Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Greg Sargent reports on the latest maneuvering to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

The announcement this morning that House Dems will vote on their own stand alone bill to repeal don’t ask don’t tell catapults the ball back into Harry Reid’s court. If repeal is going to have any chance, the Senate Majority Leader needs to indicate right now that the Senate will definitely vote on the stand-alone bill after the House sends it over.

Senate aides involved in the discussions want Reid to make it clear that this vote is a certainty before the end of the lame duck session, not just something on the wish list. They want the White House to urge Reid to commit. They point out that repeal got a major reprieve today, when the House agreed to introduce its own bill — and they want Reid and the White House to capitalize on this momentum.

There are three big things on the liberal wish list for the remainder of the lame duck session: DADT, New START, and the DREAM Act. I might be wrong about this, but I suspect there’s only time for one of them to pass. That being the case, my vote is very strongly in favor of repealing DADT.

There are a few reasons for this. First, if DADT fails now, it’s dead for a very long time. With 47 Republicans in the next session of Congress, and probably about the same number for several years to come, there’s simply no chance of passing it after the end of the year. It’s now or never.

Second, it has the votes to pass. I don’t think DREAM does. What’s more, to put it bluntly, if I have to choose, I’ll choose to expand the civil liberties of fellow American citizens before I’ll choose to expand the educational opportunities of immigrants. I know that’s a nasty choice, and I’ll take both pieces of legislation if I can get them, but I don’t think I can.

Finally, when all’s said and done, I think New START probably can pass in the next session of Congress. Maybe I’m dreaming here, but New START simply doesn’t push Republican hot buttons the same way DADT and DREAM do. Given the enormous support for New START among Republican foreign policy experts, I think it’s possible to round up 15 or 20 Republican votes for it next year.

The opposing argument, I suppose, is that DADT is likely to be overturned by the courts even if it fails in Congress. But I’m not so sure about that. A district court might overturn it, and the right circuit court might concur, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that the Supreme Court will agree. We have two weeks left to get DADT repealed, and I very much doubt we’ll have a second bite at the apple from any branch of the government if we fail.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate