Harry Reid Rebukes Obama On Israel

At yesterday's meeting of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.

Sen. Harry Reid: Tea Party Will Disappear As Soon As The Economy Gets Better

VIDEO: Dan Choi Gets His Ring Back

PROMISE RING: Lt. Dan Choi Gets His West Point Ring Back From Sen. Harry Reid

Sen. Harry Reid has returned Lt. Dan Choi's West Point ring, fulfilling a promise he made to Choi at Netroots Nation in front of hundreds of progressive writers, including yours truly. Upon receipt of the ring, Choi tweeted: "The next time I get a ring from a man, I expect it will be for full, equal, American marriage.

Sen. Harry Reid Tweets Lt. Dan Choi

Tweet Of The Day - Kerry Eleveld

DADT Vote Scheduled For Today

AmericaBlog reports that the cloture vote on the Defense Authorization Act is now scheduled for noon today. As we know, that could change. [Obviously, it did.] Right now the Senate is voting on the DREAM Act, which passed in the House yesterday. Watch live on C-SPAN.

UPDATE: The Senate has voted to table the DREAM Act until next week by a vote of 59-40.

UPDATE II: I've been bumping this post back to the top of the blog as we keep getting hints that the vote is imminent. Or that it won't happen at all.

UPDATE III: Sen Harry Reid just announced that DADT is effectively DEAD. "We can't win because the rules keep getting changed."

UPDATE IV: And THEN we follow up that doom with an actual vote on Reid's motion to end debate on cloture!

UPDATE V: The live stream is concluded (for now).

LIVE VIDEO: "Possible" DADT Senate Cloture Vote To Take Place At 5:30PM

Nobody seems to be sure it will happen, but the Family Research Council is claiming on Twitter that a cloture vote on the Defense Authorization Act is scheduled for around 5:30PM. The FRC has spent the day marshaling their followers to deluge Senate offices with protesting calls, so this could be a panicked push to generate more calls while folks are still in their offices. We've also heard that if Sen. Harry Reid is unhappy with proposed amendments to the bill, he'll vote against it on procedural grounds (as he did in October) in order to bring it up again later. Here's the Senate live video stream, in case the FRC is right about the time.

UPDATE: The Senate has adjourned and there will be no vote tonight as negotiations with Maine's GOP Sen. Susan Collins have broken down.

Obama Calls Senators On DADT

Metro Weekly's Chris Geidner reports that President Obama today contacted members of the Senate asking for their support of the Defense Authorization Act, which includes the repeal of DADT.

White House spokesman Shin Inouye tells Metro Weekly, "The President has been reaching out to Senators from both sides of the aisle to reiterate his desire to see Congress pass the National Defense Authorization Act, including a repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', during the lame duck."

This morning Sen. Harry Reid indicated that he may bring the cloture vote on the bill to the floor this evening.

Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said in a statement this morning, "Reid is actively reaching out to his Republican colleagues to reach an agreement on how to proceed. We also know from Hill sources the President is actively working today's vote with key Republican senators. Today the Senate has an opportunity to make the nation's defense funding and our service members a higher priority than tax cuts for millionaires."

RUMOR MILL: Surprise DADT Vote Today?

Several Washington sources including the usually reliable Roll Call are saying that Sen. Harry Reid may actually propose a Senate cloture vote on the Defense Authorization Bill today. Proposing the cloture vote and making it happen are two different things, of course.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled cloture votes for Wednesday on a host of bills opposed by Republicans, including the DREAM Act immigration bill, a 9/11 firefighters measure and a firefighters unionization bill. With President Barack Obama’s tax cut deal with Republicans running into stiff Democratic resistance and a long-term continuing resolution for government spending still days away, if Republicans filibuster those bills as expected, the chamber will not have any pending business. As a result, Democratic aides said, Reid could opt to return the defense authorization bill to the floor, which includes the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. It is unclear whether Democrats would have enough votes to break a filibuster on that bill — a number of Republicans support repeal, while some Democrats oppose it.

Roll Call notes that the GOP could easier drag out any debate for days.

UPDATE: Reid just announced that he may bring the DAA up tonight!


UPDATE II: Wonk Room reports that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK), who has said that he considers homosexuality a sin, has changed his mind and will support the repeal of DADT. That leaves only one holdout Democrat, West Virginia's Joe Manchin. Pryor's statement:

On many previous occasions, I have said that I would oppose repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell until I had heard from our servicemen and women regarding this policy. I have now carefully reviewed all of the findings, reports, and testimony from our armed forces on this matter and I accept the Pentagon’s recommendations to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I also accept the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ commitment that this policy can be implemented in a manner that does not harm our military’s readiness, recruitment, or retention.

