Breaking: Lt. Dan Choi & another DADT-discharged soldier chain themselves to White House fence

[updated]

Reports are now coming in that Choi and Pietrangelo have been arrested.
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The Advocate reports that one person has already been arrested, but not Choi or former Army infantryman James Pietrangelo, who were both ousted from the military because of DADT and have both chained themselves to the fence. Kerry Eleveld appears to be on the scene. Other reports are coming from:

* David Mixner

* Pam Spaulding

* Americablog Gay

The image is a snippet of a photo published today by the Advocate.

Monday Reads: White House gays, Amazon shame, gadgetry & the GOP

Amazon.com is making it harder to find books about gay topics because, you know, everything we write just has to be considered porn. Actually, let's call this censorship of books with positive content about LGBT folks, including, of all things, Ellen DeGeneres' autobiography. (boo!) Sarah Hepola has a good overview of the situation.

LGBT families are welcomed to The White Hosue to participate in the annual Easter Egg roll. Bilerico has background and live blogging of the event. How delightful to be invited -- and accepted. (yay!)

It was just a few short weeks ago that the Obama Administration reached out to Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council, asking us to encourage LGBT families to apply for tickets to this year's Egg Roll, ensuring us that our families would be included in the cross section of America present on the White House lawn that day.

James Dobson tells followers in his farewell speech that the religious right lost the culture wars and that the "world has turned colder for the family." Of course, he also urges his followers not to give up. As for the world turning colder for the family, see White House lawn, and Easter Egg rolling, and acceptance. I think the world has become warmer for ALL families, but you have to be able to open your eyes and your heart to see it.

Paul Krugman looks at the Republican Party then and now, and sees a whole load of destructive crazy.

Farhad Manjoo looks at Twitter and doesn't see the love, but does provide a short primer on the how and what of microblogging. Comparing Twitter to IM and email, he notes:

Twitter is different. It's not a faster or easier way of doing something you did in the past, unless you were one of those people who wrote short "quips" on bathroom stalls. It's a totally alien form of communication. Microblogging mixes up features of e-mail, IM, blogs, and social networks to create something not just novel but also confusing, and doing it well takes time and patience. That's not to say it isn't useful; to some people in some situations, Twitter is irreplaceable. But it is not—or, at least, not yet—a necessary way to stay socially relevant in the information age.

Slow death by gadget, or why it's about time we made different choices.

"Technology does not loan you money or come by to see you when you are sick or sad. It may connect you with someone who does, but the characteristics that are truly human must be transmitted by humans," surmises Derek Smith. "Much of the human experience is about sight, sound, smell, touch, and intuition that in turn require human contact and proximity."

Today's Tools: Understanding Obama's budget & what comes next

A budget isn't just a bunch of numbers beloved only by bureaucrats. A budget -- like the one Barack Obama just released -- not only allocates resources, but it also allocates priorities. A budget is about what we intend to do collectively as a people.

As Paul Krugman notes, "If he (Obama) can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course."

Here are some tools to help understand what Obama proposed and what will happen next.

The White House web page on the budget, complete with fact sheets and other explanations

NPR breakdown of the budget

The New York Times overview. See the left column for details and related stories.

The New York Times on how Obama is sweeping away Reagan's ideas

Congress Matters tools for understanding the budget process.

Kansas Gov. Sebelius dukes it out with the White House & wins

By Diane Silver

[updated 8:15 a.m.]
In the aftermath of of the Greensburg tornado, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius raised some very real concerns about the impact of the Iraq War on the state's ability to respond. The White House jumped into the fight.

As far as I can tell this morning, the score is Sebelius 1; White House, zero.

At issue is whether the National Guard has the equipment it needs to provide disaster response. Sebelius said she is concerned about the National Guard's ability to respond to more than one disaster.

Here's the key point, with emphasis from me, from The Kansas City Star:

Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state’s adjutant general, said the Kansas National Guard’s equipment had been reduced about one-third from prewar levels, which were already low.

Bunting said that the Guard had the resources to handle the Greensburg cleanup but that the initial response was slowed somewhat by equipment shortages. He added that those resources were being stretched to the limit in Greensburg.

Over the weekend, he said, Kansas officials had real concerns about the potential for more tornadoes and major flooding elsewhere.

“The reality is, we should be able to do two or three (disasters) at the same time,” Bunting said. “Now we can do one and maybe one more small one. It just leaves you pretty tight.”

...

Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said it was frustrating that the governor’s comments had further fueled the partisan battle over the war in Iraq because that was not her intent. Corcoran said Sebelius was only repeating what she and other governors of both parties had been warning for more than a year.

The Wichita Eagle also reports:

According to a spokesman for the Guard, the state doesn't have about half the tractor-trailer trucks it ordinarily would for moving heavy equipment from armories in eastern Kansas to the western Kansas disaster site. Also, the guard has only about 30 of its usual complement of 170 "medium tactical vehicles," high clearance cab-over trucks that are used to transport equipment, personnel and supplies.

.....

On Tuesday, Snow criticized Sebelius, saying the federal government was prepared to supply what Kansas needed but that the governor had not requested aid beyond "FM radios."

He also appeared to lecture the governor about how to seek help from the government during the emergency: "If you don't request it, you're not going to get it."

Later, he corrected himself and said "the state has requested a mobile command center, an urban search and rescue task force, a mobile office building, 40 two-way radios, and coordination calls between Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, to determine if they need extra Black Hawks (helicopters)."

[update]

Think Progress has the background on this.