The GOP is really the LBF--you said it.

Keeping Jeebus happy is expensive.

Just when you think it can't get any more appalling...good thing there weren't any sick kids or school lunch programs that could've used the money.

I'd almost say they make a science of being LBF-- except for all those creationists in their fold...

That is one big ass expensive elephant in the room.

$40 million a year? Do you have any idea how insignificant that amount is to the United States government? Shit, that's not even real money to the DoD.

The goal is to do their best to block Obama from being re-elected. They will waste time and money in securing an identity of "We tried, but the big bad Dems in the Senate and the President blocked us". It is all just token efforts to be used in 2012, in my opinion.

Sometimes, I wish we had a parliamentary system.

@6 I actually agree the money is peanuts. What I think is far worse is the quality and caliber of the people they sloughed off. That kind of expertise and ability is not easily quantified, nor replaced. Especially when it's been well documented that the caliber of recent recruits in the last decade has been abysmal (waiving educational and felony backgrounds for starters).

And I agree with you, too, BEG.

maybe, just maybe, part of the reason that we are in such a shitty financial sitch is because everyone has been brainwashed to think that $40million is peanuts. no, $40mil is $40 fucking mil.

@6 and 8, I see what you mean. The Pentagon makes do with 685 billion dollars a year, so 40 million a year per stupid policy, well...

It's like trying to draw the attention of someone who makes $685,000 a year to the fact that they could save $40 a year.

It's true, but good luck making them see it as compelling on a financial basis.

Disgusting AND stupid. Sounds like the Repugnants favorite things.

Of course, I recognize the thorough irony in how much the Republicans will carp over the "deficit" and the "unlimited spending" on various programs, many of which are in this ballpark as well -- and utterly ignore any kind of extraneous spending when it comes to their pet discrimination projects (or the military -- this 'uns double plus good!)...

@ 7

I always wish this country had a parliamentary system. Without proportional representation, without viable third parties, without the compromise and collaboration of coalition governments, we are stuck in a system in which our choice is between bad and worse, and blocking any real governance is rewarded.

This country is doomed without one.

@ 6 & 8 & 10

$40 mil is nothing to the DoD, but an extra $40 mil would be a much more significant percentage if it was in some other federal program instead of being evaporated by the military.

unrelated note: on cyberbullying -- http://tinyurl.com/4z3sbkc

Does that $200 million include the money spent defending lawsuits by servicemembers kicked out?

I think the $193.3 million figure is more important because it can be used to beat DADT apologists about the head, as they're surely also "fiscally conservative".

@14, is there evidence that a parliamentary system would help? Canada has a parliamentary system, and yet they don't have proportional representation (they're first-past-the-post like the US and the UK), nor do they have coalitions (the tradition there is for minority governments, a tradition that the Grits decided to not try to break).

I think here is that the country is just so big, so heterogeneous, and so polarized, that it's hard to get anything done on a federal level (note that Canadian provinces are doing many of the things that are done at a federal level in the US, like Medicare, securities regulation, etc). I'd say our situation is a bit more like Belgium, where big differences have meant political gridlock at a federal level (and yet, where, incidentally, the elected senators and representatives come from 12 different political parties).

One of the advantages of a parliamentary system in the "getting things done" area is the (effective) unity of the legislative and executive branches. In Canada, the head of government is the head of the party with the most seats in Parliament. (Technically, the Governor General is the leader of the executive branch but that is a constitutional formality; the de facto leader is the Prime Minister.)

That, combined with a Senate that has very limited powers means that Canada almost never encounters the sorts of legislative roadblocks that seem to be a common feature in the US. This has its own disadvantages; a strong PM and a weak opposition can mean that there are almost no effective checks or balances to the power of the PM and his party.

"expelled 3,664 service members between 2004 and 2009"

What exactly was the case?

Did they "tell" or did someone out them?

In any case, we are right to eliminate DADT...it's stupid.

@17: Your argument falls apart as soon as you type those fateful words "if 20% of homosexuals have HIV". Because they don't. Roughly 5-8% of male homosexuals (and almost no lesbians at all) are HIV+ or have AIDS. And the military won't take someone who's HIV+ (regardless of sexuality) because they'd be unfit for combat, and should they be wounded, their blood would be a hazard to their brothers-in-arms.
Ha ha, nooooooo.

