What Shuts Down, Exactly?

'Don't ask, don't tell': Senate vote reaction
"Today, the Senate has taken an historic step toward ending a policy that undermines our National Security while violating the very ideals that our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives to defend. By ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the Military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to...

What makes America great ...?
A site I frequent -- Common Sense Political Thought -- gets quite a few regular commenters from both sides of the political spectrum. In one recent thread, one regular lefty opined on the demise of America as he sees it: We’re not the country we used to be. We turned our backs on our own values for the love of our own abject fear. We ignore the very real growing fascism within our borders, while accusing efforts at improvement of being fascist. We revere the generation that fought WWII whi...

Interesting Reader Responses on Wikileaks
I’ve received a number of interesting responses to my post from Sunday on rewriting the Espionage Act. Two bear particular attention. The first is an email from a scholar who prefers to remain anonymous, who writes: In your proposal, you require that the information be “properly classified,” instead of just “classified.”  I’m wondering about your thinking behind that.  While it’s true that there’s a tremendous amount of overclassific...

North American Union?U.S. covering its tracks
Operating much like a "memory hole" in George Orwell's classic novel "1984," the Obama Administration has replaced the content of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America website, providing additional evidence the White House intends to implement the SPP agenda by executive action, below the radar of Public Opinion and outside the framework of congressional approval. The SPP website, under the title "Commerce Connect," now reflects totally different content, announcing its purpo...

White House On DREAM Act: It's 'Incredibly Disappointing'
The White House released the following statement on the failure of the DREAM Act in the Senate today. In an incredibly disappointing vote today, a minority of Senators prevented the Senate from doing what most Americans understand is best for the country. As I said last week, when the House passed the DREAM Act, it is not only the right thing to do for talented Young People who seek to serve a country they know as their own, it is the right thing for the United States of America. Our nation is...

Getting personal
Every five years my husband is re-investigated by the FBI. At worst, it's intrusive, requiring extensive information about our finances, and at best it's inconvenient, trying to find the address of an immediate relative whom nobody has seen for years. The bureau's paranoia about the trustworthiness of its own employees is institutional but was heightened in 2001 by the conviction of Robert Hanssen, a Special Agent who sold state secrets to the Russians in exchange for $1.4m (£896,800) in c...

Mass. to join program that checks immigration status of arrestees
Your article has been sent. Massachusetts State Police and other Law Enforcement agencies will join a Controversial program intended to help federal authorities detect Illegal Immigrants, a top state Public Safety official said today. Survey: Do you agree with the program? Public Safety Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan said Massachusetts will sign an agreement to formally join Secure Communities, a Federal Program that screens all people who are arrested and fingerprinted to determine who is an il...

Reflections on DADTs Repeal
Today truly is an historic day for the Military. As Dan posted earlier this morning, Cloture was reached on a bill sponsored by hawk Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) (<--notice no "D" in there) and minutes ago the full Senate voted 65-31 to enact the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010". I’m very pleased for a few reasons: First of all, this happened fairly. While there’s an argument that this was thrust into the waning (and flailing) moments of a lame-duck sessi...

Teacher-pay claim falters
The General Assembly must approve amendments to the state Budget in the coming months, and public-school teachers are lobbying for a 3 percent pay boost, saying they have gone three straight school years without a raise. Leaders of the 60,000-member Virginia Education Association, the state's largest organization of teachers, announced their aim at a Dec. 8 news conference. They said low pay, increased work demands and diminished education budgets are driving Veteran teachers to a "breaking ...

"Compassion?" Only in Your DREAMs
Advocates of the latest Amnesty, the DREAM Act, claim they have a monopoly on compassion. But what they’re selling as “compassion” falls short. The DREAM Act would create a legalization program for at least 2 million Illegal Aliens. These illegals supposedly were brought to the United States as Children and have grown up in this country. This is probably the most sympathetic segment of the 10-plus million Illegal Immigrant population. But the bill before Congress isn’t l...

TGIF * Open Thread
Before I post the political goodies that I unearthed today, I’d like to ask you all to consider giving gifts, or Gift Cards, from Amazon. You will help NoQuarterUSA.net keep its busy servers going, along with the professional blog developers and software companies that we pay monthly to update, install, and trouble-shoot this blog. As you’ll see in the middle column, before Christmas you still have time to send gifts with free shipping. You can also select Gift Cards, which everyone...

Half A Loaf Is Better Than None
A procedural vote in the Senate for the DREAM Act has failed. 55 Senators voted for the measure, with 41 voting against, falling short of the necessary votes to overcome a Filibuster. ...but for once a handful of them decided that with three-quarters of the coutry wanting it repealed, DADT will get a final Up or Down vote. In a landmark vote for Gay Rights, the Senate on Saturday voted to advance Legislation that would overturn the Military ban on Openly Gay Troops known as "don't ask, don't tel...

