don't ask don't tell

Before the State Of The Union

• kthalps: guys, the only way obama can repeal dont ask dont tell is if we dont ask dont tell. so shut up abt it. duh!

State Of The Union Starts
kthalps: I guess we'll have accept third-place "I do not accept
second-place for the United States of America." -Barack Obama.#SOTU
#Union address

• kthalps: joe biden blinks a lot. Nancy Pelosi barely blinks. Between the two of them, they blink at an average rate. #SOTU
• kthalps: did Joe Biden & Nancy Pelosi coordinate wearing
  purple (tie and suit, respectively)? And was that a reference 2 shades
  of blue/red = purple
• kthalps: looks like America is united by collective desire to punish banks!
• kthalps: u know Sandra Sotomayor had 2 use all self control 2 not slap Alito for saying "not true" #SOTU
• kthalps: I wrote Sandra Sotomayor intentionally. I was honoring O'Conner 4 opening door for female judges like Sonia. DUH!

After SOTU

• kthalps: Chris Matthews' comments about forgetting Obama was black was so Matthewsian. #sotu

McDonnell Response

• kthalps: Where did the Republicans find the three black people to stand behind Bob McConnell? #SOTU
• kthalps: why does the asian guy in glasses behind mcconnell keep nodding? It's like he's a bobble head #SOTU
• kthalps: sorry, make that mcdonnel. all white names look the same to me
• kthalps:i think "we welcome ur ideas on facebook and twitter" was not a joke. But audience laughed. Awks
• kthalps: oh snap! McConnel's daughter was in the army. Can't say
  that about Sasha or Malia, can you Barack Obama! Boooyakashah! #SOTU
  response
• kthalps: oh nice! McDonnel is advocating torture! "foreign terror suspect given same rights as U.S. citizen" I love it when Republicans get rt to the point #SOTU response
• kthalps: did they build this set especially for McDonnel's speech? #SOTU response

Commentary after SOTU & response

• kthalps: my mom on Anthony Weiner: "He was
  never married b4? Katie, find me a picture of his girlfriend online"
  #SOTU #thingsmymomsays
• kthalps: david Axelrod needs to brush his eyebrows. They got all hot & bothered during #SOTU

Can people stop getting their panties all up in a bunch over rape in the U.S. Army? Sheesh! Alternet links to a David Rosen article from Counter Punch on Rape as an Instrument of War. And it must be Congresswoman Jane Harmon's time of month, because she is going OCD over what she refers to as "Rape in the Ranks." So, nobody is doing anything about the 73% increase in the number of rapes of women employed by the army; so the 12 women who have said they were sexually assaulted or raped or gang-raped by fellow KBR employees haven't received that much attention. But I prefer to look at the military rape epidemic glass as half full.

Congresswoman Jane Harmon reports that at a Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center she visited, 41% of female veterans claimed they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% reported being raped during their military service. But this is actually great news for U.S. service women! As Harmon herself states, "Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

Here's the happy story:

The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.