From TALKING POINTS MEMO:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who helped shepherd through today’s Senate repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, told reporters after the final vote this afternoon that ending the military’s ban on openly gay servicemembers is a big step for LGBT rights.
“To me, it is a step forward to a larger societal acceptance [of gay rights,]” Lieberman said. “This is a civil rights piece of legislation in my opinion.”
Lieberman was joined at the presser by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark Udall (D-CO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). All four voted for repeal today, and Collins was the lead Republican sponsor on the standalone repeal legislation that rescued DADT repeal after the GOP killed it by refusing to end debate on a military spending bill last week.
Seven other Republicans joined Collins in voting for repeal today, leaving the vast majority of the caucus on the record in favor of keeping in the closet gays and lesbians who serve.
…snip…
Sen. Gillibrand echoed Lieberman, calling the bill one of the more important the Senate’s passed in a while.
“This is about equal rights, equal justice and saying to the American people, ‘if you want to serve this country, if you want to give your life for this country, you may do so regardless of who you love,'” she said. “This is one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation this Congress could come together to pass.”
Of course, not everybody was happy…
Original image
(l to r: Tom Coburn, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Saxby Chambliss)
For the record, there are the homophobic Rethuglicans who voted against repeal:
Lamar Alexander (TN)
John Barrasso (WY)
Bob Bennett (UT)
Kit Bond (MO)
Sam Brownback (KS)
Saxby Chambliss (GA)
Tom Coburn (OK)
Thad Cochran (MS)
Bob Corker (TN)
John Cornyn (TX)
Mike Crapo (ID)
Jim DeMint (SC)
Mike Enzi (WY)
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Chuck Grassley (IO)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
James Inhofe (OK)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Mike Johanns (NE)
Jon Kyl (AZ)
George LeMieux (FL)
Richard Lugar (IN)
John McCain (AZ)
Mitch McConnell (KY)
James Risch (ID)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Jeff Sessions (AL)
Richard Shelby (AL)
John Thune (SD)
David Vitter (LA)
Roger Wicker (MS)
Cowardly Rethugs who didn’t vote:
Jim Bunning (KY)
Judd Gregg (NH)
Orrin Hatch (UT)
And the only Democrat:
Joe Manchin (WV)
HYSTERICAL RAISINS 
Vitter voted no? Figures. He was probably holding out for an amendment to allow diaper fetishists to enlist openly.
Nice touch putting McCain in place of the MGM lion, but I imagine his roar is a tad faint these days.
It’s getting hard to know what to make of Lieberman. He played a big role in killing the public option, but the (vampiric) insurance industry remembered him generously in cash for the service. Maybe he can be a reasonable guy when the bad guys aren’t throwing wads of money at him.
sorry to take so long in answering. i’ve had a craptastic day. i woke up, and there was no water. not a drop. i went outside, and there was a city truck in the parking lot. i looked to my right, and i saw heads popping out of the ground. there were 5 guys working in a hole they dug in the next parking lot. i had gone out late last night and noticed that there was an awful lot of water streaming down to the sidewalk, but i thought it was just the rain. i guess it wasn’t. a pipe had burst. i called the offspring (who was out with a friend) and asked him to stop and buy a gallon of water. he said he would. of course, right after that, the water went back on. he got home, dropped off the water, gathered his stuff, and left around 5 or so to go back to his apartment. at 9:30, he called to ask me a favor. he had forgotten to make his car payment. could i drop it off. checked my account, and i had enough to cover it. it’s cold and nasty outside, but of course i went. nothing but construction most of the way there. i just got home about a half hour ago. oh, and i hadn’t done my homework last night, so in between crossing my legs really hard, hoping i didn’t have to pee (or worse) while the water was still off, i had to make the posters for tonight.
okay, i think i’ve bitched enough. i feel better. 🙂
the ones i was really surprised about were the ones who are leaving the senate and don’t have to worry about pleasing the teabaggers. judd gregg didn’t have the balls (or inclination) to vote. he has nothing to fear. i doubt that faux news is dying to have him as a commentator. jim bunning is leaving, but he’s a sonuvabitch, so he wouldn’t vote for it not matter what. george lemieux might think he has a future run in him, but he’d never get elected. he’s a little shithead weasel. i hope every one of his children are gay. kit bond is another profile in courage. i hope his retirement is as happy as all the gay soldiers were when they were outed to the brass. orrin hatch is a little wuss, and he’s scared to death of the teabaggers coming after him next election. the rest of the ones who voted no are just pieces of shit, in my estimation. maybe someone else thinks some of them might have voted their conscience, but i don’t think any of them deserve any slack after voting in lockstep for so long. as for joe manchin, he’s an asshole until he proves that he’s not.
