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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | politics of sex

Elizabeth Warren Once Again Calls for Accountability, Starting with Jamie Dimon

By on 14 May 2012

“The guy in the street in 2008 and 2009 was worried about his or her deposits, and now it’s clear they should still be worried,” said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian and professor at Manhattan College. “An average person looks at this and thinks, ‘What exactly happened here? How could this happen again?’ And they don’t want excuses as to why it happened. They just want it to go away. But it’s not going away.” – Obama’s Wall Street problem, by Ben White

OVERSIGHT AND REGULATION are critical, because once again we learn that the big banks won’t do it themselves. Elizabeth Warren demanded accountability once again, starting with Jamie Dimon.

“I’d like to see Jamie Dimon, for example, resign from his position as a class a director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.” – Senate candidate Elizabeth Warrren

Speaking to Charlie Rose on CBS “This Morning” today, the woman who envisioned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, only to have Pres. Obama overlook her to run the agency, which has her now running for the Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown, took on JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion loss, which could put the entire American recovery in danger.

From Warren’s website, an online petition demanding Wall Street accountability. Considering Warren began the accountability call, it’s not like this is just an empty campaign trick.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon should resign from the NY Federal Reserve Bank Board

Last week, JP Morgan Chase announced a $2 billion trading loss in two months.

Sunday on Meet the Press, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said, “We know we were sloppy, we know we were stupid, we know there was bad judgment.”

After the biggest financial crisis in generations, Americans are frustrated that Wall Street has still not been held accountable and does not appear to consider itself responsible. Wall Street banks continue to have fundamental problems, and tough oversight and accountability are urgently needed.

Dimon is not only the CEO of JP Morgan, he is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where he advises the Federal Reserve on the oversight of the financial industry.

Dimon should resign from his post at the New York Fed to send a signal to the American people that Wall Street bankers get it and to show that they understand the need for responsibility and accountability.

If this is happening to Dimon’s bank you can bet it’s happening elsewhere.

This is yet another wake up call for the Obama administration, because nothing threatens Barack Obama’s reelection trajectory more than an economic assault on the recovery. The problem is that damning the Administration won’t solve the problem, because conservatives of both parties are against regulation, with Republicans the leading advocate for banks regulating themselves.

Mitt Romney is against Wall Street regulation, including Dodd-Frank.

The two rock stars of Wall Street reform remain Elizabeth Warren and Ron Paul.

Jamie Dimon, a 1% Wall Street tycoon with one of the best records in banking, though anyone can argue that’s not saying much, proves that even the mightiest can fall, which includes the American economic system, too. It happened in 2008 and don’t think it can’t happen again.

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Ignore the Following

By on 14 May 2012

As far as Michelle was concerned, Oprah’s billions and her elite lifestyle disqualified her as an adviser to Barack, who had no truck with wealthy people, except as a source of campaign contributions, and was a redistributionist at heart. – Excerpt of “The Amateur,” by Edward Klein

SPEAKING OF AMATEURS, a word about Edward Swiftboat Writer Masquearading as Truth Klein.

Just one of the quotes in his fireplace fodder against Hillary Clinton, “The Truth About Hillary,” was anonymously dropping that “she’s been botoxed to the hilts,” allegedly from some “New York physician who had knowledge of such matters” (page 220). “Those matters” being botox, not Clinton.

So, no one should be surprised that Klein treats his readers to a cat fight Democratic style, this time starring Michelle Obama and Oprah, with Valerie Jarrett having a supporting role. The man’s a pig, no offense to the pink cuties.

The line emphasized in bold at the top is a perfect example of a Kleinism. Obama “had no truck with wealthy people”? Epic phrase that rendered me into fits of laughter.

Klein’s stuff about Rev. Wright in the New York Post about being “bribed” with $150,000 is priceless. If Wright had actually been offered the money by “one of Barack’s closest friends,” the woman or man who offered it would have been a hero if Wright had taken it. Wright was a perpetually exploding rhetorical grenade, so any person on team Obama would have been committing professional malpractice not to have offered cash to Wright to be quiet.

The rest of the Regnery drivel is likely just as bad, though I really hope Klein has finally learned to write chapters over four or five pages in length. Guess the publisher feels for the reader and believes keeping the chapters short, the reader’s gag reflex won’t lock due to overuse.

