Justice Department says 'don't ask, don't tell' ruling will harm troops - Los Angeles Times

The Justice Department asked a federal judge Thursday to set aside her decision stopping the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays and lesbians in the military until it can appeal the ruling, saying the decision would "irreparably harm our military and the national security of the United States."

Government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Riverside that if she did not lift her order by Monday, they would ask the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt it. If the appeals court in San Francisco fails to act, the government probably will ask the Supreme Court to intervene to prevent an abrupt change to the military, which says it is not yet prepared to handle the transition.

The confrontation comes at a politically awkward moment for President Obama. He opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but now — just weeks before the midterm election — risks alienating his liberal base by seeking to halt the judge's order.

On Thursday at a town hall meeting in Washington, Obama pledged he would end the highly controversial 17-year-old policy for removing homosexuals from the armed forces.

"Anybody should be able to serve, and they should not have to lie about who they are in order to serve. This policy will end. It will end on my watch," Obama said.

But the president acknowledged that he is hamstrung by the fact that the policy is written into law and said "this is not a situation where I can, by the stroke of a pen, end this policy."

In the meantime, the Pentagon said that it would suspend enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell" while Phillips' injunction remains in place.

"The department will abide by the terms in the court's ruling, effective as of the time and date of the ruling," Col. Dave Lapan said Thursday.

Under the law, enacted in 1993 under President Clinton, commanders cannot ask about a service member's sexual orientation, but if a soldier volunteers the information, then he can be removed. About 13,000 have been removed so far.

Despite the ruling issued Tuesday that the law is an unconstitutional violation of due process and 1st Amendment rights, the president signaled that he preferred Congress to repeal the law. The House voted for repeal this year, as did the Senate Armed Services Committee. But the repeal was blocked by Republicans on the Senate floor. Now, some in the Senate hope the matter can be reexamined during the lame-duck session this fall.

Clifford L. Stanley, undersecretary of defense for overall military readiness, cautioned that an abrupt transition would ruin the Pentagon's work surveying military commands around the world to determine how best to create a new policy that allows people who are openly homosexual to serve.

The judge's injunction, Stanley said in a sworn declaration submitted with the government's appeal, "will have adverse effects on both military readiness and the department's ability to effect a smooth and lasting transition to a policy that accommodates the presence of openly gay and lesbian service members."

"The stakes are so high, and the potential harm so great, that caution is in order," he said.

Stanley, a 2009 Obama appointee, said a working group of Pentagon officials was still struggling to figure out the best way to run the military without the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but their recommendations are not expected until Dec. 1.

Then, he said, there would be command review and final decisions made on how best to run an efficient military operation while also safeguarding soldiers, sailors and Marines who are homosexuals.

He said military leaders would need time to learn the new policy and how it prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"Without this education and training," he said, "commanders in the field will not have the necessary guidance and will not be able to enforce the new regime in the consistent, even-handed manner that is essential to morale, discipline and good order.

"Equally importantly, service members must know what is expected of them."

Stanley also warned that "a poorly implemented transition will not only cause short-term disruption to military operations, but would also jeopardize the long-term success of the transition. Either outcome would irreparably harm our military and the national security of the United States."

He added that gays who took advantage of the ruling could face expulsion if the decision is later overturned and the military decided to move against them.

Christian Berle, deputy executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative organization that initially brought the suit, said the group would "continue to advocate on behalf of American service members," adding that "if this stay is granted, justice will be delayed but it will not be denied."

In the government appeal, Justice Department lawyers said Phillips' order would require "a precipitous change in policy that threatens the public interest in a strong military." They also argued that her ruling was a setback to "the orderly repeal" of the policy that has been discussed in Congress.

They said that such a quick transition could "harm the government's critical interests in military readiness, combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, morale, good order, discipline, and recruiting and retention of the armed forces."

The government also filed a notice of appeal with the 9th Circuit Court, making clear that it intends to challenge the ruling if the judge does not set it aside for now.

Lapan said the Pentagon e-mailed military judges that the Tuesday ruling was to be followed immediately. One e-mail, made public by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, was sent by Lt. Gen. Richard C. Harding, the Air Force judge advocate general. He ordered military lawyers "to inform your commanders of this injunction and its terms."

Aaron Tax, the network's legal director, said the Pentagon's move "keeps the injunction in place and it gives it effect, and that's good news for lesbian, gay and bisexual service members." For now, he said, "no one will be discharged."

But if the judge or the 9th Circuit temporarily sets aside the ruling, homosexual service members will "remain at risk," Tax said.

richard.serrano@latimes.com

David S. Cloud, Christi Parsons and David G. Savage in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Boehner's Path to Power Began in Southern Ohio - New York Times

The same Cape Cod houses dot the roadsides, among a smattering of family businesses. On the hill where Mr. Boehner grew up with 11 siblings, there are remnants of the fence that kept cows at bay. Mr. Boehner’s sister tends the bar his family ran through much of the last century.

