I'd like to introduce you to my mother, the roadrunner. Remember that cartoon---beepbeep. Whiz!!

Unfortunately a roadrunner is a problem in the modern hospital and they get tied up-- to a wheel chair, or lashed down in their bed. We have cute little names for these restraints: a  bed-vest, a wrap around, and wrist restraints.

My Mom has experienced all of these since Friday when I took her to the emergency room about 6 p.m. for shortness of breath, and a high temperature. She also  had been doing her own particular roadrunner routine, non-stop since 6 a.m.

In the emergency room early tests showed the possibility of a tumor in her lung. But that was ruled out. And while they were doing more tests her blood pressure hit 213 over 160. And her cough, did I forget to mention the cough? It was escalating by the minute. As was her temperature which hit 101.4.

However, when no problem could be found other than labored breathing and blood pressure indicating imminent stroke--the temperature wasn't even mentioned--the ER doc, rather than admit her to the hospital, decided to send her home. My Mom's caretaker and I dug in our heels. Nothing doing. So The ER doc sent in a different doc, the Admitting doc, to talk to us.

This fellow  had quite a good routine: she will be with very sick people and you risk exposing her to disease; are you wanting to dump her here because there are very good facilities we can recommend. And--we probably don't even have a bed.

When we could not be dissuaded, he found her a bed. By then it was midnight. We had arrived at 6 p.m.

The next morning we found her tied to her bed, no intravenous fluids, and no doctor. The nurses agreed her cough was getting much worse. And they agreed she needed fluids. They also agreed that she needed something to calm her anxiety  which had escalated again. But nothing could be done without the doctor.

Who is the doctor??? And where is he??

They didn't know. Finally Edith, my mother's nurse, spent about 45 minutes on the phone, found the doctor who would be attending my mother and put a call in. When he responded to her page he said:

I'll be there when I get there.

He got there at 6 p.m. Saturday night.

This was 18 hours after she had been placed on the ward.

And until that time nothing could be done for my mother. A catheter had been inserted in the ER and one could see that there was barely 2 inches of dark urine for the entire day. This for a woman who if she did not have pneumonia had an escalating case of bronchitis.

In response to our prompting and urging, the Dr. did request all that was needed after he arrived. But his orders could not be executed immediately. An anti-anxiety medication had to be ordered from the pharmacy, the floor was out! And the IV also took time.

And thank heavens Mom's new caretaker is knowledgeable because I would not have known what exactly to ask for.

By this time the nursing staff and I had forged quite a bond. They hated the position they were in. Sure write it up one of them said with a smile. Someone should know what goes on here.

Yeah, someone should. And if you have no one to lobby for you, intercede for you, and take care of you in the modern hospital you are ignored and neglected.

Health care reform is as pressing as any other domestic issue in this campaign.

I liked Hill's plan best. But I will take Barack Obama's plan over McSame's any day.

We need it desperately.

I just read through the latest diary about  me, my motives, and the issue about Obama.

I did not intend for this to become the hullabaloo that it has, and  contrary to wanting  the attention--I hate it!

My blogmates on CFO deserve, I think a huge round of applause and a thank you from everyone on mydd. No one on CFO approved of the diary I wrote, but many of them believed I should be able to say it without being flamed and crucified. So I want to say to them:

I didn't exactly drag you into this, but I do appreciate your defending my right to say something so terribly unpopular and clearly hateful to so many.

While we are on acknowledgements I would like to thank chitown denny and the blogger who has penguin in his name. I'm sorry I can't remember your name better--and I don't have the heart to look it up right now. You know who you are.

Here is what I have been thinking over the course of this entire mess which began last Sunday and has continued now, unabated, for six days.

When I was small, before I could talk, I was badly hurt by someone in my family. Part of the injury  that I sustained was that I could not tell anyone what happened. After I could speak, no one believed me. As a result of not being believed,  the injustice and mistreatment continued unchecked. And as it did,  year by year so did my passion to speak my truth--as I see and I experience  it. By the seventh grade I  was telling anyone who asked I was going to be a news reporter.

Sometimes, this tendency is helpful as when I named a behavior that had existed, but had never been named, and then wrote the first book about sexual harassment of women on the job. And this commitment has helped many in all sorts of ways over the years.

Sometimes, this tendency is not helpful, can be seen as inappropriate and unnecessary, if not unwanted. And at times is perceived as downright hateful.

I have come to terms with this part of my character. I will do it, and I will take my lumps if that is what expressing `how I see things' requires me to do.

During the primary wars here I said some things  which sent people over a cliff. And I was accused then of echoing right wing talking points and like that. What I said then, and what I say now, is that I am a former news reporter with the Associated Press and sources come from all sorts of places. Some are true and some are not. The days when we could safely assume that some sources were honorable and above board while others were Always biased and inaccurate are gone. For example, I watched Fox news during the primary because it was often the only place I could catch any pro-Hillary slant. I do not watch them now because they are essentially a Republican mouthpiece with a pro-McCain slant.

As for the issue of right wing sources, etc. To many on the left, almost any publication in Israel is suspect and ips facto right wing. I once published one line here that used some Israeli source--but only after it had been used by the Los Angeles Times. No one on here cared that the LA times had published what I was now saying. I was smeared as someone who quotes right wing whack jobs.

I did write for Savage Politics. I have not spoken to anyone there since  they published an avalanche of pure hate about me when I declared my  support the nominee. It was the same at Hill44. And I was  excommunicated by Alegre from Hillary'svoice with no explanation. I have not gone back to any of those sites and I have only heard from others how hateful they became about me.  Altho a few people do write me now and then and we discuss as best we can across this great divide that separates us now.

CFO began as a place for people who supported Hillary and who now support the nominee.  We wanted to commiserate and support one another. We were a truly small and rather isolated group. I think adleft and psychodrew are to be commended for their creating this haven and attracting a wonderful group of bloggers.

