The New Republic is reporting that donations made to Josh Mandel are now under investigation by the FBI

“There was an investigation. I wasn’t involved in it, because I didn’t give the amount of money [others] gave.’ The woman tugged on his arm, urging him to shut up. He apologized, saying he had to go and that his mind was a bit jet-lagged.”

In 2011 Josh Mandel accepted 100k in “questionable contributions” from employees of a Canton area Republican donor. Many of these donations were from donors who appeared to lack the necessary means to make max out contributions and who did not have a significant history of political giving.

Mandel initially shrugged off these donations during an incredibly awkward interview by claiming he was “proud” of them and that he wrote all his donors thank you notes.

Now, Josh Mandel’s campaign has confirmed an FBI investigation is under way.

“Josh Mandel has repeatedly demonstrated he’s nothing more than a politician who can’t be trusted, and it comes as no surprise that his campaign is now part of an investigation over what is charitably called one hundred thousand dollars in questionable contributions from individuals who do not appear to have the means to make contributions of this size,” said Brown campaign spokeswoman Sadie Weiner. “Whether it’s ignoring his job, hiring unqualified political cronies in the Treasurer’s office, or breaking campaign finance laws, Josh Mandel’s too busy looking out for himself to be on the side of Ohio’s middle class.”

BACKGROUND

Pattern of Contributions From Suarez Employees To Mandel And Rep. Renacci “Raises Red Flags” Because Federal Law Bars Employees From Reimbursing Employees For Giving To Candidates. In May 2012, The New Republic reported “Last year, The Toledo Blade noticed that many large contributions were being made to Renacci by Suarez’s non-executive employees. Seventeen employees, plus six spouses, had given to Renacci, Mandel, or both, with most giving at the maximum allowable level, for a total of $100,000 for each candidate. (Company founder Benjamin Suarez had himself given the maximum to both candidates.) This sort of pattern raises red flags: Federal law bars employers from reimbursing employees for giving to a certain candidate—a method employers could use to evade limits on their own giving.” [The New Republic, 5/18/12]

Suarez Employee Mentioned “Investigation” But Woman With Him Urged Him To Shut Up. In May 2012, The New Republic reported “’The owner of our company is very Republican,’ [Charles Stewart] said. But, he added, ‘He doesn’t push the executives to give.’ Then he said something that piqued my interest: “There was an investigation. I wasn’t involved in it, because I didn’t give the amount of money [others] gave.’ The woman tugged on his arm, urging him to shut up. He apologized, saying he had to go and that his mind was a bit jet-lagged. ‘I just got back from the Orient,’ he said.” [The New Republic, 5/18/12]

Suarez Employee’s Wife Confirmed An FBI Investigation Into Donations. In May 2012, The New Republic reported “On the other side of town, I learned what Stewart had been referring to. I visited the home of Michael Blubaugh, a copywriter at Suarez who had given $5,000 each to Renacci and Mandel last year—and whose wife, Donna, had done the same. They live in a modest subdivision, in a home valued by Zillow at about $142,000. When Donna came to the door, she said she had already been asked about the donations by the FBI. The inquiry had caught her by surprise, she said, ‘because I didn’t know about the rules, so I was like, ‘What?’’ But she said the $20,000 had been given of her and her husband’s free wills. ‘Our house may not look it, because we’re saving for retirement, but my husband makes good money as a copywriter,’ she said. But why give so much to the candidates? ‘My husband made the decision, not me,’ she said.” [The New Republic, 5/18/12]

Rep. Renacci’s Office Confirmed That FBI Contacted Rep. Renacci’s Campaign – Mandel’s Campaign Wouldn’t Comment. In May 2012, The New Republic reported “The next day, I went to Suarez’s headquarters, where corporate counsel Mike Puterbaugh told me, ‘There really isn’t anyone here who would be able to address that.’ A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Cleveland office told me, ‘We can’t comment on any case like that until it is finalized.’ Renacci’s chief of staff, James Slepian, told me that investigators had asked Renacci’s treasurer for records. ‘To our knowledge, no donations made from any donors were made impurely,’ he said. A spokesman for Mandel did not return requests for comment. Regardless of the outcome of any inquiry, Suarez Industries, like Timken, had made plain it wasn’t going to lie low in post-SB5 Ohio.” [The New Republic, 5/18/12]

Mandel Received A Large Number Of Donations From People Who Had Never Given To A Federal Candidate Before. In August 2011, the Toledo Blade reported “But in the current election cycle, a large number of his employees and their wives — many of whom have never before given to federal campaigns — have contributed to two specific congressional candidates: Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci (R., Wadsworth), who represents Ohio’s 16th District.” [Toledo Blade, 8/19/11]

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• Sherrod Brown’s Opponent Mandel Opposes Violence Against Women Act (lezgetreal.com)

They go on to explain:

For the first time ever, VAWA now explicitly recognizes LGBTQ survivors as “under-served populations,” prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in service provision and recognizes that all states can use VAWA funding to support LGBTQ-specific programs and services. The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) thanks the tireless champions of an LGBTQ-inclusive VAWA, co-sponsors Senators Leahy and Crapo, and all of the Senators who voted to pass this critical bill.

VAWA is a queer issue. LGBTQ people experience violence at the same rates as any other community: 25-35 percent of relationships. However, LGBTQ victims receive fewer supportive services—and are often actively discriminated against when seeking service. A 2011 survey of National Coalition of Domestic Violence Programs (NCAVP) coalition members and affiliates found that nearly 85 percent of survey participants responded that they had worked with an LGBTQ client/survivor of domestic and intimate partner violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking who reported that they were turned away or denied services (such as shelter, crisis intervention, police or legal response) because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. In a report recently released by NCAVP, we saw a 15 percent increase in reports of domestic violence in LGBTQ relationships across the country and a 50 percent increase in domestic violence-related murders from 2007 to 2009.

Over the past 17 years since its passage, VAWA has provided billions of dollars for social service agencies helping victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. This funding provides crisis intervention, safety planning, counseling, shelter and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence. Very little of those services have been focused on LGBTQ people over the past 17 years. The passage of an LGBTQ-inclusive VAWA in the U.S. Senate is a critical step toward changing this reality.

We still have work to do – the bill must also pass the House of Representatives. But on this historic day, where the voices of LGBTQ survivors were heard loud and clear, I want to thank AVP’s staff, Board, volunteers and supporters and the tremendous work of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Program, a program of AVP, and our allies at the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the LGBT Bar Association and so many more.

Together, we can end this violence.

Protect All NC Families notes that:

Sen. Hagan says she opposes Amendment One because of its far-reaching consequences for North Carolina’s families, children and communities. “I do not believe we should amend our state’s constitution to take away people’s rights,” says Hagan. “Amendment One harms our resolve to make all people and all families great.”

Hagan also highlights the economic harms of Amendment One, pointing to pervasive constituent concerns from North Carolina’s business community.

“We have seen and heard from business leaders from across North Carolina who are worried about our ability to compete with states that are not passing such divisive amendments,” said Hagan. “In this competitive environment we simply cannot afford to pass Amendment One.”

Hagan’s concerns about Amendment One’s impact on North Carolina’s business interests and competitiveness comes the same week as the premiere of the WRAL documentary “The Amendment,” which was unable to find a single CEO who would speak in favor of the amendment. “We tried to find a CEO who supports Amendment One to interview. We worked with the two lead organizations campaigning for it, the North Carolina Family Policy Council and the North Carolina Values Coalition,” said WRAL’s David Crabtree. “They could not find a pro-amendment CEO willing to be interviewed for this documentary.”

Protect All NC Families underscored the importance of Sen. Hagan’s statement against Amendment One. “This powerful new video from our U.S. Senator reflects clearly all that’s at stake as voters consider Amendment One,” said Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families. “Those impacted by Amendment One are indeed our friends, neighbors and loved ones, and as people head to the polls this week, it is our hope that Sen. Hagan’s voice joins the rising chorus of trusted leaders who can inform North Carolinians’ votes against in the continuing effort to protect North Carolina families, children, business and the reputation of this state as whole.”

The Fate of our Government?

So, out of utter frustration with a congress that isn’t doing jack squat, I decided to look into how legislation and nominations get stalled in the Senate. What I found was pretty disgusting.

First there is the filibuster. This “unlimited debate” was enabled by accident, when the Senate in 1806 blindly followed the advice of Vice-President Aaron Burr to clean up their rule book, using the previous question motion as an example. This motion (which still exists in the House, thank God) empowered a simple majority to cut off debate.  Without it, there was no mechanism for the Senate to end debate. With the small size and less polarized composition of the Senate, no one really took advantage of this glaring loophole in the early 1800’s. The filibuster didn’t take off until after the Civil War.

Mr. Smith

We’ve seen it in movies, such as the filibuster conducted by Jimmy Stewart, playing Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana

For real life drama and laughs, during the 1930s, Senator Huey P. Long frustrated his colleagues while entertaining spectators with his recitations of Shakespeare and his reading of recipes for “pot-likkers.” Long once held the Senate floor for 15 hours. The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina’s J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

That’s the thing about the filibuster. It requires a Senator to take the floor and talk… and talk… and talk. To keep the filibuster going beyond the Senator’s own endurance, another Senator opposing the legislation needs to be ready to speak as soon as the first yields the floor. With enough Senators prepared to do this, a filibuster can go on indefinitely.

There is a Senate rule adopted in 1917, when it was demanded by President Wilson on the grounds of national security, which allows for “cloture”, or the forced closing of debate. Thing is, it requires 60 votes. When cloture is invoked on a rules debate, it requires 67 votes to get things moving.

So if there are enough Senators willing to talk a bill to death, it is going to die. As party-polarized as Congress has become, getting 60 Senators to agree on anything is nearly impossible. Because of this, a new “procedure” has snuck into being… the “hold”.

The practice of “holds” (requests by senators to party leaders to delay floor consideration of legislation or nominations, or statements of intent to filibuster if legislation or nominations reach the floor), is nowhere recognized in Senate rules or precedents. It has, however, become a prominent feature of today’s Senate.

Once a Senator submits a hold, which used to be anonymous but now have to be owned up to, it effectively kills legislation or a nomination. There’s one Republican Senator who currently has over 300 holds in place.

Why does it kill legislation? Because the Senate Majority leader will usually not even request consent to consider a measure if there is a hold on it. Why bother? He or she already knows there’s a filibuster waiting in the wings. All it will do is waste time. The only reason to allow a filibuster to happen is for political propaganda reasons; this bill was introduced and then killed by the other party’s filibuster, the evil so-and-so’s.

So it boils down to the incredible situation we have now, where one contrary Senator can block a piece of legislation or a nomination with a memo.

Is there any hope of getting rid of holds and filibusters? Nope. There is no way that either party, when in control of the Senate, is going to outlaw those means by which they can be bullies when they wind up in the minority. They would rather be able to stop the legislative process than do the jobs they were elected to do.

the Signing of the Constitution

Our Founding Fathers have got to be rolling in their graves. Maybe that’s why we’re having earthquakes in the mid-Atlantic states.

Related articles

• “The Minority Defeats The Majority”, Again: The Media Needs To Tell Readers The Truth About GOP Filibustering (mykeystrokes.com)
• Fear Keeps the Filibuster Alive (motherjones.com)
• Senate Republicans Filibuster Buffett Rule (thinkprogress.org)

Governor Scott Walker

Scott Walker must really hate being governor of Wisconsin. That’s the only explanation for what he pulled Thursday. He quietly signed a law that repeals Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act.

The Act was created in 2009 to allow Wisconsinites a way to fight pay discrimination at a lower cost and more quickly than through the Federal Court system. As slow as the Federal Courts were with civil cases in 2009, it has gotten much worse since then. The Senate Republicans filibustered all appointments of judges to the Federal bench, making the courts desperately short of judges. In the past, when Senator Jesse Helms stopped all of President Clinton’s appointments, Chief Justice William Rehnquist publicly took Helms to task for creating a crisis in the Judiciary. Our current Chief Justice, John Roberts, can’t be bothered to fulfill his role as the administrator of the Federal Courts and push the Senate to approve the appointments. He puts party politics over his obligation to the judiciary.

This bill doesn’t remove the possibility of a person suing over pay discrimination, it just makes it harder. It hits women in Wisconsin more than minorities. Nationally, women earn 77% of what men do in identical jobs. In Wisconsin, it’s 75%. Remember the movie Nine to Five, when Lily Tomlin’s character complains about a man getting promoted over her and she’s told “he has a family” and she has four kids to support? That’s what is at stake here. More and more, women are either the main wage earner in a family or the only wage earner. When they are paid less, it hurts their families.

But, the Equal Pay Enforcement Act is much loved by corporations. They don’t want to pay their female employees any more than they have to, and in retail, hospitality and health care, women make up the majority of a company’s employees. And Scott Walker is a company man. Whatever corporations want, corporations get from Walker, and the Republican leaders of the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate, the Fitzgerald brothers, Jeff and Scott.

Jeff Fitzgerald is a candidate for the Republican ticket for Wisconsin’s open United States Senate seat. Killing the EPEA might sit well with the Republican base, but it will be a weakness if he wins the primary (he is polling at half the numbers of former Governor Tommy Thompson) and has to face Rep. Tammy Baldwin in November.

Baldwin must be dancing a jig over this latest assault by Walker on labor rights. This on hurts women and Baldwin can really play to that in the Senate race.

As for Walker himself….well, its hard to understand his thought processes. No intelligent politician, facing an election of any kind, attacks a particular voting block so openly and blatantly. Walker was supposed to be the perfect Republican governor, a rising star in the party. Instead he has turned into one of the Democratic Party’s best assets – a man who didn’t know how to keep the people from looking behind the curtain and seeing the little man instead of the great Wizard.

One last note from Wisconsin….Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, she of the screwed up elections, has stepped down from her post.  About bloody time.

Related articles

• Wisconsin’s Scott Walker Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law (themoderatevoice.com)
• Wisconsin Supreme Court To Hear Voter ID Law Appeals (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin Primary Turnout Below Expectations (lezgetreal.com)
• Scott Walker hopes you won’t notice he repealed Wisconsin’s equal pay law (dailykos.com)
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Overturns Law Meant To Prevent Pay Discrimination Against Women (thinkprogress.org)
• Republicans just don’t get it (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Does It Again (lezgetreal.com)

Rep. Paul Ryan at the 2011 CPAC conference (by Gage Skidmore)

Poor Paul Ryan. He gets all the blame for the Republican economic agenda. He watched his name used in angry town meetings all over the country in 2010. “The Ryan Budget”came to be equated with killing Medicare and Social Security. And just when he thought the endorsement of the Republican Presidential candidates for his “social engineering” budget would get him a little breathing room, here comes a poll from his home state.

