Obama Signs DADT Repeal and other breaking news

I think we can all agree that the service men and women in this picture and the folks that helped pass this repeal deserve a great big booyah! from us all.  It was great to see some of our country’s heroes get some credit and recognition.  Let’s hope the president’s signature is the first step in tearing the entire DADT infrastructure down and that the radical right groups working to repeal the repeal FAIL.

Just one small step for Human Kind …

The guests at the ceremony included Joe Solmonese, head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group; Vice President Biden; Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.); and Dan Choi, a former U.S. Army soldier who was discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and was arrested in November after chaining himself to a White House fence to protest the policy.

Several other soldiers who have been discharged from military service because they are gay attended the ceremony as well.

Among the guests on the stage with Obama was Eric Alva, a former Marine staff sergeant who lost a leg in Iraq and who, following a medical discharge, has been working for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Another participant was Navy Cmdr. Zoe Dunning, a repeal advocate who fought to remain in the Navy Reserves and ultimately retired in 2007 after 13 years of service as an openly gay officer.

Senator Reid Gives Dan Choi His West Point Ring Back

This is morphing into a mid afternoon Senate news post so you can consider it an open thread for other news besides the DADT signing ceremony.

Also:

ABC news is reporting that the Senate has come to an agreement on the 9/11 First Responders Bill.

Senators on both side of the aisle came together to unanimously pass a bill to give continuing health benefits and compensation to first responders who got sick after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The bill passed after Senate Democrats struck a deal Wednesday with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who agreed to drop his objections when the cost of the bill was reduced by about $2 billion.

The Oklahoma Republican had come under withering criticism for opposing the bill on the grounds that it provided “overly generous funding” and included “unnecessary and duplicative compensation funds.”

Coburn emerged Wednesday from a closed-door meeting that included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and New York Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to reveal that that a deal has been worked out that will likely enable the bill to pass the Senate – and then the House – by the end of the day.

Under the deal, the total cost of the bill over ten years would be reduced from $6.2 billion to $4.2 billion. Of that $4.2 billion, $1.5 billion will go to health benefits for the first responders, while $2.7 billion will go to compensation for them.

update from CNN: “House OKs measure providing free health care to first responders of NYC 9/11 attacks, sending the bill to the president.”  The House and Senate bills have gone through reconciliation are now consistent and will become law.

The START treaty has just been ratified too via The Boston Globe (obviously a Kerry Fanzine.)

In one of the biggest victories of Senator John F. Kerry’s legislative career, the US Senate today voted to approve an arms control agreement with Russia, by a bipartisan 71 to 26 vote, with Vice President Joe Biden presiding over the chamber and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the floor. The treaty needed at least 67 votes to be ratified.

The treaty, known as New START, will reduce strategic warheads by about a third on each side, to 1,550, and set up protocols for inspections of each nation’s warheads. The vote is a major foreign policy victory to President Obama, who considered approval of the treaty a top priority of the lame-duck congressional session.

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was in charge of shepherding the treaty through the Senate.

“This historic Senate vote makes our country safer and moves the world further away from the danger of nuclear disaster,” Kerry said in a statement. “The winners are not defined by party or ideology. The winners are the American people, who are safer with fewer Russian missiles aimed at them, and who benefit knowing that our cooperation with Russia in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and supplying our troops in Afghanistan can be strengthened.”

Guess those folks really wanted that long Holiday Break!  All 58 Democrats and both Independents supported the Treaty Ratification.  It was supported by 13 Republicans.

In other surprises:   Obama press conference at 4:15 pm  (Does this mean he’s going to take questions?)

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