And then there is me. And here is my truth about Obama. I am skeptical. But because I will vote for him I work at liking him better. But ever since the primary ended he has been metamorphosing into something different than who he appeared to be in the primary. And so I feel as if I keep playing catchup.

For the record:

I do not think he is a secret Muslim. [although I wouldn't care if he was]
I have no issue with his middle name, and in fact, I like it.
I do think his campaign used the race card against the Clintons and I believe he lied about his relative going to Auschwitz.. [This was another one that brought down the house here and Canadian Gal was among the chief scoffers.]
I am beginning to like his wife and I think his kids are smart and spunky.
I think he has led an extraordinary life and I  like his thoughtful approach to issues.
I think his idea of a team of rivals is encouraging--as long as he is decisive.
I like his stand on off-shore drilling.
I wish he would speak out more forcefully about "women's issues," but I do not think he will give up a woman's right to choose. And I trust he will appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will ensure this is the case.
I think he will use Al Gore and we might actually get somewhere on the environment.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

Was I thrilled with his trip overseas. The answer is no. I thought it was a mistake. I think we are in an economic meltdown and people here at home are hurting, and something about that trip was not helpful to his image here. I especially do not think it helped his foreign policy credentials in the least. [My take on this may be influenced by the fact my Mom's savings were at risk when Indymac failed]

And then we come to prayer-gate. I am not going to rehash it all. Many, many here cannot understand that someone who supports him believes the prayer was deliberately leaked. After reading and seeing all there is to see about it I  would have to say that my honest opinion is: I don't know. And at this point I do think it is unclear what actually happened. But I  have a very jaundiced view of the Obama campaign machine. Perhaps this comes with having been on the other side in the primary, I don't know.

Does that make me a bad democrat? Does that make me someone who cannot support the nominee? Does that mean I am a troll or a right wing plant, or a Republican or engaging in swift boating our nominee?  

Of course not.

I am just speaking my truth the best I can, calling things as I see them, willing to listen and debate.

However, I have learned one important lesson through all of this. Maybe this is not the best time to dwell on our nominee's shortcomings. Obama does need to get elected. And I  am 100 percent on board with that necessity. So if this discussion about the leaking of the  prayer, which I assumed to be a discussion  among ourselves--all people who support him-- was not helpful--I apologize.

My 2 cents.

NO. The shooter at a Knoxville Church yesterday didn't open fire on a bunch of churchgoers killing two and injuring seven, because he didn't like "the liberal movement." This  is inaccurate  and it slides over the reality in a way that borders on falsehood.

The man who opened fire in a Tennesee church hated gays

The church had just put a sign up welcoming gays! Yeah. The shooter left a 4 page letter in his car saying he didn't like "the liberal movement," but  this is often code for a social agenda which fosters equal rights for gay people and that specifically was the trigger issue.

This is the headline that is more accurate:

Several people shot at gay affirming church in Knoxville. Shooter may have targeted church because of its support for gays.

Of course, this headline only appeared in a gay newspaper Out and About

When Kitty Genovese in 1964 was stabbed to death 25 times by a man in Queens-- while 38 bystanders looked on it and did nothing-- the case was reported in the national media as the worst case of bystander apathy in American history. In all the media publicity and furor, nowhere was the fact that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian, who had been prone to loud fights with her girlfriend, ever mentioned.

The bystanders who refused to help her as she was stabbed to death refused to come to the aid of a lesbian.

Bystander apathy was a phony issue. However, it was widely believed because a) no one  bothered to find out she was gay or b) if they did find out, refused to say so publicly.

As of 8 am today, two of the victims have died, two were treated and released and five remain in critical or serious condition at University of Tennessee Medical Center.

As a result of  the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church at its Sunday morning service, Linda Kraeger, 61, died last night at at UT Medical Center. Greg McKendry, 60, died when he confronted the gunman as he entered the church.

The shooter, Jim D. Adkisson 58, of Powell, Tenneessee, shot eight people with a 12 guage shotgun after firing 3 shells. Of those shot, all were adults: four women and three men. Although at the time of the shooting a group of children were singing from a church production of "Annie."

The FBI is assisting in the investigation which is required in a hate crime.

The church is the site of gay affirming activities. A member of the congregation wrote in a national blog that the church just recently put up a sign welcoming gays. One of the goals of the church's long range plan is to:

Increase congregational participation in human rights programs forgay/lesbian/transgendered persons.

   

"Elrod," who posted a comment on the blog The Moderate Voice says he is a member of the church. He said he was not present on Sunday, but did add:

all we know right now is that the suspect was not connected to the church in any way. I have no idea if the man had some sort of political or cultural agenda (TVUUC had just put up a sign welcoming gays to the congregation), or if it's just some lunatic acting for no reason at all.

The church  is home to Knoxville's Spectrum Café, which is an eight year old social gathering place for Knoxville area high school youth who:

support the principles of diversity, tolerance, and the worth and dignity of every human being.

Teens who come to Spectrum respect each others' ideas, religious views, race, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnic backgrounds. The group welcomes:

self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or who are questioning their sexual or gender identity.

The Knoxville Monday Gay Men's Group meets at the church each Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

David Massey, who  is one of the coordinators of Spectrum Café, also known as "Spectrum Diversi-Tea and Coffee House," said recently in the Unitarian Universalist World Magazine:

We advertise it as a safe harbor for teens who identify as LBGTQ and their straight friends and allies, plus any other youth who are being harassed for religious beliefs, appearance, or abilities.

