Elaine Donnelly Still Trying To Keep Her Day Job

Jim Burroway

September 20th, 2011

It’s hard to know what the raison d’être for Elaine Donnelly’s Center for Military Effectiveness could possibly be except to hang around for a possible GOP president in 2013 who can reimpose “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” via executive order. Maybe that’s why she’s still pounding the pavement defending dead DADT. The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow commiserated with Donnelly on DADT’s passing this way:

“The law requires more than just PowerPoint presentations,” she tells OneNewsNow. “The administration is supposed to describe exactly what will happen under the new LGBT law. [But] they haven’t done that! They’re barreling ahead anyway. The president [is] just determined to impose LGBT law on the military, regardless of the concerns of Congress.”

The CMR leader predicts litigators for homosexual activists and the homosexual movement are going to have a field day. “Without the law on the books, they will go into court and challenge anything that stands in the way of what they perceive as a civil rights issue,” she warns.

Donnelly told Focus On the Family’s CitizenLink that people should “watch and report to Congress about the fallout from the repeal.”

BlackDog

September 20th, 2011

If the military ia officially treating this day (auspicious as it is for some) as “Tuesday” then why the hell do the Conservatives who are supposedly so pro-military, still have their panties in a twist about the DADT repeal?? If it’s just another day for the United States Armed Forces then why are these nuts thinking they know more than the people who have actually been charged with the duty of implementing all this??

Grow the fuck up, people, the military has to deal with facts and reality, not political or religious hangups. In a couple of weeks or months, once the sky has not fallen, this will be a non-issue for all but the perversely obsessed.

Ben in Atlanta

September 20th, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdoBRCt4zrE

TampaZeke

September 20th, 2011

There is no way that the Republicans can put this Genie back in the bottle. By the time a Republican President or Congress could have a chance to try to repeal it we will have at least one full year of gays serving openly and without incident. NONE of the anti-gay people’s gloom and doom predictions will come to pass. How then will they justify reinstating the policy. Even if they found a way to do it against all reason, which they have a history of doing, it would be easy to then overturn in the courts where you have to actually present a good case for why discrimination is necessary and needed. They won’t have a leg to stand on, just like they don’t have one in the marriage fight.

JohnAGJ

September 20th, 2011

Wait, she actually said LGBT with the scare quotes?!? My, she’s coming along more than she knows…

All I can say about Donnelly is that given what she did in 1993 I’m very glad that I’ve lived to see all of her work undone.

JohnAGJ

September 20th, 2011

Sorry, I meant to say that she used LGBt withOUT the scare quotes.

Regan DuCasse

September 20th, 2011

Anybody doesn’t like it, better strap up and serve this country in uniform themselves. I don’t care how old they are or what gender.

I know Donnelly doesn’t think much of women serving either.
Well, she and her ilk are pussies. Absolutely whiny little candy asses.

Those complaints about close quarters cracks me up. If a soldier didn’t know someone was gay before, obviously a gay soldier’s comportment is within everyone’s zone. The difference between knowing and not knowing is supposed to be…what?

Apparently it’s supposed to turn straight soldiers into scared little boys and girls.
Donnelly insults our fighting men and women with this assumption.
She better learn how to shoot a terrorist and prepare for Afghanistan her damn self, or STFU.

BlackDog

September 20th, 2011

Regan, I work with at least one gay man most nights (I work a third shift job)and there used to be one more but he’s on a different shift now. Let me tell ya, I’ve at times been more concerned about a couple of the STRAIGHT guys I’ve worked with in the past (We had a guy who was literally known as “Creepy D___” by ALL the females where I work. I swear it’s like they all got together and voted on what to call him!)

I know for a fact that one of the females I was friends with in the Air Force was a lesbian. Also, never found out for sure but we all suspected one of the guys in my squadron was gay. Ironically, he was our resident religious nut.

People who think gays are some kind of over-sexualized freaks or something need to take a bite out of the reality sandwich. They ain’t no different from anybody else most of the time.

Rob in San Diego

September 20th, 2011

Ahh the fallout from the repeal, umm we get rid of all those homophobes in our army, case solved!

Karl

September 20th, 2011

CMR’s other mission is bashing military women, trying to keep them barefoot and pregnant (or whatever the army equivalent is). Oh and telling women they’re weaker than men.

AlexH

September 20th, 2011

All the people who don’t want gays in the military should go and enlist themselves and that includes this poor excuse of a woman, Donnelly.

My straight friend said it very nicely when he wrote on FB: If you aren’t going to enlist, or aren’t in the armed forces, why would you want to stop someone else who wants to join? STFU!

BobN

September 21st, 2011

I look forward to the day when Elaine Donnelly stops getting subsidized for her appearances on TV, packs away the fax machine on her kitchen counter, and puts her toaster and crock-pot back where they belong. Hopefully she’ll have squirrelled away enough money that we never have to see her again.

Sam

September 21st, 2011

If a Republican is elected president in 2012, the anti-gay industry won’t need any real evidence that their gloom and doom predictions of military disruption came true. They’ll manufacture it, just like they manufactured their horrible consequences of marriage equality. Very soon, they’re start a parade of so-called Christian soldiers who have been supposedly persecuted in vague ways by DADT repeal. They’ve already started looking and believe me they will push like hell to reinstate DADT.

Mykelb

September 21st, 2011

First time in my personal history that I have witnessed a dead horse beating one.

Mykelb

September 21st, 2011

Sam. That is precisely why the Log Cabin Republicans has insisted on continuing their lawsuit to have DADT ruled unconstitutional. Once that happens, there is no going back.

Theo

September 22nd, 2011

Why is CMR still around?

CMR is run out of Elaine Donnelly’s home, for which the organization pays her rent, and she is its only full-time employee. Do you really think she worked 40 hours/week during all the years from 1994-2008, when the GOP controlled the Congress, the White House or both, and CMR had no legislative battles to fight? I’d be surprised if she worked a full workweek during that entire period.

Well, apparently under Obama the CMR’s workload has been crushing, b/c Donnelly decided that she needed to hire a part-time assistant. Fortunately, the best qualified candidate turned out to be Mr. Donnelly, who began drawing his own salary according to CMR’s Form 990. By “best qualified,” I mean that he has as much experience and expertise in military affairs as his wife. That is to say, none whatsoever.

So that’s one full-time salary, one part-time salary, and rent for the Donnelly household. Not bad work if you can get it.

Eric Payne

September 22nd, 2011

Wasn’t there an investigation in late 2010/early 2011 that revealed the “Center” was run out of her home, and the membership of the “Center” was pretty much limited to Donnelly and her husband?

Eric Payne

September 22nd, 2011

I was correct. According to Andrea Stone, writing for “The Huffington Post”:

“The Center for Military Readiness (CMR), the tax-exempt nonprofit founded by Elaine Donnelly nearly 20 years ago, bills itself as “an independent non-partisan public policy organization that specializes in military personnel issues.” But the “small think tank” headquartered out of Donnelly’s suburban Detroit home and run day-to-day by her husband Terry is the single most influential conservative voice pushing back against social progress in the military.”

From “Center For Military Readiness Criticized For Lax Oversight”, published by the Huffington Post, July 20, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/19/elaine-donnelly-lobbyist-_n_903494.html

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