They don’t like him as much as they once did.

In a state-wide survey, Ryan’s favorability rating was down to 41% with unfavorability at 46%. In a hypothetical presidential match-up, Ryan loses to the President 50% to 43%. The survey was limited to Wisconsin registered voters and has a 2.4% margin of error.

Three month ago, Ryan’s favorability was at 36% to 35%. Six months ago it was 38% to 30%. More Wisconsinites have an opinion of him than in the past, 87% from 71% and 68%, which means his recognition is way up, just not for a very good reason.

Ryan decided not to run for the open U. S. Senate seat in Wisconsin this time, a decision that is proving to be a good one. What matters, however, is how he is viewed in his district. The entire state does not vote on him, just the 1^st District, which includes the cities of Racine, Kenosha and Janesville. He will be keeping an eye on the recall election of State Senator Van Van Wanggaard, whose 21^st District covers much of the same area.

Related articles

• We Have Dates In Wisconsin (lezgetreal.com)
• Romney will win Wisconsin, Ryan says (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Obama Will Shred The Paul Ryan Budget In Today’s Big Speech (businessinsider.com)
• Rep. Paul Ryan To Endorse Romney (joemygod.blogspot.com)

The Wisconsin Statehouse, Madison

Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board has reached a decision. The recall election for Governor Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is a go!

Walker has done everything possible to delay or deflect the will of the people of Wisconsin, at one point whining that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for his people to verify every single one of the one million signatures on the recall petitions because it simply wasn’t possible that that many Wisconsinite could want him out of office. According to the GAB, at least 900,938 do. That’s the number of verified signatures they have determined for the recall, when only 540,208 were required.

Having already verified the recall petitions for four Republican state senators, the hope was that the verification process would be finished in time to book the Walker/Kleefisch vote for the same dates as the senate votes. It is and they will.

Primary elections for these recalls will be held on May 8. The final elections will be held on June 5. This is less complicated than the recall elections last year which involved both parties and staggered votes until they finally reached the important ones, the recall of six Republican state senators.

For the governor’s race, there are three currently declared Democratic candidates: former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, State Senator Kathleen Vinehout and Secretary of State Doug LaFollette. LaFollette has the highest name recognition among Democrats, having been in the vortex of battles over implementation of Walker’s union busting law, and seen by many Democrats are a champion of legality over party. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who lost the governorship to Walker in 2010, has been mentioned as a possible candidate, but he has not declared his intention to run. His announcement is expected next week. In the lieutenant governor’s race, Madison firefighter and state firefighters union president Mahlon Mitchell is the declared candidate against Kleefisch.

In the Senate races, Sen. Pam Galloway resigned recently, leaving her 29^th district an open election. Rep. Donna Seidel is the announced Democratic candidate for the district. The 29^th is in the upper left quadrant of the state, the large pink district on the map below. It is a largely rural district. Sen. Van Van Wanggaard represents the 21^st Senate District, which is the small green district on the southern shores of Lake Michigan. It extends from the city of Racine and its satellite cities to the city of Rochester in the west. Former Sen. John Lehman is announced as the Democrat for this recall election. The 23^rd Senate District is south of the 29^th, the gray area at the bottom of the left upper quadrant. It is also primarily rural and currently represented by Terry Moulton. Former Representative Kristen Dexter is running to replace Moulton. The Democrats have not, as yet, recruited anyone to run against the Senate Majority Leader, Scott Fitzgerald, who represents the 13^th Senate District. It is in the lower right quadrant, the brown district. It is also primarily rural. The pattern of representation in Wisconsin is very typical of the country – rural areas have Republican representation while urban areas have Democratic reps. Racine was anomalous.

With the resignation of Sen. Pam Galloway, the Wisconsin Senate is now a 16-16 tie between parties. To gain the majority, the Democrats need to win two of these recalls, not one. District 21 has the best odds because the larger municipalities have suffered the most under Walker’s budget cuts, but the rural areas have seen his cutbacks reducing school personnel and law enforcement.

The Democrats opted to avoid doing any advertising until the verification process was completed in all the races. This has meant Walker has had a clear field to sell himself to the voters, with ads touting his great accomplishments and frequent appearances on Fox News where he gets treated with kid gloves and positive vibes. Against the Walker blitz is the real news, his trips out of state to attend Koch brother-sponsored fund raisers, the ethics investigation that has resulted in the arrests of over a dozen of his personnel from the Milwaukee County Executive’s office during the 2010 election, the economic news which proves how little his policies have really accomplished. Wisconsin has lost jobs every month since Walker took office.

Walker has a huge campaign chest compliments of his out-of-state cronies, though he whines about how much month the national unions can throw against him. But the recall forces have personnel, volunteers to go door-to-door and engage voters in the best way. Personal contact beats ads every time.

In the meantime, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court needs to rule on the lower court rulings that stopped the photo ID law from being enforced, and needs to do so quickly. Wisconsin’s normal primary for the Republican presidential candidate is scheduled for Tuesday, April 3. Though all the attention has been on the recall elections, the state has hundreds of other elections in the pipeline between here and November 6, including primaries for the United States Senate seat, all the Congressional seats and state, county, city and town elections. There must be times when Wisconsinites think all they do is vote.

Related articles

• Recalled Wisconsin State Senator Quits (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin As “Waterloo”? (lezgetreal.com)
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• Wisconsin Supreme Court To Hear Voter ID Law Appeals (lezgetreal.com)
• Recall vote scheduled in Wisconsin, Republican ad war continues (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Wisconsin GOP Wants To Change Recall Laws (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin Governor Recall Vote Is On – Dems will seek to unseat Scott Walker in June election (tribuneofthepeople.com)

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown

Republicans have been targeting Sherrod Brown in an attempt to try and take him down in the upcoming election. Brown is not taking things lightly. Today, his campaign was happy to let us know that they have just launched Women for Sherrod Brown. Here is the press release:

Today, Sherrod Brown’s campaign launched Women for Sherrod Brown, a group of Ohioans supporting Sherrod Brown for his proven track record of standing up for Ohio’s women. Coordinated by Co-Chairs Rhine McLin and Mary Boyle, the group will play a critical advisory role on women’s’ issues and work to get Ohio women involved in the campaign.

Co-Chairs Rhine McLin, the former State Senate Minority Leader of Ohio and Dayton Mayor, and Mary Boyle, the first female Majority Whip in the Ohio House of Representatives announced their endorsement of Senator Brown today in the below statement:

“Senator Sherrod Brown is working everyday in the Senate to beat back the constant attacks against women’s rights and women’s healthcare and there’s no doubt he’s on the side of Ohio’s women. Sen. Brown championed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to erase workplace discrimination, supported legislation to assist victims of sexual assault, extended the amount of time our children could be covered on their parents healthcare plans, and stood with women in our fight against the Heartbeat Bill.

“Now more than ever women across the state need a champion for women’s rights in the U.S. Senate and they have one in Sherrod Brown. We must do all we can to ensure he can continue fighting for us in the years to come.”

“I am so grateful for the strong support my campaign is receiving from Rhine McLin, Mary Boyle and women across the state of Ohio,” said Senator Brown. “There’s a war on women’s rights in Ohio and across the country by some who don’t want women to be in charge of their own health care decisions. I remain committed to ensuring that the voices of Ohio’s women are always heard in the United States Senate.”

The launch of Women for Sherrod Brown will be accompanied by a new Facebook page and a section of the web site to keep women up-to-date on campaign-related issues and news. Ohio women can join Women for Sherrod Brown by clicking HERE.

Senator Brown is working every day in the Senate to protect a woman’s right to choose and beat back the constant attacks against women’s rights and women’s healthcare. He strongly opposes the “Heartbeat Bill” in Ohio which if passed could ban abortion as soon as 18 days and would be the most restrictive reproductive law in the country. Senator Brown has championed legislation to erase workplace discrimination, assist victims of sexual assault, and has earned a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL. The women of Ohio know that Senator Sherrod Brown is on their side and will continue to fight for them in the Senate.

Maine's Sen. Olympia Snowe

Three term Senator Olympia Snowe has announced here retirement from the Senate, all but assuring the Democrats a gain in Maine. Snowe has been one of the few Republican moderates to remain in the Senate, and often voiced her concerns over the radicalization of her own party. Snowe’s departure is unexpected, at least to a number of people, but with the continued radicalization of the GOP, and the collapse of the Tea Party in her home state, Snowe may have chosen to leave the Senate rather than leave the Party.

Here is her statement:

“After an extraordinary amount of reflection and consideration, I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate.

“After 33 years in the Congress this was not an easy decision. My husband and I are in good health. We have laid an exceptionally strong foundation for the campaign, and I have no doubt I would have won re-election. It has been an indescribable honor and immeasurable privilege to serve the people of Maine, first in both houses of Maine’s legislature and later in both houses of Congress. To this day, I remain deeply passionate about public service, and I cherish the opportunity I have been given for nearly four decades to help improve the lives of my fellow Mainers.

“As I have long said, what motivates me is producing results for those who have entrusted me to be their voice and their champion, and I am filled with that same sense of responsibility today as I was on my first day in the Maine House of Representatives. I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.

“With my Spartan ancestry I am a fighter at heart; and I am well prepared for the electoral battle, so that is not the issue. However, what I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term. So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail.

“As I enter a new chapter, I see a vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern, and I believe there are unique opportunities to build support for that change from outside the United States Senate. I intend to help give voice to my fellow citizens who believe, as I do, that we must return to an era of civility in government driven by a common purpose to fulfill the promise that is unique to America.

“In the meantime, as I complete my third term, I look forward to continuing to fight for the people of Maine and the future of our nation. And I will be forever and unyieldingly grateful for the trust that the people of Maine have placed in me, and for the phenomenal friendship and assistance I have received over the years from my colleagues, my supporters, and my staff, both in Maine and in Washington.” Senator Snowe will be scheduling a news conference in Portland, Maine, in order to further discuss her decision when she returns to her home state on Friday.

Former Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey

There’s an old song whose opening lyrics are “First you say you will and then you won’t…” Well, in Bob Kerrey’s case it was first he said he might, then he said he wouldn’t and now he’s said he will – run for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Ben Nelson. Kerrey called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to give him the good news.

The 68-year-old Kerrey was Nebraska’s governor from 1983 through 1986, and their Senator from 1989 through 2000. He is a known commodity for Nebraskans, and would not have to fight for name recognition. He does have to face the manner in which Nebraska, like so many mid-western states, has shifted drastically conservative in the past decade. Hopefully, because he is so well-known, he can bring a certain level of built-in credibility to the debate that many Democrats will not enjoy.

Related articles

• Bob Kerrey To Run For Ben Nelson’s Senate Seat (alan.com)
• Source: Former Sen. Kerrey to run again (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

Elizabeth Warren

At a time when It Gets Better videos all tend to be flashy and almost campaign-y, former school teacher and current Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren has issued a video that is very low key. Her video matches her personality in that it is simple and direct. In the video, Warren starts:

“I’m Elizabeth Warren, and you may be wondering what I have to say to you. After all, I haven’t lived your life. But when I graduated from college, I was a schoolteacher, and I watched what happens in hallways, on sidewalks, out in the schoolyard. I watched kids who pushed, who bullied. I saw how much pain some kids could inflict on other kids.”

According to the Press Release:

“GSA Network is proud to see national officials recognize the courageous leadership of GSA activists, who have successfully advocated for essential student protections in several states, including California,” said Carolyn Laub, Executive Director of GSA Network. “It is time for our Senators to honor and exhibit that same leadership by passing federal student protections.”

Senator Franken will host a call with GSA activists on National GSA Day to discuss the country’s urgent need for safer schools. He has already released a video calling on viewers to “make it better” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth by asking their Senators to co-sponsor the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

“National GSA Day is a time to celebrate the contributions made by Gay Straight Alliance clubs all over the country,” said Sen. Franken. “GSA clubs make schools safer and provide a supportive community for LGBT students, who are bullied far more frequently than other students and, tragically, have a much higher rate of suicide. I’m proud to call myself an ally of the LGBT community and I’ve been working with the GSA Network to pass legislation – the Student Non-Discrimination Act – to protect students from bullying, harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Together, we can make sure our kids feel safe and supported at school so they can get the education they need and deserve.”

The Student Non-Discrimination Act would establish a comprehensive federal prohibition against discrimination, including harassment, in public elementary and secondary schools based on a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

“My Gay-Straight Alliance club has empowered me and other youth to improve policies, laws, and culture in my school and in the state,” said Trio Harris, GSA Network Board Member and President of the Carlsbad High School GSA. “I’m excited that GSA Network is joining with Senator Franken to celebrate the tradition of youth activism on National GSA Day by advocating for the Student Non-Discrimination Act, a federal law with important protections that would make it better for all students in America.”

In preparation for the day of action, Gay-Straight Alliance Network sent a letter Tuesday to the United States Senate urging all Senators to support SNDA. Since its founding in 1998, GSA Network has grown from just 40 GSA clubs in the Bay Area to 870 clubs with an estimated 13,000 student members in California alone. Nationally, GSA Network operates an association of state networks with 35 member organizations. Youth advocates trained by GSA Network have successfully lobbied ten successful pieces of state legislation in California, including student protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

GSA Network is part of a broad coalition of organizations across the country partnering to honor National GSA Day. Coordinated and sponsored nationally by Iowa Pride Network (IPN), National GSA Day on January 25, 2012 is a time to strengthen the bond between LGBT people and straight allies and in particular recognize and honor student organizations called Gay-Straight Alliances. These student led groups work to educate their peers to stop homophobia, transphobia and violence in schools and colleges throughout the country. Find out more about National GSA Day at GSADay.org.

The sad part is, her son opposes rights for himself. In other words, he is opposed to equality for himself.

Karen Santorum used the old tactic of blaming the gays for vilifying her husband saying “We all love our kids unconditionally. As Rick’s wife, I have known him and loved him for 23 years and I think it’s very sad [what] gay activists have done out there-they vilify him and it’s so wrong. Rick doesn’t hate anyone. He loves them. What he has simply said is marriage shouldn’t happen, but as far as hating, it’s very unfortunate that that has happened.”

The former US Senator then also responded saying “This is not an issue of not doing what I’m called to do, which is to love everyone and accept everybody, but this is a public policy difference. Some see that public policy difference as a personal assault.”