 

At least seven people were shot - Becky Thompson with UT Medical Center confirmed to NBC News that seven people were transported from the church to UTMC for medical treatment.

http://outandaboutnewspaper.com/article. php?id=2803

cross-posted at clintonistasforobama and coyotebytes

Okay. Look. I am not all impressed by the Obama Grand Tour. There was a movie a few years ago with Sandra Bullock who plays a grungy cop made over by Michael Caine to go undercover as a contestant in the Miss Universe Contest. One of the running jokes in that movie is that each contestant for the Biggie Prize ends  her speech with "And I am for World Peace."

So I just don't get how this 2 continents in  a handful of  days with photo ops, little prayers leaked to the press and Biggie speeches on World Peace makes Obama a better candidate for President.

I mean this is supposed to be shore up his foreign policy credentials? Frankly, I was embarrassed.

I also don't like grandiose and soaring hyperbole. I don't trust it. I feel as if I am always screaming in my head: but what the effing hell are you gonna do? Jeeze, as long as I am doing this I may as well say that for me, anyway, Obama's speeches don't touch Jack Kennedy's. Now that guy could give a speech.

Ok. OK. I know. I am out of synch with half the democrats in the country.  And this is probably when I should say I am going to vote for the guy. But I am nervous about it. I don't want to bring up unpleasant subjects, but FISA totally jammed up my personal little drive to get on the Bus.

Will he take out the troops in a year or won't he? Will he pick a Republican Vice President or won't he? Will he support gay rights and gay marriage, let alone repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell or won't he? For every person who tells you he will do all these things, there is another one with evidence who says he says he won't.

Obama has left a trail of  misdirection, half-truths and pandered positions that makes my head swim. And I don't like it.

So maybe now you are wondering why I am going to vote for the guy. I hate John McCain. And I hate the Republican Party. I fear the election of John McCain the way some people fear snakes. He is the Anti-Christ. And the Republican Party is the elephant in the middle of  America's living room. So I am I guess the loyal opposition. And I want to see people here hold Barack Obama's feet to the fire on basic Democratic Party principles.

I don't wanna hear about a Republican Veep because this creepo could become President. I wanna hear about repealing the Patriot Act and FISA. I want to hear about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, so we can begin to restore the reality--as opposed to giving lip service to the ideal-- of a free press. I want a President who is friendly with the press and does not manage it in the interest of image control. I want a President committed to Social Security, raising the minimum wage and universal health care. I want a doer--not a talker. I want a President who understands the value of a civil service with appointments across the board who are the best at their job. Bush has gutted this bedrock principle--a bedrock of our democracy and its  ability to serve our citizens well and fairly.

Sure I want all the bells and whistles in terms of a forward looking thinker about global warming, about moving us away from fossil fuel dependence, about solutions to  our shrinking water supply, about our cities built in deserts, and about our over population.

So here's the deal. I am taking Obama on faith in the Democratic Party. Because this guy, himself, ain't doing it for me. Will he be another Carter, as President?  I dunno. Ok. I know some of you love Carter. I didn't. Now there's a guy who could talk you to death. I myself do not think we would have ever gotten to where we are today in the Mideast if we had acted to free our hostages in Iran Immediately. And I don't think the party would have sunk so low with the American people.

So, the bottom line is this. Dear Barack Hussein Obama, stop with the effing soaring and get down here in the trenches with us little people who need healthcare and assistance with aging parents, who are losing their  homes in the mortgage fiasco and money in banks that are failing, who want to drive cars with better gas mileage and who know the time for mass transit is Here. We don't care about  fancy speeches. But we do care about vision and commitment and honesty.  Show us the money, Barack. OK??

Obama coulda gone to Ramstein sans media and photo op, John Edwards really was in the hotel-- in the room with the woman reported to have given birth to his child-- and I still don't have a caretaker for my Mom.

And while all this has been going on a contractor in Brooklyn  was locked up in a psych ward for four days after he smashed into walls in three apartments trying to rescue a cat.

Auyup! You read that right. He is reported to have told the mental health police as they carted him away.

I'm not crazy, doctor. There really is a cat in my wall.

But guess what? There really, really was.

According to the NY Post, that collector of all things bizarre in the greater New York environs, it all started with a mischievous kitty named Rumi who put his head a hole in the wall of a condo undergoing renovation in Carroll Gardens.

Poor Rumi, the hole opened on a 30-foot shaft and he fell to the bottom.

The contractor, Chris Muth, had been watching Rumi for a friend and panicked when he went missing.

He couldn't reach the cat from the first apartment - even after enlarging the hole.

So the super, Doug Steiner, gave Muth permission to make a small hole in the wall of another unit.

But, Steiner said:

He opened up all the walls. I said, 'What the hell are you doing? The owner's going to flip out.'

Muth cared only for catching Rumi. Unable to catch him from that second hole, he broke into a third apartment, and again started smashing into the walls.

According to the Post:

Steiner had as much success coaxing Muth out as Muth did with Rumi.

So the super called the cops - who shipped Muth to a local psych ward.

Rumi remained in the catacombs of the condo - a former church.

Again, according to the Post in typical  NY Post style:

And the shrinks decided Muth was suffering from bats in his belfry.

They are not kidding. The hospital report on Muth declared:

He had a bizarre delusion [he] was trying to save a cat of his friend

But it all ended happily.

Muth finally convinced the doctors that he wasn't a wacko.

And Rumi, tired of his 15 days in solitary, let himself be caught by professional cat rescuers using a fishing-pole-like, professional cat-catching  device. Muth told the Post:

After 60 hours stuck down there, I thought the cat was going to die. Otherwise I wouldn't have panicked like I did.I can fix holes, but I can't bring a cat back to life.

I wish this guy was running for office somewhere. He'd get my vote!

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07252008/new s/regionalnews/krazy_kat_got_me_kommitte d_121467.htm

[UPDATE: Excerpts from an article from the Nation has been added to the end of this diary. Please read before you defend Big Doggie. Your loyalty on this is sadly misguided.

