US will begin disarming. Is this a good idea?

From CNN:
The United States will swear off the development of new generations of
nuclear weapons and will not use its existing arsenal to attack nonnuclear
states that are in compliance with nonproliferation agreements, the Obama
administration said Tuesday.
Among other things, the new American stance is meant to provide an
incentive for countries to stay within the rules of the 1968 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, a senior administration official said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Adm. Mike Mullen, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, announced the change two days before President
Obama is to sign a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia that reduces both
countries' missile stockpiles.
The new policy "recognizes that the greatest
threat to U.S. and global security is no longer a nuclear exchange between
nations, but nuclear terrorism by violent extremists and nuclear proliferation
to an increasing number of states," Obama said later in a
statement.
"Moreover, it recognizes that our national security and that of
our allies and partners can be increasingly defended by America's unsurpassed
conventional military capabilities and strong missile defenses."
Obama stressed that "preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism
is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda."
The position "provides a road map" to help achieve Obama's "long-term goal
of a nuclear-free world," Gates added. It removes a "calculated ambiguity" in
past U.S. nuclear policy while making clear that "this is a weapon of last
resort," he said.
Gates also noted, however, the new policy sends a "strong
message" to states such as Iran and North Korea.
"If you're going to play by
the rules [of the nonproliferation treaty], we will undertake certain
obligations to you," he said. "But if you're not going to play by the rules ...
all options are on the table."

Read the rest of the article at CNN

Normally, I'm not very much for the neo-conservative attitudes of war mongering and spreading Diplomacy through force.

But disarming the one remaining superpower? I'm not sure this is such a good idea.

Here's a real world example: My brother in law is a police officer on the east coast. His mid-size city's population was afraid of the police officers having shotguns in their cars, even in their trunks. So the chief took the shotguns away, and then took their tasers away, and if it weren't against federal law, I'm sure the chief would take away their pistols as well. All because people were scared of the weapons. Isn't that the point?

His department only carries their sidearms now. Their only option for any situation regarding use of force, from the baseball bat wielding teen to the automatic weapon toting terrorist. This is what happened during the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, where the responding officer only had his sidearm and could not stop the killer. The shooter killed 22 people before SWAT put him down. This is the reason officers are heavily armed, so that when the situation calls for it, an officer can stop a shooting spree.

Same with nukes and the US. If we stop producing them, but another county keeps doing so in secret, how do we stop them from using them? Invade them? They'll just start shooting off their nukes, at us, at their own people--much like the shooting spree killer. Often, and I hate to say it, but the threat of existing nukes will oftentimes do what diplomacy cannot: scare the living hell out of dictators trying to produce nukes.

To disarm the US would be like taking guns away from the police. All you'll have left is a bunch of meter maids.

Crossposted to Republicans United

Michael Chandler feels left out of recession.

Michael Chandler looks out the windows of his sun room, past the swimming pool and guest cottage, to the wide backyard where his two children are playing with their pet dalmatian, Scotty. At a time when Americans everywhere are sharing the struggle of a once-in-a-generation recession, Chandler can't help but wonder how he and his family fell through the cracks.

"It's just not fair," said the 49-year-old real estate developer and grandson of oil baron Duncan Chandler. "Everyone is worrying about an uncertain future and coming together to express their outrage, and I don't get to be a part of it."

Staring out at the ornate garden where workers were installing a large marble fountain, Chandler sighed and added, "It's like I don't even exist."

According to the multimillionaire, the past 18 months have been incredibly difficult to endure, as he is often left feeling excluded from an American populace that includes millions who struggle every day to make ends meet. Chandler, who watched helplessly as his enormous fortune easily withstood the market freefall, has been "completely left out" of one of this nation's most significant cultural moments.

"Everybody's suffering," Chandler said. "And here I am, not scrimping and saving at all, with no demoralizing periods of financial hardship, or frantic weeks living paycheck to paycheck. What about me, you know? Where's my struggle?"

"Everyone's supposed to get a fair shake at this misery," Chandler added. "Even incredibly wealthy people of privilege like me."

