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Watching the hearings on Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court nominee ( graduate of Harvard Law School and a former dean there) this week makes me want to ask ‘Where is that ‘Have you no shame, at long last?  guy who blew the whistle on Joe McCarthy style character assassination. We need him so bad. As Republican senators tried to put Kagan through their Catch- 22 meatgrinder, it is a reminder of systemic hypocrisy at full reek.

Of course, it’s all called tit for political tat… the snake calling the viper asp… the knife cutting both ways…well anyway Kagan continued to beat the  clocks and the nay-saying senators at their own game by refusing to be trapped by semantics.

Or appearances- on her nomination many wanted to know if she was lesbian as if that should catagorically would disqualify her. So much for the Constitutional rights to privacy.

Failing anything concrete, Republicans tried to demonize her because of her previous stance against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, using their gay dividing rod  to taint her as being anti-military. 

The comic highlight was when Wisconsin democratic Senator (and apparently former member of the Rat Pack) asked her-

 “I’m sure you’re a woman of passion. Where are your passions?”

To which Kagan replied that she would keep those passions in check as she considered each case individually.  

So in the end it is all ritual. If they had anything substantive to hold against Kagan’s nomination, the press would have leaked it out even before the hearing.

Every Supreme court nominee has to own their record that may or may not predict how they will stand on particular future case. Yes, we believe that John Roberts and Samuel Alito keep their previous ultra-conservative hammer in the closet when they put on their robes. There was no doubt that the conservative consilgieri… well, never mind.

Thank the gods that Kagan is the brilliant independent thinker she is with sterling academic credentails and obviously, an honest set of human emotions. 

It was paraded out that Kagan previously called the Supremes confirmation hearings ‘vapid.’  Do we need any more confirmation than that to give this nominee a robe.

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BDer hasn’t drilled into the environmental catastrophe engineered by the greedy assholes at BP, because the consequences of their actions is so fucking depressing. It is now the largest oil leak ever, which BP was trying to cover up. Who knows the longterm problems this gusher is creating. Wildlife, plant and sea life has already been dramatically affected.

As we wait for the next desperate attempt to contain this thing doesn’t inspire much confidence, the blame game is in full political gear. The right of course wants government to do more, that would be the same people who want government out of the business of business as usual. the hypocrisy, like the polluters, reek.

Meanwhile, this wasn’t President Obama’s Katrina in the initial days of the response, it is now. He did put the weight of his agencies in play but they obviously didn’t have contingencies plans, he has kept pressure on BP, but that obviously has not been enough. This mess points up the ongoing deficiencies to protect Louisiana coastline, that were supposed to be addressed post Katrina. Why aren’t weren’t the barriers built up?

President Obama is caught in the middle, because if he steps in then it exonerates BP from complete responsibility. But this seems to be the only choice as they just seem to be guessing at what to do next. The President needs to do whatever is necessary.

One way would be to mobilize environmental scientists and engineers to brainstorm a short and long-term solution. He should be using the full weight of the government involving the Coast Guard, Gulf industry workers and federal and local officials to coordinate an ongoing cleanup and coastal protection plans.

Maureen Dowd in her column in yesterday’s NYTs, lays out the sedition of BP executives and the US government who deregulated failsafe measures and allowed risky unprecedented engineering of the oil rig operating at that depth. Most damning are reports that they ignored and it seems covered up warnings that mechanisms on the rig weren’t failsafe enough.

Maybe the only silver lining in this is that Obama has set in motion measures to prevent another ecological disaster like this.

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The GOP 2012 potential frontrunner gov. Mike Huckabee reinterated his stance against gay marriage, but beefed it up with comments equating gay marriage to polygamy, incest and drug addiction. He is obviously bending over backwards for the religious right who want to keep alive myths about gays.

Again this bizarre and idiot point that gay marriage would allow polygamists, for instance, to be allowed to get married. Doesn’t that happen anyway in the US.  He wants to construct a slope that doesn’t exist. We’re not talking about any other group than gay American couples who pay taxes and are in commited relationships and want to be civilly recognized. It has nothing to do with drugs, pedophilia, beastiality or polygamy. Huckabee is playing to the basest of politics and I’m glad he is the frontrunner, because we will see what we’re really up against. I’d call him Fuckabee from now on, but it would insult a whole species perfectly respectable drones.

