As the oil leak in the Gulf keeps getting bigger, one has to wonder if Obama administration officials will get their collective heads out of their asses and cancel their offshore drilling plans. Like the Bush regime, President Obama treats Big Oil as if it is one of the few industries in the country worth noticing.

What about fishing? What about tourism?

Then, there´s the whole problem of Global Warming, one Obama still doesn´t take seriously. He hasn´t even tried to start the massive expansion of our cities´ subways systems that is desperately needed to fight climate change and provide lasting green jobs. ¨Drill baby, drill¨ seems to be just as much an Obama slogan as a Sarah Palin slogan.

Can this administration spare us some real change?

 

Photo: Muffett

Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the last three mayoral elections here in NYC, is continuing his jihad against accountability and integrity on Wall St.

He threw a tantrum just because members of Congress made some token efforts to retrive the stolen bonuses of the banksters and brokesters. (New York Magazine 4/21/10)

"I just find it sort of ironic that congressmen, senators who make more than double what the average person working in finance makes — they're the rich ones and they're talking about trying to restrict bonuses and taxing the industries that are our lifeblood," he said back in January. "Maybe we should hold back their salaries for a decade or so and see whether the laws they pass work out."

This is highly misleading, given the fact that the Wall St. goons make astronomical, unearned salaries in addition to the outlandish bonuses they have received for destroying a significant portion of the world economy.

Cracking down on the banksters and brokesters will help our economy here in NYC in the long term. The only things to prevent more events like the Crash of 2008 are ending excessive bonuses based on short term financial gains, massive regulation of the financial disservices industry, and breakups of its biggest corporations.

Bloomberg doesn't care about the long term. His evil media empire preaches short term profits over corporate sustainability and pressures every company to toe the line. He already has many times over the wealth that any one person could possibly earn in a dozen lifetimes, but that doesn't satisfy his insatiable greed or the avarice of so many other speculators.

Our not so Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer isn't exactly strong on getting the banksters and brokesters under control, but even he isn't kissing butt enough to satisfy Daddy Bloombucks (Politico 4/21/10).

In an April 12 meeting in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spacious office overlooking the National Mall, Bloomberg said that Schumer has been “AWOL,” that “this is a real problem for New York City” and that “our senators who are normally in the middle of it aren’t there,” according to a Republican senator briefed on the meeting.

Another person familiar with the meeting said Bloomberg was simply agreeing with criticism of Schumer leveled by McConnell and didn’t lash out pre-emptively: “They said that Chuck was not doing anything, that he was very unhelpful, that he wasn’t providing the ballast for New York,” the source said, adding, “Bloomberg didn’t disagree.”

Bloomberg is fond of using the talking point that cracking down on Wall St. is somehow attacking New York. This is typical of a Mayor who has worked tirelessly to drive middle class and poor people out of this city to make it an exclusive gated community of the rich. His attitude is that what is good for the banks, the brokerages, and the speculators is good for New York, or at least for the only people in New York he thinks count for anything.

This is an example of why we need public financing of campaigns and to make it illegal for rich people to buy elections through "self financing" (a ridiculous euphemism if I've ever read one). Plutocrats like Bloomberg must be made to respect real democracy.

Instead, he seems determined to prove Marxist right about class warfare.

 

Rightist nutjob and general airhead from the UK's Tory Party, David Cameron, was egged. Enjoy the video!



The egg tosser, Tyler Dixon, is my hero.

 

Religionists are constantly trying to shove religion down the throats of atheists and agnostics, but this is a fairly extreme example.

From American Atheists Press Release 4/21/10:

An Atheist public policy group praised a U.S. District Court Judge in California for defending the constitutional rights of a prison inmate who was compelled to attend religion-based drug and alcohol rehab sessions in order to qualify for parole.

Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. ruled that California officials erred when they forced 41-year-old Barry A. Hazel Jr. to enroll in Alcoholics Anonymous after serving a one-year sentence for drug possession. Hazel, a computer programmer, demanded that he be given access to an alternative secular program instead, and was mistakenly informed that one was not available. After refusing to participate in the faith-based 12-step regimen, Mr. Hazel was re-arrested and had to serve another three months in jail.

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists, praised the court for its finding in this case. "It is outrageous that any citizen be coerced into attending religious services or programs that 'push' religion in any form."

