Top Military Official for the "Removal of Don't Ask Don't Tell" and Republicans are Upset with the Answer

Today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen came before the Senate Arm Services Committee and passionately stated the need to remove "Don't Ask Don't Tell" from American law. In Adm. Mullen's testimony according to the New York Times he said, “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens." This statement caught everyone off guard, but a bigger bombshell dropped by Mullen really angered some Republican Senators. Mullen continued, "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”


Many Republicans led by Committee Chairman John McCain do not want to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" They believe that the system is effective. According to the USA Today, Senator McCain argued, "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy." Other fears by Republican lawmakers are the possible expansion of these terms including transgender and hermaphrodites.

The view that everyone should be treated equally should go for everything. "Don't Ask Don't Tell" should be repealed. This law is doing two things that hurt America. First, it does not allow every able body person to serve his or her country. In a time of war, our armed services need as many people as we can get. By limiting, this number because some people do want gays and lesbians in the military hurts our armed forces. Second, it discriminates against a person's sexual orientation. We are a country that has fought against discrimination on all levels and for all ideas, but when it comes to equal rights for all sexual orientations, we have fallen behind other industrialized countries.

From AOL News in an article titled, "In Israeli Army, Gays Are 'No Big Deal'" the author Linda Gradstein shows in her article that being Gay in the Israeli Army is not a big deal and it is accepted. She also says that, "The right to be openly gay has been acknowledged in the Israeli military since 1993, and there is little evidence that policy has caused any problems." AOL also ran a story on the British system. In Theunis Bates story, "British Army Actively Recruits Gay Soldiers," that the British Government is recruiting openly gay men for military service. Theunis writes about how fears were not realized,

In fact, the biggest news about the change was that it resulted in no news. Academic studies published in peer-reviewed journals found that allowing openly gay troops to serve in the U.K. had no negative impact on cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness.

Here are two well trained armies with independent studies that show that openly gay members of the armed forces do not pose a threat to the cohesion, readiness, recruiting, moral, retention or effectiveness. Britain and Israel are known for their tough militaries and take pride in their accomplishments. Anything to lessen their effectiveness would be changed.

Obama Adminstration Wants to Protect us from the Large Banks

Hot off the press from the Wall Street Journal reportersDamian Paletta and JonathanWeisman report that President Barrack Obama will propose new regulations on banks that are too big to fail. The goal of these regulations would be that banks would have to put up barriers between divisions inside the banks. The goal of this is to make sure that money that is Federally insured by FDIC is not being used for speculative investments. This means though that there will be a separation from the bank that a citizen takes out a loan or deposits money, and from the bank that sells securities on the open market. For banks this is not a good item because a majority of the big banks made most of their profit from the speculative investment part and minor part from deposits and loans.

The idea of this plan comes from the Glass Steagull Act of 1933 which separated depository banks from investment banks. This was the law of the land until 1999 when Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act became into law. This took out the teeth of the Glass Steagull Act of 1933 and help caused the market meltdown in the last decade. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 passed the full Senate with a 90-8 vote.

The Obama administration does not want to pass regulations to reenact Glass Steagull, but to set limits for banks to make sure they do not get too big to fail. This idea might find bipartisan support. A Bloomberg News article from Alison Vekshin on December 16, 2009 Arizona Republican John McCain and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell wanted to reinstate Glass Steagull. President Obama is not the only one that wants bank reform.

Sam Brown winning the election in Massachusetts last night and the Democrats have lost their 60 seat majority in the Senate. The idea of passing healthcare reform is stalled and will not likely pass, but with the outcry of the American people for tougher reforms on the banking system allows politicians to gain political capital. Democrats and Republicans can work together on this in a bipartisan way to fix a system that failed the nation. We hope that politicians will do what is best for the country instead of political positioning.

Tighter reforms are needed on the banking system. They help our economy move forward and provide us with the capital needed to due business in the United States. We need to protect our banking system from excessive risk. It is important that our banks do not cause the nation harm by schemes that make them money, but hurt American People. Here at the Common Civic Good we support implementing ideas of Glass Steagull Act back into the legislation.

Like Always the links are at the bottom.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575015910344117800.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html?offset=0&s=newest

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aQfRyxBZs5uc