It looks that is unclear whether we'll see legislation on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it "remains uncertain about how lawmakers will address 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' this year," but that Pelosi says there are "possible vehicles" to get repeal, one being the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill. Meanwhile, on the ENDA front, openly gay Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank "has vowed to keep transgender rights in his bill to protect gays and lesbians in the workplace, despite opposition from some key moderates that could derail the proposal." Are we likely to see any progress on either of these issues this year? We'll discuss this afternoon.
President Obama was in New York yesterday for a fund-raising event. While he was inside speaking to donors who paid $15,000 a plate, outside close to 500 AIDS activists (eight who were arrested) from around the world gathered to protest the president and how his administration has dropped the ball on funding for HIV/AIDS programs. "On the campaign trail, candidate Obama pledged to provide at least $50 billion by 2013 for the global fight against HIV/AIDS and to “at least double the number of HIV-positive people on treatment... Although $50 billion was approved for five years, both of the budgets Obama submitted have flat-funded treatment.”
There are other criticisms of President Obama’s trip to New York. He visited with NYPD officers, congratulating them on a job well done regarding the handling of the attempted Time Square bombing. The day before his visit, the White House said it considering cutting the city’s terror funding.
War, hunger, climate change? Are these some of the threats facing the world today? According to Pope Benedict, no. Speaking in Fatima, Portugal yesterday, the Pope called abortion and same-sex marriage some of the most "insidious and dangerous" threats facing the world today, asserting key church teachings as he tried to move beyond the clerical abuse scandal.
Guest / 2:30pm EST – We’ve been talking a lot about the fallout from the George Reker’s scandal. Today, the journalist couple who uncovered the story join us to talk about how they got word that Reker’s hired the rent boy and how it led to his house of cards crumbling down.
Guest / 3:30pm EST - According to the National Institutes of Health, 40 million Americans have trouble sleeping. We spend $20 billion a year on mattresses, white noise machines and other sleep aids, yet we still don't know why we need to sleep. Patricia Morrisroe, author of Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia, joins us today to explain what we know about sleep and why we're getting less of it.
We’re closing out the fifth week since it was reported that a BP oil rig had exploded and started leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day, according to government scientists… or so they thought? Scientists from the University of Florida, after seeing video and doing satellite imaging of the leak, say the spill could “easily be four or five times” the government estimate. And if that’s not bad enough, “[t]federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.” We’ll talk further about these details today.
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