What the Santorums, and indeed the entire Catholic and Evangelical movement, miss is the fact that the statements vilifying lesbians and gays are what is wrong here. Santorum became famous for his statement about how allowing same-sex marriage would lead to man on dog sex, but that is hardly the only vile and patently false statement that he has made. He has maintained that children of same-sex couples do poorly even though the evidence shows the opposite. In fact, there is some evidence that children of lesbian couples do better than the children of opposite sex couples or gay couples, but the statistical significance is so small as to make that a bit suspect right now.

There is a difference between saying that you love someone no matter what and following through that on the campaign trail, and saying that you love someone without condition and then going out there and attacking everything that they are just because you hate what your child is.

No matter how much the bully wants to claim that he is not a bully, it is his actions, not his labels, that make him so.

Via Edge

Signing of the United States Constitution

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

Article I, Section 5: “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”

Article I, Section 3: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” And “The Senate shall chuse [sic] their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of the President of the United States.”

Pretty clear, isn’t it? For either the House or Senate to go into recess, both chambers must agree to the recess. The Senate leadership consists of the President Pro Tempore, who is Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. The President can make appointments when the Congress is recess.

According to the United States Constitution, the pro forma sessions that the Republicans held in the Senate chamber did not negate the Congressional recess. They had no authority to hold those sessions. Period. End of sentence. End of issue.

Well….not quite.

The National Federation of Independent Business is challenging the appointment of three members of the National Labor Relations Board. They have brought suit to rescind the appointments. Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center, issued a statement, “NFIB takes this action today to ensure that its members are protected from unconstitutional acts that exacerbate the NLRB’s devolution from a neutral arbiter between labor and employers to a pro-union government agency.” The NFIB is currently suing over a NLRB rule that employers must display a poster explaining worker’s rights to unionize. The ruling would place a “you have the right to unionize” poster up on the break room bulletin board somewhere near the poster the employers put up telling their employees how paternally wonderful they are and instructing them to report anyone who even whispers the word “union” in the facility. The NFIB says that it represents 350,000 American small businesses.

The United State Chamber of Commerce has indicated it may challenge the appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new consumer protection agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Now, I’m no lawyer, but those three sections of the Constitution are in some of the clearest language in the Constitution. There are no pesky commas in funny places the way there are in the Second Amendment. The minority party, the Republicans, cannot legally hold sessions of the United States Senate. The House is schedule to reconvene on January 17 and the Senate on January 23. Therefore, the President has another 10 days to fill those vacancies caused by the Republican filibuster.

Related articles

• Lyle Denniston: Constitution Check: Can the Senate Block the President’s Appointment Powers? (huffingtonpost.com)
• DOJ approved recess appointments (politico.com)
• Justice Department Weighs In On Recess Appointments (lezgetreal.com)
• Peter M. Shane: Recess Appointments and President Obama’s Surprising Restraint (huffingtonpost.com)
• Constitutional Scholar: White House Entirely Ignoring Article 1, Section 5 | CNSnews.com (manifestinjustice.wordpress.com)
• NFIB Challenges “Recess” Appointments to National Labor Relations Board (greenmountainscribes.wordpress.com)
• Anti-union group challenges recess appointments (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Bob Kerrey

From 1983 to 1987, Bob Kerrey, Vietnam war veteran, businessman and all around charming fellow, was Governor of Nebraska. In 1988, he ran for the United States Senate and represented Nebraska for 12 years. In both cases, he left office on his own terms. He was not defeated in an election.

For the past ten years, Kerrey and his family have been living in New York, where he was president of The New School, a New York City university that is best known for its performing arts and that little television show Inside the Actors Studio. He left that post in 2010. Now, he is back in Nebraska, talking with friends and colleagues about returning for a run to replace retiring Ben Nelson in the Senate. Kerrey has promised that he will make a decision quickly, which he needs to do to establish legal residency in a timely manner.

The assumption has been that Nelson’s seat would go to a Republican, but the Republican field for the position is divided along the party’s fracture lines and relatively weak. Kerrey, though he was way liberal by Nebraska standards, was relatively well-liked during both his tenures in office. He’s a known factor with very open record. Even bringing up his romantic history would be old news in Nebraska. While governor, he dated actress Debra Winger, who he said “swept me off my feet.” The joke was, Kerrey lost a leg in Vietnam.

At the moment, this is all speculation. But, you can count on Nebraska’s and national Democrats to try to persuade Kerrey to take on the challenge. It would give the party a fighting chance to retain a needed seat.

Related articles

• Kerrey ponders run for Nebraska US Senate seat (sfgate.com)
• Bob Kerrey Considering Run For Nelson’s Nebraska Seat (alan.com)
• Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson announces retirement (cbsnews.com)

“Governor Andrew Cuomo has finally seen the light! Once again, time has proven me right.

“Earlier this year, no one wanted to follow my lead when I insisted that we will never come out of this mess and stop hurting the poor unless we enact a Millionaires Tax and extend our rent control laws.

“Today, I am glad that Governor Cuomo realizes that we need to tax the rich, and I am hopeful that my colleagues in the Senate and Governor Cuomo will continue to see that when we vote on next year’s Budget fight we need to protect the poor and needy people who live in New York.”

Diaz is not quite accurate in his assessment since Governor Cuomo has been acting to try and protect many of the state’s more vulnerable citizens. Additionally, the Occupy Wall Street movement has certainly given impetus to many of the more populist policies that politicians like Cuomo would prefer to pursuit.

The signing of the Constitution

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin, February 17, 1775.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Amendment IV, The Constitution of the United States

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Amendment V, The Constitution of the United States

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” Amendment VI, The Constitution of the United States

Any lawmaker who forgets or ignores these words does not deserve to sit in Congress or the Senate. It’s as simple as that. Europe has been dealing with terrorists since the 1960s and never did anything as stupidly contrary to liberty as the United States Senate did this week when they passed a law that would place American citizens in Guantanamo Bay prison without due process, without counsel, without any contact with the outside indefinitely.

Sixteen Democrats joined Independent Joe Lieberman and the Republicans in retaining this obnoxious amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. Senator Mark Udall of Colorado had offered an amendment that would have removed this provision. President Obama has vowed to veto the whole bill in order to kill this amendment. Even if Congress managed to override the veto, which would require a two-thirds vote, the amendment will not survive any court challenge on its constitutionality, not even in the Robert Court. The amendment is an affront to our national values, to our constitution, to everything that set us apart from dictatorships and absolute monarchies and every other form of oppressive governance. It would take someone who might have harbored terrorist ideas and ship him to Gitmo on nothing but an assumption or because of an accusation brought by someone who might have a very personal agenda for getting rid of someone. It can take some dumb kid who looks up a bomb-making site on the web in the school library and put him in prison. Think that’s an unreasonable idea? It isn’t. The 15-year-old son of a friend ended up being interrogated by the F.B.I. because he had done just that. It is the kind of “law” enforced by the likes of Bashar al-Assad or Josef Stalin, not by the United States of America.

Sixteen Democrats voted for this. They are Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Joe Manchin (W. Va.), Clair McCaskill (Mo.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.). Conrad, Manchin, McCaskill, and Nelson might offer the excuse that they are facing re-election in conservative states and need to vote with the Republicans to save their seats, but Casey, Kohl, Menendez, Stabenow and Whitehouse don’t have that excuse and the rest aren’t up for re-election. They have no one to answer to but their own consciences, if they have any.

We are better than this. Frankly, this is the kind of action that convinces others that we are not a land of liberty or justice, but just another imperial force determined to conquer and occupy. And that is precisely why we are the target of terrorists.

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Sen. Carl Schurz, left, in a contemporary political cartoon

Doing my husband’s genealogy I learned that our children’s ancestors and relatives have served in every armed conflict fought on this continent or by the citizens of the United States and Canada from the battles with the Iroquois during colonization to the first Gulf War. The only wars we have managed to sit out were Iraq and Afghanistan, and that was only because my nephew was stationed elsewhere. For 380 years, my children’s ancestors and relatives have fought for liberty, for freedom, and sometimes for dominance and power.

In 1812, Eustache Bénèche was imprisoned for protesting the conscription of French Canadians into the British army. He and his friends were protesting the British plan to draft as many service-age French Canadians as they could and ship them to Hudson’s Bay so they wouldn’t join the Americans in fighting the British. Their resistance wasn’t about politics. They had families that needed their labor to provide wages to survive. Since that time, it has been quietly understood that some wars are not honorable, some wars are not just and some enemies are not enemies of the people, just enemies of the powerful. It has been understood that questioning the actions of a government is not treason – it is the right and proper thing to do in a democracy.

The full “My country right or wrong” quote is frequently cut short because it demands that we hold our government accountable for its actions. What Carl Schurz said on the floor of the United States Senate on February 29, 1872 was “My country right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!”

There is no dishonor in a nation making mistakes, there is only dishonor in not admitting and correcting it. This time, with the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, we who opposed the wars have made the effort to separate the veterans and the fallen from the people who sent them to war so that we do not repeat the errors of the Vietnam War. I think we have succeeded in that an no veteran of the past ten years feels as isolated and disrespected as the veterans of my generation did. God, I hope so.

We have fought for acceptance of openly gay and lesbian soldiers because it is the right thing to do. Every American who wants to serve should be allowed to freely and openly. We understood that the unintended consequence of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a system that fostered blackmailing and abuse of gay and lesbian service personnel and resentments that could be turned against the military. The same held true in the past for African American service personnel whose skin was light enough to pass for white, for ethnic and religious minority personnel.

Approaching Omaha Beach, Normandy, June 6, 1944

William Thomas Cummings wrote, in 1942, “There are no atheists in the foxholes.” There are also no coons, wops, chinks, pollocks, towelheads, kikes, fags or crackers. There are only soldiers, brothers in arms fighting to save each others’ lives. That was the lesson my father brought home from the Pacific front – that in combat, that which separates us in civilian life disappears under fire.

And in that simple epiphany lies the real reason there was so much resistance to ending DADT – the military is the place where people lose their bigotries, reluctantly perhaps, but they do lose it. The military has, over the course of the past 60 years, acted as the place where Americans have learned how to co-exist. A little recognized aspect of the civil rights movement was the way black and Native American veterans were treated upon returning to the States. The men and women who had fought next to these minority veterans were appalled by that treatment, and without really talking about why, became supporters of equality and human rights.

Ending DADT goes far beyond what it will do to the services. It will, over time, impact all of American life, just as desegregating the services did.

Colin Powell, Commanding General FORSCOM

Today, we honor our veterans for their service. We might like to take a moment and consider the enormous impact those veterans have had on civilian life as well. They have quietly and without fanfare helped break down the bigotries of our society.

There are no enemies crouching down beside one in a foxhole or inside a tank or behind a barricade under fire – there are only brothers and sisters in arms.

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Ted and Kara Kennedy, 2008

Kara Kennedy, oldest child of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, died Friday of a massive heart attack at a Washington-area health club. She was just 51 years old. Ms. Kennedy had battled lung cancer since 2003, and her brother Patrick, a former Congressman from Rhode Island, when announcing her death, suggested that the aggressive treatments she received for her cancer had weakened her heart. Like many cancer survivors, Ms. Kennedy was devout in her health regimes and died after finishing her daily workout. In his statement, Patrick Kennedy said, “Her heart gave out.”

Ms. Kennedy was a board member of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate and a filmmaker and television producer who created several videos for Very Special Arts, an organization founded by Jean Kennedy Smith. She was also a board member of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as a national advisor. She was a director emerita and national trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library.

Senator Kennedy died of a brain tumor in 2009. Her brother Edward Jr. survived bone cancer as a child and brother Patrick had a benign tumor removed from his spine in 1988. Ms. Kennedy was married to Michael Allen, with whom she had a son and daughter, both in their teens. In a Boston Globe Magazine article about her father, Ms. Kennedy wrote, “What mattered to my father was not the scale of an accomplishment, but that we did our share to make the world better, that we learned we were part of something larger than ourselves.”

Eleanor, Walter and Joan Mondale, 1984

Former Vice-President Walter Mondale and his wife Joan, e-maled a statement to friends announcing Saturday that their daughter Eleanor Mondale had lost her battle with brain cancer. She too was just 51. In their statement, they wrote that they “must report that our wonderful daughter, Eleanor Mondale Poling, after her long and gutsy battle against cancer, went up to heaven last night to be with her angel.”

Ms. Mondale, usually described as “vivacious” and “a striking blonde,” had a very successful career as an entertainment reporter, radio show host and gossip writer, along with occasional stints as an actress on television programs like Three’s Company and Dynasty. Her reputation as a party girl was revived when the ex-wife of rocker Warren Zevon published accounts of Mondale’s affair with him in her 2007 book I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon. She began her broadcasting career in 1989 as an entertainment reporter at WCCO-TV, possibly leaving after just 8 months because of a magazine article about her wild-child days which quoted her as saying, “I like to get wild, but it’s not murder and I don’t do drugs.” After that initial job, she moved on to radio station WLOL-FM, cable television’s E! Entertainment, ESPN and CBS’s This Morning. She returned to Minnesota in 2006 and settled into co-hosting a morning show on WCCO-AM with Susie Jones.

Eleanor was the middle of the Mondale’s three children, flanked by brothers Ted and William. Her cancer was first detected in 2005, sucessfully treated at that time, and returned in 2008. She was married three times, first to Chicago Bears offensive lineman Keith Van Horne, fellow DJ Greg Thunder and in 2005 to Minneapolis rocker Chan Poling of The Suburbs. They lived on a farm near Prior Lake with miniature horses, cats, chickens, dogs and a cockatoo.

Senator Charles Percy, 1982

Lastly, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller’s office has announced the death of his father-in-law, former Senator Charles H. Percy, who died Saturday in Washington at the age of 91.

In his time, Charles Percy was famous for the good and the horrific in his life. He was a very attractive man at a time when movie-star looks were an oddity in Washington politics. He was a moderate Republican as the party was swinging to conservativism. But his daughter, Valerie, twin of Sen. Rockefeller’s wife Sharon, was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in her bed at the family’s lakefront home in Kenilworth, Illinois, in a 1966 crime that remains unsolved. The murder took place during Percy’s first campaign for the United States Senate and campaigning was suspended by both parties for two weeks as a result.

