With passions running so high there’s so much going on about the DADT repeal “non-repeal compromise” that I though a summary was in order of some of what’s been happened over the past 24. 

Okay here we go…….

*  Joint Chiefs of staff G. Roughead (chief of Naval ops), James Conway (Marine chief), Norton Schwartz (Air Force head), and George Casey (Army head) all wrote similar letters to Congress ( Which Grandpa Munster, Senator John McCain is now passing around) insisting they don’t act on DADT until the Pentagon finishes its review. Otherwise, as Roughead declares:

So the Joint Chiefs are saying that our so-called “professional” service members lack to knowledge, intelligence, and the common sense to distinguish between the military’s code of conduct and federal laws? 
What an insult to the brave men and women serving our Country that wing-nuts, politicians, and apparently most of the military chiefs think so little about their character as service members and commitment to their service. –

*  Lt. Dan Choi speaks out about the DADT repeal compromise: “It does not offer the full repeal. It is a delay…Right now is not a time for celebration or relaxation. We call on President Obama to finally take action and stop the firings…”  Dan Choi has more BALLS than our politicians and Gay Inc. combined!

*  Open Left has reported that Senator Ben Nelson will vote”yes” on the DADT repeal compromise. With Nelson’s vote, Senator Carl Levin could have the votes he needs for the amendment in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

*  Rachel Maddow talked about events surrounding DADT repeal last night and spoke with Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) about his “repeal” amendment.  Now I like pat Murphy.  I really do.  But I wonder what he REALLY thinks about this “compromise” instead of just using the talking points.

*  Foreign Military Officers tell the United States Military To Get Over The Gay Shit! – Maj. Peter Kees Hamstra of the Royal Dutch Army. Leif Ohlson, Principle Adm. Officer in the Swedish Armed Forces, and Lt. Com. Craig Jones, retired from the Royal Navy of Britain, participated in last week’s event at the Brookings Institute regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Today they wrote a joint editorial in Politico discussing some of the additional ways that the U.S. Military’s discriminatory policies against gay people are hurting it:

“The U.S. armed forces are the world’s most formidable, with an unrivaled might, and a readiness to accept worldwide deployments to engage in a range of military conflicts that no other nation views with the same sort of international responsibility. Yet it is also true that U.S. military power depends, in most cases, on an international coalition of partners. Members of Congress don’t always seem to appreciate that America’s allies are put off in serious ways by the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. For example, units of our own or other armed forces have refused to deploy in some joint operations with U.S. forces, because gay service members would not work with the Americans — for fear of hostile reactions. In addition to protecting our men and women from enemy combatants, we must also protect them from anti-gay and anti-lesbian discrimination. Increasingly, this is not a situation we and our personnel will tolerate. So we are less able to help accomplish our collective missions.”

*  And to end with an excellent piece from Kerry Eleveld at The Advocate that sums this clusterfuck up nicely.

“Of course, now that this amendment is on the table, the only thing worse than passing it would be not passing it. Why? Because all those lawmakers and strategists who continually argue that LGBT legislation is toxic will cry ‘I told you so’ from the rafters if it fails. And a loss on repeal could have an adverse impact on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, partner benefits, and any other piece of equality legislation waiting in the wings. So how did we get where we are? The White House and Gates seemingly didn’t want a vote this year. Activists wouldn’t let up. Murphy, Levin, and Lieberman put in a heroic effort to salvage repeal. And in my estimation, when Levin was one vote away in the Senate committee, White House officials realized the repeal train was leaving without them and not hopping aboard was a no-win situation. If it passed, they would get no credit; if it failed by one vote, activists would castigate them for withholding support. This compromise could still fail, and make no mistake, the deal was brokered by the White House, which then treated it as the redheaded stepchild it never wanted in the first place. But the outcome — win or lose — now has the administration’s fingerprints on it, even though its refrain since Monday morning has been that Congress was forcing its hand.”