marketing genius” realized that you could buy votes cheaply if you targeted people who believed the world was created in exactly seven days – if they can be talked into believing that, they can be talked into believing anything, including voting against their self interests.
1equalityUSA
Brilliant, B, #5–Love it.
Cam
Yeah, just like Romney hiring the gay guy proved that, THAT was settled…
Until of course a few people complained and told him to fire the guy…which he did.
Sorry, if Romney wins and seeks to end the ban, a GOP Congress would NOT vote against their party base and their president. That is a simple fact.
codyj
B5, thats a PERFECT comment!
Cam
@B:
LOL! Perfect!
Joseph
@kurt_t: “diagramming sentences is more fun when you do it with a glitter pen.” I am so totally stealing this.
raisedsouth
@1equalityUSA: I love it too
dvlaries
>Is The GOP Finally Giving Up The Ghost Of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?<
*
Well, if they are, they'll find some other item of progress to stand in the way of.
That's what they do.
UsualPlayers
If interracial marriage is any example, you can expect them to both attack it as a good idea but done in the wrong way sometime in 2040 or 2041 since it took them about 30 years to come to that conclusion on that issue and then only with a majority and sizeable plurality now continuining to have a problem with it
THey put the nuts in conservative
jack
Check out the lists of members of the U S Congress who wore the uniform of their nation. It might surprise you to discover that far more democrats served in the Armed Forces than did republicans. Are democrats more patriotic? It would seem so!!!!