The venomously bigoted, corrupt, extreme right organization, the "Democratic Leadership Council" which was really an organization that followed the lead and ideology of the Republican extreme right, is gone, gone gone. That's right. They are following their ideological clones at the Crystal Cathedral into bankruptcy.

The group was once chaired by Bill Clinton because Bubba thought the Democratic Party wasn't sufficiently corrupt, racist, sexist, and homophobic to satisfy him. He pushed through their hateful, GOP style policies throughout his time as President. Those very DLC policies drove Democratic voter turnout way down and kept it down, handing Congress to the GOP in 1994 and keeping them in power throughout the rest of his presidency.

(Lieberbush was Chair from 1995-2001, providing an example of just how reprehensible that organization truly was.)

The DLC proved itself to be sleazy all the way up to the bitter end. If you check their website, their main focus of late was trying to ship more American jobs abroad during the Great Recession.

One of the comical sideshows to all of this is that the corporate media keep portraying an organization whose political views are far to the right of the overwhelming majority of Americans as "centrist." Maybe the DLC's agenda was towards the center of the ideology of the rich Republicans who own these media outlets, but it sure was loony right for the bulk of us.

Obviously, the wealthy interests behind the Democratic Liquidation Council still have enormous power over the Democratic Party. However, it is nice to see one less organization in this world promoting bigotry, discrimination, and blatant political corruption.

Illustration: ddogbreath

 

You would think that President Obama would learn from the disastrous defeat for the Democrats in 2010. The defeat resulted from almost 10 million more Obama voters staying home than "Keating Five" McCain voters.

Obama governed like a Republican, which alienated and demoralized core Democratic constituencies. It was as if his administration and the Democratic congressional "leadership" were on a deliberate campaign to tell Democratic voters that their views and their votes count for nothing. They got exactly the results one would have expected and many of us warned about. It was nearly as big of a defeat as Bill Clinton caused in 1994, which makes sense because he governed like a Republican too.

Many people had hoped that when the corrupt former Clinton Administration figure, Rahm Emanuel, left the administration, things might get better. Sadly, it's starting to look like the opposite.

Mock, Paper, Scissors warned me that President Obama has been considering hiring an infamous bankster and member of the rightist and corrupt Daley Klan in Chicago as his most senior adviser. The Guardian is reporting that Barack Bush has approached this monster to discuss the job.

When is this administration going to stop selling the American people out to our enemies, the banksters?

The Democrats lost in 2010 because they kept sending the message to their own voters that they don't count and that voting is futile. So, what is Obama doing again? He's sending the message that our votes are exercises in futility.

The Democratic core constituencies aren't the only people who despise and distrust the banksters. Those views are shared by the overwhelming majority of the people of this country, with good reason. Besides, no one outside of the corrupt Chicago political machine has much fondness for it, to put it mildly.

It's beginning to look like Obama has learned nothing from the 2010 results and is determined to keep the House in GOP hands and make the White House dependent on just how stupid and crazy the GOP nominee turns out to be. Obama may hand the Senate to the GOP with his corruption and incompetence.

I only voted for one Democrat in 2010. The rest of my votes went Green last year. The Green Party is looking really good for 2012 too.

Photos: jurvetson

elisfanclub

 

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is going to be running an ad fighting back against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

This is exactly what liberals and progressives should be doing. Confronting corrupt politicians, regardless of party, is the only way we are going to restore democracy and freedom to America.

Continuing Bush's tax cuts for the rich is inexcusable. It is typical of what we have experienced from corrupt rightists like Bill Clinton, who cut taxes for the rich himself by cutting capital gains taxes.



Here's the embed code if you want to run this on your blog:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

They are raising funds to run this ad.

You also can sign the petition against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

 

Photo: Joe Futrelle

Congratulations to the Green Party of New York. Green Party candidate for Governor Howie Hawkins got more than the required 50,000 for a political party to get ballot status. For the next two elections, Green Party candidates will have the same reduced signature gathering requirements as Republicans and Democrats.

With over 97% of precincts reporting, Hawkins already had 56,868 votes. Hawkins ran an energetic campaign focused on blocking the toxic natural gas extraction technique known as fracking as well as on making Wall St pay its fair share in taxes. Hawkins was able to do this in spite of the low election turnout.

The Green Party's press release last night announced what did indeed turn out to be this victory.

With 32% of precincts counted and more to come in, the New York State Green Party declared victory at 11:30 PM on election night. The votes cast for Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera will secure the Green Party a ballot line for the next four years, and represent support for the "Green New Deal." Support for other candidates is also promising, with Comptroller candidate Julia Willebrand receiving 3% of the vote, and US Senate candidates Colia Clarke and Cecile Lawrence coming in third in their races respectively.

"This is the best showing ever for statewide Green Party candidates. It is the culmination of months of hard work on the part of many party members, and the candidates themselves. Voters are fed up with Democrats and Republicans taking their votes for granted, and are open to hearing ideas from a party not beholden to Wall St. and special interests. Howie Hawkins campaigned tirelessly to promote the idea of a Green New Deal, funded by progressive taxation on the wealthy, and using the stock transfer tax we already collect to fill the budget gap. Voters who heard the message understood that Howie's platform made sense, and that it's the austerity plans of Cuomo and Paladino that are nonsense," said Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the NY State Green Party.