Throughout the economic downturn, Chandler has tried to tap into the recession and experience some of the sorrow and widespread desperation he has so cruelly been denied. Sadly, all of his attempts have been thwarted by his seemingly insurmountable stack of riches.

According to longtime financial adviser Ben Schultz, Chandler "constantly" inquires as to whether any of his diversely invested mutual funds are losing money, but is always let down.
"Michael's portfolio is better than ever, to be honest," Schultz told reporters. "In fact, his only real connection to the recession is that he helped to cause it by artificially inflating home prices and making millions off unstable derivatives trading."

Chandler has been so devastated by his inability to feel the same anguish and hopelessness the rest of the country is enduring that he took the extraordinary step last week of speaking openly with a chauffeur about how hard the recession has been on everyone. He even went so far as to tip the driver 50 percent less than usual in an attempt to show the man that he, too, was hurting financially.

"I kept waiting for him to say, 'Well, times are tough on all of us,' or 'Who isn't feeling the pinch these days, eh?'" Chandler said. "But he just seemed really angry."

Despite his best efforts, Chandler told reporters he knows that someday the crisis uniting so many of his fellow Americans will pass, and that the far-reaching anger will give way to the worship of money that preceded it.

But until then, he admitted, it will hurt to be excluded.

"Every month they announce tens of thousands of layoffs," Chandler said, "and every time, I'm not one of them. No matter what I say or do, it'll never be me. My only memory of this historic point in time will be the prosperity I have always known."
Added Chandler, "Dear God, when's this recession going to end?".

Source: The Onion

Well, Mr. Chandler, you have Republicans to blame. We just can't help but give you tax breaks. We just can't allow you to have 60% of your income be part of the Federal Reserve. Suck it up and be rich, dude. Just keep voting for Obama and you too can be part of the recession.

Right-wing militia plotted to kill Police Officers

WASHINGTON — Nine
members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on
sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law
enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.

In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the
nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then
plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to
attack the funeral procession.
Eight of the defendants were arrested over
the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large,
the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last
Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by
federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in
Lenawee County, Michigan, and which advocates violence against local, state and
federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers”
for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with
participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the
indictment.

“This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be
found throughout our society,” Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. takes such
extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens
and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States.”
...
A Web site for the Hutaree group talks about a coming battle against
the putative forces of the Antichrist but does not appear to focus explicitly on
recent political events.
The Web site, which describes the group as
“preparing for the end times,” featured video clips of people running through
woods in camouflage gear and firing assault rifles, along with links to gun
stores and far-right media. It also features an elaborate system of military
ranks for its members. The site says it coined the term Hutaree, intended to
mean Christian warrior.
“Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves
using the sword and stay alive using equipment,” the Web site says, adding, “The
Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God
wills it.”

The indictment charged that between August 2008 and the present, the
defendants — led by David Brian Stone, 45, who also used the name “Captain
Hutaree” — developed a conspiracy that they hoped would result in a war
against the United States government. They allegedly decided they would
kill a local law enforcement officer, and then bomb the funeral caravan. The
killings “would intimidate and demoralize law enforcement diminishing their
ranks and rendering them ineffective,” it said.

Afterward, the indictment said, Hutaree members would retreat to
several “rally points” and wage war against the government, using prepared
fighting positions as well as “trip-wired and command-detonated” bombs.

“It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as
a catalyst for a more wide-spread uprising against the government,” the
indictment said.
Mr. Stone used the Internet to obtain diagrams of
“explosively formed projectiles,” a particularly lethal form of roadside bombs
responsible for many deaths of United States soldiers in Iraq, the indictment
says.
...
All nine people face the charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted
use of a weapon of mass destruction, and carrying a firearm during a crime of
violence. In addition, Mr. Stone and one of his sons, David Brian Stone Jr., has
been charged with teaching the use of explosive materials.

Read the entire article here.
Try them all for sedition. They were trying to use Iraqi style IEDs to kill police officers. Call in for help, and kill the responder? Terrorists. Plain and simple. Try them as such.

As has been said before, we need to denounce those that would seek to define the whole with extremism. This is wrong. And these people should be charged to the full extent of the law.

Mississippi still one of the most disriminatory states.