Liberty Counsel: Sen. Harry Reid Wants To See "Forced Intimacy" In Military Showers

And "sexual deviants" like WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning are a perfect example of why gays cannot ever be trusted.

Tweet Of The Day - Sen. Harry Reid

Interesting move. Certain to be filibustered by the GOP, I'm betting. The DREAM Act has been languishing in Congress for ten years thanks to Republican opposition.

Servicemembers United Urges Harry Reid To Move On DADT In Lame Duck Session

Servicemembers United has issued a press release telling Sen. Harry Reid that he has "no good reason" to drag his feet on putting DADT to a Senate vote during the lame duck session.

"The path to getting defense authorization and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' wrapped up this year is narrow, but that path is also crystal clear," said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United. "There is neither time nor any good reason to delay bringing the authorization bill back up for reconsideration, and the first concrete action on the bill absolutely must occur before the Senate's Thanksgiving recess. A handful of angry and unreasonable Republicans will certainly try to obstruct, but the key to success is going to be striking a deal with a few moderate and reasonable Republicans to proceed on the bill. The McCain contingent should be irrelevant to securing that agreement."

Servicemembers United: "Senator Reid, and Senator Reid alone, ultimately controls how the defense authorization bill will be brought back up, and whether it will get brought up in enough time for it to be completed by the end of the year."

NEVADA: Nutjob Anti-Gay Teabagger Racist Sharron Angle LOSES To Harry Reid

I am touching ALL of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendages in joy as the networks have just declared Sen. Harry Reid as the winner in Nevada's freakazoid Senate race. Never before (I don't think) have I loathed a political candidate so fiercely with every gay fiber of my being as I do Sharron Angle. (OK, maybe Ruben Diaz.) Congratulations in particular go out to the Nevada Stonewall Democrats who battled so fiercely for Reid. Woo AND hoo, y'all! I can't wait to hear Joy Behar's victory jokes on tomorrow's View.

NEVADA: Sen. Harry Reid In Toss-Up In Final Polls Against Sharron Angle

The two final polls in Sen. Harry Reid's battle against Sharron Angle show him only 1-3 points behind, which is essentially a tie in the famed "margin of error" game. Nate Silver continues to call the seat as "likely GOP." This is the race that will have the nation up very late tomorrow night.

NEVADA: Nate Silver Sees Harry Reid's Chances Shrinking Against Sharron Angle

Grim, grim, grim. As much as we loathe Lady Racist, at least some of this has to be due to Reid's somnolent performance in the debate. He makes Al Gore look like a manic game show host.

Sharron Angle Breaks New Racist Ground

Joy Behar just opined on The View: "Yikes! It's like a Hitler Youth commercial! Let me tell you how stupid she is: 25% of the voters in Nevada are Hispanic and 80% of them are Mexican. She is a moron, on top of being evil. I'd like to see her try this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, BITCH! Try this in New York!"

NEVADA: Conservatives Launch Campaign Urging Latinos Not To Vote

A conservative group astroturfing themselves as "Latinos For Reform" have launched an ad campaign urging Nevada's Latino residents not to vote.

The ad was widely seen as an effort to hurt the campaign of incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, who is working hard to turn out Latino voters. Mr. de Posoda, who has long worked with the Republican Party, said he didn’t like either candidate but acknowledged that a Latino boycott would hurt Mr. Reid’s chances. Democrats from President Barack Obama on down condemned his effort. “I think it is terrible,’” Mr. Obama said Tuesday during a roundtable with reporters from Spanish-language outlets. “It is a cynical political ploy to try to drive Latino votes to benefit a Republican candidate in Nevada who would never vote for immigration reform.” Mr. de Posoda argues that politicians take Latino votes for granted and have failed to deliver on promises including enacting comprehensive immigration legislation. To teach them a lesson, his ads argue, Latinos should stay home on Election Day. After complaints from Nevada Democrats and some Republicans, Univision said it would not run the spots, called “Don’t Vote.”

You think you've seen it all, and then this.

New From Sharron Angle

Notice how rarely the teabaggers mention themselves?

Tweet Of The Day - Reid Wilson

Here's the full quote from Sharron Angle:

"So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it's the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.] What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly."

The above-linked reporter says he "has no idea" what Angle means about being the first Asian legislator. Angle continues to maintain a slim polling lead over Harry Reid.