"The strong showing by all of our candidates means voters have finally seen how little difference there is between the Democrats and Republicans. People support Green ideas when they hear them: ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, single-payer universal health care, living wage jobs, renewable energy - and in this election we see they are linking our candidates to the issues they care about most. This is a building block for the future. We are going to use this victory to elect Greens statewide, starting at the local level and moving on up to the state," stated Eric Jones, co-chair of the NYS Green Party.

"While this campaign is over, we're not waiting around for the next one to begin - there's too much work to be done. The Green Party intends to be an independent force in NY State politics for working New Yorkers. Andrew Cuomo and the State Legislature are on notice - this is one party that doesn't sell its ballot line for influence," said LaVenia.

Bill Clinton built up the Green Party in the US in the 1990s with his GOP style policies. Frustration with the GOP oriented policies of Obama, Cuomo, Schumer, and Gillibrand helped the third party get ballot status again.

It looks like the Libertarians will just miss getting ballot status this time. The Rent Is Too Damned High and Anti Prohibition Parties failed as well. I have yet to see the results for the fusion parties (Working Families, Conservative, and Independence). In New York state, parties can endorse candidates from other parties, and the three fusion parties are intended to pressure Republican and Democratic candidates. Corporate media reports of election returns don't break down votes for the same candidate on different party ballot lines.

 

Dan Choi does a great job expressing the outrage queers are experiencing in the face of Barack Obama's viciously homophobic decision to unnecessarily appeal a court ruling that the military ban is unconstitutional.



Ms. Jarrett obviously thinks that every queer in the country has no basic knowledge of the legal system. She tried to justify the decision to try to keep the military ban in place through this appeal by saying that the administration is "obligated to defend" the policy in court. They defended the case in lower court and lost. Now, there is one basic fact that she is conveniently hoping we don't know.

In court cases, litigants who lose are under no obligation to appeal. Appeals are entirely optional.

I don't know if Valerie Jarrett is a lawyer or not, but I do know that President Obama is a lawyer. He knows he doesn't have to appeal the ruling. This was a conscious, deliberate homophobic act by the President.

It's not just the games that Obama and the Democrats in DC have been playing with the military ban. Those bigots haven't even lifted a finger to pass ENDA, by far the most important queer issue. Even though the Democrats control both houses of congress, neither has even voted on ENDA. The Obama administration has ignored it because they want corporations to be able to fire people for being queer.

The Obama Administration is just like the Clinton Administration. They say nice things to us occasionally while they stab us in the back and insult our intelligence. I don't blame Choi at all for deciding not to vote for Obama in 2012 after this. I'm voting all Green this year. If the Democrats insist on acting just like the Republicans and treating us like second class citizens, then the queer community has no reason to vote for them or give them a dime.

Like the folks at GetEQUAL say, the GayTM is shut down.

 

In 2006 and 2008, the Democratic politicians plied queers with their usual lies about how much they would support us if they got control of Congress and the White House. It was a crock of shit, to put it mildly. Let's look at what they did.

The only good thing they did of any actual importance was passage of a watered down hate crimes bill. It took the National Equality March and a picket outside of Barack Obama's speech before the HRC to get even that to happen. Why do I say it was watered down? The legislation helps the rare local jurisdictions that want to fight hate crimes (which doesn't even include the NYPD under that vicious bigot Michael Bloomberg), but it does little or nothing to deal with jurisdictions that don't. Heterosexist hate crimes are crimes of intimidation that are intended to impact across state lines, which makes them a federal law enforcement matter. There should be strong federal penalties against them, and there should be a specific unit in the Dept. of Justice to prosecute them. The good thing about the legislation was that it included trans queers.

Sadly, that was the best thing the Democrats did the entire time. The Obama Administration, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid blocked ENDA, the most important queer civil rights legislation from even getting a vote in Congress. Unlike same sex marriage, employment discrimination is an area where the GLBT community has overwhelming public support, which presumably why they didn't want to give this popular legislation even a vote. I can not give the Democrats a good grade on LGBT issues when they wouldn't even allow a vote on the one that is, by far, the most important.

Employment discrimination legislation should have passed during the Carter administration. Yet, we can't even get a vote on it during the Obama administration.

Sadly, President Obama has had a reprehensible record on LGBT issues. He deliberately incited violence against queers, queer teen suicide, and violence against women by involving one of the nation's most notorious bigots, Rick Warren, in the inauguration. Obama had been doing pretty much the same thing by pandering to and glorifying that monster during the 2008 campaign. Obama made things worse by showing up consistently to the National Hate Breakfast, showing his support for heterosexist fundamentalism and violating the Constitution of the United States of America.

It didn't stop there. On the DOMA court challenge, the Obama administration deliberately filed court papers comparing homosexuality and bisexuality to sex with animals and sex with the dead. They didn't need to do that, even if you accept the notion that they were obligated to defend that legislation. It was completely gratuitous.

Yes, the Obama administration will occasionally throw us a tiny bone, but most of the slight good that bone might do us is negated by the condescending and heterosexist attitude they display when they do it.

Then, there is the Clinton Administration's more draconian version of the military ban which is deceptively referred to as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even though it was deliberately designed to increase witchhunts and discharges against queers. "DADT" has even led to the military sending undercover people to gay bars in DC.