In the 1960′s, Percy always seemed to be on the cusp of greatness. He had been a sucessful business executive before entering politics. He lost a bid for Illinois governor in 1964. He served three terms in the Senate, from 1967 to 1985. His name was mentioned repeatedly as either a Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate. Instead, he backed Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976, when Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. In 1984, he lost his fourth race to Democratic Rep. Paul Simon.

Percy was a true rogue in the Republican Party, always putting he nation above the party, particularly in his work on the Foreign Relations Committee. In his statement on Saturday, Jay Rockefeller wrote, “His insistence on a balanced perspective in his public life, (calling himself “fervently moderate”) helped us understand it is both possible and perferable to live in a world without partisansip.” And former Illinois Governor James Thompson called Percy “a classic example of what a public official should be. While he was unquestionably a Republican party member and promoter, he was a man who could work with Democrats and independents, as well, who wanted only the best for this state and his country. [Percy] avoided the personal polarizing politics that seems to infest us at every level today.” Sen. Dick Durbin, who was with Percy’s opponent when they learned of the Valerie Percy’s death, echoed this assessment of Percy, saying on Saturday, the candidates in 1966 “showed a humanity and a respect which should be recalled in this era of venoumous personal attacks and wild charges.”

In 1984, while chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Percy told the Chicago Tribune, “I don’t want foreign policy developed just by one party and ride roughshod over the other party. I’d much more value a bill that has bipartisan support. That’s what this committee achieved in World War II, achieved in the Marshall Plan.” It was these kinds of statements, as the country was becoming more polarized during the Reagan administration and the rise of right wing media that ended Percy’s political career.

After losing his Senate seat, Percy remained in Washington running a foreign relations consulting firm. He had been born in Pensacola, Florida, in 1919, but was moved to Illinois at a very young age. After a stint in the Navy during World War II, Percy returned to Bell & Howell, where he had been working since graduating from the University of Chicago in 1941. The chairman of Bell & Howell, Joseph McNabb, had been Percy’s Sunday school teacher. Percy was named chairman upon McNabb’s death in 1949. Only 30 years old, Percy grew Bell & Howell at a phenomenal rate, increasing earning 32-fold and employees 12-fold. Under his stewardship, Bell & Howell became a publicly traded company. His first wife, Jeanne Dickerson, with whom he had a son Roger and the twin girls Sharon and Valerie, died in 1947. In 1950, he married his second wife, Loraine Guyer, and they had a daughter, Gail, and son, Mark. Sharon Percy Rockefeller is president and chief executive of WETA, the Washington, D. C. PBS station that has produced such nationally carried programs as PBS Newshour, Washington Week, the Ken Burns documentaries, A Capitol Fourth, Frontline and Nova.

Percy was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2009. The family is planning a private memorial service. There will probably be some form of short memorial in the Senate this coming week, which is regrettable. Charles Percy was a man the entire Congress should be reminded of, a true statesman who put his constituents and his nation above his party, even when he knew that would cost him an election.

They say deaths come in threes, and for Washington this weekend, that old saying came true.

Related articles

• Former Illinois Senator, And Republican Moderate, Charles Percy Dies At 91 (outsidethebeltway.com)
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Wisconsin Representative Tammy Baldwin may become the first openly lesbian or gay US Senator got a huge boost yesterday when Representative Ron Kind stated that he will not seek the nomination. Baldwin is running for the seat, and it is likely that she will get the nomination since she is currently the front runner.

Kind informed Politico that “I have been urged by many across Wisconsin to run for Senate. I thank them sincerely for their steadfast support and their trust in my commitment to put solving peoples’ problems first and foremost. But that commitment has led me to this conclusion: Now is not the time to run for the U.S. Senate. At this time a divisive primary contest will not serve the interests of the state or the real needs of families. … Most certainly it will not reduce the hyper partisanship that is needlessly tearing apart our state and our country.”

Baldwin has never lost a race, but has never faced statewide election. Supposedly she faces stiff competition from the Republicans such as former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and former Wisconsin Representative Mark Neumann. Current polling shows that Baldwin would lose to either, but it is very early in the race, and it may be possible for her to make a lot out of the unpopularity of the GOP in her state.

Openly Lesbian Wisconsin Rep Tammy Baldwin, has  made her official entry into the Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, with a video and interview in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel this morning.

Baldwin is seeking the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl. Kohl’s seat is one of at least eight open spots that will help determine the balance of power in the Senate, where Republicans need to pick up just four seats to take control.

Baldwin, the first woman who Wisconsin voters sent to Congress, was also the first person elected to Congress after announcing they were gay. She was first elected in 1998.

According to the Journal Sentinel:

In a video statement emailed to supporters and posted on the Internet, Baldwin set out the broad theme of her campaign: “to stand up for you (voters), no matter how tough the odds or how powerful the special interest it means fighting against.”

“The fact is, I’ve been honest about my sexual orientation my entire adult life,” she said. “And integrity is important in public service. But what voters are looking for is somebody who understands them, is fighting for them and won’t give up. The election is not going to be about me, it’s about the voters.”

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann entered the Senate race last week. Neumann said at the time that he was focusing his campaign on Baldwin, who he presumed would capture the Democratic nomination. However, longtime Wisconsin GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson is also expressing inter in the seat.

Other Republicans indicating they plan to run include Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a top ally of polarizing Gov. Scott Walker; state Sen. Frank Lasee, a lawmaker who once advocated arming teachers to protect their classrooms; and former state Sen. Ted Kanavas.

If she wins, Baldwin would be the first openly gay person to serve in the U.S. Senate.

19 August 2011
by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

The decision by Russ Feingold not to run in 2012 for any office is one that must be disappointing for many people even though it is good news for the supporters of Representative Tammy Baldwin. The Wisconsin Representative is the only openly lesbian member of the House, and could become the first openly lesbian or gay person in the Senate. We all know about Senator Mark Kirk’s dalliances, but he has not officially come out.

Baldwin is at the front of the race to keep the Senate seat being left by Wisconsin’s senior Senator next year. There is very little else to be said right now other than to point out that, right now, Republicans are incredibly unpopular in that state.

The bigger problem may be for those who want to recall Governor Scott Walker. They had been banking on Feingold to run to replace Walker because, right now, he is the only Democrat who could capture enough momentum to actually have the recall take place. While those who recalled the Republicans this past few weeks did so with alarming ability- taking out two in heavily Republican districts- the fast fury that was there to do that has dimmed slightly, for the moment. It was hoped that Feingold could reignite those passions once more.

Hopefully, those who are going to push to take down Walker will move forward with that anyway.

There is something else to be noted, and it is something that, oddly, Scott Walker probably picked up on. This whole voter identification push could end up doing more harm to the Republicans than helping them. They are basing their demographics model on a much older time when they could capture a lot of their voters were more affluent, living in the suburbs, and having ready transportation. Unfortunately, these days, they are counting more and more on rural and elderly voters to win.

These bastions could make it far harder for people to get identification. In fact, it could completely disenfranchise large portions of their base because they cannot get identification.

17 August 2011
by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

Representative Allen West is apparently considering a run for the Republican nomination for the US Senate in 2012. West, who is known for his outbursts, rude behavior, and downright inability to work well with others, could find that his little tantrums will not sit well with the Senate.

Currently, West is planning on running for a second term in the US House, but he is open to a Senate run. Speaking before the Palm Beach County Tea Party, West stated “I cracked it open enough so that people can slip a note under the door and I can read the note and I can write back on the note ‘probably not’ and send it back out under the door.”

He also stated “There are people here in the state of Florida that see me as a political entity and they are very trustworthy within the Republican Party structure. I should sit down and talk to them. But I don’t think people are really going to be able to move me.”

West recently stated that there was no chance of him running for the Senate, and emphatically told the editors and reporters of the Sun Sentinel that he would not. Still, now he is saying “If people want to talk to me about something like that it would be very disrespectful and rude for me to slam the door in their face.”

He has raised quite a bit of money- $1.5 million- which is more than any of the Senate candidates out there right now.

Still, given that this is a constant theme these days what with Paul Ryan and Chris Christie saying that they won’t run for President then changing their minds, it is hard to take this seriously until he actually does run for the Senate.

Of course, given his crazy behavior, West may change his mind by the next time someone asks him.

04 August 2011
by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

Republicans believe in small government right up until they demand access into people’s bedrooms. Gary Glenn is no different. The head of the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association, which is an SPLC listed hate group for a variety of reasons, has announced that he wants to unseat Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow largely, it appears, because she supports LGBT Rights.

In announcing his run, he said:

“My father was a U.S. Marine who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, who taught me a deep love and willingness to fight for my country and all that it stands for.”

“And I believe that all that it stands for – limited Constitutional government and limitless opportunity, individual freedom tempered by commonly shared values – is at a tipping point, at risk of being lost and perhaps never recovered if the socialist, big government, ‘redistribution of wealth’ ideology and redefinition of our culture being pushed by Debbie Stabenow and Barak [sic] Obama isn’t stopped.”

YAWN…let us all know when you can come up with something more original.

Stabenow has not endorsed the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act yet, but she did vote to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This is something that Glenn has attacked in the past. He viciously and with all the usual lies, attacked the attempts by Holland, Michigan to pass protections similar to ENDA. He said at the time, via OnTopMagazine:

“Herman Miller, which is a major employer and corporation in Holland, a furniture company, supported this so-called gay rights ordinance on the claim that it allowed them to attract the best and the brightest,” Glenn said on Linda Harvey’s Mission America radio program.

“What ridiculous folly to suggest that only those individuals who engage in homosexual behavior given all of its severe medical consequences constitute the best and the brightest. It’s not really bright to engage in behavior that puts you at dramatically higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse and AIDS and cancer and hepatitis, and according to various sources, premature death. So to suggest that engaging in that type of behavior defines someone as the best and brightest, which seems to be the line coming out of corporate America, is just ridiculous.”

Harvey agreed, adding that gay people are also more likely to be violent and unable to sustain long-term relationships: “You’re right. And higher rates of domestic violence and unstable relationships. I would not think of a homosexual person as a good employment risk, I just wouldn’t.”

As for his father being in the Marines and surviving Pearl Harbor, well, isn’t that special. My grandfather served in the Army Air Corps, one of his brothers was a reporter for Stars and Stripes and who survived Normandy Beach and the Battle of the Bulge (all without a gun, mind you), another of his brothers was in th Navy, and his sister was in the Marines as a nurse. Sorry, but it is hard to find someone who is not descended from or related to a World War II veteran. My paternal great-grandfather served in the Royal Canadian Army. An ancestor of mine fought in the Civil War for the Union. I had ancestors on both sides of the Revolution, and all sides in the French and Indian War. I may have even had an ancestor fight in the Crusades, and look what it’s gotten me, huh?

House Speaker John Boehner

These are the historical facts: To get us out of the Depression, President Roosevelt started the greatest infrastructure projects in American history…the electrification of the Tennessee Valley, the Hoover Dam, roads, dams, nationals parks. The private sector pitched in too….The Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center. In 1948, to get us out of a national debt equal to 120% of our GDP (currently we are at around 63% without Social Security, 90% with), President Truman raised the top tax rate to over 90%, imposed excise taxes on luxury goods and then President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system. We recovered from the Depression, though there is some argument that it was World War II that ended the Depression, and our economy boomed during the 1950′s under Truman and Eisenhower.

So, what is the logic of the Republican insistence that we must lower taxes on “job creators” even more (how much less than nothing can General Electric pay?) and we must cut spending, cut spending, cut spending – and certainly not spend anything on roads, bridges, the power grid or anything else that desperately needs to be fixed? Those “job creators” have not created jobs in the ten years they have had these tax breaks. Our tax code exploded with special interest tax credits, tax breaks and loopholes during the Bush administration. We are taking in less revenue as a percentage of our GDP today than at any time since 1975.

What can President Obama do? Pretty much nothing.

The stimulus bill that was passed in the first year of his administration consisted of tax cuts for the middle class and money for states to use for infrastructure projects. Most states used it to plug their deficits, pushing their budget problems off until this year. A few states, like Vermont, used it for needed bridge and road work. So, the Rooseveltian solutions for getting out of the near-depression was done to death at the state level and there will not be another one.

And, no matter how many Tea Partiers SAY they want tax reform, elimination of special interest tax breaks and loopholes in exchange for lower rates, they do not want more revenue and the only tax credits they are talking about eliminating are those used by the middle and lower classes. Forget about any of them ever acknowledging that President Obama first raised this idea on January 25.

Why? Two things stand in the way of any significant changes that would create jobs. The first is the one President Obama had to deal with from day one….the filibuster. According to the Senate’s internal rules – the Constitution says they can establish their own rules – one senator can in secret object to a bill that has come from the House. Then, the Senate has to take a “cloture” vote in order to vote on the bill itself. Sixty senators have to vote to override the objection. There are not 60 Democrats in the Senate. Almost 300 bills and appointments were blocked by any single Senator who did not have to be identified as being responsible for a judicial district not getting a judge or a simple bill to honor honey bees. After a period of time, those filibusters have to be renewed, and that job fell to Sen. Jim DeMint. He personally renewed every one of those filibusters right up to the end of that session of the Senate.

The second thing standing in the way happened in January. The Republicans took control of the House. All bills that spend money begin in the House. The Republicans made it clear from the beginning that their sole goal is to make President Obama a one-term president. They want what Karl Rove promised them in 2000 – a one-party government, just like any of those totalitarian states…the U.S.S.R. , Communist China, the entire Middle East before the Tunisian revolution, Myanmar, North Korea. Those are one-party countries and that’s what Karl Rove promised he would deliver to the Republicans.

To create a one-party state, the Republicans must allow our economy to fail. That is how they believe they can take control of the White House and the Senate in 2012. They have Fox News and talk radio to spread the propaganda. The polls about the debt ceiling showed how successful they are at their message.

There is no point in asking Boehner or anyone else in the Republican Party where the jobs are, because they are not interested in creating jobs even if they do create that one-party nation. All they are interested in as making sure people blame President Obama.

Related articles

• Joe Peyronnin: Obama’s Jobs Pivot (huffingtonpost.com)
• Democrats Celebrate Obama’s Birthday (stevebeckow.com)

By a vote of 74 to 26, the Senate passed the “compromise” debt ceiling bill which passed the House last night.   No one likes the bill, no one is comfortable with the outcome and the American public continues to want to know where are the jobs?

The bi-partisan, bi-cameral committee should be announced in September by the latest.  Congress is due to take their August recess.  Now is the time to learn what is needed to know about the whole budget process, organize to increase our voices from one to one thousand, and be ready to out-shout the extremists on both sides who will derail and disrupt the process.  The committee is supposed to have its plans ready by November.  At best, we will have two months to make them understand that there is a center to this country.  It is not just made up of the shouters and yellers on the fringe.