Buckner noted that just weeks after Mr. Hazel protested the violation of his rights, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued an order to all parole agents pointing out that they "cannot compel" a parolee to participate in any religion-themed program.

Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists said that "While Atheists and other non-believers make up a very small percentage of prison populations -- by some studies far less than one percent -- violating someone's religious liberty and freedom from religion is not some kind of a numbers game."

"There are secular programs for drug and alcohol rehabilitation that are available, and the government has an obligation to respect the rights of any incarcerated individual to refuse religious 'treatment'."

There's also a more pragmatic objection to this kind of religious coercion. A religious rehab program isn't likely to help a freethinker.

I also wonder how many religious rehab programs are queer supportive. Can you imagine be coerced into participating in a rehab program that is viciously heterosexist based on fundamentalist religious beliefs?

 

Ted Rall's syndicated column on Obama out Republicaning the Goppers is one of the best summaries of what has been wrong with this administration to date. The entire column is worth a read, but the comments on the wealthcare bill are of special interest.

Obama's revamp of healthcare, on the other hand, goes too far, perverting the liberal desire to provide healthcare for all Americans into a transfer of wealth from poor to rich that the hard right never dreamed of.

Buying into the classic, flawed, American assumption that a bad system can't get worse (ask the Iraqis and Afghans), ObamaCare entrusts 30 million new customers, to the tune of roughly ten grand a year each, to the tender mercies of private insurance companies.

ObamaCare pours hundreds of billions of dollars, some from taxpayers, the rest from poor people, into the gaping coffers of giant corporations. Once people find themselves paying even more for visits to the same crappy doctors and hospitals they can't afford now, they'll hold the Dems responsible at the polls. If Republicans stopped to think, they'd love it.

And if Democrats stopped to think, they'd hate it.

Some of us have stopped to think, and we do hate it.

The rightist policies of the Obama administration are going to cause some Democrats to vote Green at least some of the time for years. However, that won't be the biggest impact on the party. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their minions are doing a really effective job in persuading Democratic core constituencies that it doesn't matter much who you vote for. This means lower Democratic turnout and less volunteer time. The couch is a more effective rival than third parties, at least so far, and the DINOs in power are giving the couch a huge electoral advantage.

The Democrats are digging themselves in deeper and deeper, and they are too foolish and too bought to see it.

 

There has been a lot of controversy in Europe about Muslim women wearing the versions of the veil that cover up nearly all the face but the eyes. Some of the objections many Westerners have are based on perfectly legitimate feminist and anti religious critiques of the practice. Some objections are based on disturbing hostility against Muslims as a class of people. Some European fears are based on centuries past Muslim conquests of much of that continent and the way that Muslim rulers mistreated Christians.

However, there is a very basic area of discomfort that doesn't get much discussed, at least in media readily available to Americans. I read this 3/31/10 Guardian article on the efforts in Belgium to ban that kind of veiling which actually touched on this (bolding mine).

Daniel Bacquelaine, the liberal MP who proposed the bill, said: "We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at others without being seen.

"It is necessary that the law forbids the wearing of clothes that totally mask and enclose an individual. Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society."

In Western culture, wearing masks has generally served three purposes:

1) A naughty attempt to get outside of oneself while in costume. (In the US, that nearly always means Halloween.)

2) A way to avoid being identified during criminal activity, usually violent.

3) A way to keep warm during really, really cold weather, usually when skiing.

The visceral reaction that one gets to seeing someone whose face is covered up outside of a masquerade party generally is one of alertness and danger. Seeing someone do this on a normal city street during summer automatically sets off alarm bells. Some non Muslims have taken advantage of the burqa to commit robberies in Europe, which speaks volumes on how the Western mind interprets the covered face. This follows in the more common practice of criminals using ski masks when they rob.

The problem isn't limited to this sense of alarms. We communicate very heavily using facial expressions. That is a big part of how we establish trust. Until confronted with such a cultural practice, we don't even think about how much face to face communication means to us.

Westerners have often been criticized with good reason for being culturally insensitive when they travel to other countries and even when they move there (e.g., "ugly Americans"). We aren't used to having people from other countries coming to us and setting off our cultural sensitivities.

Obviously, this isn't the only reason why the facial covering by some Muslim women bothers Westerners. But, it is an important part that seldom even gets discussed.