Search and Destroy: Gay-Baiting in the Military Under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Source: The Nation Author(s): Doug Ireland Date: July 10, 2000 ]

Fifteen years ago yesterday, President Clinton in one of the more craven acts of his Presidency--after a storm of protest from the likes of Colin Powell and Sam Nunn--reneged on a promise to let gays serve openly in the military.

Instead he ushered in  a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy whereby the government would no longer ask recruits whether they were gay; and in turn, service members would be able to remain in the military as long as they didn't reveal their sexual orientation.

This policy didn't serve either gays or the military very well.

Since 1993, the military booted 12,300 service members under DADT, including at least 58 valuable Arabic language specialists.

Today, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel held the first congressional hearings on DADT in 15 years--no doubt  because support for repealing the policy  is soaring. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, for example, found that 75 percent of Americans believe:

"Gay people who are open about their sexual orientation should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military.

This is a a huge jump from the 61 percent who supported it in 2001.

However, no Pentagon officials testified at today's hearings.

Subcommittee chairwoman Susan Davis (D-CA) said that she put in a request to the Defense Department:

But at this particular time...they're really not quite willing to come forward.

Gay rights activists lambasted this no-show. Steve Ralls of Service Memebers Legal Defense Network  declared:

At a time when the military is relaxing every possible standard to attract new recruits...one would hope and expect that Defense Department leaders would be first in line to call on Congress to repeal the law.

 

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, who is gay and was the first U.S. soldier wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom testified today. He recently told the Washington Blade, a gay newspaper:

We're allowing our prejudice to be put into action by allowing this discriminatory policy of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to still exist, even in this day and age.

In 2006, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would overturn DADT. The legislation now has 133 co-sponsors, including five Republicans. Chief Kook and gay-hater President Bush, however, has said he will veto it.

Of course, at time when the military is struggling to recruit and retain soldiers the policy is wearing thin. A 2005 study by the Williams Project at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, found that as many as 41,000 new recruits could be found if the ban were repealed. The report said:

This would be enough people to entirely staff half a dozen aircraft carriers.

And it is now common knowledge that gay service members pose no risk to the unity or effectiveness of the armed forces. In fact, there is increasing evidence that many soldiers are already aware of the sexual orientation of other soldiers.

CBS's "60 Minutes" recently did a segment on whether commanders were becoming less strict in enforcing the ban on openly gay servicemembers. During the segment, correspondent Lesley Stahl spoke with Army Sgt. Darren Manzella, who said he was very open about his homosexuality and even introduced his fellow soldiers to his boyfriend.

The Army was forced to open an investigation, but Manzella was eventually cleared to go back to work. He said he was basically told by his commanders:

"I don't care if you're gay or not.

Only after the CBS story was Manzella discharged. He said:

My sexual orientation certainly didn't make a difference when I treated injuries and saved lives in the streets of Baghdad. It shouldn't be a factor in allowing me to continue to serve.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is aware of more than 500 U.S. soldiers who are out to their colleagues and continue to serve.

Calls to repeal DADT are growing, even from the law's original architects and supporters. As chairman of the Armed Forces Committee in the 1990s, then-senator Sam Nunn led a series of hearings that helped undermine Clinton's attempt to lift the ban on gays in the military. But last month, Nunn said:

I think [when] 15 years go by on any personnel policy, it's appropriate to take another look at it.

And last month, Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen  said that the military was ready to accept gay servicemembers if Congress repeals DADT.

A December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found 73 percent of those polled were:

comfortable with lesbians and gays.

And a new report by four retired senior military officers and sponsored by the Palm Center in California also calls for a repeal of DADT. This report declared:

This is the first time a Marine Corps general has ever called publicly for an end to the gay ban.

The officers concluded that allowing gays to serve openly:

is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline, or cohesion.

Also in a significant shift, last year, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John M. Shalikashvili said that he no longer supported DADT and said:

If gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces.

This stupid, stupid policy has long been a blot on the Clinton Administration which caved to bigoty and prejudice. It meant that gay service members could not have their loved ones in their military lives.

Of course, their loved ones did appear at their funerals.

It is waaaaay past time for this creepy dead-end compromise to bite the dust.

many thanks for the round up of information here goes to the Progress Report:

http://www.progress@mx3.americanprogress action.org

UPDATE: Search and Destroy: Gay-Baiting in the Military Under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Source: The Nation Author(s): Doug Ireland Date: July 10, 2000 In the wake of Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy's high-profile sexual harassment case against another Army general (who himself had just been put in charge of investigating sexual harassment!), the mainstream media have given a substantial amount of coverage to the appalling rates of sexual harassment of women in the armed forces. But you would be hard pressed to find in these news reports any mention of one of the principal spurs to this harassment: the policy on gays in the military, popularly known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. "You can't separate this policy from sexual harassment," says Michelle Benecke, a former captain of US Army defense artillery--and a Harvard-trained lawyer--who is the co-founder and co-director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). "A lot of the perception that women in the services are gay stems from the fact that they're not sleeping with anyone in their unit," Benecke says. "The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy pressures young women into sexual activity with their superiors by making them subject to the threat of discharge as gay." The Defense Department's own discharge figures support Benecke's contention that women are being disproportionately targeted by the policy: Women accounted for 31 percent of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell discharges in 1999, even though they are only 14 percent of the uniformed services. The numbers are most striking in the Army, where women are only 15 percent of the force but 35 percent of the gay discharges; in the Air Force, where they are 18 percent, compared with 37 percent of discharges; and in the Marines, where women are 6 percent of the Corps but account for 21 percent of those discharged. Since lesbian-baiting is the military man's best defense against charges of sexual harassment, these numbers help explain why many women in the military are afraid to report such conduct, let alone tell their superiors about antigay harassment. Nicole B. was 21 when she joined the Navy in 1995 and became a second-class petty officer in the weather-forecasting service. At a Navy forecasting school in Biloxi, Mississippi, her Marine instructor in oceanography "was constantly making antigay jokes. Rumors had circulated that I was gay, and this instructor would make cracks about 'dikes in the water' and turn to me saying, 'Don't get too excited about the word.'" Things got worse when Nicole was sent to a small base in Texas after she told her chief about the antigay harassment of a male sailor friend in her unit, who was constantly being "baited as a 'fag,' 'a woman,' a 'guy who wears makeup.'" Then someone "wrote a message on my car that said, 'You suck dick and eat pussy,'" Nicole says. "I was terrified and fearful for my life. It just got worse, and I cried every day." After Nicole finally reported the harassment to her chief, she says, "He told me, 'I just want to reach over and slap your face.'" Since three superior officers had harassed Nicole, she "didn't feel there was anybody among my chiefs who'd back me up if I was assaulted. I loved the Navy, but it's so difficult when you have to hide, make up a boyfriend, censor your social conversation. Then I got into a relationship, and that's when it became clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to deal with this, that I had to give it up. That was very hard." Nicole got in touch with SLDN, which helped her write a coming-out letter to her commanding officer. She was discharged last year, but says, "I still miss the Navy--I'm encouraging my little nephew to become a Navy pilot." Petty Officer Nicole B.'s experiences typify the ways in which even gays who try to be discreet have been increasingly subject to harassment and expulsion under the current policy. Not only has the policy--its correct name is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Harass, Don't Pursue"--failed to diminish discharges of gay servicemembers; it has actually increased them, from 617 in 1994 to 1,034 in 1999, at a cost of more than $161 million (based on General Accounting Office figures) in training replacements for those discharged. And the policy has spurred soaring rates of verbal abuse and physical violence, even murder. * * * This disastrous policy was born out of Bill Clinton's refusal to honor his 1992 campaign pledge to let gays serve openly in uniform. In large part because of his own reputation as a draft dodger, Clinton knuckled under to pressure from the generals and admirals and their allies in Congress, thus betraying the principle of civilian control of the military and sending a signal to the Pentagon crowd that he could be rolled (as ever-increasing military-procurement budgets in his two terms have shown). Moreover, Clinton's capitulation forced the gay movement to fight on a battleground not of its own choosing. The 1993 gay-run Campaign for Military Service not only strained the movement's limited resources; the losing effort was also a PR disaster for gay politics that undercut the chance to pass the critically important Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) while Democrats still controlled the Congress. Many left-wing gays were uncomfortable at seeing precious energies squandered in combat for the right to serve in a military they disdained and distrusted. But once the issue was joined, the movement had no choice but to confront the tidal wave of slurs against same-sexers deployed by four-star homophobes like Colin Powell and bigoted politicians like Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn. And all the more so because military homophobia is also a class issue: The overwhelming majority of its victims are young recruits who joined up to get an education or career, lured by the bright promises of flashy ad campaigns and aggressive high school recruiting, often before they admit to themselves they're gay. Even the Department of Defense itself has now been forced to admit that harassment of uniformed gays remains widespread. In March the DoD Inspector General released a survey of 71,570 active-duty servicemembers revealing that 80 percent of those who filled out questionnaires reported hearing "offensive" antigay remarks. Nearly 10 percent said they had witnessed physical assault. Significant numbers also reported "offensive or hostile gestures," "threats or intimidation," graffiti, vandalism, "limiting or denying training and/or career opportunities," and "disciplinary actions or punishment" not of the bigots but of their victims ("for example, being punished for something when others were not"). Most telling, of those who said their "cited situation" was witnessed by someone senior to either the person being harassed or the harasser, 73 percent said "the senior person did nothing to immediately stop the harassment." If the Clinton Administration had really been serious about protecting gays in the military, the Pentagon would have conducted such a survey long ago. That it happened at all was due to two things: increased pressure from SLDN, which has documented rising harassment and discrimination in a series of meticulous annual reports for the past six years; and the particularly grisly antigay murder of a soldier at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on July 5, 1999. Pvt. Barry Winchell was only 21 when, after enduring four months of verbal and physical assault, he was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by a fellow soldier. Winchell, who had been asleep in his cot, was left with his skull shattered "like an eggshell," according to an Army investigator, his eyes black and swollen shut, his brains oozing from his head. Winchell had confided to two friends that he was afraid to report the escalating daily harassment that led to his murder, because he would risk being kicked out of the Army. It was five months after Private Winchell's murder when Defense Secretary William Cohen finally ordered the IG survey of antigay harassment throughout the armed services. But even now, the Army is refusing