Obamas failure has served to expose Israeli intransigence here and abroad
As the United States sends Envoy George Mitchell to grasp at straws in hopes of restarting negotiations to create a Palestinian state after the Israeli government refused to curb settlement construction, Obama’s inability to entice Netanyahu’s coalition to comply with International Law has frustrated many who wish for peace between Israel and Palestine. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Obama’s specific failure and the now-seemingly inevitable collapse of negotiat

David Isenberg: Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Step Forward?
It appears that the old Hillary Clinton, the one who ran for president of the United States has managed to travel forward in time and merge with the current Hillary Clinton, the one who is Secretary of State. For those who don't remember, the old Clinton vowed to ban the use of private security contractors. As perennial PMC critic Jeremy Scahill of The Nation reported back in July, ""These private security contractors have been reckless and have compromised our mission in Iraq," Clinton said i...

What do civil unions, a plywood cow and daylight saving have in time? Read on
Rep. Jeanne Faatz back in 1988. A Colorado congressman in 1988 introduced a bill to give states the authority to stay on daylight saving time, but the bill didn’t go anywhere. “It never saw the time of day,” said the sponsor, Republican Hank Brown, then a congressman from the 4th Congressional District. “I thought it was a matter of state control, but that was not a widely shared view.” Brown, who went on to become a U.S

Obama relishes an end to military ban on gays
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is praising senators as they near passage of Legislation that would overturn the Military ban on Openly Gay Troops. Obama says that policy undermines U.S. National Security and violates "the very ideals" that members of the armed services risk their lives to defend. A final Senate vote is set for 3 p.m. Saturday after a test vote in the morning set the stage to send the measure to Obama to sign. The president says ending the ban will mean that "thousands ...

Senate Votes to Move Forward with Repeal of Dont Ask, Dont Tell
This morning the Senate voted 63-33 to move forward with repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the discriminatory law which bans gay men and women from openly serving in the Military. We are on the verge of ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ for good. This is one of those moments in our history when we stepped up and squared our policies with the values this nation was founded upon. I applaud those Republicans who have joined us to Repeal this policy, and...

US: Rhode Island City Nears Bankruptcy
© The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy A report by Central Falls’ appointed receiver Mark S. Pfeiffer says the city can no longer sustain itself financially. Central Falls - The city's financial problems are so profound that the only way to solve them is through a Merger with Pawtucket or a regionalization of city services, the state-appointed receiver said in a report Thursday to the Carcieri administration. "Central Falls, in my judgment, cannot remain a stand-alone community as it...

Senate vote moves "don't ask, don't tell" repeal forward
The U.S. Senate voted Saturday morning to end debate on whether to Repeal the Military's policy banning gay men and Lesbians from military service. The 63-33 vote on the Cloture motion sets the stage for a direct vote on ending the policy, known as "don't ask, don't tell." Great news! McCain is a disgrace. There have ALWAYS been G&L's in the military and everyone knows it. I hope this finally puts an end to the Bigotry and oppression of American Citizens who ser...

Raul Castro touts economic changes
HAVANA - Cuban President Raul Castro told legislators Saturday that the future of the country's revolution is at stake as the government tries to institute sweeping economic reforms, adding that the changes are meant to strengthen socialism — not replace it. Cuba has announced it will lay off a half-million workers from bloated state-run enterprises, while simultaneously allowing more free enterprise. It has also begun to scale back many of the subsidies Cubans have come to rely on t...

Obama Presses for Vote on START Treaty: Calls It 'Urgent National Priority'
Reminding Republicans that "politics stops at the water's edge," President Obama pressed hard Saturday for Senate ratification of the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, calling it an urgent national priority, necessary to "make America more secure." In his weekly Internet address, the president praised the Bipartisan spirit of the tax bill he signed Friday and said Senate ratification of the START Treaty "isn't about winning a victory for an administration or a political party. It's about the ...

Miltary Gay Policy Repeal Passes Senate
(NewsCore) - The US Senate Saturday voted to Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the policy that bars gays and Lesbians from serving openly in the US Military, in a 63-33 Cloture vote Saturday, paving the way for a Repeal of the 17-year-old policy. All 55 Democrats, two Independents and six Republican senators -- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Scott Brown of Massachusetts -- voted for cloture, giving the m...

Ill-Advised Religious Rights Suit Brought Against School District By Feds
Now those who are familiar with this blog know that I tend to be very supportive of individuals seeking religious accommodations by employers under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent Legislation. That is true across the board, including for Muslims. However, I think that the Federal Government has it dead wrong in this case, and that the demands of the employee in this case go far beyond what the law requires. The Federal Government sued a suburban Chicago School District Monday for denyin...

State cuts will equal local costs
Grits is absolutely right: Cuts to state mental Hospitals would be a massive unfunded mandate for County Jails. [S]heriffs across Texas are increasingly frustrated and worried about the ever-decreasing amount of bed space available at state mental hospitals. Too often, when mentally ill offenders come to their jails, sheriffs who are required to provide appropriate care for their inmates say they are forced to either drive hundreds of miles, wait for days in hospital Emergency Rooms guarding p...

Belarus police warn opposition on eve of vote
MINSK | Sat Dec 18, 2010 9:37am EST MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus's state security forces warned the political opposition on Saturday that they would Crack Down hard on any attempts to whip up tension during Sunday's Presidential Election. Opponents of Veteran President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and is poised to win a fourth term in office, say they plan to hold Protests on Sunday night against electoral malpractice and vote-rigging. In a joint statement, the police a...