But for now, we have grin and bear it and fight down the nausea this ginned-up, stupid battle caused.

Related articles

• The Fine Print On The Debt Deal (lezgetreal.com)
• House Passes Debt Ceiling Bill (lezgetreal.com)
• Debt Deal Reached (lezgetreal.com)

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

At 7:04 p.m. Eastern Time, the House of Representatives passed the debt ceiling bill. The final vote two minutes later was 269 in favor, 161 opposed and 3 not voting. The ayes were 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats.  When the vote passed the 216 mark, applause broke out.  Speaker Boehner was wielding the gavel himself for this vote.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords flew in from Houston, where she is still receiving treatment for the bullet that passed through her head last January, to cast her vote.  Rep. Giffords’ presence was the primary reason for all the applause.

The bill will now go to the Senate for a vote tomorrow.

With less than 52 hours to go, the President announced Sunday night that an agreement had been reached on the debt ceiling and budget crisis.

In brief, the deal involves raising the debt ceiling through the end of 2012, there will be $1 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years ($100 billion per year), a bi-partisan “super-committee” comprised of one member of each party from each chamber of Congress will be set up to determine how to best reduce spending and stimulate our economy to report back before November for a vote. Everything will be on the table in this committee. The vote in the Senate, which will go first, is tentatively set for 1 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. Sen. Mike Lee has said he will filibuster the bill. That means that the bill will need a bi-partisan total of 60 votes. Currently, the Senate contains 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats. After passage in the Senate, the bill will go to the House, where it will only need a straight majority of 217 votes. There are currently 240 Republicans and 193 Democrats, with one seat vacant and Gabrielle Giffords on leave of absence.

President Obama said in his statement announcing the deal, “This process has been messy. It has taken far too long.” The man is certainly a master of understatement.

Related articles

• Debt deal vote likely on Monday, party sources say (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

It has been a frustrating day in the news. I spent most of it wishing I could reach through the television and bitch slap a few Republicans.

Let’s start with Speaker Boehner. He’s still saying that the President never put out a plan. I’ve read the President’s budget. Has Boehner? The budget for 2011-12 is smaller than the budget for 2010-11 which was smaller than the budget for 2009-10. He says they have sent two bills to the Senate which the Senate ignored. Yup – the first was a twenty-odd page “budget” that privatized Medicare. The second was a bill that capped all Federal spending as a smaller percentage of our budgets have ever had and demanded a balanced budget amendment. A simple straw poll showed the neither had the votes to pass the Senate, so why should they spend the time and money putting them on the floor. Boehner also said he put revenues on the table. That’s just plain bullshit. The President offered $4 trillion in cuts for the debt ceiling. That’s more than twice what’s in the Boehner bill. It’s almost twice the amount needed.

Then, there were the tea partiers. Take Rep. Steve King of Iowa’s 5^th District for instance. He told Michael Smerconish on Hardball that “We almost balanced the budget during the height of the Iraq War.” His point was that it is not necessary to raise revenues or raise the debt ceiling. Then, I wanted to slap Smerconish for not saying, “Yes, you balanced the budget, but the war was not included in it and you raised the debt ceiling seven times for Bush.” I’m getting tired of journalists who don’t confront lies and stupidity with facts. King also insisted that there is no budget or debt crisis. The man lives in fantasy land.

Here are the numbers……

One August 2^nd, the Treasury will have $30 billion on hand. In August, the government will take in $172 billion. So, for the month of August, we start with $202 billion in revenues. What do we owe – not new spending, just what we are obligated to pay in August.

Interest on Treasury bonds: $29 billion [balance $173 billion]

Social Security disability and first Wednesday payments: $20 billion [bal. $153 B]

Remaining Social Security payments: $29 billion [bal. $124 B]

Medicare/Medicaid payments: $50 billion [bal. $74 B]

Military spending: $5.8 billion for Veteran’ pensions, medical care and paychecks [bal.$68.2 B]

Military contracts: $31.7 billion [bal. $36.5 B]

Unemployment insurance: $12.8 billion [bal. $23.7 B]

Food stamps: $9.3 billion [bal. $14.4 B]

Rent subsidies: $6.7 billion [bal. $7.7 B]

Pell grants and special education programs: $14 billion [bal. – $6.3 B]

That leaves hundreds of contracts signed with companies for everything from building the new air traffic control tower in Las Vegas to bridges which we will pay penalties for if the contracts are delayed, the operations of all the government both domestic and foreign. Pick an embassy to close. The total is a negative $105 billion. And it will recur in September, October, November, etc. etc. until there is a real change in the way we raise revenues and until we get over 20 million Americans back to work and millions more into the jobs they were trained and educated for.

Just before 6:30 p.m. Eastern, the House passed Speaker Boehner’s bill, after the most impassioned speech he’s ever given in his careeer. The final vote was 218 Republicans for, 20 Republicans against, 2 not voting, 188 Democrats against and 5 not voting. The bill raises the debt limit only enough to get through January, requires a bi-partisan commission to address the debt and deficit (anyone ever hear of Simpson-Bowles?) and the passage of a balanced budget amendment before we go through this crap again.

Now, the Boehner bill goes to the Senate, where the Democrats have said they will not pass a short-term bill and Sen. Rand Paul says he will filibuster any bill that raises the debt ceiling.

There are a lot of words that have been used this week that will come home to haunt the Tea Partiers and Republicans – they have said in front on cameras that they believe we should reform the tax system to eliminate loopholes and special interest tax breaks and lower the rates. That should be our next big battle – make them put their donors’ money where their mouths are.

They have also made the mistake of saying that they represent “The American People” – we’ll see about that, won’t we?

Related articles

• Boehner Adds Balanced Budget Amendment (politicalwire.com)

LulzSec logo

Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of autism that primarily effects the victims’ ability to function around other people. There is no impact on linguistic skills or intelligence, though it usually involves clumsiness, unusual language patterns and repetitive behavior, similar to obsessive compulsive behavior. Asperger’s is one a spectrum of conditions that has greatly expanded the diagnosed number of autism victims while raising questions about where the perimeters of the diagnosis should be drawn.

When it was originally defined by Austrian pediatrician Has Asperger in 1944, his patients also showed a lack of empathy with others. Where Asperger’s as a high-functioning form of autism ends and sociopathy begins is something that the British courts may be asked to determine.

The attorneys for 19-year-old Ryan Cleary, who was arrested this week as a primary member of LulzSec, argued during his bail hearing at the City of Westminster’s Magistrate’s Court that he suffers from Asperger’s as well as agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces. They were requesting bail and house supervision instead of incarceration pending trial for a client they feel would be damaged by remaining in jail for any period of time. Bail was granted and he was set to be released to his parent’s home in Essex when prosecutors objected.

Cleary’s group, Lulz Security, claimed that it was just having some fun, but on the day of his arrest, the Arizona state police were hacked, their files downloaded and personal data about troopers were published on the web. The specifics of Cleary’s charges involve creating a botnet – a series of hijacked PCs – to cause denial of service attacks. They also hacked gaming sites such as Nintnedo and specific games like League of Legends, Fox.com user passwords, Sonymusic Japan, PBS staff log-ins, Sonypictures.com users, the United States Senate, Bethesda military hospital, Infragard which is an F.B.I. affiliate, and UK cash machines, two phonographic industry sites, as well as Pron.com, a porn site.

The Court agreed that Cleary demonstrates a very high intelligence and difficulty interacting with people in the real world. The defining behavior of both Asperger’s and agoraphobia sound like the stereotype of the pasty-complexioned, computer-addicted slacker living in his parent’s basement, on-line all day inside role-playing games, mainlining sodas and pizza. If Cleary’s attorneys were laying out the groundwork for their defense, on a mental health basis, the Court will be trying to sort out the point at which stereotypical nerdy behavior can be excused as an extension of mental illness. This could prove to be a critical step in how the world deals with and perceives hacking groups like WikiLeaks, Anonymous and LulzSec. Both Julian Assange and Bradley Manning have exhibited behavior that falls within the clinical diagnostic range of mild or severe mental illnesses. Having a child who finds a world to inhabit on-line is often a life-saving experience for families struggling with the child’s schizophrenia, but is that helping to create an on-line culture that is a serious threat to the security and privacy of the rest of us? Because of the international nature of the computer world, this case could have repercussions everywhere.

Bail for Cleary was allowed, but release was denied because of the prosecution’s objections. On August 30, his appeal of the bail decision will be heard at a Plea and Case Management hearing at Southwark Crown Court. If he wins bail, he will be denied possession of any means of accessing the Net, and he will not be allowed out of the house without his mother, Rita Cleary, who told the press after his arrest that Ryan has been “obsessed with computers” since he was 12. He has not entered a plea on the charges.

Related articles

• Teen Hacking Suspect ‘Has Asperger’s’ (news.sky.com)
• Ryan Cleary , alleged hacker, has Asperger’s (news.cnet.com)
• LulzSec “Mastermind” Arrested In England (lezgetreal.com)
• Asperger’s Syndrome: High-Functioning Autism to Lose Its Name (abcnews.go.com)
• Mum In Court For Teen Son’s ‘Hacking’ Case (news.sky.com)
• Letters: Asperger’s fears (guardian.co.uk)
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According to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the House vote to halt American involvement in Libya is an assertion by the Congress of its powers under the Constitution and the War Powers Act. Once again, those who didn’t use the War Powers Act to stop President Bush have failed to read the whole act.

The War Powers Resolution: “Sec. 8 (a) Authority to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indictated shall not be inferred………(2) from any treaty heretofore or hereafter ratified unless such treaty is implemented by legislation specifically authorizing the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into such situations and stating that it is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization with the meaning of this joint resolution.”

In plain English, if the Senate ratified the treaty, we have to honor it. That’s what “implemented by legislation” means. If the treaty says we mobilize, we mobilize. Period.

The United Nations Charter, Article 43: “All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and failities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.” And Article 45: “In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree of readiness of these contingetns and plans for their combined action shall be determined within the limits laid down in the special agreement or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.”

The NATO treaties specifically call for material support and co-ordination of actions with other members, which is exactly what we are doing and have been doing for most of the time we have been involved.

Guess what, guys, the action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council and is being conducted by NATO. The United States Senate ratified both treaties and the alterations to the NATO treaty that have occurred at several times over the past 50 years as NATO’s mission and scope was changed. In both treaties, terms were specifically set down for military actions by member states. In the ratification of both treaties, the Senate did not exempt United States involvement in military actions. That’s how we ended up in Korea. It was completely legal for President Clinton to have American troops and planes involved in the NATO action in Bosnia and it is completely legal for us to participate in this action.

Kucinich also claims that we will be getting involved in “Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan….” He and the rest of the Congress needs to subscribe to a good newspaper.

Yemen is almost a done deal. Saleh will never be allowed to return, even if he makes a full recovery from his injuries. What is left is purely internal and Saudi Arabia is brokering the transition. Yemen will not be easy. It is a country that has tried to divide itself for years. But President Obama already made it clear that dealing with al Qaida in Yemen will not be like dealing with al Qaida in Afghanistan. If we go after any al Qaida members in Yemen, it will be the kind of precision operation that killed bin Laden. Again, Saudi Arabia is deeply involved because al Qaida represents a threat to them even more than to us. Al Qaida cannot fulfill bin Laden’s dream of the new Caliphate without conquering Saudi Arabia.

No one in his or her right mind is suggesting any kind of military action in Somalia. It isn’t even a country anymore, just a hideout for pirates. The best thing the world can do is establish a no-sail zone around Somalia and provide escorts for those ships that cannot avoid the area or make sure that any ship that must enter the zone is fully armed and trained, along with proper radar if necessary. This is a region where oil tankers must sail. It is up to the oil companies and the countries that own those ships to protect them.

The situation in and with Pakistan is fluid at the moment. The death of bin Laden has removed a barrier to Pakistani forces controlling the border region. Their big problem is forging a viable popular government and that is not something we can get involved in. We do have a vested interest in trying to accomplish with Pakistan and India what we have not been able to do with Israel and the Palestinians – get an acceptable peace treaty between the two. When India is not a threat to Pakistan (or a perceived threat), then the country can concentrate on its other borders and its internal problems.

Syria, however, does present a possibility of involvement. Turkey is a member of NATO. According to our treaty obligations, if Syrian forces enter Turkey, the Turkish government would be within its rights to request support from NATO. The possibility of military action in Syria depends entirely on how insane and stupid Bashar and Maher al Assad are, and whether or not Turkey fells it needs any help. They do have a well equipped military, after all. Syria is also a problem because of Israel, with whom we also have treaty obligations. They too, have their own military – in fact they have an exceptional military and almost all their citizens have military training.

Kucinch also said there was no “massacre” in Libya, just a lot of noise and threats. Col. Qaddafi had proven with his shellings of Brega and Misrata, with his use of mercenaries in his own capital, that he was perfectly willing to carry out his threats to “make the sands run red.” The Arab League and the United Nations believed him capable of the slaughter of his own people. The siege of Misrata has shown they were justified in that belief.

The vote to suspend American actions in relation to Libya was 295-123, with 70 Democrats voting with all the Republicans. But after that vote, the House Republicans leadership lost an effort to cut off funding for the mission by 180 to 238. The vote to pull out of Libya is primarily an embarrassment for the administration and is not expected to pass the Senate. The funding bill would have prevented the use of American drones and air strikes. We are not flying air strikes fight now anyway. As Secretary of State Clinton pointed out in her testimony yesterday, the vote will only serve to encourage Col Qaddafi and place more Libyan lives at risk.

Related articles

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Nineteen-year-old Ryan Cleary of Wickford, Essex, U.K., has been arrested under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act in a joint Scotland Yard-F.B.I. investigation of the hacking site Lulz Security, also known as LulzSec. Following the arrest by the Metropolitan e-crimes division, Scotland Yard issued the following statement: “The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial of service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group. Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forsensic examinations remain ongoing.” The Yard spokesman declined to specifically identify Cleary as a member of LulzSec, but the attacks which led to the raid have been linked to that site. The F.B.I. had no comment on the case.

When LulzSec first appeared last month, it presented itself as a group of prankster hackers just in it for the fun. The name, Lulz, was supposed to be shorthand for “loads of laughs.” The attacks linked to the group proved to be anything but funny. They attacked gaming sites such as Nintnedo and specific games like League of Legends, Fox.com user passwords, Sonymusic Japan, PBS staff log-ins, Sonypictures.com users, the United States Senate, Bethesda military hospital, Infragard which is an F.B.I. affiliate, and UK cash machines, as well as Pron.com, a porn site.