to release its IG's report on the antigay climate of terror that reigned at Fort Campbell under its commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Clark. "We provided a lot of evidence of antigay harassment there and how it was tolerated by superior officers," says SLDN's Benecke. * * * To take just two examples: Fort Campbell Pvt. Javier Torres gave a sworn statement to SLDN that, just months after Private Winchell was murdered, his unit's staff sergeant led them on a run singing in cadence, "Faggot, faggot, down the street/Shot him, shot him, till he retreats." Another Fort Campbell sergeant, assigned to brief a unit on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, repeatedly called the training session the "fag briefing" and referred to gay soldiers as "fags." "We asked the IG conducting the Fort Campbell investigation, 'How can servicemembers contact you?' and he told us to our faces that he believed that he was obliged to turn in as gay any servicemember who said he was a victim of antigay harassment," says Benecke. Although the IG report on Fort Campbell was due to be released on May 1, the Army has postponed giving the report to the Secretary of the Army until July 1--conveniently after General Clark's June 9 advancement to a prestigious Pentagon post as Vice Director (J3) of Plans and Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Benecke points out, "This is the man who allowed the harassment at Fort Campbell to exist, and to continue even after Private Winchell's murder. As of February 20, twenty soldiers at Fort Campbell have come out because of their fear. Clark deserves to be dismissed." Retaining Clark in uniform--and even rewarding him--sends a clear signal that servicemembers can continue to harass with impunity. That's certainly the impression that Clinton Administration policy has left with many military commanders and their subordinates. Not until March 1997 did the DoD get around to issuing "Guidelines for Investigating Threats Against Service Members Based on Alleged Homosexuality," by Under Secretary of Defense Edwin Dorn, designed to implement the 1993 Don't Harass, Don't Pursue policy. But SLDN forced the Pentagon to admit in April 1998 that it had never distributed the guidelines to the field. And it was not until after Private Winchell's murder fifteen months later that the Dorn report was finally distributed. In the IG harassment survey this past March, 57 percent of respondents said they had received no training on the policy; of the 54 percent who claimed they understood it, only 26 percent were able to answer the three most basic questions about it. * * * "The new policy is worse than the old, much worse," says Professor Janet Halley of Harvard Law School, who last year published Don't: A Reader's Guide to the Military's Anti-Gay Policy (Duke). "Under the old policy, you could be discharged if it was found out you had a 'homosexual orientation.' The new policy says you can be discharged if you have manifested a 'propensity' to engage in homosexual acts. 'Propensity' is judged by 'conduct,' but that can mean anything from having a Melissa Etheridge poster on your wall to wearing short hair and a thick, black watchband to refusing to have sex with a man," she says, citing real examples from discharge cases. Moreover, Halley says, to escape expulsion "you have to prove that you have no propensity, so the only defense is an identity defense, a status defense--you have to prove you're straight." And the judgment about "propensity" is an entirely subjective one, which means treatment of gay military personnel varies greatly from command to command. That was the experience of Petty Officer First Class Larry Glover, who was discharged February 25 from the Navy after fifteen years for being gay: "I went from two commands that were not too bad to one that was pure hell," he says. Like so many others, Glover says he "didn't figure out that I was gay until I'd been in the Navy for three years--I had fought it up until then." For Glover, joining one of the uniformed branches was an escape route from both a stunted economic situation and from "a small town in East Tennessee in the middle of the Bible Belt--for me, it was a way of getting out to see the world." Glover has earned ten medals--"I rattle when I walk," he chuckles. He even has a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for having risked his life to save a $77 million plane from going over the side of an aircraft carrier in high seas. In his first two commands, Glover was eventually accepted by the sailors he worked with--"Once I told them, 'Yes, I'm gay, so what?' the issue went away." But on his last shipboard posting, the antigay atmosphere was particularly virulent. Glover found himself having to stand up for younger sailors who were being harassed as gay: "It was my job as a person in a leadership position. I put myself on the line every day. I witnessed spray-painting of the word 'fag,' destruction of private property or of uniforms in lockers--things like filling the lock with glue so sailors couldn't get to their uniforms, which caused them to be late, which got them punished. I witnessed chief petty officers using terms like 'the little fag,' 'the little butt-bandit,' 'ball breath.' One kid had a complete nervous breakdown--I took him off the ship crying." Glover's attempts to protect younger sailors led to his "being threatened" with negative performance evaluations. By this time he was in a relationship, and the effects of harassment and the pressure to be closeted "limits your compatibility with your partner; the job just wasn't worth what I was putting in. A friend high up in the military that I'd met at a gay bar told me about SLDN and gave me their number. They helped me write my coming-out letter to my commander. The day I heard they were going to process my discharge papers, I put a rainbow sticker on my locker." Glover, who had to give up $850,000 in pay and retirement benefits when he chose to stop hiding, now says, "I'm distraught with the Defense Department and government in general," adding, "We've got to fix this policy--we just have to." * * * Most of America's major NATO allies now allow gays to serve openly in the military, including France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Israel do as well. Britain was forced last fall by the European Court of Human Rights to end its military ban on gays and has now embraced them, even inviting gay soldiers who had been discharged to apply for reinstatement. Dr. David Segal, who directs the University of Maryland's Center for Research on Military Organization--which studies comparative military institutions--says that "there is no evidence from any country we've looked at that lifting the ban on gays impacts negatively on either unit cohesion or performance." He adds, "There's no question that the direction of social change will eventually deal with sexual orientation as irrelevant in terms of the military." The Pentagon's brass hats know this is true. Aaron Belkin, who directs the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points out that "gay discharges always go down in wartime. During the Korean and Vietnam wars there were about half as many such discharges as in peacetime. In World War II the discharge rate was substantially lower than in the postwar period. In the Persian Gulf War, the military had a 'stop-loss' order that suspended gay expulsions. What the Pentagon is saying is, when unit cohesion is most important and our survival is at stake, we'll keep them in. There is no intellectually honest case to be made that gays undermine cohesion in the military." Quite the reverse: The current US policy saps unit cohesion by subjecting gay servicemembers to career-ending blackmail. The hypocrisy of the Pentagon's attitude is underscored by one of the Army's first African-American generals, Maj. Gen. Vance Coleman, who retired in 1989: "Gays have been serving honorably in the military ever since it existed. It's never a problem until the leadership makes it one." Coleman compares the arguments against openly serving gays to those deployed against lifting the ban on racial segregation in the armed forces: "It's the same thing. Close your eyes, sit in a room and listen to the generals' discussions--you