Remember Amendment 2 from Colorado? That wasn't the last hate Amendment in that state. There is an Amendment 62, which uses the fraudulent premise that human life begins at conception to not only try to ban abortion in the cases of rape and incest, but to ban most forms of birth control, and to ban embryonic stem cell research. You can learn more about this misogynist, hate Amendment from the No 62 campaign.

The Young Turks did a great video on this subject.



The opposition to birth control and stem cell research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the anti choice movement doesn't give a rats ass about "human life." Of course, their opposition to life saving condom distribution and real HIV education proved that point long ago. These people are rabidly anti sex, except for all the sex they are having.

Militant, Christian fundamentalists like to pretend that they are so much more moral than the rest of us. Yet, when they aren't busy stealing money from their congregations, molesting children, or breaking all of their own sexual taboos, they are so fond of act that is supposed to be immoral in every value system I've ever heard of: lying.

 

Jon Stewart is being heavily marketed by the rightist corporate media as a "liberal" or a "moderate," but I stopped watching him over the past two years when it became clear that he was putting a more reasonable sounding patina on the same agenda as extremists like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Fred Phelps, and Rush Limbaugh. The last straw was when he did a couple of rantings filled with misogynistic, heterosexist, and pro rape jokes defending the notoriously bigoted rightist, Scott Brown.

However, Stewart keeps getting more smarmy, bigoted, and rightist in his goals. His alleged "Rally to Restore Sanity," is an extreme example of his efforts to market right fringe ideology to moderates and liberals. Much has been made of Stewart's efforts to fictionalize false equivalencies between perfectly reasonable behavior of progressives and liberals and the dishonest, bigoted, and fanatical rantings of the far right. One example of this is when Stewart tries to pretend that CODEPINK is insane and even plausibly comparable to the teabaggers.

This obviously reflects Stewart's pro war agenda and his previously demonstrated hatred of women. CODEPINK is a perfectly sensible organization whose behavior is entirely consistent with reason and actual facts, though it strongly contradicts the desires of Jon Stewart's bosses in corporate America.

However, his claim that stating the fact that Bush is a war criminal is somehow insane goes even further, stretching into Rush Limbaugh or Carl Paladino territory. Let's look at what Bush's regime did with the Iraq War.

1) The Iraq War was a war of aggression, which is a war crime under international law.

2) The Bush regime's policy of routine torture of prisoners is a war crime under international law.

3) The Iraq War was an act of racist and anti Islamic genocide which killed over 1.3 million people, a horrific war crime.

Keep in mind that these international laws that Bush broke were written by the US to prosecute Nazi war criminals after the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II. This wasn't something foreign or alien imposed on the United States.

You might try to use ignorance as a defense for Stewart. For the war of aggression, that might work. Most Americans don't know that wars of aggressions are war crimes, and Stewart isn't exactly the most well informed person on TV, much less in the real world. The second war crime of mass torture is more difficult to defend. Stewart may be a dumb comic, but is he really that stupid and ignorant? However, Stewart cannot be defended on the grounds that he doesn't know that genocide is a war crime.

Ever Jewish person learns at some point in life that genocide is a war crime. Everyone else should too.

Why does Stewart think that stating the fact that Bush is a war criminal is "insane"? It has to do with Stewart's own racial and religious prejudices. Like so many on the far right, Stewart doesn't see Muslims as humans, nor does he see any person who isn't white as human. Keep in mind that he is loudly proclaiming this himself when he says that it is "insane" to acknowledge the fact that Bush is a war criminal.

Stewart's decision to go rabidly bigoted and pro war didn't occur in the absence of the context of corporate power. All the cable news networks, the old school news shows, and entertainment networks like Stewarts' Comedy Central have gone on a spasm of rightist hatred and bigotry every since Barack Obama has been inaugurated. Part of it is due to network executives and advertisers reasserting their extreme right agendas over what the own or pay for.

However, Stewart's scapegoating of oppressed groups and cynical efforts to attack and divide the left also reflect a strategy of corporate America and its propagandists to deflect attention from how the banksters, the brokesters, the speculators, and the CEOs are ripping the rest of us off while we all suffer. At the same time that the scapegoating goes on, the corporate propaganda networks heavily censor liberal or progressive alternatives to the crap we are getting from politicians and pundits.

Jon Stewart is gleefully leading efforts to equate thoughtful and factual analysis with the far right's incendiary lies. This is an intimidation tactic against liberals and progressives, and I'm not falling for it.

 

Hillary Clinton never met an oil corporation she wouldn't pander to, so this isn't terribly surprising. (From a Sierra Club email blast promoting an Action Alert.)