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Queer Talk: Newsweek Names Obama the ‘First Gay President’

By on 13 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

To this point, maybe the best reaction I’ve seen to this cover for the latest Newsweek is from John Aravosis: “Hmmm.”

Of course the “first gay president” is recalling Toni Morrison naming Bill Clinton the “first black president.”

The story was written by Andrew Sullivan, who was on today’s Chris Matthews Show. From Mediaite:

Through muted tears, Sullivan explained the impact of Obama’s announcement for gay Americans like himself:

‘Beforehand, I was kind of steeled. I was like, ‘I didn’t care; he’s going to disappoint us again.’ And then I sat down and watched our president tell me that I am his equal. … And to hear the president who is in some ways a father figure speak to that – the tears came down like with many people in our families.’

Hmmm.

Okay, that really wasn’t my first reaction. That was more in the line of “over-reach” – both on the cover and on Sullivan’s comments. I haven’t read the story, so can’t comment on that. I also thought about Newsweek marketing and, of course, 2012 politics.

( Photo via Newsweek )

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Blissfully Childfree

By on 12 May 2012

I’m so glad I didn’t have children.

Every Mother’s Day affirms it.

I’ve never understood the desperate fertility treatment dance so many women go through in order to have children that they can’t conceive naturally. It’s a miracle it’s an option, but the torture of it all. But when I found out my niece and her husband finally conceived we cracked a bottle of Tequila and did shots in their honor.

Some girls want a different life.

When I grew up it was an expectation you would get married and have children. It’s what women did. I refused, wearing the childfree stigma from those days as a badge of independent bravery. Because when the modern age of feminism blasted off Phyllis Schlafly’s harping was a loud noise in our ear.

Thankfully, it’s not so anymore.

As a kid, the doll I loved was Barbie. She was independent, had lots of clothes and cool car and dream house, though I wasn’t interested at all in Ken. What did Barbie need him for anyway? Her perfect body didn’t faze me. All I saw was her freedom. She wasn’t one of those loathsome dolls that I was expected to pretend feed, pantomime diaper changing and roll around in a fake stroller, which was obviously meant to prepare me for something I always knew I didn’t want.

When I got a Thumbelina for Christmas one year, she came in a pretty basket all cuddled up. My interest lasted about a second.

I love being around little people. Their reaction to me is entertaining, because I don’t treat them like children. The encounters are inevitably magical for me, but it’s a vacation zone not a landing strip.

What’s your life all about without children? Everything you can think of to do and then more. It’s about discovering or creating something else you’re passionate about that teaches you, inspires you and expands you. It’s a never ending cavalcade of experiences. As a thinker, artist and writer it’s been about making an impact in my little corner of the world.

Contrary to the stereotypical propaganda, not having children can also keep you young. You are the kid in your life, just with heaping responsibilities and the rewards that come with adulthood.

I can’t imagine my life any other way and wouldn’t have it any other way either. It’s been a madcap, non-stop whirl of amazing miracles and evolutionary thrills.

That was before I met Mark and got married, when it was thought a feminist was more likely to be hit by a terrorist than get married in her 40s. What has made it so strong and exhilarating is we’re on this journey together. I’ve married the strongest feminist I know who stands beside me in all I do, as we create our life lived in a perpetual roller coaster of events. He’s a great dad, but that’s his life to manage, not mine in which to interfere. I can hardly wait ’til his kids come visit us in Virginia. What fun that will be!

Every day begins when I ask myself what will I explore or discover today? Then off I go.

I’m grateful I had the guts to say no to kids when I was very young and hold on to that vision all of my life.

When I read about more and more women today putting off motherhood or choosing to forego it entirely, I send them a secret blessing for what is possible in front of them if they choose to stay childfree. A big, messy board of bright colors and life free of being tethered to shepherding anyone’s journey but your own. Loads of hours and days and weeks and months where you have nothing to think about but your own adventure.

If you get really lucky, you’ll find someone who wants to come along and has great ideas of trouble to get into and together you’ll have a madcap blast.

