Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Today on the Signorile Show

President Obama plans to make an announcement that expands "the rights of gay workers by allowing them to take family and medical leave to care for sick or new-born children of same-sex partners" under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993. But how big is this? MetroWeekly points out the limits that once again are all because of the Defense of Marriage Act, which the Justice Department continues to vigorously defend. We'll talk about the FMLA and what this expansion means today.

General Stanely McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, has been summoned to the White House over some outrageous comments he made criticizing the president and vice president regarding the war in Rolling Stone magazine. (One of his aides also characterized a dinner with the French as "fucking gay," as McChrystal and his aides seemed be unbridled in speaking with a reporter for the "Runaway General" article). Should Obama fire McChrystal? And will he? We'll go over the reaction from Washington and take your calls.

Guest / 4:30pm EST - Is the oil gusher unstoppable? Lisa Margonelli, director of the Energy Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation, joins us this afternoon to talk about this horrifying idea that has been discussed on the web a lot but which the government and BP seem not to want to touch.

We told you last week about a town in
Nebraska that wanted to introduce legislation that would prohibit employers from hiring and landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants. The town of Fremont has since voted on the measure and have passed the legislation. We'll review what is in this law.

Continuing on the immigration front, President Obama met with Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl to talk about solutions regarding illegal immigration. It is reported that both fought over what the best way to go about tougher border security for Arizona and the other border states. We'll go over what was discuss at yesterdays meeting today.

Wikileaks, the whistle blowing website that released the video of Reuters reporters and Iraqi civilians being killed by an airstrike, has announced it plans on releasing more video. According to the Washington Post, "Wikileaks.org plans to release as soon as this week documents related to a US airstrike that killed Afghan civilians last year and plans to release combat footage of the incident this summer." Many critics have made claims that this is a danger to our national security. We'll get your thoughts about this issue.

All these stories and so much more, today on The Michelangelo Signorile Show!

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