Just a few days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she is inclined to approve the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

"We're either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada."

We disagree.

We don't have to import dirty oil from the dirtiest energy project on earth, the Canadian Tar Sands and we certainly don’t have to send billions overseas to oil-rich countries, while we sacrifice clean energy job creation here at home.

We need to push back and fast before the State Department makes its final decision on this dirty oil pipeline.

In a previous posting, I outlined some of the alternatives to depending on more petroleum. We simply don't need this especially filthy tar sands oil.

Besides, encouraging more oil production is the exact opposite of sound public policy that would try to prevent and reverse Global Warming. This is a pipeline to droughts, floods, and species extinction.

Even before Citizens United, it was difficult to get politicians to set aside the special interests of Big Oil. That corrupt Supreme Court ruling has made things even worse. That makes taking action even more important.

Please Take Action Now!

Photo: World Economic Forum

 

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

 

Photo: Derek Bridges

John McCain is the most corrupt politician to ever hold a US Senate seat. He also is a pathological liar and a reprehensible hypocrite. One of the most blatant examples of "Keating Five" McCain's dishonesty and hypocrisy can be found on the subject of government spending. Here's some particularly offensive nonsense from his website.

For years, John McCain has fought against wasteful and excessive spending — and leadership is needed now more than ever to curb such waste. With an agenda of bigger government and higher taxes, the current Administration and its allies in Congress have more than quadrupled the budget deficit in this year alone. In 2009, the federal government spent more than $1.4 trillion more than it actually had — growing our national debt to more than $12 trillion, much of which is owed to foreign nations. What happens when countries like China stop financing our debt? John McCain believes America’s destiny is too promising to be squandered by placing our economic wherewithal in the hands of foreign governments.

The two biggest sources of wasteful government spending are the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yet, John McCain supports both rabidly, showing just how bought and paid for he is by Big Oil, mercenary corporations, and arms merchants. Even worse, this spectacular liar pushed for a huge and expensive escalation in Iraq instead of the vastly superior option of a full and immediate withdrawal.

No one can honestly say they are against wasteful government spending and then turn around and support and expand two wasteful and murderous wars.

McCain also has shown his utter lack of concern about budget deficits by fighting to continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich. That might make him a dutiful kept man who wants to keep Cindy happy so she won't throw him out of more houses than he can remember, but it isn't the action of someone who is against budget deficits.

"Keating Five" McCain is another big deficit, big war Republican who spews nonsense about being against deficits when he is running for reelection. Yet, he insists on policies that balloon deficits without providing even the slightest benefit to society. McCain represents everything that is hypocritical, extreme, and stupid about the GOP. Most of all, he represents everything that is corrupt in DC.

McCain may think he has distracted people with his jihad against legislation that might possibly lift the military ban against queers if Robert Gates, a homophobic Bush crime family crony, consents to it. I'm not distracted in the slightest. I know that he is just as corrupt as he is heterosexist, and I have no respect whatsoever for that piece of walking garbage.



 

Get Equal has launched a donor boycott against politicians and organizations that haven't done enough to fight for queer equality. Here's the text of their petition.

GetEQUAL has launched a campaign called "We'll Give When We GetEQUAL," asking LGBT Americans and straight allies to withhold time and money from political entities that are not fighting as hard for our equality as they are for our checkbooks.

We're not the first ones to voice frustration with both Democrats and Republicans for holding our equality hostage (see here, here, and here). And we're not going away -- despite the efforts of Democratic apologists who continue to raise the specter of President Palin to scare us into donating.

Are we asking you not to vote? Absolutely not -- too many social movements have fought for that hard-earned right that must not be thrown away. Are we asking you not to donate or support pro-equality candidates? That's up to you -- there are several pro-equality candidates that need support, especially because they are minority voices in their party.

Are we asking you to withhold money and time from those who refuse to find concrete ways to work toward our collective equality? YES!

Our tolerance and patience -- while we lose our jobs, are denied our right to marry, are forbidden to serve our country openly, and are forced to watch our youth kill themselves because they have no dignity or hope -- is gone. We are asking you to withhold your support from political parties and committees until President Obama, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, takes the first step toward LGBT equality and signs an Executive Order to IMMEDIATELY halt all military discharges of lesbian, gay, and bisexual soldiers.

Why continue to organize on behalf of politicians when we need to be organizing for ourselves?

Still not sure about the campaign? Check out our FAQ page to get all of your questions answered!