@21 they probably would exclude HIV+ patients because of the extensive medication regimen they have to undergo, as well. That's why they don't let medicated depressed folks on the battlefields, either. Lil Johnny may be well-adjusted when he's on his Xanax, but if he's taken as a prisoner of war... who the fuck knows. Ticking time bomb.

The problem with this, and I'm thrilled DADT has ended, is that it's usually NOT the critical, awesomely performing guys who get kicked out via DADT. There haven't been any investigations initiated in a while now, but unfortunately this has been just one tool in a bag of tools for a command to get rid of a guy who's not doing well. (It's hard to tell from the fitreps, because you have to know what you're looking for, and it's very much a "damning with faint praise" situation. Unless the guy's fitreps all say "must promote early," you can assume he's a dirtbag they want gone.)

What's going to get really interesting and messy is if people start wanting back IN to the military who were processed out under DADT. Their personnel files get coded with various things that determine whether or not they can reenlist, and there isn't anything so simple as merely processed out under DADT. Some of these guys are marked as having psychological issues or having trouble adjusting to military life - and here's where it gets tricky. Were they marked as this because the person processing it was a homophobe or because they needed to mark down SOMETHING or because they genuinely were having problems? Because here's the thing - there are lots of guys who have been serving as openly gay for years. I know some of them. Nobody in their command has ratted them out or processed them out because they're hardworking talented guys nobody wants to lose and they get along just fine. It's when people start having trouble getting their work done or getting along with their crewmates or not adjusting to military life or whatever that it gets noticed and becomes a problem. (Which absolutely doesn't justify not giving them the same protections against being fired as the rest of the crew in my mind, so it's problematic, but there you have it) There's also been a fine tradition of people suddenly getting in touch with their gay side when they're about to deploy and self-reporting up the command.

So anyway, these guys have all kinds of codes floating around in their files and they don't see this information--often, they really aren't just processed out based on one single thing--and what's going to be REALLY interesting and messy is if people start suing to get back into the military who were dismissed under DADT. I can't explain all the dismissals of gay linguists - that's always struck me as strange - but at least the branches I'm familiar with, once they give you a multiyear technical education you're not really going to be able to bang enough other dudes that you're going anywhere.

@23: Guess what, troll? I will bet you $200,000,000 that there are more heterosexual soldiers with AIDS than gay male soldiers with AIDS. And yes, you will lose.

@26: "if the military is representative of the population as a whole"
It's not. (People with any sort of chronic illness that has a chance of impairing their tasks as a soldier will almost never be admitted. Asthma, bipolar disorder, or HIV, nobody's putting them in a uniform.)
"and if more homosexuals enter the military it is a safe bet that the number of military persons will hiv will also increase."
It's not. (HIV+ people aren't going to be admitted into the military, as discussed above.)
"[male homosexuals] are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990s."
They're not. (New AIDS cases per year in Teh Ghey actually fell steeply to the tune of 20,000 fewer cases per year during the '90s, and the rate has remained steady over the decade since. Source.)
Three swings, three misses. Yer out.

Very nicely done Venomlash.

@28: "Recruits can enter the military uninfected and get HIV while in the service."
So how exactly are they going to get HIV while in the service? You are aware that they test you for HIV at least every other year during your term of service, right? And there's not a whole lot of room in the armed forces for sexual promiscuity. Once you enlist, your body belongs to whichever branch you signed up for, and they do not let you fuck around with it. They don't tolerate people getting tattoos, they don't tolerate people fucking around. And they've had that policy for about as long as it's been around.
Trust me; there will not be any of what you claim. I'd be surprised if there's even one case of gayness-related HIV infection in the American military in the next decade.
(PROTIP: If what you said was true, wouldn't Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Taiwan, Colombia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Uruguay, and the United Kingdom have problems with HIV in their militaries? And not a peep out of any of them...except for South Africa, which has had problems with straights catching HIV.)

"...anymore [sic] than concerns about deficit spending stopped Republicans from attempting to repeal health care reform." Or extending tax cuts (their logic now being, apparently, that the budget deficit is something OTHER than tax revenues minus expenditures).