A new tactic of the religious right is to put in people’s minds the most prurient, fetishistic images of gay sex. The question of whether any consensual sex act between adults that doesn’t harm anyone is technically legal (at least for now) and is done in private, seems to be a moot point.  Huckabee and followers know sure as the Old Testament forbids shellfish meals God doesn’t want any butt fucking between mens.  It works in building an ick factor at the ballot box. Rather than talking about the real civil rights issues of fairness under the law in civil rights, they want to make sure that gay marriage equals evil sex acts.

GLBT politics

From Confidential Mag to CNN, always queerly sensational

During the Stonewall riots in 1969, the papers in New York covered ala Confidential Magazine, with slurs, lurid content and cheap shots. The fact that it was the symbolic beginning of a nationwide civil rights movement was beside their point.

The New York Times refused to print the word homosexual, even in its most clinical meaning, for decades. Then, after reluctantly acknowledging there was a sexual minorities in the US, if not completely visible, the Times clinically reported Rare Cancer seen in 41 homosexuals‘ dispassionately and shoddily reporting the first years of the AIDS epidemic, essentially ignoring it for as long as possible even as the death toll rose.

The gay press started to boom because our lives, stories and the reality of an American civil-rights movement was being ignored by a homophobic straight press. The Advocate became our Time magazine and gay papers, including Mark Segal’s Philadelphia Gay News would supplant an otherwise hostile mainstream.

Now, on any given day CNN will sound like a gay news channel. The gay tv station Logo, in partnership with CBS News reported, with ledes stylized in Advocate manner, with success, but stopped the partnership after a couple of years.

There has been a serious gay-straight media melding- except on FOX where only gay scandals are relevant to prove that gay ‘lifestyles’ confirm all of the morbid myths.

Here is a sampling one day last week

– The lowest of the low- otherwise known as the Phelps clan, twisting the words of the Bible to spew their antigay hate. They are being sued by the father of a soldier who was killed in Iraq. It is a first amendment case headed for the Supreme Court. The Phelps clan picketed the soldiers funeral with revolting antigay signs that US soldiers deserved to die for letting America tolerate homosexuals. 

– the pope, on a mission in Uganda where he spoke to Catholic bishops there about all issues concerning the church and Ugandans. But he had nothing to say about the pending measure by their legislature is contemplating enacting laws that would imprison and kill gay people.  Just last month he had something to say against Britian’s progay civil laws, but he has nothing to say about the fact that Uganda wants to imprison and murder homosexuals. Fuck him. Miter or not, this is not a man of peace.

-the archdiocese of Washington DC is trying to figure out how to trim their charity services so it would exclude any benefit for same-sex couples. The church is tax except, but they want to make impose their religious belief on a civil matter in a democracy. 

-In Denver, the church has refused to let a pre-schooler attend because her parents are a lesbian couple.

-Another Republican congressman has used a public stance against gay rights as an elaborate cover for being on the down low.

The topper was a lead story about Sean Hayes coming out of the closet. He claims that he was never in, but deliberately skirting the issue and instructing press not to ask the question during Will & Grace’s wildly successful run, is in the area of de facto denial. 

But, at least the sensationalized stories are in the mix with genuine news on GLBT rights and the millions of Americans who identify themselves as gay openly, without fear.

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Re: the bawdiness of the recent poem Fausto and actually the section here is tame compared the rest of it. It is in direct response to a poem I read recently called Homosexuality which just was so clammy & morbid in tone, I wanted to celebrate the honesty of those gay men who refuse to be tortured by made up mores and pursue sex on its own honest terms.

The second reason Fausto is so sexual active is a response to yet another Republican hypocrite who is married with children, fighting against gay rights- that’s one slimy political beard – and was nabbed on a DUI with another man in the car coming from a gay bar. There have been no denials just “I’m sorry for my poor judgment.” He’s in for some grief and he would deserve it too.

