i guess duncan can't comprehend that straight people and gay people form "special bonds" all the beepin time....plus this info from answers.com: Q.] What percentage of babies born in the US are hermaphrodites? A.] 0.033% to 0.05% ...even if every single one of them joined the military would hunter even notice?

The Vegas quote, in context, is pretty clear. It's surprising that so many people have taken offense to it.

In the same week Obama axed funding for our space program, Iran has sent a rocket to space with "a mouse, two turtles, and a worms."

I don't know about you folks, but if the animals in Iran are smart enough to pilot spacecraft, we need to keep an eye on them.

Pakistan: "A roadside bomb killed three U.S. special forces troops and three schoolgirls in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday in an attack that drew attention to a little-publicized American military training mission in the al-Qaida and Taliban heartland."

we have been told over and over and over that the usa did not have troops on the ground in Pakistan - that the usa had only blackwater mercenaries for purposes of deniability in cases just like this.

when did the usa start deploying "special forces" and "trainers" and "advisors" and all of the associated bullshit to Pakistan ???

Terror threat: "The Obama administration's top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as 'certain' that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects."

jeebus !!! didn't we just go through 8 years of this kind of boogetyboogetyboogety piss/shit yourself crap with the previous administration ???

will this fear mongering and scare mongering never effing end ????

Hunter, a former marine, said that it would hurt the "special bond" between soldiers 'if you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.'"

Hermaphrodites? What the hell has this jerk been smoking? For Hunter, McCain and all the rest of the confused homophobes like them, I'll let the Rude Pundit have the final word on them.

will this fear mongering and scare mongering never effing end ????

Posted by: here we go again on February 3, 2010 at 6:00 PM

Agreed; I don't care if it is a new, slightly more responsible administration. They've all cried "wolf" too many damn times; I'm sick of it.

I bet Richard Cohen shit himself right there in the middle of the newsroom when they made the announcement, though.

I never imagined a drag queen soldier, that thought never occured in my fragile little mind!

I am just continually amazed at the reaction of journalists to criticism during their online chat sessions or in response to emails. They just never fail to dig themselves deeper, it's almost uncanny.

Duncan Hunter must have just learnt a new word (hermaphrodite) and wanted to show off. 'cause, otherwise -- "Concave and convex, it could suit either sex" -- what's not to like?

Another option for Democrats would be to seek a ruling by the parliamentarian that Republicans are simply filing amendments to stall the process. But such a ruling could taint the final healthcare vote and backfire for Democrats in November.

If Reid falls for this he really is pathetic. How is it going to go, exactly?

"It was really unfair to pass these amendments by only 59-41." Or 51-49 for that matter. Taint the vote? Right.

"There's a small but important loophole that Republicans may exploit prevent Senate consideration of reconciliation bills, which in theory, only need a simple majority to pass."

BULLSHIT.

As I have asked repeatedly, isn't there a law against lying to Congress? What country do we live in? What Planet?

My only question is: Why anyone would think that the parliamentarian WOULDN'T rule the amendments as simply being delaying tactics? Especially with Sen. Gregg crowing about how they'll be offering amendments until November!
The article at thehill also noted that, under the reconciliation rules, submitting amendments as a delaying tactic is not allowed. For some reason, the writer/s at thehill seemed to think the Democrats would be taking a big risk expecting the parliamentarian to rule in their favor! My personal belief is that the writers at thehill KNOW very well that, barring an obviously biased parliamentarian, the amendments WOULD be ruled out of order as a delaying tactic. Just out of curiousity, how often does thehill do such biased, for want of a better word, reporting?
All Sen. Reid needs to do is gather together every remark made by the Republicans on this topic today and present them to the parliamentarian prior to bringing the bill up for the reconciliation vote. If the parliamentarian doesn't immediately rule the amendments as the forbidden delaying tactic they are, fire him; he's obviously prepared to make partisan rulings - a definite no-no for someone in his position.

Hermaphrodites? Really? If Hunter wanted to invite ridicule, I can only think of one better way to do it: talking about the "special bond" between soldiers. How pathetic are we if we can't beat idiots like Duncan Hunter?

The de-legislators seem to have the upper hand these days.

Delay.

Deny.

Denounce.

I think we need to have a debate about what it means to be an elected official.

I am certain that our Founding Fathers are not only turning over in their graves right now, but also puking their guts out.

To the democrats: get 'er dun.

To the republicans: STFU

If Tebow's mom wants to argue that thanks to her difficult decision to carry her baby to term America got a BCS quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner then we can just as easily argue that thanks to choice we probably avoided another Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and saved hundreds of lives.

After all, that's essentially what Freakonomics authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt argue, isn't it? That violent crime has steadily gone down in the last 20 years because poor women aborted so many potentially troubled young men.

Or is the issue really about choice???

I have never served in the military, but as a citizen I take offense at any suggestion that our service members are too lily livered or craven to serve honorably and effectively next to gay people. If that were the case, would it be the gay soldier or sailor or the straight one who lacks courage?

When Duncan Hunter says elimination of DADT would hurt that 'special bond', does he worry this will mean the elimination of 'faggot jokes' amongst the troops?

Really? Repealing DADT would open up the military to Transgendered soldiers? Really?

I've got news for numb-nuts, there:

Speaking as a post-op tranny, and a former Marine (meritoriously promoted to sergeant after being named 2d Marine Division Marine of the Month):

He can go fuck himself.