Wow, that’s a lot of bullshit for one day. No water would totally piss me off. I drink it all day long.
it would be one thing if there was just no water. however, it had to be on a rainy day. as much as i enjoy irony, this was just mother nature telling me to kiss her ass. 😳
😆 She’s sassy like that 😆
she can be a real bitch when she gets all pms-y. she’s much nicer when she’s being princessy.
Yay for the gay!!!! 😀
The old farts can take their hate and rot in hell. Great grumpy old fuckers shot! 🙂
it almost killed me to do a poster praising joe mcliebercain and suze. however, credit where credit is due, right?
i found the grumpy pic the other night while looking for something else, and i couldn’t wait to use it. as you can see, lindseypoo threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue if i didn’t find a place for him. like lindseypoo would ever be blue! 🙄
Doesn’t hurt to give credit where credit is due. 🙂 Even some Republicans joined in to grant full citizenship to gay people. America is so first world today. It’s awesome. 😀
It was quite the clusterfuck to reach this point…with DOJ fighting against it (too bizarre). But I get the point of settling it through legislation. It’s been a hell of a rollercoaster ride for LGBT activists.
my understanding (which is probably wrong) is that the doj is required to defend the laws, no matter how stupid they may be. it’s up to the legislature to change the bad laws, not the executive branch.
It was moment watching government was like watching sausage being made.
Same issue is going on with embryonic stem cell research. Congress needs to fix the law before the Supreme Court of Catholics decide it.
wait until scalia gets something that might be cured with stemcells. watch how quickly he’ll find some legal precedent that says it’s legal and some phrase from the bible that puts his catholic conscience at peace.
He has a conscience? 😯
only a catholic one. that’s not like a real one. it’s just one that keeps the catholic guilt away.
I think this is the best thing Joe has done in 10 years (the last was be Gore’s running mate). The GOP senator who most surprised me by voting yes was Ensign. I guess he thought he’d be better off in the 2012 general election (in the primary, he might have to face off against Angle–oh, joy) if he did.
i was pretty surprised at ensign, too. maybe he figured dems would stop picking on him for a while if he voted the correct way. he needs all the goodwill he can find, as he’s still in some legal jeopardy, let alone political jeopardy.
i think nevadans have had quite enough of the obtuse angle. i think ensign has to worry about sue lowden. maybe he should have an affair with her and have his mommy and daddy pay her off, just in case.
Don’t tempt him. Sue Lowden may be the Chicken Lady, and therefore a bit of a joke, but she’s not bad looking.
she’s got that stepford look to her. i think she’ll run against ensign, and i wouldn’t be surprised at all if she wins. it would be an interesting race–lowden’s chickens vs ensign’s chick. i think nevadan mainstream rethugs had a huge case of buyer’s remorse with the obtuse angle, and that will work in lowden’s favor. even with the chickens, she’ll be remembered as the sane one.
“she’s got that stepford look to her.”
And Ensign would think that’s a bad thing how?
i have no doubt ensign would do her. she looks like his type. when i said she has that stepford look, i meant that i think she looks plastic.
Good for posting the names of just whom is on the nay & yay lists.
slowly…. they creep into the 21st century.
Will they reverse previously discharged soldiers, dismissed for being gay???
i like to post lists so that i can find them later if i need them. i wonder what they’ll do for soldiers who were wrongfully discharged. i hope they’ll have the option to go back in the service if they choose, and if not, that they’ll get all their benefits.
