Brown is Back

Brown, who won the Massachusetts Senate seat is going to serve on three very influential committees: Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security and Veterans' Affairs Committees. "We are currently involved in two wars, and these committees are critical in keeping our country safe..." says Brown. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell assigned Brown to these committees. Brown is a Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard, where he has served for 30 years, so I believe he has the experience to be on these committees.

DC Allows Same-Sex Marriage

The District of Columbia new law is to go in effect, as scheduled, that will allow same-sex marriage. The district joins Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Iowa in allowing same-sex couples to marry. The couples who are already listed as a 'domestic couple' will get 35$ waived, but still have to pay the 10 dollar fee for the license. They can apply for licenses Wednesday, but have to wait 3 days for them to get approved, so no marriages will take place this week. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn the law and will not stop enforcement of this new law. The Court should defer to local matters in the district, Chief Justice John Roberts says.
CNN

Secretary

The White House announced a new social secretary Saturday. Julianna Smoot, who is chief of staff for the office of U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, will replace Rogers who planned to step down from the office. Obama is glad to have her join their team. She first came under scrutiny when that couple 'crashed' the white house party, she said it wasn't the social secretary's job, but the secret service's.

Broken?

86 percent of americans believe the u.s government is broken, that is up 8 percent since 2006. Of all these people, 81 percent believe that the 'broken' government can be fixed, that means the other 19 percent have lost hope. The increase is highest among higher-income Americans and people who live in rural areas. I wonder what the definition of broken is...
cnn

69 Percent + Joe Lieberman

Joe Lieberman is going to support the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy this coming monday. He believes that to exclude one group of Americans from serving in the armed forces is contrary to our fundamental principles as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Lieberman is going against his close friend McCain who opposes banning the policy. Lieberman also told New York Daily News on Monday that he sees repealing the policy "as an extension, the next step of the civil rights movement."

Nearly seven in ten Americans think that people who are openly gay or lesbian should be allowed to serve in the military, according to a new national poll. Support for allowing gays in the military is much higher among Democrats than Republicans, but the policy wins support from a majority of Republicans as well.

Jobs Bill?

84 percent of Americans believe Congress is not doing enough to tackle the nation's jobs problem. So what are they doing? There are suspicions, stalling, bull, and the new jobs bill being pulled. Reid pulls his support from the new jobs bill because of a conversation Reid had with McConnell, minority leader. The conversation consisted of McConnell saying he would not agree to bring the bipartisan jobs bill to the floor quickly and Reid became concerned the Republican leader would drag out the process and the bill would ultimately fail. Reid feels that the republicans put a few supporting the bill, butt all the others will drag out the bill and cause it to fail, a bit like the health care bill. It is apparent McConnell and Reid had very different timetables for the jobs bill. Reid wanted it passed before the Senate went on break last week. McConnell told CNN last week he thought it would "take a few weeks" and "we're not quite ready to go forward." Why delay when 84 percent think congress is sucking.

Nukes!

Joe Biden staked out a middle ground on nuclear weapons policy Thursday, trying to reassure critics claiming the administration's disarmament efforts are either too fast or too slow. Biden had a 23 minute speech at the National Defense University in Washington. He said that the spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat facing the country and maybe even humanity. Also that the weapons' reliability had been neglected and underfunded in recent years. One arms control analyst warns, however, that the administration may be pushing forward on too many nuclear fronts simultaneously. I do agree with Biden on the fact that the nuclear weapons are a big problem.