IGF CultureWatch

With a vote now schedule for Saturday, and GOP Senators Brown, Collins, Snowe and Murkowski on board, I’m betting this will, finally, happen. But this is troubling, from The Politico:

Publicly, President Barack Obama has reaffirmed his support for repealing the policy this year. But the White House is quietly pushing far more aggressively for the new START treaty, signaling it may be open to punting the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal until after the new year if it can get enough GOP votes on the treaty for ratification, according to several senators and Democratic aides.

And this:

Whether the Democrats’ approach will work is an open question. While gay rights groups do blame the GOP, which has promised to block all legislation until the government is funded and Bush-era tax cuts are extended, they have been urging Senate Democratic leadership to make the measure a higher priority and not wait until the end-of-the-session logjam to move it forward.

“We’re running out of time to get a lot of things done around here,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a proponent of the repeal. “I hope we can get a lot of things done, including that one.”

And this:

“I have a lot of people in Nebraska who are supportive of repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ but they don’t hold against you what you can’t do,” said Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat up for reelection in 2012.

And this:

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, contends the GOP just wants an opportunity to debate and offer amendments to important bills like the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the DREAM Act and the repeal bill. . . .

“They may be just trying to show their base that, yeah, they really tried hard,” he added, “and the mean ol’ Republicans stopped them from getting it done.”

(Reminder: we welcome comments from all perspectives, but those with personal insults or obscenities will be deleted. That’s the policy.)

From Richard Grenell at the Huffington Post, “Gay Leaders Need a Tea Party Style Shakeup—111th Congress a Total Failure“:

The entrenched gay leaders in Washington, DC, have spent the last two years blaming Republicans for the fact that they themselves have struck out on Capitol Hill and will end the 111th Congress with nothing to show for their multimillion-dollar fundraising efforts. If this were a public company, the Board or the shareholders would have run these leaders out of town a long time ago.

Despite campaigning for decades to put Democrats in control of all of Washington, their dream ticket of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama failed to deliver what the gay leaders themselves promised the movement. . . . [Gay leaders in Washington] have turned their comfortable and high-paying perches into a safe haven free from the consequences of job performance evaluations.

Read the whole thing.

More. Democratic party control of the White House and both chambers of Congress (with substantial majorities) was a once-in-a-generation occurrence. We will not see it again for a long, long time. But a permanent campaign to restore it will keep HRC’s fundraising coffers full for the next decade.

Just to follow up on David Link’s excellent comments: barring last-ditch efforts by Sen. Joe Lieberman and a few others to secure a separate repeal vote, the question will be whether President Obama will appeal a future Ninth Circuit ruling that very well could uphold the district court’s decision that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is unconstitutional. The administration, of course, appealed the district court ruling in favor of the Log Cabin Republicans well-argued suit. Stay tuned.

A coalition of religious conservative groups blocked the city of El Paso, Texas, from extending benefits to city employees’ same-sex partners through a successful ballot measure. The aim of the initiative: to promote “traditional family values” by limiting benefits to “city employees and their legal spouse and dependent children.” But as the Wall Street Journal reports, after being approved by 55% of the voters, it became clear that the measure also eliminated retiree health benefits for former city workers (and even for elected officials, who aren’t technically city employees).

“We don’t want to get into a holy war with the church,” said Ron Martin, president of the local police union. “I just wish they would have left us alone.” Just one of the unintended consequences of discrimination by ballot box.

Tis the season, courtesy of Fox’s “Glee“:

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal remains on life support. True, John McCain’s transformation into Jesse Helms is one of the more disheartening developments (McCain/Palin would have been a train wreck, not that Obama/Biden isn’t). On the plus side, the announcement by Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) that he will support repeal, as will Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), most likely with fellow GOP senators Olympia Snowe (Maine), Richard Lugar (Mo.), and perhaps John Ensign (Nev.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and maybe a few others, shows that there is part of the Grand Old Party that can be worked with, if there is a will to do so.

What remains startling about the 111 Congress is that, aside from the so-far fumbled DADT repeal effort and passage of a lame hate-crimes bill, nothing in terms of gay legal equality has passed. Nancy Pelosi’s leftwing House didn’t even move the Employee Non-Discrimination Act out of committee (and despite the debatable merits of the bill, a majority of Americans say they favor barring workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation). Repeal or modification of the Defense of Marriage Act was never even seriously raised.

Analysis of why two years of a huge Democratic majority in the House, with a (for a year and a half) filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority, yielded so little should be the focus of much soul-searching within the LGBT movement. That it won’t speaks volumes about the big Washington LGBT activists’ partisanship-first misdirection (yes, I mean you Human Rights Campaign).

More. Jon Stewart feels the need to mock Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for their testimony in support of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Gaypocalypse Now
www.thedailyshow.com
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The Advocate excerpts remarks supporting repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.

In the responses to the Adovcate piece, a commenter proclaims that Republicans oppose repeal because they intend to “say no on everything that Obama tries to pass, tries to do to get the country going in the right direction.” But that’s exactly the kind of progressive response that’s so entirely counterproductive. Instead of engaging Republicans and making pro-liberty arguments, too many Democrats go out of their way to present DADT repeal as part of Obama’s progressive, big government, intrusive state agenda. Gee, that will get small government GOP moderates onboard.

More. On another culture war front, leftists at The Nation attack libertarians for criticizing TSA scan and grope policies. When the state is run by “progressives” led by a dear leader, no government violation of human dignity may be opposed. From David Boaz: “it’s striking to see how many conservatives think the TSA has gone too far, and how dismissive—even contemptuous—liberals are of rising concerns about liberty and privacy.” From Glenn Greenwald: “The most odious premise in [The Nation] piece: anyone who doesn’t quietly, meekly and immediately submit to Government orders and invasions—or anyone who stands up to government power and challenges it—is inherently suspect.”