Oh Nonnie gal, the pipes, the pipes are calling….sorry, couldn’t resist that! We get our water here on a gravity feed from a spring in an old abandoned gold mine a half mile up the road (for free). Our heat is a big Fisher firebox and all the fallen oak branches we can find on brother in laws cow lands that surround us. Glad to hear they finally resolved the military thing. The times certainly are a-changin. If they want to deal with problem behavior take a long hard look at alchohlism, not weenie lust. It is notable that the senate has done anything at all in this political climate. Turned on Cspan this morning and saw Corny bitching about medium range missiles not being included in the STRATEGIC MISSLE treaty. Absolute shit for brains! And I ran across a raisin cultural icon today looking through books at the thrift store: Captain Underpants Volume Four: The Peculiar Problem of the Pernicious Poopypants! Love that cover!
having no water was a pain in the ass, but if i got serenaded as a result, it was worth it. 😉 i’m freezing, but i turned down the heat, because a/c units don’t work very well when it comes to heating. it’s either so friggin hot you can’t breathe, or the air feels cool when it blows out, and you feel colder than when it’s off.
there are plenty of problems to be solved in the military, but homosexuality was not one of them. it was only a problem, because they made it one. gays have been serving since there have been armies. i just hope that those who were discharged under dadt are compensated and given the opportunity to rejoin the service if that’s what they want.
the rethugs are looking for any excuse to vote against START. i think their strategery is going to backfire on them this time, because they’re messing with national security, and that’s not going to play well.
Joe-Mentum exists … even against his Arizona bud. Even my GOP senator (Voinovich) crossed this line … surprise to me b/c he’s been more cranky of late.
Meanwhile, McConnell and McCain are priceless …. and Saxby Chambliss continues to sound like a better brand of bourbon than a senator.
i think the most surprising thing about joe mcliebercain is that he was so vocal when he knew it would piss off his buddy capt underpants. joe think the friendship will survive, but joe helped make a fool of the old fool, and i don’t see capt u as the forgiving type. it will be interesting to see who gets custody of lindseypoo. my money’s on capt u.
Manchin is one of those douchenozzle Blue Dogs. We can expect him to vote w/the Rethugs more than the Dems.
Ensign voted against cloture, so I did freak a little when he voted to actually end DADT.
i miss robert byrd even more than before. i know a progressive can’t win in wv right now, so maybe manchin is the best we can hope for at the moment. hopefully, things will change. that said, i still think it was bad form for him to skip the vote so he could go to a xmas party. he doesn’t have to stand for reelection for 6 years. he could have voted for the repeal, and when nothing dire happens in the military once everything has settled down, he can make the argument to his constituents that he did the right thing. not exactly a profile in courage.
oops! my bad. manchin will have to run for reelection in 2012. he doesn’t have 6 years. howevah, i will stand by what i said. senators are supposed to be leaders. leaders lead, they don’t cower to teabaggers and bigots.
I don’t know if I’d call the 3 who didn’t vote cowards. It’s obviously tricky for a Republican to side with the LGBT community. A big lunch at Applebee’s for the whole GOP caucus during the vote would have been a good idea. You don’t vote against it and the people ready to give their lives for their country.
A bitch like McConnell voting against it KNOWING it’s going to pass and voting against purposely to look good to his base is more despicable for me.
i’d call them cowards, and i’d include manchin in that characterization. you either vote the way your conscience tells you to, or you don’t. anything else is cowardly, including not voting at all.
Conscience? Don’t rethugs need to sell it to Satan to get the nomination?
in rethuglicans, a conscience is like an appendix. it’s there, but it doesn’t do anything. when it starts to act up, though, it’s immediately yanked.
even tho joe did the right thing – it still doesnt come close to all the shit he has done since the day he was born. he still has to go – and i guess he figures this will help him in the uber-liberal areas of Westport, Fairfield and Danbury
as for the nay sayers – this time i dont think it is the teabaggers they are afraid of – – it is the Tony Perkins and other religious bigots/assholes out there (who will find allegiance with the teabaggers..)
i am gonna bet that Perkins has some real inner demons – LOL
blanche lincoln – who was tossed out on her bony ass had a dental appt. she is such an ass
i’m not big fan or defender of blanche, but in this case, she did try to get back in time for the vote. she missed it by 3 minutes. i remember hearing on tv that it was all a sort of rush thing to get everyone to vote. she said that she would have voted for repeal, and i take her at her word.
whomever they’re afraid of, they’re cowards and bigots. luckily, the overwhelming majority of those in the armed forces aren’t, and they’ll be just fine.