With Republicans increasingly confident that they will capture the House in November, Mr. Boehner stands likely to become speaker and to lead his party’s effort to turn the nation in a new direction after two years under President Obama and the Democrats. It seems that almost everything about him stems from this spot at the southern tip of Ohio.

It defined his political viewpoints, shaped by his working-class Roman Catholic family. It formed his passions (golf, football, more golf), kindled his love of sharp clothes (and his caustic commentary about others’ wardrobes) and presaged his political trajectory, one influenced by his experience as a businessman and largely ignited by a lobbyist who became his patron and the first of many lobbyist-friends in his orbit.

Mr. Boehner — now Mr. Obama’s Gucci punching bag — has by his own account and those of people who know him remained as unchanged as Reading, just outside Cincinnati. “He’s been conservative, he’s been consistent and he’s been tan,” said Bob Hagan, an Ohio state representative who served with Mr. Boehner (pronounced BAY-ner) in the Statehouse in the late 1980s.

For Republicans who hope to recapture the House, the challenge is to shift the focus from Mr. Boehner’s country club image and tangerine hue back to his Midwestern conservative résumé, which they hope will attract a frustrated electorate.

But the effort by Democrats to portray Mr. Boehner, 60, as lazy and retrograde — speak loudly and carry a large cocktail — is equally arduous. He is a man who paws through large briefing books for committee meetings, Democrats who have worked with him acknowledge. He can foil challengers with his charm, as his opponents in his first Congressional race found out. He is surprisingly emotional, given to occasional waterworks during House speeches or three-hanky stops among supporters on the campaign trail.

Mr. Boehner explains his rise from a childhood with little money to the Congressional leadership by recalling his ambition to improve his life.

“I was determined, I was miserable and I didn’t have anything,” he said in a recent interview in his Capitol Hill office, as he pulled on a series of Camel cigarettes (filtered). “I was trying to make something out of nothing.”

Mr. Boehner’s parents were Democrats, and politics did not define his upbringing, nor even really infuse it. “We were lucky to know who the president was,” said George Luning, a high school classmate of the congressman. “His dad owned a bar, and I think being around older people who had their opinions about this or that all day made it so when he got home, he didn’t much want to talk about that stuff.”

The culture wars that would later define the Republican Party were also far from the minds of the boys of Reading. “There just weren’t as many issues then,” said Jerry Vanden Eyden, Mr. Boehner’s closest childhood friend. “You didn’t know anything about gays, you didn’t know anything about abortion, you didn’t know anything about a lot of the social issues they got today,” he said. “We didn’t hear about it, didn’t worry about it, didn’t talk about it, didn’t think about it.”

It was work, and taxes, that politicized Mr. Boehner.

“Growing up, we were probably Kennedy Catholics because we were a strong devout Catholic family,” said Bob Boehner, the congressman’s older brother, who like all his siblings eventually switched party allegiance. “But the first time you get a real job and get your paycheck, you look down and you wonder, where’s the rest of your money, and they explain to you that that’s the tax you have to pay to the government, you start thinking more and more about becoming a Republican.”

Jennifer Steinhauer reported from Reading, Ohio, and Carl Hulse from Washington. Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Washington.

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Netflix PS3 App Ditches Disc, Adds HD and Surround Sound - Wired News

PlayStation 3 just leapfrogged Xbox 360 and snagged the best Netflix experience on a videogame console yet.

The new Netflix application for PS3, rolling out for download Monday, will enable Netflix subscribers with PS3s to watch movies and TV without a disc. Some titles will even stream in 1080i HD and 5.1 digital surround sound.

Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” streaming-video feature has been available for PS3 since late last year, but it required a Blu-ray disc in order to access the service. Now, by running Watch Instantly as a native PS3 app on the console, users can ditch the disc altogether. Netflix also has a new user interface, optimized for the PS3 controller’s analog joysticks.

In the new UI, search especially seems smartly designed for the PS3 controller, using an alphabetical grid and intelligent auto-complete to minimize the pain of text entry, as seen in this still:

Still from Sony PS3 promotional video.

I even like the way the controller buttons control common text-entry commands in context — like Space, Delete and Enter. There are keyboards available for PS3, but being able to use the controller well is a real asset.

Netflix has not only continued to bring its streaming service to seemingly every device with a screen, but to make that service better. Still, among consoles, the announced PS3 app stands out: Xbox users don’t have 1080i or surround sound, and Wii users have only now added search to their service, which still requires an “Instant Streaming” disc.

Adding media services has become part of the continued rivalry between Xbox and PS3, along with new motion-capture interaction devices like PlayStation’s Move controller and Xbox’s Kinect.

Besides videogame consoles, Netflix can now stream to personal computers on Windows and Mac; TiVo, HD, Roku, Logitech and Apple TV boxes; Windows Phone 7 and all iOS devices; and a wide array of net-connected TVs and Blu-Ray players, including those using Google TV.

Roku’s players, which began as Netflix-only boxes, will soon be available in retail stores through a partnership with Netgear.

Netflix on PS3: Disc-free Next Week [Playstation Blog]

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