For all you mothers out there, happy Mother’s Day. I hope you’re as blissfully happy with children as I am childfree.


graphic via 7DeadlySinners

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Queer Talk: Obama & Marriage Equality – The “Personal is Political,” but It Isn’t Necessarily Policy

By on 11 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

Since Obama’s announcement that “at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” I’ve been as fascinated by the ways the decision, and the timing, is being discussed, analyzed, praised, and condemned as by the story itself. It’s always interesting to see which “gay” stories grab mainstream – media and in general – attention.

As for the decision itself, I still think what I wrote on Wednesday : It finally became more politically harmful than helpful for Obama to continue the “evolving” process. I’m glad he finally got there, though what it “means” has a lot of interpretations, including the “it was part of a brilliant plan” conjecture. As I also said earlier, I still think it’s the grassroots people, local, state and national organizations, LGBT media, with allies, of course, who did the work that made it possible.

Obama’s emphasis on this being his “personal” view made me think of, among other things, that feminist assertion, “the personal is political.” Yes, it is. But neither the “personal” nor the “political” guarantee what an Elected’s policies will be. It’s policies and laws that spell out the meaning and realities of equality. Along with court decisions. Campaigns are about getting elected. They’re about the political and the personal, but what they tell us about eventual policies is sketchy at best.

Rachel Maddow did a segment in which she emphasizes that policy is more important than personal views. She compares what Obama has actually done toward LGBT equality – which is significant, even if I think he, as Electeds often do, gets credit for work done by others – and compares the Obama policy actions to the personal “I actually like gays” pronouncements by other presidents.

Whatever you think of all of this, the fight goes on. Advocacy, fierce and otherwise, doesn’t have an off season. Strategies and tactics change, depending on the strength and decisions – and policies – of your team, but the advocacy continues. Obama moved because Obama was pushed to move. The Right quickly jumped on this as a “flip-flop” weakness, a subject you’d think they’d want to avoid.

Anyway, I think it’s fair to point out that it took a lot of time and energy and effort by LGBT’s and allies, and it took the majority of Obama’s first term, to get to this point. If this is the big deal so many say it is – pro and con – then it’s also a big deal that he waited to do it.

At Buzzfeed Zeke Miller wrote:

After three years of political compromise on issues from health care reform to spending cuts, Obama delivered a surprise gift to what many of his core supporters view as the civil rights issue of the day … .

No, damn it, it wasn’t a “gift.” It’s a very hard earned acknowledgement of a right. The statement of his “personal” belief is great, it can have real consequences, and I mean beyond the boost in political campaign fundraising (which began immediately). But equality isn’t a “gift” to be bestowed by an Elected personally and/or politically inclined to do so. It’s a right, one that requires policies and the enactment of laws to make practical, defendable differences.

I’d guess that Obama’s campaign move – and that’s what it was, of course – is based in some real conviction that it’s the “right thing to do,” as Electeds are so fond of telling us. And I know, from reading around the web and talking with lots of people the last few days, that many are excited by this. But I wonder if the fact that it’s the work of many who made this Obama Moment possible isn’t getting lost. More, is this really a “very risky” political step, as I’ve read in several places, especially considering the ever further Right movement of the Republican presidential hunt?

Is saying you support marriage equality early in your political career but then saying you don’t when you run for the presidency really an “example of courage” or a “model” for how to be an LGBT equality ally, as is being fairly widely proclaimed? Or, does this incremental, cautious approach simply represent the process followed by many on their way to being an out LGBT supporter? Maybe that’s one reason for the “he’s a hero” attitude for admirers, and the “he’s a threat” attitude from some on the Right, including Romney.

Whatever your conclusions about that, remember: Obama said something in addition to expressing his personal belief. As Darren Hutchinson writes:

… (Obama) also qualified this position in a way that is very important from a legal standpoint. Obama believes that states should have the power to decide this issue on their own.

Which means it was okay when North Carolina joined so many other states in putting a decision regarding who deserves, and doesn’t deserve, equality up for a popular vote.

Basically, I take such moments as Obama’s “coming out” for marriage equality with what to me is simply a realistic qualifier: after many years of advocacy work, that’s one step forward we’ve earned. But don’t be surprised when there’s a step or two backward (not just by Obama), and be even less surprised when there are extended periods of running in place, or shifting of feet. And that’s a description of the Electeds working for equality. There’s the other whole group who are actively opposing it.