Photos: CharlesFred

 

There is very little that makes sense in the corporate media's discussion of the rape of children by Roman Catholic clergy. That's why it is so important for people outside that corporate bubble to be the media.

FFRF did just that when they discussed the idea by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to have Ratzinger arrested if he shows up for his dog and pony show in the UK.

In other news of the week, atheism's eminent spokespersons, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, gave the freethought world a chuckle with their eminently sensible suggestion that Pope Benedict XVI be arrested by authorities when he visits the United Kingdom next September. British attorneys have suggested several scenarios. My favorite involves several wealthy Catholic donors who sue the pope for misusing their contributions to defend priests and hush victims.

Dawkins wrote in The Guardian: "Why is anyone surprised, much less shocked, when Christopher Hitchens and I call for the prosecution of the pope, if he goes ahead with his proposed visit to Britain? The only strange thing about our proposal is that it had to come from us: where have the world's governments been all this time?"

Where indeed? As FFRF keeps asking and has asked since 1988: When will a U.S. prosecutor or district attorney finally charge a bishop for coverup and collusion?

The lack of action by our government, like the inaction of so many governments, should be shocking, but it isn't. The Roman Catholic Church is so powerful it gets away with all sorts of terrible things.

Though it's less horrible than the RCC clergy's rampant rape of children, their constant violation of their tax exempt status results in absolutely no action whatsoever by the IRS. A typical middle class American has plenty to fear from the IRS, but a church riddled with child rapists can flaunt tax laws all it wants.

Administrations starting decades ago all the way up to the Obama administration should have demanded Joseph Ratzinger's extradition. Yet, nothing has happened. Nothing.

Religion is one of the most corrupting forces in society.

Photo: eürodäna

 

From the perspective of liberals, the Obama administration has been downright awful. Obama set the tone for his presidency by involving a misogynistic, heterosexist, and anti American religious extremist, Rick Warren, in the inauguration. From continuing torture in Gitmo, Bagrham, and the rape rooms of Abu Ghraib to pushing financial reforms that are far too heavily weighted in favor of the banksters, Obama has pursued Republican policies that vast majority of the time. We are still in Iraq. Obama's Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton, is doing everything in her power to start a war with Iran and to spark and Arab-Israeli war. This administration may let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire in the face of a huge deficit, but they are doing nothing to repeal Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. Our bloated military budget keeps growing astronomically. Illegal spying on Americans continues just as it did under Bush, and the Obama administration has continued to follow the previous regime's policy of obstruction of justice for criminals like Bush and Cheney.

Whether this administration is called the third Bush term or the eighth Reagan term, things have been dreadful. And, the string of betrayals found its epitome in the reverse Robin Hood wealthcare bill. Liberals have every reason to be really, really pissed off at President Obama.

Perhaps that's why Obama has been throwing some bones at us lately.

---

Recess Appointments to the NLRB
Desperate to prove that they are more bought than the Democrats, Republicans have been blocking nomination votes on two appointees to the National Labor Relations Board. Once wealthcare had passed, Obama used his constitutional powers to appoint Craig Becker and Mark Pearce. Having an NLRB with a voting majority and one that isn't biased against workers is important for union organizing. Unions need all the help they can get, especially since the excise taxes on mediocre health plans (as opposed to the rest of the plans which are just plain awful) will weaken their bargaining positions considerably if they go into effect as scheduled by the wealthcare bill in 2018.

Nuclear Arms Agreement with Russia
Many on the left and the right are exaggerating the significance of this arms agreement. Even after it goes into effect, Russia and the USA will both be able to kill everyone on the planet many times over. The main significance of the bill, and it is important, is that reducing the number of nuclear weapons reduces that odds of an accidental nuclear strike or nuclear war.

Visitation Rights Expanded
Obama's record so far on queer issues has been all over the map so far, but this is one case of Obama doing something that is even better than most people have realized so far. From the Gay City News 4/16/10:

In a Memorandum to the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, President Barack Obama requested that the agency develop federal regulations to ensure that hospitals participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs — which make up virtually all the nation’s hospitals — allow visitation and medical decision-making by the individuals designated by the patient.

In the opening paragraphs of the two-page memo, released on the evening of April 15, the president said, “Uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.”