hear the same reasons." The right of gay people to serve openly is, Coleman says, "a legitimate civil rights and human rights question. It shouldn't even be an issue." However, given the current conservative composition of our judiciary, it is unlikely that court challenges to the military's antigay policy will prevail in the foreseeable future. The Supreme Court has declined to hear five cases challenging the constitutionality of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and all four of the eleven federal circuit courts in which the policy has so far been challenged have upheld it. That kicks the ball back into the political arena. * * * In the most recent Gallup poll on the question, in January, 41 percent of Americans said gays should be allowed to serve openly; 38 percent--most of whom wrongly believe the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is a tolerant one--said gays should be able to serve under the current policy; while only 17 percent think gays should not be able to serve under any circumstances. The issue flared into the news briefly during the presidential primary campaigns. Bill Bradley, who in 1993 had voted as a senator for outright repeal of the military ban before Clinton signed Don't Ask, Don't Tell into law, reiterated his position in his campaign last September and said he'd expect the military to follow his policy. Until then, Al Gore had said only that he'd implement Don't Ask, Don't Tell with "more compassion." But competing with Bradley for the gay vote, in December Gore finally came out against Don't Ask, Don't Tell and said he would lift the ban entirely and make this a litmus test for his appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (after the Republicans jumped on him for that last statement, Gore backpedaled somewhat, saying there would be no "political opinion" test for his military appointees). Even President Clinton got around in December to admitting that the current policy was "out of whack" (an unfortunate locution that led to a spate of raunchy jokes by late-night TV comedians). On the GOP side, George Bush declared in the primary debates that "I'm a Don't Ask, Don't Tell man," while John McCain likewise supported the current policy because it's "working." But, of course, it isn't, as the rising discharge rates and the DoD's own harassment statistics show. Moreover, the Don't Ask and Don't Pursue elements of the current policy are continually violated by commanders, investigating officers and even legal personnel. SLDN, in its March annual report, "Conduct Unbecoming," documented 194 Don't Ask violations from February 1999 to February 2000, a 20 percent increase from the preceding year and the sixth consecutive increase since the policy began. In the same period the SLDN report also detailed 470 Don't Pursue violations, a 34 percent increase. This year, there was an antigay witch hunt at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, which ensnared fourteen enlisted personnel, mostly female. And at the beginning of June, SLDN forced the Navy to admit that for the past two years it has been sending undercover agents into five Washington, DC, gay bars and nightclubs to seek out patrons who are in the military. The Navy claims it's only going after illegal drug use, but SLDN's Benecke calls this "a ruse--our information shows they're only targeting gay establishments." Congressional supporters of lifting entirely the ban on open gays in the military are deeply pessimistic about any positive legislative changes. "This Congress is not going to overhaul this policy," declares Representative Marty Meehan, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the ranking member of its subcommittee on personnel. Meehan says that "there's no way even to have hearings on harassment now--we'd go backward, not forward." On the Senate side, another longtime opponent of the ban, Massachusetts's John Kerry, likewise paints a bleak picture, at least "until we [the Democrats] get a majority." About all he and his like-minded colleagues can do at this point, he says, is "turn up the heat a notch" on the Pentagon and the Administration. Kerry says that "what's missing is the investigative component" to identify those who engage in or tolerate harassment, and he wants Clinton to issue an executive order for an investigation that would root out violations of the Don't Ask, Don't Harass and Don't Pursue sections of the policy and hold military leadership accountable. In May he and Senator Max Cleland, a paraplegic veteran from Georgia, sent a tart letter to Defense Secretary Cohen pointing up the failure to implement antiharassment training in the armed forces in a meaningful way. Even Representative Barney Frank, one of the Administration's most visible defenders, says he is "deeply disappointed with the way Bill Cohen has handled the harassment issue." On June 7 Frank and thirty colleagues (including minority leader Dick Gephardt and two GOPers--Connie Morella and Mark Foley) sent an even stronger letter to Cohen calling the Pentagon's failure to curb harassment "disgraceful"; denouncing the promotion of General Clark, the Fort Campbell commander; attacking the Navy and Air Force for trying to recoup training costs from servicemembers discharged as gay, even though this violates the DoD's own policy; and asking for a White House meeting. To date, neither the Kerry/Cleland nor the Frank et al. letters have received anything more than a "we'll get back to you" acknowledgment. * * * Coming to grips with one's homosexuality when already in uniform is a terrifying experience. The Pentagon has to be forced to take seriously its obligation to provide comprehensive antiharassment training (the training materials are thoroughly confused); to provide a safe way in which victims can report harassment without fear of losing their careers; and to punish not only harassers but those commanders who tolerate harassment (not a single one has been disciplined). Until then, SLDN is the gay servicemembers' only protection. It's amazing how much this small legal-aid group has accomplished already. Founded in 1993 on a shoestring, SLDN--which has already handled 2,300 cases--is today struggling along on a $1.4 million budget and desperately seeking additional funds for more legal staff to handle the soaring number of harassment complaints. Its "Survival Guide" is the only document that tells military gays how to cope with the current policy and what their rights are (the DoD provides no such material). Jeff Cleghorn, a retired major in US Army military intelligence who got a law degree after he left the service in 1996, is one of SLDN's legal-aid intake staff; he says that the organization's clients "are mostly young people concerned about, if not their physical well-being, then their emotional well-being." SLDN counsels active targets of investigation on "what they can do to minimize the risk of those investigations being either initiated or expanded," Cleghorn says. "If there's harassment or physical threats, we contact base commanders and legal officers and remind them of the investigative limits in the current policy." The group has just under 200 open cases at any one time--but the number is growing. And there's no question that SLDN has saved lives. "Just the other day I had a call from a kid at a naval base in Florida who'd been assaulted physically by several sailors," says Cleghorn; "he was in tears and suicidal. I called the Metropolitan Community Church [a gay denomination] in the city he was in to arrange counseling in a safe space, and contacted the chaplain at his base. He survived. We go with what's there--even if it's just someone who'll give 'em a big hug and listen to their problems." Bill Clinton, Bill Cohen, Al Gore and their lame-duck Administration still have six months to do something to protect kids like that sailor in Florida. But will they act? For information or to make a contribution to SLDN: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, PO Box 65301, Washington, DC 20035-5301 (or www.sldn.org). For free, confidential counseling, call (202) 328-3244. Doug Ireland writes frequently on politics for The Nation. Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute. HomeAbout the CenterPress RoomPublicationsResourcesEventsFellowships