When Electeds act for equality on the basis of the hard work of advocates, give the Electeds the credit deserved. I don’t discount the significance of Obama’s statement. It’s important, to the point of being considered newsworthy in the MSM. But I don’t assign it heroic status. That goes to the people doing the daily grind of grassroots advocacy.

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Hillary’s Vogue

By on 11 May 2012

“I feel so relieved to be at the stage I’m at in my life right now. Because you know if I want to wear my glasses I’m wearing my glasses. If I want to wear my hair back I’m pulling my hair back. You know at some point it’s just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention. And if others want to worry about it, I let them do the worrying for a change” – Secretary Hillary Clinton in an interview with CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jill Dougherty

from Fox News

CLINTON’S STYLE QUAKE has shifted the American universe and provided yet another Hillary Effect moment, one that rattled the confines of post-feminism and the concept of raw power among girls. There is no woman on planet earth who could cheerfully, defiantly and unflinchingly remove the stigma of a working woman’s persona from being tied to glam duty more thoroughly.

Here’s the hub of it. Women being able to choose their look, without expectations of false eyelashes and mandatory movie-esque makeup, when sometimes less of all of it is who she is. Rachel Maddow wouldn’t wear Gayle King’s high heels and bright hues, but the style Maddow opts for works for her, same for King.

Drudge began the latest conversation with the “Hillary Au Naturale” headline (seen below), which Fox News and others picked up (see above), launching another salvo in the war on women, this one targeting our looks and age as vulnerabilities. Expectations that because a female doesn’t appear dolled up it’s worthy of headline news instead of a deliberate decision because it suits her.

Teens and twenty-somethings get away with a scrubbed face, but aging shouldn’t relegate us all to chasing the vanity mirror unless we want to.

It follows what Drudge did when Clinton was a presidential candidate, which is covered in my book, with both he and Rush Limbaugh getting the scrutiny they deserve. Flashing back on the event when candidate Clinton was eviscerated on Drudge for a picture showing her natural wrinkles, which comes with age regardless of gender. Progressive new media blogs were also guilty of posting unflattering pictures of Clinton on purpose, but none came close to the Drudge-Rush treatment. As the Kathleen Hall Jamieson of Annenberg Public Policy Center relayed to Bill Moyers in 2007, negative images are purposefully used in politics to make the onlooker feel bad about a politician. However, when it’s done to a woman through highlighting her age it hits our juvenile nation in its solar plexus, though the air it knocks out is that of the woman being targeted, while telling other femmes to stay in the beauty box.

When Rush picked up on the Drudge wrinkle photo back during the ’08 race, he used his signature shrill sexism for the occasion.

“Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis? And that woman, by the way, is not going to want to look like she’s getting older, because it will impact poll numbers. It will impact perceptions.” – Rush Limbaugh (December 2007, source: The Hillary Effect)

“America loses interest in you,” Rush opined.

Today, where Hillary is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth.

Virginia Clinton Kelly, William Jefferson Clinton’s late mother, had moments of pause upon meeting Hillary Rodham, because Mrs. Kelly was a full makeup kind of girl. Hillary wasn’t. She now isn’t again, at least at times.

Just be careful when trying this if you’re plodding up the professional ladder, because we all know how long it took Hillary to ascend and be accepted, what it cost, and people still have expectations. But the Hillary Effect just might make it easier to decide to be different.

That Drudge got creamed this time ’round from all quarters was a thing of beauty to watch. That Clinton gave him the middle finger with a casual smile in an interview while she was on yet another grueling globetrotting tour as America’s chief diplomat was a fitting and long overdue f-you.

We’ve come a long way from ABC’s headline in 2007 asking “Is It Sexist to Discuss Hillary’s Wrinkles?” to articles in the Washington Post defending her, to Jezebel’s Hillary “GIVES ZERO FUCKS” graphic.

But that won’t stop outlets like the UK Daily Mail from doing the misogynistic deep dive on “Make-up free Clinton shows the strain of her busy travel schedule,” complete with pictorial walk-through over the last months and years meant to prove she’s worse for wear.