President Obama has repeatedly put queers off and fought to keep the ban in court. When queers kept pressuring the Democrats, Obama's viciously heterosexist enablers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, came up with weird scam legislation which would maybe, just maybe lift the ban if Robert Gates wants to do it. Unfortunately, Robert Gates is a notoriously bigoted Bush crime family crony who immediately preceded to sabotage the effort by creating a highly biased survey on the views of military families on the subject.

Then, Harry Reid took his typical Mormon homophobic hatred one step further. He made sure that the legislation that included this maybe, maybe lifting of the military ban, also included other controversial provisions in order to provide cover for Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe to vote fillibuster against lifting the ban. Reid is so fanatical in his hatred of us, he is willing to hurt Democratic Senate candidates in Massachusetts and Maine by giving the GOP homophobes political cover for hating us and attacking us.

We also shouldn't forget the pattern of heterosexist discrimination in appointments by President Obama. So far, Obama has yet to appoint even one openly queer Cabinet member or Supreme Court Justice, not one. Considering the fact that lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people make up far more than 10% of the population and the Democratic Party is disproportionately queer, this has been a particularly blatant and stinging insult to the TBGL community. Obama's record in this area is just as bad as that of another hateful bigot: Bill Clinton.

Obama also has badly underfunded AIDS, done nothing to promote needle exchange, and has done nothing the promote condom usage and condom education. The Democrats continue to fund "abstinence only" scams that are deliberately designed to promote the spread of HIV.

Even with the hate crimes legislation that did pass, the Obama administration has yet to take seriously the recent wave of heterosexist hate crimes and bullying. If there was a national outbreak of violence, bullying, and suicides among banksters, Obama and congressional Democrats would treat it like a national crisis. Queers just don't rate that kind of attention.

Queers have done so much to help the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. What did we get in return? I find it difficult to find words to articulate just how badly I have been betrayed by the Democrats as a queer. The best way for me to express it ultimately will be for me to vote party line Green this November. Vicious bigots like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama have given me absolutely no other option. They are as heinous as the Palins, Paladinos, and Pauls in the GOP on matters of substance.

Photos: jurvetson

talkradionews

 

Those of us who followed politics in the 90s, and especially those of us who are queer, remember what a pathological liar Bill Clinton was. One of the many lies Clinton told in the 1992 campaign is getting new life thanks to evil former EBay CEO, Meg Whitman, who is spending tens of millions dollars from her personal fortune to try to by the governorship in California.

In 1992, Clinton said that Jerry Brown had lied when he said that taxes went down in California. The State of California has proven that claim to be false. (LA Times 9/9/10)

A claim in a Meg Whitman television ad that state taxes went up when Democratic rival Jerry Brown was governor from 1975 to 1983 is false, according to the state Department of Finance.

"Taxes went down, by this yardstick, yes," said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the department, who added that the figures are the result of an impartial, nonpartisan analysis of the data. "The data you have in front of you does not have an R suffix or a D suffix after them. The Department of Finance calculated these numbers in a consistent manner over Republican and Democratic administrations."

The Whitman campaign is refusing to stop running the ad which has been proven false. This is exactly what you would expect from an operation run by someone who used to be CEO of an incredibly evil corporation like EBay.

On the subject of Whitman, she has been too lazy to vote most of the time. Yet, she thinks she is entitled to be the next Governor of California.



 

When I saw this Murdoch Street Journal column by Peggy Noonan linked on Google News, I knew it would be fab fodder for Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors. He doesn't disappoint. (Distributor Cap did some fun illustrations too, I might add.)

However, when I saw the title of the babblethon, "We Pay Them to Be Rude to Us," I thought it might be fodder for political commentary. Noonan didn't disappoint either. So, I broke my rule about linking to Rupert Murdoch's media empire to dish her crap.

What I find so intriguing about Ms. Noonan's meandering prose in this case is that she complains about things that are the fault of the rightist era brought into place in this country by her idol, the execrable Ronald Reagan.

Once we were a great industrial nation. Now we are a service economy. Which means we are forced to interact with each other, every day, in person and by phone and email. And it's making us all a little mad.

Ronnie was the person who pushed a "free trade" agreement with Mexico that eventually was implemented by fellow rightist, Bill Clinton. Instead of calling for higher tariffs to keep corporations from exporting industry abroad. Ronnie was a cheerleader for deindustrialization. All the rightists who have been in the office have supported corporate controlled trade too. Yet, she doesn't see the connection between the right and our service oriented economy.

Noonan also complains about a letter she got a few years back.

I wrote of the same experience a few years ago and got a letter from a saleswoman in a big department store. She said, I paraphrase: "You misunderstand, it's not that we haven't been taught how to behave, it's that we have. We are trained to make and maintain eye contact, we are taught to intrude, we are instructed to act in a way that people used to recognize as rude behavior."

This is mainly the result of conservative policies. The primary cause is the draining of income from the poor and middle class and the diversion to the rich. That has increased shoplifting, whose prevention is the main goal of all that "friendly" but really watchful behavior by salespeople.

Peggy Noonan later complained about the tightened security in airports that is the result of the right's foreign policies and the efforts to create a terrorized populace at home. Her specific complaints about a screener are loaded with irony, given her position to the political right.