And this on the heals of a Vatican scandal involving an intimate of the Pope procuring, exploiting and otherwise using his power to traffic for male sex slaves. Aside from the hypocrisy all of these scandals in the straight world involving self-loathing gays who act out inappropriately because they can’t live honest lives. Such stories rob reporting of the millions of functioning gay men and women who have positive relationships and are fighting in their daily lives for equality in jobs, housing, health-care and spousal recognition, standing up against homophobia and hate.

The straight world loves the lurid details of these scandals but they don’t want to hear about the real gay America. So….so there.

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In anti-gay agenda news, the military brass wants to spend a year looking in to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policies. …………………………………………

are they fucking kidding.

Every day DADT is in action is a day of injustice. Bill Clinton’s 1993 ‘compromise’ has been used as a weapon in ways he has stated he never intended. Millions of dollars have been spent to kick out, harrass and ruin soldiers who just wanted to serve their country. And for what? To keep in place morbid, hate-filled attitutes about gay soldiers. 

The President wants it to be a legislative change, but hundreds of soldiers have been kicked out since he has been President and he needs to halt this stop loss immediately. The fact that Army reservist Daniel Choi, who is leading the groundswell for the repeal, who has had two honorable tours in Iraq, is an Arabic linquist and is being discharged is grotesque. An example of what has been happening in recent years. DADT is an apparatus of intimidation and military politics. Meanwhile hundreds of qualified skilled soldiers, many career soldier, have been kicked under the policy have been replaced by ex-cons with low skill sets.

  Tony Perkins of “the Family Research Council” is apparently the voice of opposition from the right who has been dispatched to spew those old chestnuts about unit cohesion, social experimenting and showering together.  His new aria to malign us is claiming that having gays serve openly threatens national security.

Don Lemon on CNN pressed him on the point asking him how gays serving openly would threaten anyone’s safety and he said that most people didn’t know the special circumstances that soldiers had to live under.  I guess the wounded and dead gay soldiers from previous wars didn’t understand those special circumstances he’s talking about.

Anyway Lemon told him that ‘Admiral Mullen is for the repeal ” are you saying he doesn’t know.”   Perfect, but lost on psycho II.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the POPE Benedict didn’t have time to sell one of his bobbles to feed the starving Haiti, but he did have time to officially oppose gay anti-discrimination laws in England. I guess those imbued with the ‘intrinsic evil’ of homosexuality don’t deserve equal opportunity.

Gay protests in England include a film festival of documentaries investigating infamous sexual, psychological and physical abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and covered up by the church. Don’t fuck with British queens fellas!

Speaking of Britian, they already allow gays to serve openly, as do most NATO nations, with none of those shower problems. Sorry Tony, you’ll have to rent a Hitchcock flick.

politic

A defeat in Massachusetts that couldn’t come at a worse time, but it is not all that stunning. Martha Coakley deserved to loose the way she ran her campaign. She was clearly out of touch with the political pulse of her own state. Scott Brown may have posed near naked for Cosmo, but it was Coakley’s sense of entitlement to Kennedy’s seat made her a pop up book of the Empress’s new clothes. Dems have to deal with the fact that this was a message from the people, if not a blatant voter referendum.

Scott Brown knew how to galvanize and to inspire support and will move to the head of herd of charging elephants. Republicans can lick their chops, but Brown election should not be viewed as a coup de grace for the Democrats.

That Scott’s single vote should derail healthcare legislation is ludicrous. Republican opposition to health care was built on lies, intimidation and backhanded favors. Not because they are worried about real costs for American citizens, but it is in their interest to keep the medical mafias in business. And overall they want to defeat this president, they refuse to fight fair. Their calls for bipartisanship are the height of hypocrisy. They never give, they only bully and take.

Take a lesson Dems from the charged Independents and disaffected liberals in Massacheusetts, the next time Republicans are in power and just shoving their crap through, don’t just let it happen and bemoan their imperialist ways.

Wild about Harry

Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a lot of image problems, he comes off as cold, when he is actually very passionate about his liberal views, he’s mild-mannered and that is viewed as smarmy, he wears ugly suits.