[Update--For all those who have asserted this diary is not factual. These are the facts: He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. No one disputes this. This was not only due to the security of the situation. An interview, by the way, is not any of the preceding. And in the place of real media coverage we were shown stage managed questions and the appearance of press conferences. Get it? Stage managed. If you think this is a small matter and that I am nitpicking--we will converse again in a year or so. Obama's treatment of the press has been deplorable. I am not saying the press isn't also deplorable, ok? What I am saying is this isn't any way to improve matters. We are reaching the point of a stage managed, state run media. Obama shows no inclination to reverse this aweful trend. And I will stand up for improving real media access, no matter who the candidate is!!!]

I made a different choice than the Hillary supporters who joined Puma which means Party Unity My Ass. It was a hard choice. And at first I was irritated at those who refused to support the nominee as Hillary had done and asked her supporters to do.

But Enough is Enough!!!

Leave the pumas alone. I do not think they are dishonest, misguided or stupid. I do not think they are ripping Hillary off. And I certainly do not think ridiculing them, bashing them and humiliating them serves any useful purpose.

So get over it!!! Some Hillary supporters will not back the nominee. And they do so for excellent reasons, be it dislike of Barack Obama  and/or outrage over the way Hillary was demeaned in the media and railroaded by the DNC.

I saw a clip today from Andrea Mitchell who was about as outraged as I have ever seen her over the fact no reporter was allowed to ask a question of Barack Obama in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Everything the American public saw out of those two places about Barack Obama's trip was staged. This is something even  G.W. did not dare attempt in the general election contest. Mitchell said:

He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Gives you pause, doesn't it? And if it doesn't, it should.

Barack Obama is exercising  more press "management" than even George Bush.

So I think the PUMAs serve a legitimate purpose. They are saying that the primary contest was rigged which is not the way a democracy is supposed to work. And they are saying that practices like fake news conferences by a presidential candidate are not something they will vote for.

They are not saying this directly, but by their  existence These aren't just sore losers. And they aren't all weird and crazee. Many of them are longtime democrats who believe the Democratic Party needs to change, become more responsive to its members and more fair.

I could never be a PUMA, anymore than Hillary could be. But I respect their intention. It is time to stop smearing them and  accusing them of  being disloyal to Hillary. They are refusing to do as she has asked, but that is their right.

This is the way a democracy works. People get to promulgate their cause and act on their convictions. In this spirit I say  the PUMAS show us that democracy--at least at this level--is alive and still kicking--which is all to the good.

On Friday, July 11, The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) closed the $32 billion IndyMac Bank, headquartered in Pasadena, California, and transferred operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

My Mom, who is 88 years old, has a CD at Indymac Bank.  She lives off the interest. Thanks to the Democratic Party and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my Mom didn't lose her money when the feds seized the  bank in the second largest federal takeover in US history.  I haven't told my Mom about the takeover. She has Alzheimer's. If you can't figure out how to find the bologna in the refrigerator I figure you can go without knowing you almost got wiped out financially.

I, on the otherhand, am a wreck. I got her into Indymac! For years they paid the highest CD rate around--if you opened it online. Whoohoo. I've even  got a little money stashed  there.

The woman I talked to at Indymac today--who works for the FDIC--said people have been weeping on the phone. They had more deposited there than the FDIC will insure. If you are above $100,000 that money is out the door.

I was speechless on Friday. When I could put two words back to back they were x-rated:

 Holy fu*king shit! What a fu*king disaster. Jesus H. Chist, Dad, you were right. I mean you were RIGHT!!!.

And then --even though he has been gone for 10 years-- I whispered:

Thanks.

It was my Dad when  I was 18 who drummed the FDIC into my head with tales of the Great Depression and how people were wiped out and jumped from skyscrapers. And then he would explain how FDR and the Democrats fixed it so if the banks failed again, no one would be wiped out.

But c'mon, banks fail?? I didn't think it could happen again. And I certainly flirted over the years with money ventures and institutions that were not FDIC insured. But my Dad really pounded something into my thick head. Why flirt with disaster when the Democratic Party has provided a safety net? Over and over, in countless different ways he brought the point home.

Why? For a little extra money--you could lose it all. Stick with the FDIC. You'll be fine. Don't color outside the lines, Ok?

I'd nod my head, bored and despairing of his interminable lectures. Now, I find out that  these lectures from my depression era papa shaped my behavior with Indymac.And so my Mom and I are among those who are lucky this Monday.

Many others are not.

I supported Hillary Clinton for the nomination for the Democratic Party, and a cast of sore losers--unlike the woman they profess to support who has been gracious in defeat-- cannot understand why I now support the Dem nominee, Barack Obama. It is so fuc*king simple. It ain't the head of the party that matters above all else. It is the Party!!!

And I am living proof right now today that the Party matters.  Ok. Sure. The dem leadership hasn't been exactly angelic in the primary struggle. But I will take this party and these "fu*k-ups" over the Republicans any day.

Remember, it was Herbert Hoover who fired on the vets when the marched on the White House demanding their pay. And this is the same party that has backed our Coward in Chief from showing the coffins of our soldiers as they come home in body bags from Iraq.

Hillary knows what is at stake in this election. In Chicago Saturday for the American Federation of Teachers conference, she said:

The Republicans should hold a press conference and apologize to the country and say they're just not going to run anyone for president.

I am newly grateful to the Democratic Party today. And I urge you to think of this Party and it's long and grand tradition of standing up for the rights and welfare of working people. The Republicans for the last eight years have done nothing but gut every protection they could get their hands on.

Isn't it time to put the Party back in power that brought us the FDIC.