CNN-Walking into school Wednesday morning was not easy for Constance
McMillen. The last time she'd been there was March 11, the day after her Fulton,
Mississippi, high school canceled prom rather than allow her to wear a tuxedo
and attend with her girlfriend.
...
"I've been very nervous about all of
this," the 18-year-old Itawamba Agricultural High School senior said. "I don't
like being somewhere where everyone hates me."

McMillen's name made national headlines when she, with the help of the
American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against her school and the Itawamba
County School District, asking them to reinstate prom for everyone, without
discrimination. A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Tuesday that while
he wouldn't force the school to have a prom, which had originally been scheduled
for April 2, he agreed that McMillen's First Amendment rights had been
violated.

That was good news, said her attorney, Christine Sun, senior counsel
with the ACLU's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender project. It set a
precedent and helped broadcast an important statement, which was made stronger
by virtue of where it came from, she said.

"We're in a conservative area of the country, where people tend to
think we can do what we like," said Sun, who lives in New York but has traveled
multiple times to Mississippi for this legal push. "This case sends a strong
message that that's not going to fly anymore."

The only pending issue, Sun said, is the question of damages and the
ACLU's request for attorneys' fees. An amended complaint to seek a quick
resolution on this should be filed in the next 30 days, she said.

Meantime, McMillen is trying to find her new normal.

In many ways, she stands in an awkward balance. Though there are some
people who support her in Fulton (population about 4,000), the overarching
tension and what she described as "hostility" that she feels at school and in
her community is in deep contrast to the reception and groundswell of support
that's overwhelmed her nationally.

As a poster child for the rights of LGBT students, she's been asked to
jump on airplanes to appear on news programs and talk shows. The Facebook fan
page "Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom!" had attracted more than
414,000 fans as of Friday morning. Wealthy individuals, including Ellen
DeGeneres, have offered to pay for a prom for her school. She's received a
$30,000 college scholarship from an anonymous donor and Tonic.com, a digital media company
in New York that's also offered her a summer internship. She's even been invited
to high school proms in cities she's never visited.

"It means a lot to me," she said of the outreach from others. "The
amount of support helps me to continue with the fight."

But all McMillen, who came out as a lesbian in eighth grade, ever
wanted was to go to her school prom with her class, and with her girlfriend.
Going to another school's prom, while a nice offer, doesn't make any sense to
her.
...
She never meant to be a spoiler for others when she sought approval
to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo, she said. She thought she was doing
the right thing by asking in advance, since the school had stipulated in a
February memo that dates must be of the opposite sex. Rather than give
her permission, the school canceled the prom...

Read the rest of the article here.

I have to say a few things. First, what the school did was, and still is, reprehensible. But further, I have to say I disagree with the judge. He said he wouldn't force the school to have a prom.

He should.

Public schools are part of the US government, and are publicly owned. Discrimination has no place in the government, much less in the United States of America.

The judge should force the school to have the prom anyway, and pass his judgement that anyone caught doing this in the future will be fired.

This isn't allowed anywhere else, except for the military, and even that will be over soon enough.

Discrimination has no place in the United States. None whatsoever. This wasn't a private school. This is a publicly, tax funded school, and therefore an extension of the public. Therefore, this behavior is not to be tolerated. Not even in backwater places like Mississippi. Being behind the times should not be an excuse.

Pentagon begins easing Don't Ask Don't Tell

Washington (CNN)

-- Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to announce changes Thursday
easing the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting
homosexuals from serving openly in the military, a senior Defense Department
official has confirmed to CNN.

The official said one of the changes will be that outings by third parties
may no longer be automatic grounds for initiating separation proceedings,
especially if it is proven that the person making the allegation has a grudge
against the military member.

Gates' announcement will focus on regulatory changes that can be made
at the Pentagon without the approval of Congress, which has been debating
whether to change the policy.

President Obama has asked for a repeal of the measure.

I'm glad to finally see us moving forward on this. I'm not sure why Congress is debating this; it's a pretty cut and dried issue. This policy is discriminatory, and therefore should be repealed. This is America-land of the free and home of the brave. But DADT makes the brave not free. Let's change this, let's change it now.