When I'd first gone through the machine and then been manhandled, a month before, I was so taken aback that I blurted "Wow, that was embarrassing." I said it softly, in a way that invited mild commiseration of the "I know, I'm sorry I have to do this" sort. Instead, with full Dead Face, the TSA woman said, "Have a nice day." As I walked away I thought: She has been taught by consultants how to "handle" people like me. Her instructions are that if anyone accepts her ministrations with anything but passive surrender, she is to show she is impervious and keep the line moving. She is probably taught this in a class given by government contractors who are paid by taxpayers to handle taxpayers. Meaning I pay her to be rude to me.

I'll have to number these.

1) Customer service oriented at shutting up consumers and getting them to take it is part and parcel of deregulation that has affected nearly every sector of our economy. Smiling while not giving a flying fuck has become a cultural norm in a society where corporations have way too much power. Why should corporations give a shit when government policy keeps the balance of power in their favor?

2) Contempt for consumers has grown as retail outlets consolidate. Much of the consolidation of that sector and others is illegal under antitrust law. But, conservative administrations refuse to engage in much beyond the most token enforcement of antitrust law. Corporations that don't need to fight for customers have created a situation where The Customer Is Serf, and that too has permeated the culture.

3) The excessive reliance on government contractors is the result of privatization of so much of our government, another rightist policy.

4) The disregard for privacy is one of the most prominent political tenets on the right. Ronnie's opposition to abortion was a prime example of it and set the stage for other violations of privacy. This all has gotten much worse after 911 where the right's politicians were more interested in using the attacks as an excuse to violate the privacy of innocent Americans than to actually improve our nation's defenses against terrorism. Anti regulatory sentiment also has kept regulations from being passed to restrict the voracious appetites of corporations for peoples' private information.

The Upshot

Ms. Noonan is pained by the effects on her person by living in a rightist society. I would be sympathetic towards her if not for how she has been one of the most obnoxious enablers of the very things she rails against. She recognizes that we all want an evacuation slide like the one taken by the heroic Steve Slater. But, she is so beholden to the very system that is making us all wish we could bail out sometimes.

Photo: WexDub

Update: Sean Fenley skewers Noonan for another recent column where she refuses to take responsibility for the rightist policies that are making most Americans justifiably outraged these days.

 

Bill Clinton always has been an incredibly corrupt, racist, and homophobic far right Republican posing as a Democrat. Yet, his ability to con people into believing almost anything has gotten far too many Democrats to act like he is some kind of legitimate Democratic Party leader.

Clinton again showed how what a wingnut he was when he participated in ads in Arkansas for ultra corrupt Senator Blanche Lincoln, the same Lincoln who has a well deserved reputation of being completely bought and paid for by the same corporate and wealthy interests that the Clintons have been bought and paid for. (CNN 6/4/10)

Incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln is pulling out the big guns in her bid to defeat a hard charging challenger in the Arkansas Democratic Senate run-off.

Now just four days away from her showdown with Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, Lincoln's newest campaign ad features former President Bill Clinton – the favorite son of Arkansan Democrats.

When will Democratis learn? Never, ever trust a Clinton!

Blanche Lincoln, like the Clintons, hates lebsian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans and wants us all dead. They all are fanatical racists. They all are corrupt war mongers who despise middle class and poor Americans. None of them have met a corporate campaign donor they didn't like. All of them should tattoo the words "For Sale" on their foreheads.

Some Democrats are calling for voting for a Green candidate. A Green Party candidate is infinitely better than an extremist Bush/Cheney/Limbaugh/Beck/Palin Republican like Blanche Lincoln.

 

The corporate media are spinning last week's off year elections like crazy. This commentary in the 11/8/09 Philadelphia Inquirer reflected the dominant narrative being pushed.

Even before voters went to the polls last week, moderate congressional Democrats were anxious. Would the swing voters who coalesced around Barack Obama almost exactly one year ago stay with the Democrats or defect to the Republicans?

The answer came Tuesday night as Republican gubernatorial candidates swept to power in New Jersey and Virginia, with the help of large packs of self-described independents.

Exit polls circulating on the House floor Wednesday were even more unnerving to Democrats. The Republican candidates, the polls indicated, had received the votes of two-thirds of independent voters.

There is an underlying assumption with this analysis, that the independent voters in the two years' elections were demographically comparable. One obvious problem with such analysis is that independent voters are not a cohesive, uniform group. There consist several major categories of independents.

1) Independents with who are equally supportive or hostile to Democrats and Republicans over time: The corporate media pretend that this group represents all independents.

2) Republican leaning independents

3) Democratic leaning independents

4) Independents who are to the left of the Democrats

In last week's elections, turnout was quite low. The only category of independents that turned out much at all was category 2. Let's talk about why the other independents showed little interest in these elections.

1) Neither party has performed very well in Congress or in the state houses in terms of actual governing. That gives neutral independents very little positive reason to show up. Since off year elections aren't Earth shatteringly important, there wasn't much reason for this group to be afraid of not showing up.

3) and 4) The Democrats in Congress and the White House have governed more like Republicans than Democrats. They can't seem to get even a strong public option through, even though that is a compromise from what the overwhelming majority of Americans want, Medicare for All (the dominant single payer proposal in the US).