From Cory Doctorow: “I remember when being anti-authoritarian, pro-dignity and pro-freedom were values of the progressive left.”

As I’ve previouisly blogged, Harry Reid set up the “don’t ask, don’t tell” pre-election vote to fail. By refusing to allow a full debate, he ensure united GOP opposition, even though GOP senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Richard Lugar (Ind.) have indicated they would otherwise have voted for repeal, thus denying the GOP its filibuster. GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), John Ensign (Nev.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), among others, are also mentioned as obtainable votes against filibuster and for repeal.

As Kimberly A Strassel writes in the Wall Street Journal (full column only available to wsj subscribers):

If Democrats leave town with few or no final victories to tout—if they fail even to protect Americans from tax hikes—they can thank their Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. It was Mr. Reid’s flawed pre-election strategy that landed his party with this undercooked fowl, and his post-election floundering has even his own members worried.

You wouldn’t know this from listening to Mr. Reid, who has laid out a lame-duck agenda that bears no connection to time, reality or election results. According to the Nevadan, Senate Democrats are going to confirm judges, rewrite immigration law, extend unemployment insurance, fix the issue of gays in the military, reorganize the FDA, forestall tax hikes, re-fund the government, and ratify a nuclear arms treaty—all in two, maybe three, weeks. This is the same institution that needs a month to rename a post office.

This legislative pileup is what happens when a majority leader chooses to hijack the Senate—to use it not on behalf of the country, but on behalf of a midterm campaign. The first part of Mr. Reid’s strategy was to introduce legislation specifically designed to rev up a liberal base for the midterm vote. To pep up gay rights activists, the majority leader promised legislation to change the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. To inspire Latino midterm voters, he also embraced the Dream Act, which would offer a path to citizenship for some immigrants.

Part two of Mr. Reid’s strategy: Make sure nothing, including these highlighted bills, then passed. Much of today’s unfinished business is legislation that could have earned GOP support. But the majority leader deliberately included poison pills that would cause Republicans to balk. The entire goal was to tag Republicans with obstructionism, turning off average voters and further inspiring the base.

The strategy didn’t work, and by putting politics above all else, we’re likely to pay the price for a long time indeed.

Thor Halvorssen blogs on last week’s vote in the UN to remove gay people from a resolution calling on countries to condemn “extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions” based on discriminatory grounds. As Halvorseen explains:

The resolution highlights particular groups historically subject to executions including street children, human rights defenders, members of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority communities, and, for the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation as a basis on which some individuals are targeted for death.

The tiny West African nation of Benin (on behalf of the UN’s African Group) proposed an amendment to strike sexual minorities from the resolution. The amendment was adopted with 79 votes in favor, 70 against, 17 abstentions and 26 absent.

In other words, the resolution ensures that the U.N. no longer condemns extra-judicial killings of gay men and women The countries voting for and against the resolution reads like a list of the civilized vs. the uncivilized world (sorry, no moral relativism here).

As Halvorssen notes:

Those against the amendment include every European nation present, all Scandinavian countries, India, Korea, most of Latin America, all of North America, and only one Middle Eastern nation: Israel. In most countries in the Middle East, it is a crime to be gay—in some, like Saudi Arabia, it is punishable by beheading and in others, like Iran, by hanging.

Be thankful if you don’t live in one of the countries voting in favor of the resolution. And if you’re an American, be especially thankful for these freedoms.

From the Washington Blade: ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal ‘barely hanging on’:

One Senate Democratic aide, who spoke to the Washington Blade on condition of anonymity, said repeal — currently pending before the U.S. Senate as part of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill — is “barely hanging on with life support.”

“The only way to resuscitate this effort and get a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ vote is for President Obama and [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates to start pushing directly, something we on the Hill had expected the president and Gates to do long ago,” the aide said.

Frustration over the lack of movement on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” prompted activists affiliated with GetEQUAL to take action on Monday and chain themselves to the White House fence in an act of civil disobedience.

Elsewhere in the Blade:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Thursday expressed confidence about having the necessary 60 votes to move forward with legislation containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal — provided certain conditions are met with the amendment process on the Senate floor. . . .

Lieberman said he’s received assurances from GOP senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) as well as “others privately” that they would be open to moving forward with defense legislation containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal provided there’s an “open amendment process” in bringing the bill to the floor.

And from the Washington Times, on the pre-midterm election “don’t ask” Senate vote debacle:

Many Republicans wanted to debate amendments on how the nation would handle trials for suspected terrorists, and also wanted a chance to try to strike language that would allow military hospitals to provide abortions to women willing to pay for them.

Asked whether Ms. Collins, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, would support a repeal effort, her spokesman, Kevin Kelley, said “she wanted to vote for the defense authorization bill and supports the repeal.”

“Her issue at the time was that Majority Leader Reid had said he would not allow any Republican amendments to the bill at the time. She was opposed to that process, which shut Republicans out of the debate,” he said.

So Harry Reid and the liberal Democrats didn’t want to let the GOP vote on banning abortions in VA hospitals, and were willing to let “dont’ ask” repeal go down because of it. Thanks, Harry. Let’s see if you make amends (by allowing a fair amendment process, and thus bringing in GOP votes from Collins and Lugar) as the clock ticks away.

More. tick, tock, tick, tock.