Discrimination Hurts National Security

Since the start of the Iraq war, and very public scandals about Bush/Rumsfeld's less than stellar administration of deploying troops to war (see: lack of equipment, over-extension, lack of support upon their return for post traumatic stress disorder, no clear mission, no real re-deployment plan, etc), the U.S. armed forces have had more than a difficult time meeting recruitment needs. In fact, 2005 was the worst in 26 years.

Specifically since we've been told how the battle has changed since 9/11, new strategies in terms of intelligence gathering have quickly emerged.

Agreed.

Obviously, this includes underscoring the importance of cultural and linguistic specialists who are incredibly crucial in terms of our ability to quickly translate information from Arabic and other common Middle Eastern language into usable data in good old fashioned English, and perhaps even further downsized into something Bush might be able to comprehend.

Given the fact that less than 1% of U.S. citizens raised in English-only households are bilingual, finding Americans who both speak Arabic or Farsi are willing to join the military these days is the intelligence gathering equivalent of a small jackpot.

So what have we done with over 800 of these linguistic gems? Threw their faggoty asses out of course!

A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified. Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.

An eight-month Army investigation culminated in Copas' honorable discharge on Jan. 30 -- less than four years after he enlisted, he said, out of a post-Sept. 11 sense of duty to his country. Copas now carries the discharge papers, which mention his awards and citations, so he can document his military service for prospective employers. But the papers also give the reason for his dismissal.

More than 11,000 service members have been dismissed under the policy, including 726 last year -- an 11 percent jump from 2004 and the first increase since 2001.

Read on...

It should be noted that one William J. Clinton shares as much blame for the military's ridiculous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as anyone else involved in its creation back in the early 90's, and while I support a lot of what Clinton did in terms of Civil Rights and for our country as a whole, this piece of legislation is beyond a black mark on his record as far as I'm concerned.

Considering the amount of military men and women we've lost to this policy in a time of acute need, I hope Clinton reflects back on his pen stroke for DADT with regret and shame.

The Paris Hilton Tax

For the very first time during his 6 year presidency, and just in time for the November mid-terms, Bush decided he would address the nation's oldest Civil Rights group.

The last time Bush address such a concentrated group of African Americans under one roof was the Coretta Scott King funeral, of which I have some video here.

Now, as a fellow blogger once published, "once in a while Bush has one of these, 'What the Fuck Did He Just Say?' moments during his speeches (see: Human-Animal Hybrids this year's State of the Union)." Bush's speech in front of the NAACP was no exception.

Sure, the speech had it's humorous moments (Listen here: ), and of course Bush got heckled a few times (while the White House transcript officially documented the major heckling incident as "applause"). But my favorite part of the NAACP speech was the What-the-Fuck-Did-He-Just-Say? moment that made me spit out my drink was Bush pushing the abolition of the Estate Tax to the audience.

Even though the liberals are the elitist rich crowd (according to Bush supporters), many Republicans and fighting tooth and nail to have the Estate Tax repealed. A tax for which only two tenths of one perenct of Americans are wealthy to qualify.

And, specifically pertaining to this audience, I thought I'd pass along the number of black Americans financially affected by the estate tax:

59.

Out of 38,000,000.

That's .000000015%. That's 1 in every 644,067.

That means if the entire city of Boston were comprised of black Americans, chances are not one single person would pay a tax on their estate if they passed away. By comparison, you have a .032% chance of getting hit by lightning.

Not that Bush has a record of being insensitive or out of touch...but perhaps he could have saved the Estate Tax part of the speech for this crowd -

Listen:

I think people should head over to Americablog to read what would gather a lot more steam in the liberal mainstream media - you know, if they weren't so busy covering the Mel Gibson story (who himself is a certified member of liberal Hollywood):

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/08/pentagon-may-have-criminally-misled.html

Air America has been reporting this and screaming about this for over 3 years, and again it appears they're way, way ahead of the curve (as they were with the Valerie Plame story, reported on daily for about 2 years before most of your friends had ever heard her name).

I think this story is starting to get picked up by the corporate media outlets, and its important to keep this in the headlines. I also think that if this turns out to be what it seems, we should keep this in mind each time those associated with this current Federal government insist on using 9/11 as a political crutch.