It was when they attacked the U. K. Census Bureau, the C.I.A. and Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency that it became possible to track down Cleary. It is also suspected of trying to hack into the British National Health Service system.

LulzSec announced on its Twitter page recently that they wanted to rival Anonymous, which wants to rival WikiLeaks without the whistleblowers that provide WikiLeaks with a shield from prosecution. The international support of WikiLeaks as the saviors of freedom and sources of truth have persuaded some that any hacking into any system is somehow noble and heroic.

There is nothing noble about screwing up an on-line game site. That’s just childish and petty. There is a chasm between exposing government cover-ups of illegal or immoral behavior and messing up census data that determines education allotments for towns. The only people who benefit from hacking and publishing criminal investigation files are the criminals.

Daniel Ellsberg and the people who worked with him on the Pentagon Papers had the experience, knowledge and expertise to analyze the documents and redact whatever was unnecessary or which placed innocent lives in danger. They were dealing with the manner in which a war was conducted and the lies told to the American public about that war. They weren’t messing around in private medical records or screwing up bank accounts or jeopardizing funding for public services or giving criminals a heads-up for avoiding arrest. They also weren’t lazy. Dumping thousands of raw records only smudges the facts that exist in them. Every incident becomes mulitplied as it is “exposed” repeatedly on blogs or websites until it is virtually impossible to tell what the facts are.

The world needs full transparency. We need those people willing to step forward and say, “the official version is a lie.” We don’t need someone thinking that undermining criminal investigations or unraveling years of intelligence work to track down al Qaida leadership is a good thing.

Related articles

• Hacking probe police hold teenager (mirror.co.uk)
• LulzSec blamed for UK census theft, hacker arrest; LulzSec denies everything (arstechnica.com)
• PlayStation Network Breach May Link Back To Arrested LulzSec Hacker (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
• Essex teenager held for being ‘LulzSec hacking mastermind’ (mirror.co.uk)
• Suspected Lulzsec Mastermind Arrested in Essex, Will They Lose Their Lulz Now? (techie-buzz.com)
• Essex Teen Arrested In FBI Global Hacking Probe (news.sky.com)

Following the “Rally in Raleigh”, at North Carolina’s State Capitol Building today, three activists associated with GetEqual NC were arrested for running onto the floor of the state’s Senate while it was in session yelling “liberty and justice for all in North Carolina”.

The North Carolina legislature is working on the anti-marriage amendment intended to go to the voters in 2012 in hopes of denying President Barack Obama that state’s electoral votes in that presidential election. The rally that drew around 200 attendees was aimed at attacking this push to enshrine bigotry in that state’s constitution. One business woman has already stated that she will sell her business and move out of state should this pass.

The proposed amendment would also prevent businesses and municipalities in the state from offering domestic partnership insurance benefits and invalidate Domestic Partnership Registries in Chapel Hill, Asheville and Carrboro.

According to GetEqual’s press release “Rally in Raleigh” Speakers included:
• Cecil Bothwell, Asheville City Councilman, author, & US Congressional Candidate for NC 11th District 2012
• Janet Owen, Co-Chair Interfaith Voice of Winston-Salem
• Chelsea Sayre, GetEQUAL NC
• James Neal, Businessman and openly gay 2008 Democratic primary candidate for U.S. Senate
• Pam Spaulding, Pam’s House Blend
• Jonathan Green, Sexuality And Gender Alliance
• Angel Chandler, GetEQUAL NC

GetEqual’s Executive Director Robin McHehee stated about the arrests

“GetEQUAL issued a call to the President today to stand up for full LGBT equality, and we’re proud to support LGBT North Carolinians in issuing the same call to their state elected officials. As North Carolina gears up to host the Democratic National Convention next year, we hope that the state will be moving toward fully recognizing the dignity and equality of LGBT North Carolinians, rather than trying to further enshrine discrimination in the state constitution. North Carolina residents deserve better than the legalized discrimination that this bill promises.”

Those arrested were Jim Neal, Angel Chandler and Mary Counce.

According to WRAL:

Last month, an estimated 2,000 people turned out for a rally in support of the Defense of Marriage Amendment, which Republican lawmakers have been trying for years to get on the ballot. They were met by a counter protest of the North Carolina Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality, which spoke out against the bill.

The amendment’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Jim Forrester, R-Gaston, has said that he’s been promised by Senate leader Phil Berger that the amendment will be voted on in September during a special session devoted entirely to constitutional amendments.

Here is video of the arrest:

Gov. Scott Walker

At their state party convention in a Wisconsin Dells resort, Republican Governor Scott Walker told his party that they need to put aside next year’s elections and concentrate on this year’s. “For the next two months, you shouldn’t think about any United States Senate seat, you should think about protecting six brave senators and picking up three others.” Walker said.

The “six brave senators” are the ones facing recall elections after their potentially illegal late-night passage of Walker’s so-called Budget Repair Bill which didn’t repair the budget. It only stripped public sector workers of their collective bargaining rights after the unions had already given the governor everything he needed for his budget cuts. To pass the bill, while 14 Democratic senators were in exile in Illinois, the Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald stripped the bill of all its monetary provisions, which must be decided with a full Senate and Assembly, and pushed the bill through on a straight majority vote. The Democrats need to pick up three seats in the Senate and hold the three that are being subjected to recalls in order to take control of the Senate and stop the Republican juggernaut that is yanking a billion dollars from municipal and county budgets to give a billion dollars in tax cuts to the rich and big business.

The Republicans have already lost one state assembly seat in a special election and the state-wide Supreme Court election is still in the courts because of major irregularities in the Waukesha County count. The recall petitions for eight Republican senators were a completely grassroots effort, while the recall petitions for eight Democratic senators were being guided by The Tea Party Express, which is funded by the Koch brothers. Only three recalls for the Democrats made the requisite number of signatures while only two Republican recalls failed. One of the failures was Sen. Glenn Grothman, the smug spokesman for Walker on the liberal networks who very nastily called the protesters slobs who were just camping out in the State House to party with their girlfriends.

The reference to the 2012 U. S. Senate race concerns the decision of Democratic Senator Herb Kohl not to seek re-election. Wisconsin’s most famous son, Rep. Paul Ryan, has already announced he will not seek Kohl’s seat next year. Speculated reasons range from a possible belief that Speaker John Boehner is losing his grip on the party and will be replaced by Eric Cantor, thereby moving Ryan up the leadership ladder, to the fact that Senators don’t live in their offices in Washington and the fiscally fanatic Ryan would be forced to stop stealing housing and utilities from the taxpayer.

Related articles

• Breaking: Tammy Baldwin may run for retiring Sen. Herb Kohl’s seat (pamshouseblend.com)
• Republicans Grappling With ideological Identity Crisis In Key Senate Race (huffingtonpost.com)
• Ideology an issue for Wisconsin GOP in Senate race (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Kohl Me When It’s Over (logarchism.com)
• Are Wisconsin Republicans Getting Desperate? (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin’s Herb Kohl Announces Retirement From Senate (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Is Senator Tammy Baldwin In The Future? (lezgetreal.com)
• Herb Kohl’s politics were Wisconsin, above all (jta.org)

The Vermont State House

The Rutland (Vermont) Herald has the distinction of being one of the smallest newspapers to ever be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. On Sundays, the Herald issues a combined paper with the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, so I’m not sure whether to credit Steven M. Pappas of the Times-Argus or Randal Smithers of the Herald for the Sunday editorial analyzing the just-finished Legislative session and what Vermont could teach Washington about how to play nice in the sandbox.

Last November, Vermont elected a Democratic House, Democratic Senate, and in a squeaker, a Democratic governor. The House had a super-majority of Democrats for Republican Jim Douglas’ last term as governor, but the increase in Democratic Senators and the election of Peter Shumlin as the governor could easily have turned Montpelier into a one-party town that simply steamrollered over the Republicans. They didn’t.

Since the late 1960′s when the Republican Party lost it’s decades-old total control of our state government, Vermont has had a weird tradition of split governance. A Democratic governor with a Republican lieutenant governor, as we have now, or the reverse has been very common, as has a split legislature and a split cabinet. We do not tolerate attack ads or personal attacks in campaigns. We don’t tolerate flatlanders being brought in by a national party. We don’t tolerate misrepresentation of a politician’s voting record. We also tend to laugh our butts off when the patrol car dash-cam video of a politician being stopped for speeding hits the evening news, taking pride in the fact that the politician didn’t tell the cop “Do you know who I am?” and just paid the fine. (That’s called class, Gov. Kasich.)

We also, because we are such a small state, do not have a corruption problem. As Howie Dean once noted, we’re so damned small everyone knows everybody else’s business, so you can’t get away with anything. We’re small enough that our representatives can literally campaign door to door in their districts. We’re small enough that, yes, we do really call him “Howie” just the way we call our humorously self-styled “socialist” Senator “Bernie.”

The tradition of split government has left us with a deeply held belief in civility in Montpelier. Even our most contentious debates, like the vote to override Gov. Douglas’ veto of same sex marriage, never turn nasty. We’ve had to compromise too many times on too many things to think that any party’s position is written in stone and the only solution to our problems.

Our legislature actually adjourned a week early this year, in spite of having to iron out a, for us, massive budget crisis and passing the first stages of highly progressive health care reform. They found a way to solve a $174 million revenue shortfall without resorting to crippling program cuts or across-the-board tax increases. We all knew that we would have to make sacrifices, and some of them are really hard, but as long as they were shared, our legislators could agree on them. The Democrats listened to the concerns of the Republicans, and made alterations when the concerns were valid and doable.

As the Herald-Times Argus editorial, noted referring to the Republican minority, “They did not initiate a fear-mongering campaign of distortions and lies. They did not shout angrily from the floor of the House. They did not promote grass-roots unrest designed to undermine the legitimacy of the executive. They engaged in the serious work of government.”

The editorial also noted that “The more idologically strident Republicans who dominate the party at the national level would not countenance that sort of cooperation…..At the national level, the minority has greater opportunity for obstructionism.” They most certainly do. In the United States Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky has threatened to destroy the national credit rating and push us past a recession into a full-blown depression by filibustering the debt ceiling increase vote unless the House and Senate pass whatever it is his Libertarian fantasies and his Tea Party fanatics think the budget should be. The filibuster has become both a weapon of choice for obstruction as in the blocking of 300 bills in the past two years’ Congressional session, or the cudgel wielded by one spoiled brat with no sense of reality.

Watching men like Mike Pence, Jim DeMint and John Boehner hold our nation hostage to their personal agendas is frustrating. We elected a President who is not an ideologue, but a man who understands the nature of the 21^st century, the realities of our competitors in the global marketplace and how much we have lost our capacity to compete because of shortsightedness in the last administration. He has offered us fair and reasonable ideas for securing the future. He is running headlong into a brick wall set up by the Republican Party who will do anything to protect the interests of the people who fund their campaigns (and their golf games), the very people who created the economic crisis that has held up the President’s agenda.

It’s not easy to live in Vermont. Very few people get rich in this state. The weather is crappy most of the time. One literally can’t get from here to there without going around a mountain or two. Tourists can’t find a place to pee in the middle of the night, even along our only interstate. Prices are high because so much has to be trucked in. Taxes are high. We came through the recession fairly well because we don’t have boom times to go bust, we just plod along the way we always have. One must consciously choose to live here.

Maybe the fact that our political parties understand the meaning of the phrase “loyal opposition” is one reason we choose this life.

Related articles

• RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Is Clueless In Vermont (lezgetreal.com)
• Health-care reform: The American exception (economist.com)
• ‘Medicare For All’ Bill Expected To Be Voted On By Vermont Senate (crooksandliars.com)

Image via Wikipedia

05/06/2011 – by Cynthia S. Wright

One thing about the gang at FCK H8 – they always know how to pack a punch. Their newest installment has a vivacious cast of characters explaining they hypocrisy behind Tennessee’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The video itself is quite entertaining, making sure to get the point across. Reactions on Youtube has bee mixed with  even some of the disapproving comments coming from the LGBT community. Some feel that the video relies on stereotypes, which may cause a bigger faux-pas when it comes to trying to get their message across.

Dunn, who supports the bill, looks to FOX News where the story has generated more than 5,000 comments and most of them are favorable. This is not surprising since FOX News has a rather high percentage of homophobes reading it. Citing this, he said “People see what kind of things are going on here (in Tennessee) and what’s going on all around the country and they really respond,” he said.

The bill calls for the Board of Education to complete a study on whether or not this law is necessary and then the “Board of Education shall adopt as part of its curriculum frameworks and standards for sex education the following: No public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.”

The problem is, the House Education Subcommittee has already closed for the year. According to Knox News:

“Stacey waited awfully late to get started,” said Dunn.

“That’s all right with me,” said Campfield. “He always said, ‘You pass it first, then I’ll pass it.’ So, I’ll pass it this year and he can pass it next year.”

Campfield said he is optimistic about chances for passage of the bill, which has been rescheduled for a Senate floor vote next Thursday.

“The only thing that could slow that bill down is if Bill Dunn runs for the Senate,” Campfield said. “That would leave me without a House sponsor (next year).”

Dunn may be running for the Senate seat being vacated by Jamie Woodson.

The bill, sponsored by Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield, has been pushed for six years so far. Possibly he is pushing this because his name is Stacey.

It has been pointed out by another state senator, Jim Tracey, that the law already prohibits teaching any sex education that is not part of family life curriculum as adopted by the state Board of Education. Which means that anything that is not within the purview of post-1969 marriage is not to be discussed. So, Tracey put in an amendment to find out if homosexuality is being taught about in schools since he believes that it is.

According to Knox News:

The Tracy amendment passed over Campfield’s objections.

But then Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, proposed to change the Tracy amendment. The revision declares that, after its study to be completed by Feb. 1 of next year, the Board of Education “shall adopt” – as part of the family life curriculum – a ban on discussion of homosexuality in the same language used in Campfield’s bill.

That amendment was adopted, too, and the revised bill was then approved 6-3 and sent to the Senate floor. All no votes came from Democrats.

Of course, this might be part of why the South has one of the highest rates of teen suicide among both straight and gay teens. It also has some of the worst teen pregnancy rates, and rates of teens getting sexual transmitted diseases. The fact that no one wants to discuss sex other than to say that you can’t have it outside of marriage is a major problem since the kids are having sex anyway.

