Lt.Choi & 5 More Chain Selves to WH Fence, Day After Prez Heckled in CA

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Remember when Sen. Barbara Boxer of CA said

“Elections Have Consequences”  ?

So do “unfulfilled for no good reason” campaign promises.

Last night, at a Los Angeles fundraiser for her re election, President Obama was heckled by protesters in the crowd.

Dave Dayen at FDL has the story, video link, and a partial transcript:

http://news.firedoglake.com/20…

THE PRESIDENT: – you know, California has been a leader in promoting hybrids and cleaner burning fuels, and appropriately, you have in Barbara Boxer a subcompact senator with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy. (Applause.)  ……    She’s passionate about fighting for jobs, jobs with good wages, jobs with good benefits. She’s passionate about fighting for California’s families. She is –

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!”

THE PRESIDENT: We are going to do that. Hey, hold on a second, hold on a second. We are going to do that.

AUDIENCE: Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

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/snip

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THE PRESIDENT:  I agree.  No, no, no, no, listen. What the young man was talking about was we need to – we need to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which I agree with and which we have begun to do. (Applause.) But let me say this: When you’ve got an ally like Barbara Boxer and you’ve got an ally like me who are standing for the same thing, then you don’t know exactly why you’ve got to holler, because we already hear you, all right? (Applause.) I mean, it would have made more sense to holler that at the people who oppose it. (Applause.) […]

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/snip

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AUDIENCE MEMBER: It’s time for equality for all Americans!

THE PRESIDENT: I’m sorry, do you want to come up here? (Applause.) You know, the – all right, because can I just say, once again, Barbara and I are supportive of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” so I don’t know why you’re hollering.

Now, the problems that we have here put a further strain on folks in this state, forcing painful choices about where to spend and where to save. And the challenges folks have been facing here –

(more audience shouts about equality)

AUDIENCE: (chanting over him ) YES WE CAN YES WE CAN YES WE CAN!   (The President actually walks away from the podium and asks Sen. Boxer something before coming back. )  

Really, go see this, the 6:41 minute long

video of the exchange is here at realclearpolitics

http://www.realclearpolitics.c…

I know why we’re hollering.  I live here.  The Republicans are wanting to repeal CA’s Clean Energy legislation we already passed, and they like to use the LGBT folk as punching bags to fund things like Proposition 8, which sought to ban same gender marriages, to get even more anti environmental Republicans elected.  Well, what’s to stop them from doing another one, because we aren’t getting any leadership on civil rights and equality from the Democratic “leadership.”   What is to stop the Republicans from deciding they don’t like blue eyed environmentalists next?  Or women politicians, because I know they hate Sen. Boxer.   Any time you throw a demographic under the bus, you weaken the entire Party’s ability to pass any meaningful legislation.

Didn’t President Obama already say okay to Big Oil to bid on offshore leasing in Alaska and the East Coast and Florida ?  Don’t make us any more empty promises, we have enough problems here already with the CA Republican contingent pushing drilling off the Santa Barbara coast.  

Dayen says anybody can see that the Pentagon deciding to stall further and do a one year study on repealing DADT has blocked progress on the actual repeal, and by 2011, the Party makeup of Congress may be so different it won’t ever pass.  He and Aravosis are calling the Get Equal inspired protests “ongoing civil disobedience,” and as somebody who is old enough to remember the civil rights movement of the sixties, I have to agree.

The few troll comments are interesting, trying to equate this as “racist” and “teabagger tactics,” which is what I would expect from those “pragmatice” pandercrat progressives.

Today at lunchtime,  Lt. Dan Choi and Capt. Jim Pietrangelo II, along with 4 other LGBT advocates of ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” handcuffed themselves to the White House fence.  For Choi and Pietrangelo, this was the second time.

(great photos and story here) 4/20/2010 The Advocate  DADT Protesters Arrested at White House

http://www.advocate.com/News/D…

The civil rights protestors also included Petty Officer Autumn Sandeen, Cpl. Evelyn Thomas, Cadet Mara Boyd, and Petty Officer Larry Whitt.

Shortly after 12 noon Eastern time, the six protesters unceremoniously approached the fence in uniform. Police officers did not realize the group had handcuffed themselves to the fence for several minutes. The stealth protest is in contrast to last month, when Choi led part of a separate Human Rights Campaign rally to the White House. He and Pietrangelo were then arrested for failure to obey a lawful order.

A U.S. Park Police spokesman told The Advocate that the six were arrested after three verbal warnings and were taken into custody. All have been charged with failure to obey a lawful order (the second such charge for Choi and Pietrangelo) and are currently being held at the police’s Anacostia station. It is unclear if they will be detained overnight prior to a court hearing, as Choi and Pietrangelo were last month.

Lt Choi:

“We stand here as an absolute unequivocal statement in our ourselves and our continued service .  We call on the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, to take bold action and show firm resolve and real leadership. He promised to repeal Don’t Ask Dont Tell, make good on that promise.  As he has the opportunity to transmit to Congress the Defense Authorization Bill the repeal language.”

Since President Obama continues to run wars in the mid east, and service members who are voluntarily putting themselves in harm’s way continue to be deployed there, just why is it that President Obama is ignoring his campaign promise to end the punitive, discriminatory, and unfair “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which allows the military to discharge LGBT servicemembers at will ?  Is there an unwritten rule that we don’t overturn the crappier policies of the Clinton administration just because they’re Democratic ones ?

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Update, 5pm PDT  

Move Along MSM, Nothing to See Here-  Police chase reporters away from the White House, close Lafayette Park in response to protest.  Cop can repeatedly heard yelling ”      Back Up All the Way Back Park’s Closed !”

Get a load of the first guy who says “well if you want to kick the public out that’s one thing but let us do our jobs” hey, where were you during the years 2003 – 2008 ?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/…