Republicans Force Democrats To Likely Abandon DADT Repeal

Don’t everyone go into shock all at once. Hey- I said no going into shock! President Barack Obama’s legislative path to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell seems all but doomed now as negotiations are underway that would likely mean that the legislative victory won by both Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and out-going Pennsylvania Representative Patrick Murphy will be for nothing. The Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud seem to be unwilling or unable to deliver two votes to break the filibuster and allow a vote on the repeal legislation.

Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and John McCain of Arizona are in talks regarding stripping the repeal language from the Defense Authorization Bill because the Republicans are refusing to allow even a debate on the bill because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Senator John McCain has vowed to defund the military if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s repeal is not stripped from the Defense bill.

This leaves the Obama Administration one and only one avenue to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which surveys show the majority of American service personnel and the American people favor, and that is to deep six the appeal on Judge Virginia Phillips’ ruling.

http://lezgetreal.com/2010/11/republicans-force-democrats-to-likely-abandon-dadt-repeal/

I will never understand why a simple repeal was not pushed through when we had 60 votes.

:shrug:

Or on almost anything else?

but that would require spine and/or the willingness to fight. Neither of which this administration has.

Here's what they HAVEN'T been doing: passing a version of the defense appropriations bill without the repeal.

By the way, what does or doesn't get included on a bill is not under the control of the President--but then, that should be evident to anyone who cares to notice.

They can fail to pass it this year, but then the Republicans will just pass it when they take control.

that it WOULD BE DONE?

We had 60 Dems for about six weeks--and even during that time, we never had 60 Dems on any of the most important issues. What we had was something like 55 Dems plus Bayh, Pryor, Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson, et al. The belief that we could just have passed anything and everything we wanted during that time is a myth.

Or an ability to play tic-tac-toe. "You vote with us or you have no committee assignments."

kicked. I hate this 24-hour limit. If it is worth recommending or unrecommending why a limit?

while publicly supporting it in the State of the Union. Abd the first words out of his mouth following the electiin were yet "more ompromise" on everything else.

Not appealing the 9th circuit court's ruling. But what was the excuse for appealing it? That they would get it repealed through congress?

Fucking assholes (yeah, I said it. Sue me).

They are getting tremendous mileage by playing off of the administrative appeals of their court decisions.

They don't want legislative action to mess that up.

(clutches pearls)

that such a strategy as this would have presented problems.

It's best not to try. As Homer Simpson says, "Trying is the first step in failure."

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I said it before the election when they held a vote on the bill with the DADT repeal, and I'll say it again, part of why they failed is they put too much controversial legislation in the Defense bill.

Specifically I'm referring to the DREAM act, certainly it has good merits for being passed, but it's too much to ask for 60 votes in the senate for a bill that you attach both gay issues and illegal immigration issues to. Someone, I think it was Snowe or Collins, even called them out on turning the defense bill into something met just to motivate their base to vote by attaching the DREAM act to it.