When you take Democratic oriented independents, left independents, and registered Democrats, you have some people who have been seriously demoralized by the behavior of the White House, the Congressional leadership, and corrupt Phonycrats like Max Baucus whose elective offices have been treated as if they were up for auction on EBay. Look at the core Democratic/liberal constituencies that have been ignored or screwed over big time.

- The Peace Movement

- Abortion Rights Supporters

- Liberal Activists

- Organized Labor

- Human Rights Activists

- Marijuana Legalization Advocates

- The Poor

- The Middle Class

- Supporters of State/Church Separation

- Advocates of Economic Justice

Queers have done a bit better, getting passage of hate crimes legislation. But, we had to mount a national march, protest an HRC dinner where Obama was speaking, and go ballistic on the blogs to even get the Democrats to acknowledge that we exist.

Under these circumstances, it isn't shocking that many voters who turned out in 2008 stayed home in 2009. The pools of independent voters in the two years were in no way comparable.

Yet, the corporate media make an apples to orgasms comparison in order to justify their claim that the Democrats actually need to move to the right. Of course, the corporate media always tell the Democrats to move to the right regardless of election results, while never telling the Goppers to move to the left. But, what is bizarre is that the post election shift in the House healthcare debate indicates that the Democrats are actually following this crazy advice.

The GOP style governing by the "Democratic" leadership is causing other problems for the jackasses. People who are frustrated and demoralized are not volunteering for campaigns. Also, liberal donors have had to put resources into ads against corrupt Phonycrats like the appalling Max Baucus, money that could have gone to helping Democratic candidates. Many of us are refusing all DNC, DCCC, and DSCC donation requests as a matter of basic ethics.

If the Democrats don't get their heads out of their posteriors and move to the left, many of their voters will stay home in 2010. Much of the donor well will run dry for the Democrats in 2010 unless things get better. This will put the GOP in a position to pick up seats, in spite of that party's many weaknesses. Democrats need to govern in a way that brings real, positive change.

A lot of this goes back to the corporate shills' distortion of the 1994 GOP election results. Bill Clinton, a rightist Dixiecrat pushed through a more draconian version of the military ban and corrupt trade deals like NAFTA while taking very little positive action on issues Democrats care about. Core Democratic constituencies stayed home in response, and the corporate media spun it as the nation shifting to the right and embracing the values of the GOP.



Many Democrats are stupid enough to believe that spin to this very day. If they don't wake up and listen to their own voters, history may very well repeat itself.

Photos: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
phatman
veni markovski

Just as the HRC did when they invited homophobes like Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi to be their keynote speakers, history repeated itself when the Champagne Fund (Human Rights Campaign) rewarded Barack Obama for empty rhetoric and heterosexist substance at this weekend's annual dinner.

Fortunately, there were self respecting queers protesting outside the dinner. From the Washington Blade 10/11/09:

Tuxedo clad guests walking to the Washington Convention Center to see President Obama's speech Saturday before the Human Rights Campaign's annual dinner were greeted by a line of about 75 LGBT activists who criticized the president for not moving fast enough on LGBT rights legislation.

The protesters unfurled a 25 foot long banner bearing the words, "A Chicago Welcome for Obama: Keep your 0#% promises! Repeal DOMA, Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Protest organizer Andy Thayer, a member of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, said he and members of the Dallas-based Queer Liberaction called the protest to raise objections to what they believe has been the president's record so far of "all talk and no action."

The quote from the protest flier says it so well:

"For too many years the LGBT movement has been the plaything of the Democratic Party," said a statement handed out by the protesters. "Courted for money and votes when they needed us, abused and disrespected once they're in power."

The Democratic Party is supportive of queers at the local level in some states and cities, but the national party continues to exploit and abuse queers. Just because the Republicans are even worse is no excuse for how execrable the congressional and White House Democrats have been to us.

I know that Obama threw some platitudes at the self loathing queers at the HRC dinner who put pageantry over activism. I don't care. Empty speeches are mostly offensive and irritating at this point.

Employment discrimination legislation should have been passed in the late 70s, yet the Democratic Congress still hasn't put the legislation on Obama's desk to sign or veto. It's 2009. This is unacceptable.

 

I couldn't believe those shitheads dared to drop a mailing scheduled to arrive the same time that Senate Democrats were eviscerating healthcare reform. Even worse, the letter came from a corrupt, racist, sexist, and viciously homophobic Republican: Bill Clinton. At least those jackasses will have to pay the postage since they enclosed a Business Reply Mail envelope.

Take Me Off of Your Mailing Lists!

I can't believe I got a fundraising letter from you scumbags on today of all days, the day that ultracorrupt and unpatriotic Sen. Max Baucus (a “Democrat”) eviscerated healthcare reform and told middle class and poor Democratic voters to shut up and die without medical treatment.

The fact that the Democrats couldn't even pass a watered down approach like a public option is reprehensible. You pieces of walking garbage should have already pushed through single payer with budget reconciliation, but you won't even do the public option. The idea that a dime of mine could ever go to a politician like Max Baucus who might as well have “For Sale” tattooed on his forehead is absolutely sickening.

Even worse, the fundraising letter came from Bill Clinton, a corrupt, racist, sexist, and homophobic Republican who is guilty of murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians through his illegal sanctions. This is the same corrupt Bill Clinton that pushed through financial derugulation, NAFTA, and the WTO. All of those three things were major causes of the financial meltdown and the bailouts.