Not helping last week are revelations of quotes from Reid in the new political potboiler bestseller ‘Game Change’ about the backstage dramas of the 2008 election. He is quoted as saying President Obama’s Presidential chances are good because candidate Obama has light skin and uses “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

After the story broke, to the glee of Republicans, Reid issued his mea culpa- “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words.” Well, he should be because, as it is contextualized, there are so many things wrong with his words and their implications. On the face of it, it seems like he is looking past Obama’s political talent and suggesting that his looks are more important than his ability to be president.

Then there is the negative connotations in a broad reference to African American dialects and syntax. Even if Reid was absent during the 90s debate on the existence or nonexistence of Ebonics, African American and Black as terms are on the national cultural hard- drive for a couple of generations. Get with it Harry. The phrase ‘Negro dialect’ is just unseemly in any context outside of a revival of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or a discussion of Huckleberry Finn.’

Reid’s comments may or may not be tainted with racism, but he should check himself to find out if there is some personal hubris lurking. But, the comments could just have been a crass observation of the political realities in America.

And in fact after a weekend of Reid bashing, the conversation has moved to that point. They could in fact be completely innocent reaction to the image component of what of what a black candidate is dealing with running for president. So inadvertent possibly that even George Will barked back on This Week, “Finally, Harry Reid says something no one can argue with.”

Will, blustered at Liz Cheney’s accusations of a Democratic double standard and that Reid was showing his true colors behind closed doors. She went on to say that that might be the way liberals talk in private and that her political camp doesn’t. A stretch to say the least. As usual, Cheney’s political rhetoric lurches in the big-foot steps of her dad.

Meanwhile, Michael Steele, head of the Republican Party is calling for Reid to step down over his comments. Steele may be deflecting attention from rancor from forces in his own party who question his leadership. Steele is under fire for his non party- line views. In his new book he writes that the Republicans might not walk away with wholesale election victories, so was in the GOP dog house.

By Monday night President Obama put the matter in perspective- “This is a good man who has always been on the right side of history. For him to have used some inartful language in trying to praise me and for people to try and make hay out of that makes absolutely no sense..I guarantee you the average person, white or black, right now is less concerned about what Harry Reid said in a quote in a book a couple of years ago.” Obama said in a TV interview.

It is ironic that the this has gotten more play than Obama’s historic speech on race relations in America at the National Constitution Center before his election, which was downright profound in its insights and candor.

If you grew up in America, you were indoctrinated or exposed to layers of racism and bigotry institutionally, cultural and socially. The best we can do is face those morbid prejudices in ourselves and decide how we really feel about racial issues. Unfortunately, it takes flashpoint incidents in the media like this for us to get the dialogue going.

Will it go back to the eternally rhetorical question? Can we really talk about racial divides in this country or is it all non- verbal communication? For now this issue is not the issue it’s the fight about the issue.

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Now we have, Umar Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber and a new pten line of terrorism from al Qaeda from training camp in Yemen. In a ‘You’re doing a hellava job Brownie’ moment of This Week WGS Sunday Janet Napolitano was completely unreassuringly about terrorist tracking on the airlines. Since Umar’s own father alerted authorities in Nigeria weeks ago that his son had been radicalized against the US and felt that he would strike, where was the state side pickup? It was homeland security that was caught with its pants down. What good is the list 550,000 suspect names and 4,000 ’no fly’ names if one’s father dimes you out, he paid for his one-way ticket in cash, he had been traveling without luggage, he was denied entry into the UK for lying about a school he said he was attending. Napolitano clarified on Monday that she was talking about the events after the fact, and acknowledged that there were failures leading up to the incident. The upside to all of this is that all of this is actionable intelligence.

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After weeks of the media’s hail Sarah rituals around the publication of her book, the Palin is so addicted to being in the news that she is willing to put her perpetual victimhood aside. This week she did not want the klieglights to move on to other newsies so she is stoking the birther movement that calls into question Barack Obama’s US citizenship. This is the kind of thing the Palin monster clings to to stay politically alive? She’s a political Tonya Harding, weilding her crowbar. Scary that anyone would take her seriously outside of sketch comedy. Pathetic that she is not called on the really shitty things she resorts to to stay in the headlines.

Course, she’s still an amateur compared to pull the trigger Dick and his Cheneygang, but now I have both of their faces in my head and I’m about to pass out.