In response to the email originally calling for this campaign, a DNC vice chair threw a brief tantrum and made laughable claims that he actually has raised more money from queers this year than ever. (That is quite giggle worthy.)



I also can't help but laugh at how the Democratic Party establishment uses the idea of a President Palin to scare liberals and queers into going along with how we have been betrayed. Those hucksters know damn well that the GOP simply isn't going to nominate any woman for President.

 

The militant, anti American fundamentalists at the Crystal Cathedral in California have spent so lavishly that they are in bankruptcy proceedings (Hat Tip: I Can't Believe It's Not a Democracy). Apparently, they are trying to work through the bankruptcy and reorganize like any other business. Hopefully, they won't make it.

The article says that lots of megachurches are in financial trouble. It couldn't happen to a nastier and viler bunch of people. I wonder if their counterparts in Al Qaeda are as financially irresponsible.

 

Paladino hates women too. I know. You are shocked, just shocked!



So, Paladino wants to reduce women to the legal status of incubators. Is there any level of hatred, bigotry, and just plain stupidity that Paladino won't sink to?

I'm so glad that NARAL NY is speaking out against this hateful monster. More people should be doing so.

 

As I have pointed out before, Rand Paul might as well have the words "For Sale" tattooed on his forehead. As usual, Paul is taking his panhandling approach to policy to outlandish extremes, this time calling for replacing the Income Tax with a 23 percent sales tax.

From the Louisville Courier Journal 10/12/10:

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul said Tuesday the federal tax code is a “disaster,” and he wants to replace the income tax with a 23 percent sales tax on goods and services.

Paul said he supports changing the federal tax code to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service and would vote to repeal the 16th Amendment that created the federal income tax.

“The federal tax code is a disaster no one would come up with if we were starting from scratch,” Paul said in a written statement distributed by an anti-tax group and verified by Paul's campaign. “I support making taxes flatter and simpler. I would vote for the FairTax to get rid of the 16th Amendment, the IRS and a lot of the control the federal government exerts over us.”

This would shift a huge proportion of taxation away from rich people who write Rand Paul enormous campaign checks and towards the middle class and the poor. The lost revenues would result in severe cutbacks or even elimination for public services used by the middle class and the poor including public education, unemployment benefits, public libraries, police, and fire departments.

Teabagger politicians get more and more brazen in paying back their money people every day.

Photo: Rand Paul for U.S. Senate 2010 (released under the Creative Commons license)

This might shock people who are still in denial about the rampant child molestation in the Roman Catholic Church. Voice of the Faithful, a group that argues for reform of the Roman Catholic Church from within, has published a study showing just how pervasive sexual abuse complaints have been in Chicago. Here are the most disturbing conclusions.

Among the study’s key findings:
• A total of 256 of the Chicago Archdiocese’s roughly 400 parishes and institutions, or approximately 60%, had an accused pedophile priest working there or in residence at some point in time.
• The percentage of parishes and institutions ministered by credibly accused priests approached 25% in the mid-1990’s. In 2009, one in five institutions in the archdiocese still had a credibly accused priest in residence.
• According to a comparison of priest assignments with ZIP codes, credibly accused priests were assigned exclusively to institutions in 135 out of the 263 ZIP codes in the Archdiocese of Chicago. No credibly accused priests were ever assigned to any of the remaining 128 ZIP codes.
• Of the 135 ZIP code areas where assignments were made, 13 ZIP codes received the most work assignments. Initial findings suggest that these areas tended to have higher concentrations of African-Americans and low median household income levels. Analysis of the demographics of the 135 assigned ZIP code areas is continuing.
• 64%, or 63 of the 97 credibly accused priests, lived at the same location at the same time as one or more other credibly accused priests

The roles of racism and classism in this were interesting, but hardly surprising. The Roman Catholic Church always has been a horribly racist and classist institution.

One thing that should be noted is that the study only includes instances where clerical rape victims spoke out against what was done to them. As was mentioned earlier in this blog, Sinead O'Connor has publicized that the RCC clergy have coerced abused children into signing oaths of silence that the pontiff alone can release them from. As you would expect, Ratzi has refused to acknowledge the existence of the oaths, much less release people from them. So, we know that the actual level of child molestation by RCC clergy was much higher than that which was documented in this ground breaking study.

I think it is really wonderful and courageous for Voice of the Faithful to do the study, but it is incredibly difficult for me to understand why they stay in their church. They themselves have documented monstrous behavior that their church's leaders have committed with little or no consequences from their church. I find it extremely difficult to empathize with the incredibly strong pull religions have on people who are so much better than their faiths.

(Thanks to Michael of Norfolk for alerting me to the story.)