The thing that is most personally offensive about receiving any kind of correspondence from Bill Clinton is that he is one of the most notorious and vicious homophobes of 20th Century America. I haven't forgotten how he pushed through an even more draconian and vicious version of the military ban than the one that was there before. I haven't forgotten how he discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in Cabinet level appointments. I haven't forgotten how he refused to lift a finger on behalf of ENDA and hate crimes legislation.

Sending a fundraising letter from Bill Clinton to a gay man like myself is the equivalent of spitting in my face. I won't forget this, and I won't forgive you for it either.

Shame on you bigots!

In a previous posting calling for his resignation from the Senate, I went into detail on how Max Baucus is a bought politician and how his corruption was effecting efforts to pass genuine healthcare reform.

 

Hat tip Fishbowl America!



Let's start with the military ban. Bill Clinton claims that the problem with his deceptively labeled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was with its implementation despite the fact that he deliberately designed it to increase the number of discharges and witchhunts. Queer veterans groups at the time were warning people that this version was even worse than the version Reagan put in place as an Executive Order.

Clinton also lied about congressional support to sustain a veto of a military ban. In 1993, 35 Senators voted to lift the ban completely with no support from the Clinton White House. It only takes 34 Senators to sustain a veto.

Here are a couple of facts about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that you may not know.

1) Military commanders are allowed to launch investigations of sexual orientation without anyone coming out based on any or no evidence. These witchhunts even have involved placing undercover military police in gay bars.

2) If a soldier tells her mother she is a lesbian, she is violating "DADT" and is subject to discharge.

3) If a marine tells his boyfriend he is gay, he is violating "DADT" and is subject to discharge.

(That's why it pisses me off when people call it "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" itself is one of Bill Clinton's homophobic lies.)

Bill Clinton also lied about DOMA. He said he didn't want to sign it, yet he ran campaign ads in 1996 on fundamentalist Christian radio bragging about signing it. Oops!

Lane Hudson deserves a lot of credit for challenging this vicious and evil bigot. I find it disturbing how little support he got from the audience. It shows how serious a problem heterosexism is at Netroots Nation. That a vicious and evil bigot like Clinton was invited to speak at a supposedly liberal grassroots conference is truly disturbing. It isn't that surprising, given the fact that Netroots Nation was started by the center right, sexist, and homophobic Daily Kos.

Clinton's bigotry was hardly limited to his heterosexual supremacy. He pushed fraudulent "welfare reform" legislation designed to scapegoat and punish women of color because we live in a society without full employment. Clinton also supported high interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve deliberately designed to keep unemployment higher than it otherwise would be in order to promote downward pressure on middle class wages. Bill Clinton's crusade to undermine affirmative action is yet another example of his racism.

Let's not forget that Clinton maintained sanctions on Iraq long after the first US/Iraq War was over. These sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bill Clinton isn't just a racist. He's a genocidal racist. In fact, under international law, Clinton should be serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.

If you look at policy rather than rhetoric, it is obvious how little difference there is between Bill Clinton and the most bigoted of Republicans. If you think there is a meaningful difference, you have fallen for the hype.

 

I remember when the Goppers pushed the phony baloney impeachment of Bill Clinton. Clinton was widely unpopular among liberals and progressives for his conservative, Republican policies. Yet, the unfair and anti democratic impeachment fraud led many on the left to sympathize with a President who brought us financial deregulation, NAFTA, the WTO, scapegoating and punishing women of color on welfare, draconian budget cuts, and a harsher version of military ban signed into law, replacing the previous executive order.

I saw so many liberals identify with Bill Clinton, our political enemy. It was so surreal.

Now, the Goppers have gone even further. They are trying to rile up their nutjobs into assassinating Barack Obama and other center right Democrats. This is vile and unpatriotic. It's no wonder that so many liberals and progressives are defending politicians who are, once again, their political opponents.

We are allowing ourselves to be backed into a corner by the far right tactics. There must be another way, and there is.

We need to strongly attack and condemn the far right for what they are doing. But, that must not stop us from speaking out against policies of center right Democrats that are far too similar to the corporatist agenda of the last 29 years. Speaking out against conservative policies pushed by Democrats also has the beneficial tactic of raising questions in the minds of some of the rightists as to just how "liberal" the Democratic Party leadership really is.

We are in a difficult situation, but losing our nerve only makes things worse. Failing to learn from our mistakes during the Clinton Administration is not a luxury liberals or this country can afford.

 

Hat Tip for the graphic goes to Traveling Man Rick's Blog.



At least they are putting "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in quotes. DADT is a more draconian version of the military ban than the one that Reagan put into place. It has the force of law, rather than being an executive order too, which makes it more difficult to change. Thanks Bill Clinton.

Anyway, an aspect of the Obama administration's enforcement that is particularly galling is their law enforcement priorities. They are going full out to enforce the military ban and discharge queers, but Bush regime war criminals are not being prosecuted for crimes against humanity. There are plenty of banksters, broksters, and mortgage brokers who already should have been prosecuted for fraud, yet most of them are not facing any well deserved criminal charges.

When it comes to the military ban, the Obama Administration says the law is the law. When it comes to wealthy and well connected criminals guilty of truly heinous offenses, the Obama people say that we need to look forward, not backward.

