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Obama Drops By "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Meeting with Gay Leaders

President Obama briefly visited a late Tuesday meeting at the White House that was focused on legislative repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" during Congress' lame duck session, reports The Advocate. The meeting was held by House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and brought together representatives of the Center for American Progress, the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans, Servicemembers United, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the University of California Santa Barbara's Palm Center.

"'The President stopped by to directly convey to the participants his personal commitment on this issue,' said a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity."

As noted previously by R20, White House LGBT liaison Brian Bond warned participants via email that any discussion of pending DADT litigation was proibited, otherwise the meeting would end. White House officials later explained the precaution was due to the fact that White House counsel and LCR litigants would be in the same room.

Meanwhile: At Tuesday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the President has reached out to individual Senators to change "no" votes to "yes." Gibbs reply:

"To my knowledge, it hasn’t taken place yet. But, look, the only way we’re going to get something through the Senate is to change the vote count and to move past—look, you got to get—you’re going to have to get past a promised filibuster and—in moving to the bill. And certainly the only way we can move to that bill is to change some of those votes.

The clock is running down. Watch the video WHEN YOU JUMP ...

White House: No Discussion of DADT Court Cases at Meeting

There is an interesting development to the report of a White House meeting later this afternoon with advocacy groups today on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Kerry Eleveld at The Advocate has obtained a copy of an email sent from Brian Bond, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and the Administration's LGBT liaison.

The participants include:

"Allison Herwitt and Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign; Shane Larson of the Stonewall Democrats; Winnie Stachelberg of the Center for American Progress; Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network; R. Clarke Cooper of the Log Cabin Republicans; Alex Nicholson and Jarrod Chlapowski of Servicemembers United; Nathaniel Frank, DADT expert formerly of the Palm Center; Jim Kessler of the Third Way."

Bond ended the email with this warning:

"'Obviously this meeting has gotten out. We are expecting the content of the conversation today to be off the record and to help us figure out how to move forward with the lame duck session. Also as previously mentioned, there can be no discussion of current court cases or legal strategy or Counsel’s Office will end the meeting. The focus is repeal and the lame duck session. This is also a non-partisan meeting where we want everyone’s help.'"

Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans and SU's Nicholson are parties to Log Cabin Republicans v the United States of America, the landmark federal challenge to DADT. To give the White House the benefit of the doubt: Legal ethics dictate that parties of a court case cannot discuss pending litigation without their attorneys present, so why not just say that? Or better yet, why invite LCR and Nicholson to a legislative meeting?

White House Endorses "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Repeal Compromise

The latest on today's efforts to reach a compromise on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by the White House, the Defense Department, gay rights lobbyists and lawmakers ....

The White House has endorsed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal compromise reported earlier, according to emails sent to Rod 2.0 and published reports. "Delayed implementation" retains the current policy until the Pentagon Working Group study is completed. The President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will later sign-off on implementation.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orzsag:

"The Administration is of the view that the proposed amendment meets the concerns raised by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The proposed amendment will allow for completion of the Comprehensive Review, enable the Department of Defense to assess the results of the review, and ensure that the implementation of the repeal is consistent with standards of military readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, recruiting and retention. ...The Administration therefore supports the proposed amendment."

The statement responds to a request for input from Senators Joseph Lieberman and Carl Levin and Rep. Patrick Murphy. The three pro-repeal lawmakers have been trying to build support for repeal this year via the National Defense Authorization Act. A vote is expected Thursday.

The White House response HERE (pdf).

The DADT repeal amendment  HERE (pdf).

The "compromise" would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and return "open service" authority to the Pentagon. Non-discrimination language would not be included. As of yet, there is no deadline and the Associated Press speculates the process could take "several years" or more.

Pro-repeal advocates welcome the announcement. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Aubrey Sarvis says today's developments are a "dramatic breakthrough" that should ensure repeal will be attached to the NDAA.

News: Pelosi on DADT, White House "Unhelpful", ENDA Vote Delayed

Several updates on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ...

· Speaker Nancy Pelosi vows to repeal DADT this year. "[Pelosi] wouldn’t say whether the House will take the lead or predict when [it] would be repealed. But she made it clear ending 'Don’t ask, don’t tell' is at the top of her agenda. 'I don’t have any doubt that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ will be a memory by the end of this year,' she said."

· Pelosi less confident about ENDA—stalled since September. Pelosi recently said ENDA would have a "much better likelihood" of passage if DADT repeal was successful first.

· Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), sponsor of the DADT repeal bill, has an op-ed in Politico.  The Iraq War vet slams anti-repeal arguments as "weak and outdated."

· Next week, Murphy expected to introduce DADT repeal amendment to the Defense Authorization Act.

· Servicemembers United discovers 630 additional discharges under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" that have NOT been counted. The discharges were discovered in a Freedom of Information Request. Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer discharged under DADT, says the data confirms SU's "suspicions" the Pentagon's numbers are "incomplete and under-reported."

· Nicholson was a guest on Michelangelo Signorile's Sirius radio show yesterday and discussed a February 1 White House meeting. The meeting was only days after President Obama's State of the Union address and WH staff reportedly said they did not intend to repeal DADT in 2010.

· Nicholson says the White House was "passive" on repeal. "Our sense in leaving the meeting was that it was going to be a difficult battle to get them to ... [include] repeal language in the [Defense] Authorization bill...I certainly left that meeting with the impression that they weren't going to help us."

· Complete audio of Signorile's interview HERE.

· Barney Frank: ENDA vote delayed until "late June, early July."

· Finally: Timeline of promised ENDA votes in 2010.

FWIW: The House and Senate will recess in August.  The election is November. Will House members want to vote on ENDA only days before August  townhall meetings and campaigns? And the Senate is expected to vote ... when?

443: Number of Service Members Discharged for Being Gay in 2009

Speaking of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ...

Servicemembers United has released the final tally of DADT discharges in Fiscal Year 2009. That number is 443 or slightly more than one a day:

"The annual fiscal year “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharge statistic combines the total number of discharges reported by the Department of Defense, which was 428, with the total number of discharges reported by the Department of Homeland Security for the Coast Guard, which was 15. This brings the official 17-year total, according to the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, to 13,425 discharges under 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.'"

DADT discharges are under-reported and "very likely higher":

"When pressed by Servicemembers United, the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Freedom of Information Office confirmed on three separate occasions in late 2009 and early 2010 that the internal source of their annual “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharge numbers is the Defense Manpower Data Center, and that Defense Manpower Data Center statistics do not include discharges from the Reserves or the National Guard. ... The Department of Defense in general – and the Defense Manpower Data Center specifically – has consistently failed to disclose full information and data related to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharges in blatant violation of the Freedom of Information Act. In response to one request for information by Servicemembers United in mid-2009, the Department of Defense took more than twice the amount of time allowable by law to produce less than one-tenth of one percent of the requested data – data that was not classified and not protected by the Privacy Act. Information requests from members of Congress, including House Armed Services Committee members, have also been only partially filled."

Writing at MSNBC's The Grio, we reported black and Latino servicemembers are disproportionately discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'  The Department of Defense reports black lesbians are discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at three times the rate that they serve.