The interesting, and seldom discussed, aspect of this is that the visitation rights and designations for medical decision makers are not limited to lovers, same sex or opposite sex. This directive will get rid of the most heinous examples of discrimination against single people of all sexual orientations and gender identities while dealing with cruel heterosexist discrimination.

Some Regulation of Mountaintop Removal Mining
The Environmental Protection Agency has finally put some regulations on the unethical and environmentally disastrous practice of mountaintop removal mining. The destruction of mountains and the poisoning of drinking water resulting from this demonstrates what a disgusting lie "Clean Coal" is. Regulation of Big Coal on this issue is a positive first step towards what needs to happen in the future: banning this mining practice and phasing out coal entirely.

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The hopeful side of me would like to think that maybe Obama realizes that he needs to give Democrats and liberal independents positive reasons to show up to the polls and vote for Democratic politicians. The awfulness of the GOP just isn't enough. I am a bit hopeful, but I'm clear eyed enough to realize that Obama's record in the White House gives us all an overwhelming numbers of reasons for skepticism.

 

I got this email yesterday:

Hate Crime Against the LGBT Community Center

Hello Center Supporters,
I am writing to tell you about a disturbing incident that happened at the Center. This morning our building staff arrived and discovered a burned rainbow flag hanging on one of the poster display cases outside our building. We called the NYPD, and they immediately dispatched detectives from the hate crimes unit and our local precinct. We also contacted the Anti-Violence Project, and the crime is currently under investigation.

We at the Center strive everyday to be a safe space for our community and a beacon of inclusion and hope for the entire city. It is sad that these incidents still happen in this day and age, but rest assured we will do everything in our power to make sure our community is safe. We have contacted our elected officials and are working closely with them to raise awareness in our community and to unite together against this hate-fueled action.

Most importantly, we will not stand for anyone who thinks they can come to the Center and try to intimidate us. Hate and intolerance against LGBT New Yorkers will not be accepted, and we as a community must stand strong and together in the face of these hateful incidents. We are asking anyone who has additional information about this crime to contact the police directly at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Thank you all for your continued support.
For more information and photos please visit our website.
Sincerely,
Glennda Testone

Ms. Testone is the Executive Director of the New York LGBT Center.

This is a hostile environment for queers. The so called "Catholic League" and the Vatican are trying to scapegoat gays for the rampant child molestation in that church's clergy. Never mind the fact that the rape of girls also is rampant among RCC priests.

The economy sucks, and bad economies result in all sorts of scapegoating of minority groups. The Obama administration isn't helping on this area by bailing out the rich while doing very little to help the middle class and the poor.

Our execrable Mayor Bloomberg isn't helping either. Under his "leadership," the NYPD has had a two faced approach to heterosexist hate crimes. If the victim is famous or killed, the NYPD will do something about it. Otherwise, the policy is to ignore it. Bloomberg also has used the NYPD in part of his drip by drop approach to closing gay bars and bathhouses.

Bloomberg also has used the NYPD to engage in a jihad of entrapment against gay and bisexual men.

Queer City Council Speaker Christine Quinn makes impassioned speeches against hate crimes, but she refuses to confront and condemn ultra homophobic Mayor Bloomberg for his roll in causing them.

This is unacceptable.

 

She did this commercial during her 2008 Green Party presidential campaign. Sadly, she was correct.



 

We've heard similar rhetoric before, but ...

(From The Advocate 4/13/10 - Hat Tip AKA William)

House majority leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that the body will likely take up the Employment Non-Discrimination Act this year. According to Congressional Quarterly, Hoyer said the legislation, which would institute a federal ban on job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, is less controversial now than it has been in the past. The bill, H.R. 3017, currently has 198 cosponsors.

From CQ: “Hoyer said most lawmakers already are on the record on the issue because the House passed similar legislation in 2007 to bar employment discrimination based on sexual preference. ‘So it’s not like this is a new issue for the members,’ said Hoyer, D-Md."

The comments are significant as Congress returns to work this week and political observers look for signals from Democratic leadership regarding what type of legislation the Democratic caucus is willing to engage.

I'm a bit concerned that he didn't also mention gender identity. We need to remind our representatives that including trans people and closing this legal loophole is rather important.

In any case, this isn't a call for relaxation. It's a call to action. There isn't going to be a House vote unless we push for it.

Contact Your Representative!