This is total bullshit.

Photo: jurvetson

 

A recent post on Preserve, Protect, and Defend does an excellent job of pointing out the frustrations Obama supporters have with his conservative critics in the corporate media and in Congress. I encourage you to read the whole post, part of which I'm excerpting here.

I'm so sick of all the talking-heads that spout only drivel, second-guessers, back-seat-drivers, know-nothings and do-nothings that I could vomit.

At the same time that they're telling Obama that he's not doing enough: that he should have solved the economic crisis by now— you know, the one that took at least all the years since Reagan took office to create —they're managing to tell him that he's doing too much. Somehow, they've managed to convince themselves he can do both simultaneously.
And they accuse us of calling him Superman.

What they're actually saying is that they don't want to save the environment and create sustainable energy sources. They don't want the rest of us to have affordable health care. They don't want to care for our veterans. They don't want to allow the children of us peons to receive an education. And they absolutely refuse to see how all these matters are related to each other and the economy.

It is understandable that people would be tired of the nihilism and opportunism of the right. However, we all have a responsibility to be "back seat drivers" and "second guessers." In a democracy , that is our responsiblity and inalienable right. We have to remember that politicians work for us, not the other way around.

There are critics on the left who are making legitimate points about the need for Obama to do more. He needs to do more, a lot more, in many areas. Here are some blatantly obvious examples.

- Budgeting a massive expansion of our nation's public transportation network

- Rapidly and completely withdrawing from a war on Iraq that is devastating our economy while destroying theirs

- Working for a moratorium on foreclosures

- Supporting HR 676, the single payer healthcare bill, rather than imperiously saying that single payer is "off the table"

- Restoring all the financial regulations that were included in the Glass-Steagall Act, which was slowly eviscerated by Republicans as well as Phonycrats like Bill Clinton

- Subjecting hedge funds to all the same transparency and regulations of regular mutual funds

- Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich ASAP, given the easily observed fact that tax cuts for the rich slow the economy and helped to cause the crises we face

- Budgeting money for the Gulf Coast Civil Works Project

- Working in a calm, cooperative manner with the international community to repeal NAFTA and other corporate controlled trade agreements, including dissolving the World Trade Organization

- Strongly enforcing our nation's antitrust laws so we won't have the economic disruptions caused by huge corporations going under

- Firing Larry Summers, chief Clinton administration architect of financial deregulation and corporate controlled trade deals

These are just areas where there are deficiencies in Obama's economic policies. There are a lot of policy deficiencies in other areas too.

We need to push Obama hard, not blindly support a center-right Democrat like him. We can't afford to go along with too much of the same when the same is devastating our country. Liberals and progressives cannot afford to make the same mistake we made before of giving Bill Clinton a chance. That was a disaster. We need to fight hard no matter which politician is in office.

 

Cleve Jones, famous queer activist from San Francisco, is unhappy with Bill Clinton. From his Huffington Post article:

This Sunday, President Clinton is scheduled to give a paid speech at the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego to the annual convention of a major political action committee, the International Franchise Association.

To give this speech, President Clinton will have to violate a union boycott and labor dispute - the workers at the hotel lack job security and the housekeepers face onerous workloads. He will also offend gay and lesbian Americans, including myself - the owner of the hotel, Doug Manchester, contributed $125,000 in early seed money to the Proposition 8 campaign. President Clinton should move this speech.

Pride @ Work is understandably frustrated. They are asking people to take action about the speech which will take place tomorrow. (From their Email Alert.)

You can make a difference, and it only takes a minute. Take a moment and visit the Clinton Foundation and ask President Clinton to move his speech to another hotel, preferably one that doesn't have a record of virulent anti-gay and anti-union organizing. President Clinton's speech is this Sunday! Please email the foundation today and let them know you expect more out of President Clinton.

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/contact-form

Bill Clinton always was a vicious homophobe. He is the anti-labor extremist who brought us NAFTA and the WTO. Hillary Clinton worked for a union busting law firm. This latest offense doesn't shock me, but there is another aspect of this that is the third repulsive one.

Bill Clinton has made millions from "speaking fees," following in the sleazy footsteps of Ronald Reagan. These supposed "speaking fees" far exceed the monetary value of the speakers, in terms of the money they can draw for the companies and trade associations making the hires.

These fees are rewards for policies that benefit the interests of the people who are paying the fees. The whole thing is rotten to the core and should be illegal.

 

These are listed in alphabetical order, since it just isn't worth trying to decide which one is the worst. Nutty rightist policies are just as nutty regardless of the political affiliations of the people who shove them down our throats.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG
Micheal Bloomberg isn't just the most execrable mayor in NYC history, he has been one of the biggest driving forces in bringing our economy to its knees. His Bloomberg media empire constantly pushed short term profits over long term security to bankers, brokers, and to CEOs in companies that actually produce value in the economy. If his media assets had acted rationally and responsibly, we would be in a much smaller economic whole.

GEORGE W. BUSH
The Iraq War has been a huge drag on our economy during its long, disgusting time. It also has massively increased our foreign debt, a major problem during a liquidity crisis. Bush's tax cuts for the rich financed massive speculation which expanded and burst several bubbles when the money should have gone to a better social safety net for middle class and poor Americans. This corrupt and unelected regime also refused to enforce the limited financial market regulations that hadn't been wiped out by the previous administration and its collaborators.

