Support The Military! Unless They Support Gays Serving In The Military
It’s rather ironic, if you think about it.
The one politically untouchable segment of our country is the military. Presidents and Senators often say they will “defer to the military leaders on the ground” in matters large and small. President Obama took a bit of heat after his State of the Union address because some felt he hadn’t specifically said the words “thank you” to our soldiers. (He used the word gratitude.) Any indication that someone does not support our troops — especially in time of war — is considered close to treason.
And yet, all of a sudden, we have Republican Senators — young and old — railing against our top two military leaders, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, for their testimony Tuesday in front of Carl Levin’s Armed Services Committee hearing on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
At this point, most have heard Senator John McCain (who has said he would defer to military leaders on DADT repeal — until they started to support repeal) berate Secretary Gates at the hearing. McCain essentially tried to pull rank, when, to his shock, Gates and Mullen both came out fully and personally in support of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” McCain called them “clearly biased” and said, “I’m happy to say we still have a Congress despite your plan to repeal [DADT] by fiat.”
But that same day, U.S. Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, Jr. called our nation’s top military brass “political appointees,” as if they were the result of some campaign donation, or, the likes of Bush’s FEMA Director Michael “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” Brown. Hunter, who is a freshman Congressman and immediately succeeded his father in office, in an interview with NPR, said,
Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates are both political appointees. They’re going to be biased. They’re going to say what the administration wants them to say.
Well, I suppose in a way, Representative Hunter is right. After all, Gates and Mullen are “political appointees,” in the strictest sense of the term. Secretary Gates has served the past three Republican presidents, since Reagan. Gates spent twenty-six years at the CIA, including being CIA Director. Admiral Mullen was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President George W. Bush.
But “say what the administration wants them to say?” No way!
(Another irony: Mullen succeeded Peter Pace, who, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in 2007 said, “I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts.” So, in a strange way, we can thank President Bush for some forward movement on repeal. He’s probably furious.)
Hunter continued, saying,
I think the folks who have been in the military that have been in these very close situations with each other, there has to be a special bond there. And I think that bond is broken if you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.
News flash to all who oppose repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — we’re already in the military. To the tune of an estimated 66,000.
Hunter is really worried. Not kidding. Evidently speaking for the entire military, he continued,
[I]t would frankly make everybody a little bit uneasy to be in these close situations, how you go into combat, you know, the shower situation, the bathroom situation, just, you know, very mundane details – things that we have men and women separated, you know, because we don’t want to have that sexual distraction. That exists for the homosexual aspect of things, too.
Because every LGBTQ soldier, in combat, is thinking of nothing but sex when they’re in the bathroom. Yeah, right. I’ve never served in the military, but I’m pretty sure every soldier — gay or straight — has a lot on their minds, in or out of the bathroom, and I’m pretty sure survival, and just making it through the day, is a lot closer to the top of the list than sex.
And in a typically, supremely bigoted moment — one, honestly I see a lot with folks like Congressman Hunter, and NOM’s Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, who are so blind to their own hatred they say what’s in their heart, not realizing how they make the case against themselves — Hunter has the following conversation with NPR’s Melissa Block:
BLOCK: But Congressman Hunter, wouldn’t you agree that there are gays and lesbians serving in the military right now, they just are not open about their orientation. So the problems that you raise presumably would be problems already. They are in the barracks already. They are in the showers already.
HUNTER: No, but they aren’t open about it, like you just said. It’s like if you want to work for NPR, you don’t go to work and on the first day say, hey, I want everybody to know that I’m gay. You probably don’t care one way or the other as long as they, you know, get their particular job done. I think the military is the same way. That’s why don’t ask, don’t tell works.
Exactly. Folks in the military “probably don’t care one way or the other as long as they, you know, get their particular job done.”
Thank you, Congressman Hunter, for displaying how incredibly ridiculous your argument is, and for displaying your utter lack of understanding of this issue.
Listen to the full NPR interview:
http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=123287737&m=123287724&t=audio
Note: This piece was originally published in The Bilerico Project.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