The military has now, and has always had, such soldiers. I know a number of them personally. Some are combat veterans (unlike me). Just about all served with distinction, and dedication, in spite of being made to live a lie by the likes of numb-nuts the Senator.

Who, no doubt, never served a day in uniform. Never laced up a pair of combat boots. Never did jack shit at the behest of a bad-tempered DI. Never had anyone fire a weapon in his general direction.

I say again: he can go fuck himself.

Slithy Tove,

I have no love for Rep. Hunter and what he said was moronic, but he did serve more than a day in uniform, laced up combat boots, etc.

From wiki:

He served in South Vietnam from 1970 to 1971 during the Vietnam War[8] in the Army Rangers' 75th Ranger Regiment, attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade.[9] He participated in 24 helicopter assaults[7] as well as in small-number, night-time reconnaissance patrols.[10] He held the rank of First Lieutenant,[8] and was awarded the Bronze Star,[7] Air Medal,[8] and service ribbons such as the Vietnam Service Medal.[8]

I was going to write this long comment that Joe Friday summed up in one word. The Senate can do any damn thing it wants if it wants to. 51 votes is a majority and that's all it takes. The rest, as Joe Friday says, is BULLSHIT.

No one who has ever run an ISP (I run a small one) would conclude that so called "net neutrality" makes any sense at all, It simply rewards the worst behavior, those that traffic in stolen intellectual property. The p2p activity that "net neutrality" protects has little legitimate use - it's all about sharing music and video that is stolen. A typical p2p thief uses 50x more bandwidth than a regular user.

Legitimate users of internet bandwidth don't need such a dishonest fake name for their use. I don't understand how President Obama has sucked into this scam. "Net Neutrality" is as legitimate as "Family Values." Both are nonsense cover for something else.

Whatever it is that he decides to do, I look forward to Hatch once again threatening to cast congress into chaos.

Keith

You've been misled. "Net neutrality" is only incidentally about filesharing. The main idea is to allow everyone to contribute to the Net on an equal footing, and to allow us to access everyone's contributions on an equal footing.

In the absence of net neutrality, companies are free to make business arrangements that privilege some endpoints and some kinds of traffic over others.

Imagine that Comcast pays other major Internet carriers a "market development" fee, in return for which packets to or from Comcast will get a higher quality of service, so that all your customers are disadvantaged compared to Comcast's.

Imagine further that Microsoft contracts with Comcast, so that email that is sent to or from Exchange Server gets a better quality of service than any other email; maybe a _lot_ better.

Imagine that ATT comes to you and proposes : "We'll pay you a bunch of money to install this sofware on your servers -- all it does is degrade VOIP quality and performance so that Skype and its ilk are no longer competetive with ATT telephone service." Would you take the money and install it?

These kinds of arrangements are what net neutrality aims to prevent. Some companies have already tried to implement such schemes. Only the "common carrier" idea of net neutrality prevents them from turning the Internet into a place where only well-capitalized corporations have a voice -- just as TV is now.

While I share your distaste for illegal filesharing, I think it's wrong to blame the tool for its use. Crowbars are implicated in many cases of criminal breaking-and-entering; shall we then restrict crowbar ownership? Prohibit people from having crowbars in their car? Telephones are often used by criminals to organize crimes; shall we allow telephone service only to those who "need" it?

In particular, bittorrent is also widely used to share _legal_ content.

It'd be nice if the Democrats started looking for loopholes so that they could conduct business with a simple 18 vote majority in the Senate.

I say again: he can go fuck himself. -- Slithy Tove, @20:44

I think that's exactly the problem: he cannot, but a hermaphrodite might be able to; simple penis/vagina envy on his part.

And supporters of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continue to be some of the strangest people in public life: "On NPR yesterday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was asked why he believes DADT should remain in place. Hunter, a former marine, said that it would hurt the "special bond" between soldiers 'if you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.'"

You can always tell a Marine, you just can't tell him very much.

And does the "what college really pays" look into doctorates? As in the humanities and social sciences? I believe we must come out at a deficit, aside from those who are getting their doctorates in education to raise their earning power. As I look at all of the jobs around me for which I am not now qualified, and hope that there will be enough substitute teaching jobs out there to make my family an extra $1,000 a month (even as I doubt it) --- well, financially speaking, I could have put my time and money to much better use.

hermaphrodites? Really?

Hard to argue THAT's a life-style choice, or that Jesus can lead you away from it.

Sure looks like the Congressman has NO idea what the term means.

Are hermaphrodites currently barred from serving in the U.S. military?

Hunter's a former Marine? Figures.

My bad, then. He did lace up combat boots, etc.

He's still an idiot, however, transmitting idiot opinions.

Are we strong enough and stable enough to endure another terrorist attack, even a botched one like the last time? Whatever happens, Republican jackals will bray about Obama's lack of "seriousness" about terrorism, and our politics will be rocked by recriminations.

We are hitting Al Qaeda so hard in Pakistan that retaliation from them seems only natural, and a mature nation would accept that.

Whatever it is that he decides to do, I look forward to Hatch once again threatening to cast congress into chaos.

I am 72 years old. One of my many wishes for longevity is to live long enough to see this miserable rag called the WP go bankrupt and put all these 2 bit hacks on the street where they will have to look for real jobs and do real work..

The participants all came from Contract and Commercial Management backgrounds, and so the discussion Duncan planned focused on five stages of commercial relationships.