Speaker John Boehner

Lie of the Day: Today, John Boehner has said that the Democrats had a “super majority” in the Senate for the past two years.

Fact: A super majority in the Senate is 60 votes. The Democrats, even with the Independents, did not have a super majority. If they had, Sen. Jim DeMint could not have filibustered 300 bills.

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• DeMint Says 2012 GOP Hopefuls Need To ‘Speak Up’ On Spending Fight In Congress (huffingtonpost.com)
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On Thursday night, The United States Senate passed a resolution honoring the life and works of Elizabeth Taylor, who passed away on March 23. The resolution was sponsored by California’s Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. Both Senators spoke in support of the resolution.

Senator Boxer: “While widely acclained for her career on stage and screen, Elizabeth Taylor’s most important role was as a bold and passionate leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Her dedicated efforts helped educate the public and lawmakers about the need for research, treatmet and compassion for those suffering from the disease. She will forever be remembered as an American icon whose activism and dedication made life better for millions of people all across the world.”

Senator Feinstein: “Elizabeth Taylor was a Hollywood icon, but more importantly, she was a humanitarian and philantropist who spoke passionately about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the toll on her fellow citizens when very few dared to speak out. California has lost one of its greatest stars. I’ll always remember her performance in National Velvet, a film which led to my childhood love of horses. Elizabeth was one of the greats. Her passion for life and devotion to those less fortunate will continue to inspire me and others.”

I believe it was in 1984 when Rolling Stone magazine printed a list of persons from the entertainment industry who had died of AIDS. I know it was after the death of a young actor named Merritt Butrick. He had played Capt. Kirk’s son David Marcus in The Wrath of Khan, but made only a brief appearance in The Search for Spock. We had all heard about the stars who had died, but there were so many others, page after page after page of names. It felt as though I was reading the obituary for an entire generation of performers. I also thought it was a bitch of a way to out men like Denholm Eliot, older actors who had lived by the Hollywood rules – deep in the closet. The AIDS epidemic bell curved after that, deaths became less frequent, survival became the norm. That happened because of the work of many dedicated people. Elizabeth Taylor was a face and a voice for them – the victims and the researchers.

Here is the text of Senate Resolution #8217:

“Title: Honoring the life and legacy of Elizabeth Taylor.

Whereas , Elizabeth Taylor, a world-renowned actress and activist whose legendary career spanned seven decades, passed away on March 23, 2011;

Whereas with the death of Elizabeth Taylor, the State of California and the United States lost one of the most talented entertainers, philanthropists and humanitarians in the United States;

Whereas, Elizabeth Taylor was born on February 27, 1932 in London, England to American parents;

Whereas Elizabeth Taylor and her family moved to the United States, settling in the state of California, just prior to the start of World War II;

Where, Elizabeth Taylor started acting at the age of ten and became a star at a young age;

Whereas the hard work and dedication of Elizabeth Taylor earned her numerous acting roles in film, television and theater;

Whereas Elizabeth Taylor became one of the most successful and sought after actresses in the world;

Whereas, Elizabeth Taylor received two Best Actress Academy Awards for her work in Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and she became the first woman to earn a seven-figure paycheck for appearing in a film;

Whereas, many films that feature Elizabeth Taylor, including A Place in the Sun, Raintree County, Giant and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof have become classic films appreciated by generations of moviewatchers;

Whereas, Elizabeth Taylor used her fame to raise awareness and advocate for people affected by HIV/AIDS;

Whereas, at a time when HIV/AIDS was largely an unknown disease and those who were affected by HIV/AIDS were ostracized and shunned, Elizabeth Taylor called for and demonstrated compassion by publicly holding the hand of her friend and former co-star Rock Hudson, after he announced that he had AIDS;

Whereas, Elizabeth Taylor testified before Congress, saying ‘It is my hope that history will show that the American people and our leaders met the challenge of AIDS rationally and with all the resources at their disposal, for our sake and that of humanity.’

Whereas, in 1985, Elizabeth Taylor became the Founding National Chairman for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (commonly known as “amfAR”:

Whereas, in 1991, Elizabeth Taylor founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to provide direct support to those suffering from the disease;

Whereas, the extensive efforts of Elizabeth Taylor have helped educate the public and lawmakers about the need for research, treatment and compassion for those suffering from HIV/AIDS;

Whereas Elizabeth Taylor is survived by her children Michael Wilding, Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton, as well as ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; and

Whereas, Elizabeth Taylor was truly a legend who touched the lives of generations of people of the United States and million worldwide wit both her inner and outer beauty: Now therefore be it Resolved, That the Senate, recognizes and honors the courageous, compassionate leadership and many professional accomplishments of Elizabeth Taylor; and offers its deepest condolences to her family.”

         Whereas, when Elizabeth Taylor stared this battle, there were Senators who publicly argued that HIV/AIDS was God’s punishment for Hollywood’s abhorrent, deviancy in tolerating homosexuality, and the government should just let them all die according to God’s will, the passage of this Resolution honoring her life is testimony to the impact she had on the debate.

Related articles

• U.S. Senate Honors Elizabeth Taylor (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• Liz Taylor mourned by AIDS activists (goqnotes.com)
• Senate Resolution for Elizabeth Taylor (bilerico.com)
• West Hollywood to Name Street After Elizabeth Taylor? (towleroad.com)
• Elizabeth Taylor: Early AIDS Hero (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• Senate Passes Boxer-Feinstein Resolution Honoring Elizabeth Taylor (pinkbananaworld.com)
• An Elizabeth Taylor Street in West Hollywood? (advocate.com)
• Elizabeth Taylor A Great Friend To Humanity Dies (LetMeGetThiStraight.Com) (topix.net)
• Watch: amfAR Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor (towleroad.com)
• Elizabeth Taylor Leaves Much Of Her Fortune To AIDS Charity (perezhilton.com)

Newt Gingrich

At the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday evening, Newt Gingrich outlined his fears for America: “I have two grandchildren. Maggie is 11, Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be living in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

Want to know “what it once meant to be an American, Mr. Gingrich? Let me introduce you to a few real Americans…….

My paternal grandmother, pregnant with my father and with three children in tow ran the German submarine blockade in World War I to escape a country where Catholic law dictated civil law and she could not divorce the bastard who abandoned her and her baby, taught me that the Founding Fathers knew which end was the cart and which was the horse when they put freedom FROM state religion before freedom OF religion in the Constitution. People did not come here for freedom of religion if the place they were coming from allowed them the free practice of their faith. They came if they belonged to something other than the state religion. The Pilgrims went firt to Holland, but could not cope with a nation in which everyone was freed to practice their faith.  The Puritans who came after the Pilgrims were another matter. They had their freedom in England. They came here in an attempt to impose their faith on the colonies, they way they did in England in 1649.

My maternal grandmother’s family were Catholics in Lutheran Germany who came here in 1780. Irish Catholics came from the Anglican United Kingdom. My husband’s French-Canadian Catholic parents also escaped Protestant British rule. One cannot practice one’s faith if the state imposes an official religion. One cannot survive if the state says one cannot own property or join a trade guild or have a certain type of education unless one belongs to the state religion.

Charles Carroll of Maryland, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Daniel Carroll also of Marlyand, a signer of the Constitution, were Catholics. Maryland had tried in 1636 to establish religious freedom in response to bloody riots that had broken out wherever the Puritans had tried to impose their influence in the colonies. The Acts of Toleration were overruled by the British. Under British rule, the two Carrolls could not hold public office and were limited as to the amount of property they could own. Both men had had to be sent abroad to be educated because they were barred from schools in the British colonies. The wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe had extended practically from the day Martin Luther nailed his complaints to the church door right up to the French and Indian War where George Washington learned whatever he knew about warfare. This is what our Founding Fathers knew – that wars being fought over whose version of God was supreme were destructive and stupid; that good people were denied their basic human rights by religious fanaticism; that the state and the church must be separate in order for a nation to flourish.  This country has freedom OF religion because it has freedom FROM  a state religion.

In 1796, Joel Barlow, protégé of Thomas Jefferson, negotiated a treaty with the Bey of Tripoli. Yes, that Tripoli – Libya. It was approved by President Washington, signed by the Bey on January 3, 1797, read to the United States Senate, passed unanimously, signed by President John Adams on June 7, 1797, published in every newspaper in the 16 states and no objection was raised anywhere.

Article 11 of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbery states: “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Mussulmen, and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hositlity against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

That’s what our first two presidents, the unanimous Senate and the people of America believed in in 1797, just six years after we adopted the First Amendment guaranteeing all people in this nation freedom FROM a state religion so that they might have freedom OF religion.   They weren’t even thinking in terms of non-Christians.  They were reacting to centuries of Christian-on-Christian massacres, oppression and persecution.

Being “secular” means not being connected to a church. Being a “humanist” means believing in the interests and ideals of humanity. Neither means “aetheist.” It is perfectly possible to have a deep faith in a Divine Being and still be a secular humanist. All it takes is a belief that man cannot know the mind of the Supreme Being and that any religion created by man is just that – created by man. It’s like Glenn Beck calling Lawrence O’Donnell “godless” when O’Donnell’s entire education was in Catholic schools. (O’Donnell, by the way, has only had one wife to Beck’s two and Gingrich’s three.) In the minds of some people, if one does not believe in the same version of God, the same translation of the Bible, one is “godless.” That is precisely what our Founding Fathers turned away from – blind belief in the superiority of a particular church.

And it is absolutely, totally, mind-bogglingly stupid to think that any nation that is “secular atheist” can also be fundamentalist Islamic. If secularists don’t believe in the omnipotence of the Christian churches and the Christian Bible, why would they embrace Islam?   Did God remove from conservatives the gene that detects contradictions? 

Newt Gingrich was kissing the collective butt of an audience who don’t know anything about how and why the First Amendment came into being, what our Founding Fathers really believed in and even less about the boogeymen of secular humanism and Islam. They are typical products of localized education. Gingrich knows better. He’s a historian. He’s taught history at both the University of West Georgia and Kennesaw State University.. He writes alternative-history science fiction novels. Emory in Atlanta and Tulane in New Orleans should rescind his degrees. Obviously, they don’t mean the paper they were printed on to a man who would deny historical fact for votes.

Related articles

• Pity the Poor “Persecuted Christians”?: a History Lesson (lezgetreal.com)
• Bishop Tobin Complains About Gov. Chafee’s Lack Of Religion, Screws Up The Constitution (lezgetreal.com)
• Freedom OF and Freedom FROM (ozatheist.wordpress.com)
• The Republican War on Women (lezgetreal.com)
• Gingrich: America In Danger of Becoming Secular Atheist Country Dominated By Radical Islamists (jonathanturley.org)
• Newt Gingrich: America In Danger From Secular Atheist Radical Muslims, Or Something (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Freedom of Religion in America: The Muslim Debate (socyberty.com)
• Herman Cain Doesn’t Comprehend the Constitution (thewaronlogic.wordpress.com)
• US To Be ‘Secular Atheist Country’ Run By ‘Radical Islamists’ (swampland.blogs.time.com)

That is, possibly, until people find out just how bad things are going to be thanks to the Republican budget cuts.

Here is part of his statement:

Five years ago this week, on February 8, 2006, I announced my intention to run for the United States Senate. We had neither campaign funds nor a staff. We were challenged in a primary, and trailed the incumbent in the general election by more than 30 points in the polls.

Over the next nine months we focused relentlessly on the need to reorient our national security policy, to restore economic fairness and social justice, and to bring greater accountability in our government. I will always be grateful for the spirit and energy that was brought into this campaign by thousands of loyal and committed volunteers. Their enthusiasm and sheer numbers were truly the difference in that election.

It has been a great and continuing privilege to serve in the United States Senate. I am very proud of my talented and dedicated staff, which has worked tirelessly to resolve the issues on which I based my candidacy, and to protect the interests of all Virginians in this national forum. Among other contributions we have given our Post- 9/11 veterans the best GI Bill since World War Two; we have taken the lead in reforming our criminal justice system; we have led the way toward stronger relations in East and Southeast Asia; and we have been a strong voice in calling on China to act more responsibly in the world community. We will continue to work on these and other issues throughout the rest of my term.

However, after much thought and consideration I have decided to return to the private sector, where I have spent most of my professional life, and will not seek re-election in 2012.

Notwithstanding this decision, I have every intention of remaining involved in the issues that affect the well-being and the future of our country.

Well, at least the women of the United States Senate are trying to live up to the image.

Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has brought together the Senate women for unofficial dinner meetings for years. The rules are simple – no staff, no memos, no leaks, no men. The group has evolved an informal civility pact which results in personal bonds between the women that override their party differences. We saw some aspect of this at the Congressional level with the close friendships that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has with other present and former House members.

There are 17 female senators. “We committed to maintaining a zone of civility here within the institution long before it became the chic thing to do.” said Sen. Mikulski, who organized this year’s first dinner with Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. The ability of these women to refrain from personal attacks and absolute party spin has had some unusual manifestations over time.

Over a decade ago, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine established the moderate caucus, made up of both Democrats and Republicans who were neither to the far right nor far left. The group never became large enough to impact debate, but Sen. Snowe has long been the wild card in the Republican Party in the Senate, more prone to compromise than hardline ideology. She held up passage of the Patriot Act in December of 2001, demanding that the Wellstone Amendment be included. The amendment was named for the late Democratic senator who wanted only American companies to receive Homeland Security contracts. Senate Majority leader Trent Lott finally got her vote by promising to vote on the amendment separately after the Christmas recess. He never called for the vote. In fact, at the press conference he gave minutes after Sen. Snowe left the Senate for home, Lott disavowed his promise. Not surprisingly, Sen. Snowe crossed party line to be a mentor for Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Sen. Claire McCaskill put together a little performance piece for the women called A Girl’s Guide to Washington Politics. Sen. Klobuchar describes the dinners as “a time when we can get together and talk. Say whatever. Of course, we never talk about the male senators.” Maybe they should.

The dinners are held at various restaurants around Washington or in the homes of the Senators, which allows the women to serve their regional foods to each other. Anyone for a showdown between Maine lobsters and Louisiana prawns?

Commentators, especially on the right, sneer whenever a member of one party compliments a member of the opposition party as a “good person”. They complain constantly about “backroom deals” They give the impression that members of both parties should be arriving at their chambers with dueling swords at their hips. They make it sound like the only place legislators should talk is the floor of their chamber in public debate. It’s not only unrealistic, it’s downright stupid. Floor debates aren’t really conversations about anything. They are opportunities for posturing and press coverage. They are showcases for charts and posters and crocodile tears over the “poor children” of gay families. They are not places for honest conversation and compromise. Dinners like the ones the Senate women hold are places for getting past the party nonsense and building human connections, finding common ground based on human needs.

