Rachel Maddow Blasts Boehner, House Republicans for Blocking Gay Military Benefits: VIDEO

Rachel Maddow looks at Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's recent announcement that benefits to nearly the extent allowed by current law will be extended to gay servicemembers and their families, and John Boehner and House Republicans' campaign to defend DOMA, effectively blocking full benefits.

Maddow also looks at the infuriating and heartbreaking story of Charlie Morgan, the lesbian soldier and activist who recently lost her battle with cancer, and Morgan's wife Karen, who will not be receiving any benefits because DOMA is still in place.

Says Maddow: "It is a sad story. For many people it is an enraging story. But it is not a finished story."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

House Republicans File SCOTUS Brief Defending DOMA

House Republicans have filed a Supreme Court brief urging SCOTUS to uphold the constitutionality of DOMA, Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner reports:

As to the law itself, the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — controlled 3-2 by Republicans in light of their House majority — argued that the federal government had the authority to legislate in an attempt to ensure "national uniformity" regarding the provision of federal benefits. The House leaders argue that in addition to the federal reasons, the Congress could act for the same reasons many states have acted to ban same-sex couples from marrying. They wrote:

There is a unique relationship between marriage and procreation that stems from marriage's origins as a means to address the tendency of opposite-sex relationships to produce unintended and unplanned offspring. There is nothing irrational about declining to extend marriage to same-sex relationships that, whatever their other similarities to opposite-sex relationships, simply do not share that same tendency. Congress likewise could rationally decide to foster relationships in which children are raised by both of their biological parents.

Finally, the House Republican leaders argue that laws classifying people based on sexual orientation should not be scrutinized more closely by courts, as is done with other types of laws under the Constitution's equal protection guarantees, because "the histories of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, and legitimacy are different."

Read Geidner's full post here.

An eyeroll does not even begin to do this justice.

Lip Reader Decodes Boehner Joke That Prompted Michelle Obama's Epic Eye Roll: VIDEO

What prompted Michelle Obama's epic eye roll at House Speaker John Boehner?

Inside Edition thinks they have it figured out.

We asked expert lip reader Larry Wenig. Wenig believes John Boehner is asking President Obama whether he had a chance to have a cigarette before the luncheon.

President Obama gave up cigarettes three years ago. Boehner is a known chain smoker.

Our lip reader, Wenig, caught Boehner saying, "Somebody won't let you do it", referring to Michelle, which prompted the first lady's big eye roll.

Watch the clip again, AFTER THE JUMP...

House GOP Secretly Raises DOMA Defense Budget to $3 Million

John Boehner and House Republicans secretly increased their budget for the legal defense of DOMA to $3 million from its original limit of $500,000, inspiring a blistering letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, who did not find out about the budget increase until after it was finalized, Think Progress reports.

Write Pelosi and Hoyer in the letter:

This is not the first time that House Republicans have made a unilateral decision to raise the ceiling on expenditures for this wasteful litigation that supports a discriminatory statute, without any public discussion or advance notice to Democratic members of the BLAG, Members of the House, or the public. This clandestine commitment of taxpayer funds is highly irregular and objectionable, and it must end now.

Let us be clear: these steps do not reflect the will of the House or the consensus of the BLAG.  Democrats do not support any decisions to invest taxpayer funds in defense of an indefensible law.  We remain united in our opposition to any effort to preserve, protect, and defend discrimination in our country.

From the start, the Republican-led campaign to defend DOMA has been a practice in futility and a waste of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.  The Republican-appointed, taxpayer-funded legal team has lost in every case.  Courts across the nation have stood on the side of justice and equality for all Americans.  DOMA is on its way into the dustbin of history.

It would be bad enough if Republicans were losing in court and accepting the result.  Yet it is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next.  With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary – and futile – legal battle.

Via Buzzfeed, Pelosi and Hoyer's letter, AFTER THE JUMP...

News: Aurora, Bieber's Blunt, Catholic Hate Group Petition, NZ

Did you get a chance to see Betty White on The Tonight Show this week?

Oh, look, it's anti-gay GOP House Speaker John Boehner with the new gay Congressmen Sean Patrick Maloney and Mark Pocan and their lovely husbands and families.

There's currently a We the People petition demanding the White House to designate the Catholic Church a hate group because of Pope Benedict's repeated denunciations of gay people. Less than 2,000 have signed said petition, which was posted on Christmas.

From NBC News: "The U.S. Supreme Court is set to tackle gay marriage in a matter of months, but legislative action this week in Rhode Island and Illinois shows that supporters aren't in wait-and-see mode. Buoyed by ballot victories in four states in November, they're now on the offensive in two more; wins would mean that more than 20 percent of Americans live in places that have approved same-sex marriage."

Could the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality cases be 3-3-3, not 5-4? "Say, for example, that three justices vote to reverse on the merits, three vote to affirm based on the 9th Circuit's opinion, and three vote to dismiss the appeal on jurisdictional grounds. In that case, I would argue, Proposition 8 is dead and same-sex marriage is once again available and recognized in California. The result would be a brief per curiam explaining the disposition of votes, and at least three separate opinions – maybe even more than that – to chart the outcome. No national precedent would be set in such a case."

Are fans, not players, to blame for keeping European soccer players in the closet? From The Telegraph: "Part of football's appeal is its unreconstructed, largely masculine, largely working-class attitudes. It is easy to imagine that a gay footballer would dread the reaction at away grounds were he to come out."

Almost 54% of New Zealand voters support marriage equality, according to a new poll. Only 38.1% do not. Meanwhile, with regard to the always controversial right to die question, about 60% believe a terminally ill person has the right to request doctor-assisted euthanasia.

Justin Bieber with a blunt.

Clueless photo shoot.

Christians against yoga, one of the easiest and most effective forms of exercise in the world.

Three people were found dead inside a home in Aurora, Colorado, the site of last summer's deadly movie theater shooting, after local SWAT officials shot a gunman who took them hostage. One hostage escaped and called police, leading to a nearly six-hour stand-off.

Either because officials thought them inappropriate or because venues backed out, about half-a-dozen gun shows within an hour drive of Newtown, CT, where the Sandy Hook shooting happened last month, have been canceled.

Peter David is the straight author and comic book writer who makes sure gay heroes Rictor and Shatterstar are prominently featured in the Marvel title X-Factor. Late last year David had a stroke, and he needs your help down the road to recovery.

Here's Ryan Seacrest running around shirtless in St. Barts.

Advice to President Obama.

The return of the Coca-Cola polar bears.

House GOP Approves Funding to Defend DOMA, While Blocking Sandy Relief, Violence Against Women Act

Here are the priorities of House Republicans:

Despite a late-stage intervention by Vice President Joe Biden, House Republican leaders failed to advance the Senate's 2012 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, an embattled bill that would have extended domestic violence protections to 30 million LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants and Native American women.

"The House leadership would not bring it up, just like they wouldn't bring up funding for Sandy [hurricane damage] last night," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a key backer of the Senate version of the bill, in an interview with HuffPost. "I think they are still so kowtowing to the extreme on the right that they're not even listening to the moderates, and particularly the women, in their caucus who are saying they support this."

They did have time to support further anti-gay discrimination though by authorizing further funding to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA):

A GOP source told The Huffington Post that, during a closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference, lawmakers gave a green light to including language in the 113th Congress rules package that authorizes the House legal team, known as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), to keep paying outside counsel to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The proposed House rules package also states that BLAG continues to "speak for" the House in its defense of DOMA...

...A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday slammed Republicans for taking "the extraordinary measure" of using the opening day rules package of the new Congress to authorize themselves to keep defending DOMA.

"Today, House Republicans will send a clear message to LGBT families: their fiscal responsibility mantra does not extend to their efforts to stand firmly on the wrong side of the future," said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

Hammill also noted that the rules package "for the first time" explicitly states that BLAG speaks for the full House on DOMA matters -- something he said is definitely not the case.