BILL CLINTON
This alleged "Democrat" pushed hard for financial deregulation which enabled the wave of irresponsible behavior on Wall St. The Internet bubble happened on his watch, and the economic conditions Clinton pushed created a climate for bubble hopping (dot coms to gold to real estate etc.,) which continued after his miserable presidency was cut off due to term limits. Clinton also made his top policy priority pushing corporate controlled trade initiatives such as NAFTA and the WTO which dramatically increased our trade deficits (causing massive borrowing from foreign interests). These corrupt trade arrangements shipped a lot of decent making jobs overseas, making it harder for Americans to afford mortgages. Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" created a climate of scapegoating for women of color which made it more socially acceptable for them to be targeted for predatory and downright fraudulent subprime mortgages.

HENRY PAULSON
This schmuck refused to take the regulatory responsibilities of Treasury Secretary even remotely seriously. Even worse were his actions as Goldman Sachs' CEO. In a previous posting, I quoted Naomi Klein on Democracy Now! Her quote is equally valid today.

NAOMI KLEIN: You know, Amy, I don’t think we can stress this enough. Henry Paulson is one of the key people, the top people, responsible for creating the crisis that he is now claiming he will solve, you know, and this is—if we think about the 9/11 analogy and, you know, the state of shock that Americans were in after 9/11 and the emergence of Rudy Giuliani as the savior—and, you know, people have so much regret about that. And in the book, I write about this as the state of regression that we go into when we’re frightened. And I think Henry Paulson has really been cast in this role as an economic Rudy Giuliani, saving the day, impartial, bipartisan, a strong leader.

I found this article in BusinessWeek that ran when Paulson was appointed to the Treasury, and I just want to read you one sentence, because I think it’s all we need to know about Henry Paulson. This is from BusinessWeek, when he got the appointment as Treasury Secretary in 2006. The headline of the article is “Mr. Risk Goes to Washington.” It says, “Think of Paulson as Mr. Risk. He’s one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in [their] pursuit of profits. By some key measures, the securities industry is more leveraged now than it was at the height of the 1990s boom.”

Then it goes on to say that when Paulson took over Goldman Sachs in 1999, they had $20 billion in debts. When he—in these high-risk gambles. When he left, they had $100 billion, which means he took their risk level from $20 billion to $100 billion. So it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that Henry Paulson, far from speaking for Main Street, is actually bailing out his colleagues for some of the very debts that he himself accumulated. This is an extraordinary conflict of interest.

I would say that a fox was watching the chicken coop, but foxes are too clever for this metaphor to really work.

LARRY SUMMERS
I still can't believe this sick joke is Obama's chief economic adviser. Summers was the architect of the economic equivalent of the Minnesota bridge collapse: Bill Clinton's trade and deregulation policies. Anyone who took the trouble of reading an American History book that covers the 20th Century would have known that unregulated financial markets were the main cause of the Crash of 1929, which was a major cause of the Great Depression. No responsible economist would have supported the lunatic economics of Bill Clinton's misadministration.

 

There has been a lot of commentary by Obama supporters on the reaction of the queer community to Obama's decision to have a fanatical bigot like Rick Warren give a blatantly unconstitutional invocation at the inauguration. Many Obama apologists have seen the furor merely as leftover rage at the passage of Prop. 8 in California and Warren's role in helping it to pass.

That certainly plays a role for many people, but the outrage, disappointment, and disgust among lgbt Americans at this goes way deeper than that. When someone has devoted an enormous amount of time promoting discrimination and violence against queers and women, giving them such a prominent role in an important government ceremony sends a viciously misogynistic and heterosexist message.

Such bigoted and divisive behavior from Barack Obama is seen among queers quite legitimately as a bait and switch. Obama had marketed himself as a supporter of lgbt issues and had made "change" his main campaign theme. Yet, Obama hasn't appointed even one openly queer person to his cabinet, following in the footsteps of Bush and Clinton. The involvement of a dangerous religious extremist like Warren is vintage Karl Rove politics...divide, divide, divide. Queers voted for Obama overwhelmingly, but we are getting Bush instead.

Those of us who have followed politics longer remember the betrayals, homophobia, and triangulation we experienced under Bill Clinton, a far right Republican who pretended to be a centrist Democrat. We have learned that you never "give him a chance" when "him" is a politician that has behaved as a heterosexual supremacist early on. We have learned the hard way that we have to fight bigots every step of the way.

Learning from history is a sign of political maturity in the queer movement. Obama, like Bush, has tried to pretend that history doesn't matter. It makes it easier for them to get away with doing whatever they want.

We know better.

The loss of lgbt support cost the Democrats a lot of House and Senate seats in 1994. Many of us stayed home. Very few of us volunteered for Democratic campaigns or made contributions to Democrats. Some of us voted Green instead of voting for a party that acted as if even treating us as second class citizens was too good for us. During the last Congress, we saw the efforts of Pelosi, Frank, and Reid to sabotage ENDA and hate crimes legislation. Now, with Obama's frighteningly homophobic behavior of late, we are a constituency the Democrats have lost.

They will have to do a lot at this point to win us back.

 

It's official.

Barack Obama is as heterosexist as Bill Clinton.