Are women more civilized than men? Certainly Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are living refutations of that myth. Maybe this isn’t about male psychology versus female psychology, but about the choices our legislators make in their interactions with each other. Then again, maybe it is about the testosterone.

Today, both Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand fought back against this horrific intrusion by the Republicans into women’s lives. It is government intrusion into women’s lives at its worst. Not only does this redefine rape, but it also redefines what government spending is by stripping away the ability of women to rely on any funding to get an abortion.

The Huffington Post notes:

What’s off the table? Well, if you are a woman coerced, drugged or otherwise incapacitated by a rapist, too bad! Also, if you are a young child, statutory rape is off the table, too, unless incest is involved. (The incest exception lapses for adults, crazily.)

Wasserman Schultz called the legislation unconscionable and stated:

“It really is — to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself.”

By and large, the people who have been obsessed with preventing abortions from being legal have been men, and they have, over the last forty years, tended to equate pregnancy with a woman being the passive vessel through which life is given. It is an old way of thinking that dates back to the days when it was assumed that women were nothing more than fertile fields for male seeds to be planted. In fact, even today, sperm is still called ‘seed’.

Today, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Richard Blumenthal called on their Senate colleagues to prevent this atrocious attempt to restrict the rights of women. As the press release notes “In a letter to Senate colleagues, Gillibrand and Blumenthal noted that bills introduced by Representatives Mike Pence and Christopher Smith would constitute an ‘unprecedented effort to restrict access’ to women’s reproductive health care.”

Senator Gillibrand stated:

“When we should all be focused on creating jobs and growing our economy, extreme forces in the House are mounting a new effort to cut critical funding for women’s health care and curtail women’s rights. I strongly urge all of my colleagues in the Senate to stand strong against this unprecedented effort to restrict access to women’s reproductive health care. We cannot allow this type of assault on American women to gain any ounce of traction.”

Senator Blumenthal said:

“Women in Connecticut and across the country deserve nothing less than unfettered access to their trusted health care providers and vital health care services. Efforts by Republican House leadership to overturn long-settled understanding of the law are deeply troubling, and I will strongly oppose them. I am asking colleagues to join in a bipartisan fight against any measure that would so severely set back and sabotage women’s health care and rights.”

The release notes:

Gillibrand helped lead the fight in the Senate to oppose the harmful and dangerous Stupak Amendment to health care reform and has long advocated for affordable access to quality reproductive care for all women.

Blumenthal has been a steadfast supporter of a woman’s right to choose; as Connecticut’s Attorney General, he consistently advocated for expanded access to vital reproductive health services.

Here is the letter in full:

Dear Colleague:

We wanted to call your attention to a recent New York Times editorial highlighting two pieces of legislation introduced in the House that seek to undermine the ability of women to access comprehensive health insurance coverage and to see the trusted health care providers on whom they rely for medical care.

The Republican House leadership has made it a top priority to move legislation that would redefine the long-settled understanding of what constitutes federal funding of abortion, and to defund Planned Parenthood health centers around the country. Both bills introduced by Representatives Smith and Pence are likely to pass the House, and we will no doubt see attempts to pass these bills in the Senate.

We must work together to stop these bills in their tracks, as they represent an unprecedented effort to restrict women’s access to reproductive health care and to their trusted health care providers.

We hope you will take the time to read this editorial and consider the many ways in which the Smith and Pence bills would negatively impact the health care available to women. We look forward to working with you to make sure that women can continue to have access to reproductive health care and the health care provider they rely on.

Sincerely,

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Senator Richard Blumenthal

Senator Gillibrand also tweeted these two today:

I’m outraged by the Republican House’s extreme attempts to limit women’s access to reproductive care. We will stop these bills in the Senate

I’ve co-signed a letter w/Sen @DickBlumenthal urging our Senate colleagues to oppose these anti-choice bills.

Dear Senator Gillibrand:

I am the widow of FDNY Firefighter John F. McNamara who died at the age of 44 from cancer related to his time as a 9/11 First Responder at the World Trade Center. I am also the mother of Jack, who is now 4-years-old. I write to thank you for your unwavering advocacy on behalf of 9/11 Responders and to congratulate you on the passage of the James Zadroga Bill. While this bill was many years in the making, were it not for your staunch support, I am not certain it would have ever passed the Senate.

During the time my husband battled his cancer there were two things he cared about more than anything else. He cared about living long enough so that his son would remember him and he cared about the welfare of other 9/11 Responders. John Feal was a close friend of John’s and he can tell you about the trips John took to Washington and the press conferences he spoke at.

On his deathbed in August 2009, John would show visible signs of happiness when I told him there was good news on the bill. Nothing during that time made him happy — he knew he was dying and would never see his son grow up or spend another carefree day with me. However, he was firm in his belief that one day the Zadroga Bill would become law and those he was leaving behind would be taken care of. Thank you for picking up where my husband left off. I know if he were alive today he would admire you as much as I do. I am sure he is now your special angel too.

For me, nothing will ever be the same. I am still trying to figure out how to live a life without John. Despite that, I take great joy in knowing that no other family will have to worry about making tough choices because of their need for expensive medical treatments. I take great solace in knowing that men and women will have some compensation for the selfless acts they performed as 9/11 Responders. For that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t know that I could ever, with any adequacy, express to you how much your support of this bill and our 9/11 Responders and families means. Suffice it to say that in my book you are as much a hero as those who responded on 9/11 and in the days after. Like them, you did what had to be done with dedication, dignity, and grace.

Thank you.

Jennifer McNamara

Widow of FDNY Firefighter John F. McNamara

Lieberman, though, was at odds with McCain recently during the battle over repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Still, McCain told CNN

“You know its funny you mention it. I really hope that the president would consider him. I hadn’t thought about it but I sure hope, whatever happens, he will play a major role on national security issues.”

Lieberman has been on the outs with many Democrats after he ran as an Independent in 2006 after losing in the Democratic Primary, and then really angered people when he campaigned for McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Lieberman even spoke at the Republican National Convention and stated that Obama was not ready for the presidency. McCain also said:

“I know one thing, that the president has reached out to people that otherwise, maybe a couple of years ago, he wouldn’t have given serious consideration, but I can’t divine the views of the president.”

McCain noted that Lieberman just wanted to go on, but felt sad for the person he called “the most decent man that I have ever known in the Senate. He lives his religion and is the most generous spirit. He’s not going to go into retirement, he just wants to do other things, and I’ll miss him every single day.”

After forty years in public service, Lieberman was tired, according to McCain, but he also knew that he was in for a very tough reelection bid.

In all likelihood, Miller will try again to win a Senate seat, but it is unlikely that he will succeed in the future. Even so, he could always get a job singing the “Lumberjack Song” from Monty Python.

Melanie Nathan; Dec 21-2010 – Well our  fellow Bloggers are a-buzzing, and that is what I love about  Bloggerish – we get to blogger ISH I mean DISH, sometimes.   But here we may well   have the real dish. Now for quite some time we have heard that someone in the Senate will be outed for being Gay and that person is a Republican.  No need for debate on this one – Are his initials LG? Many assert it must be “Graham; Senator Lindsey Graham.” Citing his aging  bachelorhood and his consistent anti-gay votes, we have the perfect recipe for a closeted self loathing homophobic homosexual.

Oh if only they would say GAY it should not sound nearly as awful as homosexual. But hey sorry when one  is outed it will be’ Homosexual’ whereas if one has the courage to “come out” then one gets to control the lexicon and GAY it can be.   So I am asking and Senator please do tell!

Take one look at Lindsey Graham, the Senator from South Carolina  and (sorry to stereotype, but he leaves stereotypes at the starter line. )  This man is a bachelor is not woman’s man but rather a man’s man – for sure.

So finally someone has the goods to OUT Graham;  … According to Joe My God’s Blog,  Wonkette  famed for exposing such hypocrites, is about to release pictures of an overnight guest – a man – leaving the home of our friendly bachelor.

Now I know my money would be good a on Graham  and there it should stay, but I am willing to wager a few more dollars on Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) – anyone willing to camp outside his house?

Quote from Joe My God:- South Carolina’s favorite lifelong bachelor and former military prosecutor, is always reliably against homosexuals having any basic human rights in America because Lindsey’s a Republican, y’all. Anyway, famous outer-of-self-hating-queers Mike Rogers says he’s got pictures of one of Lindsey’s boy toys leaving Lindsey’s house. This would be SHOCKING because come on, everybody knows Republicans cannot be gay because Jesus did not make gays.”

….

A pair of tweets on Saturday from Michael Rogers, who claims a perfect outing record, suggests Graham – who continues to serve in the U.S. Air Force Reserves – might soon be deflecting more questions about his sexuality.

“I wonder if Lindsey Graham knows I have pictures of a man who spent the night at his house. pls RT,” Rogers messaged his followers.

About half an hour later, he added: “Just reached lawyer at home. Meeting set for Tues. on releasing pix of man who spent night at Lindsey Graham’s.” (ON Top Mag.)

Note: No one is innocent until proven guilty….

Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com

Related articles

• Sen. Lindsey Graham: The Votes Are Not There For The Repeal Of DADT (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• Activist to out Lindsey Graham? (goqnotes.com)
• Let’s See Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Sleepover Buddy! (queerty.com)
• Lindsey Graham too tired to vote for START (salon.com)
• GOP Senator Graham Asserts Not Enough DADT VOTES; (lezgetreal.com)
• Activist to out Lindsey Graham? (topix.net)

While partisan rancor seems to have seized the Senate on so many issues this year, on at least one count, I am encouraged and hopeful. There may yet be sufficient bipartisan agreement to repeal the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy before this Congress ends. I commend those Senators who have pledged to support the repeal, and I renew my own commitment to this worthy effort. It is well past time to put an end to this discriminatory and harmful policy.

Today, in the United States Senate, the stage is being set for one of the major civil rights victories of our lifetimes. Years from now, I hope that historians will have good cause to remember this day as a day when the two parties overcame superficial differences to advance the pursuit of equal rights for all Americans. After much effort, and just as much study and discussion, the Senate finally will proceed to an up-or-down vote on repealing this counterproductive policy.

For those who still harbor concerns that enacting this repeal would somehow harm readiness, one simple fact is the clearest answer: Gay and lesbian Americans already serve honorably in the U.S. armed forces and have always done so. There is no doubt that they have served in the military since the earliest days of the Republic. The only reason they could do so then, and now – even under today’s discriminatory policy—is because they display the same conduct and professionalism that we expect from all of our men and women in uniform. They are no different than anyone else, and they should be treated no differently.

Ending this policy will also bring to an end years of forced, discriminatory and corrosive secrecy. Giving these troops the right to serve openly, allowing them to be honest about who they are, will not cause disciplined service members to suddenly become distracted on the battlefield. It is pandering to suggest that they would be.

This is not only my view. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said time and again that this is the right thing to do and that it will not harm our military readiness.

Every member of our armed services should be judged solely on his or her contribution to the mission. Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will ensure that we stay true to the principles upon which our great Nation was founded. We ask our troops to protect freedom around the globe. It is time to protect their basic freedoms and equal rights here at home.

Throughout our history, the Senate has shown its ability to reflect and illuminate the Nation’s deepest ideals and the Nation’s conscience. It is my hope that the Senate will rise to this occasion by breaking through the partisan din to proceed to a debate and vote on repealing this discriminatory and counterproductive policy.

A lot has been made about those who are voting to allow lesbians and gays to serve openly not having served in the military. For his part, Senator Leahy has good reason not to have served in the military. Senator Leahy was the State’s Attorney from Chittenden County from 1966 until 1974 when he was elected to be Vermont’s junior Senator. He was serving our state and our nation prosecuting criminals. He was recently reelected.

The following clip is of David Hall and Dr. Rachel Maddow discussing the repeal of DADT on MSNBC:

From The Pen That Will Sign ….  In this letter from the President full Equality is noted  as a Civil Right  –

“The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one.”

The President Continues:- This victory belongs to you. Without your commitment, the promise I made as a candidate would have remained just that.

Instead, you helped prove again that no one should underestimate this movement. Every phone call to a senator on the fence, every letter to the editor in a local paper, and every message in a congressional inbox makes it clear to those who would stand in the way of justice:

We will not quit.

This victory also belongs to Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and our many allies in Congress who refused to let politics get in the way of what was right.

Like you, they never gave up, and I want them to know how grateful we are for that commitment.

Will you join me in thanking them by adding your name to Organizing for America’s letter?

I will make sure these messages are delivered — you can also add a comment about what the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” means to you.

As Commander in Chief, I fought to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because it weakens our national security and military readiness. It violates the fundamental American principles of equality and fairness.

But this victory is also personal.

I will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.

But I know my story would not be possible without the sacrifice and struggle of those who came before me — many I will never meet, and can never thank.

I know this repeal is a crucial step for civil rights, and that it strengthens our military and national security. I know it is the right thing to do.

But the rightness of our cause does not guarantee success, and today, celebration of this historic step forward is tempered by the defeat of another — the DREAM Act. I am incredibly disappointed that a minority of senators refused to move forward on this important, commonsense reform that most Americans understand is the right thing for our country. On this issue, our work must continue.

Today, I’m proud that we took these fights on.

Please join me in thanking those in Congress who helped make “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal possible:

http://my.barackobama.com/Repealed

Thank you,

Barack.

Activists are asking that President OBAMA put pen to the repeal of DOMA as soon as possible.  Religious views are respected but are not appropriate unless there is a way to include gay and lesbian couples in every single federal and state wide right.

Also as The president notes above Equality is a Civil Right – so how about an amendment in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to Include protection based on “sexual orientation and gender identity”

Its time for the USA to lead the World again on every front.   The last bastion of Civil Right must be broached.  If DOMA had no impact on the rights of exiled Americans forced to choose between land or love  (green cards for same-gender couples) -  religious view may be considered – but that is not what our Constitution implores -  that is why we have the imperative separation of Church and State.  The latter serves to yield a path to happiness for all….. Mel.

Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com

Related articles

• Celebrating DADT Repeal with GetEQUAL & Robin McGehee (lezgetreal.com)
• NCLR Applauds “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal (lezgetreal.com)
• Marriage Equality on Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: But Gay Soldiers Still Denied Benefits (lezgetreal.com)