Women Born Transsexual

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/senate-clears-path-repeal-militarys-gay-ban/

By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, December 18th, 2010 — 12:29 pm

Update: The US Senate passed legislation that will repeal the military’s exclusionary ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on Saturday afternoon by a vote of 65-31. The measure will be on President Obama’s desk for his signature next week.

“Today, America lived up to its highest ideals of freedom and equality. Congress recognized that all men and women have the right to openly serve their country,” Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT-rights group, said. “Plenty of people had already planned the funeral for this legislation. Today, we pulled out a victory from what was almost certain defeat just a few days ago. We are grateful to President Obama, Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Lieberman, Collins and countless others for their dogged determination to repeal DADT.”

An earlier report follows…

APresident Barack Obama’s landmark drive to let gays serve openly in the US military for the first time in history looked on track to clear its final major obstacle in Congress on Saturday.

Senators were set to vote to end debate on broadly popular legislation to scrap the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy enacted in 1993 that requires gay troops to keep quiet about their sexual orientation or face dismissal.

Continue reading at:  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/senate-clears-path-repeal-militarys-gay-ban/

While I read the New York Times every day they are damned near as much of a propaganda rag as Fox News, a conduit for the government version of the story.

These fucks were a major reason a lot of us initially supported the war in Iraq. It is pretty bad when Al Jazeera becomes one of the countervailing voices against which I check some news stories.  Or World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Worker.

I find more actual investigative journalism with limited resource bloggers than major media outlets who are so afraid of angering the ultra right wing they print the right wing lies and propaganda instead of the truth.

No wonder the right wingers in the government are willing to go to almost any lengths to suppress Wikileaks and Julian Assange.  He is exposing the pettiness and banality of the American propaganda war in support of Corporate fascism and the Military/Corporate empire.

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/18/wikileaks-us-diplomats-story-cuba-banned-sicko-film

Film-maker says diplomats made up the story to discredit film that showed healthcare was worse in US than Cuba

David Batty

Saturday, 18 December 2010

American diplomats made up a story that Cuba banned Michael Moore‘s 2007 documentary, Sicko, in an attempt to discredit the film which painted an unflattering picture of the US healthcare system, the film-maker said today.

A confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks claimed that Castro’s government banned the Oscar-nominated film because it painted such a “mythically” favourable picture of Cuba’s healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a “popular backlash”.

But Moore said that far from being supressed by Havana, the film – which attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system – was shown on national television.

The film-maker said on his blog that the diplomatic cable, dated 31 January 2008, was “a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the state spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear)”.

He added: “The entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of ‘Sicko’ were set up in towns all across the country.”

Continue reading at:   http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/18/wikileaks-us-diplomats-story-cuba-banned-sicko-film