There’s not one woman who doesn’t know what the “tired” trap means. It means she can’t take the heat, because she looks like she’s melted without makeup. The girl’s not up to it. It’s the ultimate sexist slap driven into our confidence that we can’t matter once we’re beyond youth and motherhood, because of our mind alone. That the way we think isn’t actually a huge part of our beauty, with the confidence to live originally making us hotter with age, because the fact is it does.

The people I’ve talked with who know Secretary Clinton have said she is exhausted and looks forward to a long holiday and rest, which has been reported in every outlet you can name; some supporters puzzled over her relaxed hair and makeup. It’s not for everyone and it shouldn’t have to be. You fly 700,000 miles doing a pressure cooker job and see how you feel about every two to three weeks keeping a short haircut maintained and daily sculpted, highlights regularly, the mask of cosmetics every morning, even when you’ve had little sleep, it’s hot as hell where you are and you couldn’t name where that is without an aide. I’m not saying Clinton can’t name it, but I’ve had jet lag on puny little holiday trips, so I can’t imagine reality with her itinerary.

America is an airbrush nation.

When the first HD TV blasted across the country we all got a look at the infotainment pundits and talking heads who shouldn’t be blamed if they started looking for plastic surgeons, dermatologists, or doctors who practice laser therapy, women in particular.

Look at the films and the few female actresses who continue to work over 40.

It’s a testament to the women in film and television who have stood up and shown what they look like before they get their glamour on. KLG and Hoda did it, Natalie Morales and Meredith Vieira, too. Trendy magazines have done pictorials of actresses without makeup, with People the latest, which included Jessica Paré, who plays Don Draper’s wife on “Mad Men.” Her freckles are fabulous. In the Golden Age of Hollywood that fact would have been hidden on pain of the publicist’s life. A way to an Oscar is also seen through beauties going beastly who are considered brave. Remember Charlize Theron in “Monster”?

But not everyone is a Hollywood actress, let alone the brilliant Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s seen more pressure come her way on looks than most and finally rejected the reviews outright.

Could yet another part of the glass ceiling have cracked when Hillary “au naturale” hit the headlines this time? Traditional and new media, as well as most of television, minus misogynist central on the traditional right, didn’t just shrug, but said you look good to us, Hillary.

Taking the cue from Secretary Clinton, we backed her up and because of it some of us over 40 or 50 and beyond, took note. A space had been made to breathe. A moment crafted where the most admired American female leader said, whether I have makeup on or not in the middle of a work day “it’s just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention.” Let others worry about the trivial, I’m helping run the world, or my family while juggling a job, or running a small business.

As a girl who chose the pageant system to help pay for college, did the national commercial and Broadway babe thing where talent and looks combined made a difference, then on from there to eventually write about things that matter, all the while trading on talent and face to help get in doors or in a talking head chair to help pitch my points, I’m now at an age where it takes a lot more work for a lot less bang for my MAC buck. Sometimes I enjoy the paint and sometimes not, but I never go public in my work without it.

Let’s hope Hillary cracking the makeup ceiling shatters convention.

I’m never going to forget it and am grateful for it.

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Time Channels Tina Brown, Gets Attention

By on 10 May 2012

THE TIME COVER produced a whine from Mika Brzezisnki and Gillian Tett on “Morning Joe.”

“I’ll tell you why it bothers me. It bothers me because it’s a profile of Bill Sears,” Brzezinski said, suggesting, as Tett did, that the cover was a cheap shot. [Politico]

Whoosh…

That’s the sound of the subject matter attached to the provocative picture going right over their heads.

Evidently, Brzezinski and Tett don’t care that Dr. Bill Sears is father of “attachment parenting,” that includes “extended breast-feeding,” which the Time magazine cover is meant to depict.

From the author of the piece:

For TIME’s May 21 cover story, I explored the personal history and legacy of Dr. Bill Sears, the father of a child-rearing philosophy called attachment parenting. As the author of 40-plus books on parenting and pregnancy, Sears is a familiar figure to many American mothers and fathers. Some parents subscribe to his theory that attachment parenting — characterized by extended breast-feeding, co-sleeping and wearing your baby in a sling across your body — is the best way to raise confident, secure children. Others think Sears is an antifeminist tyrant, or that his ideas are just totally unrealistic.

It’s hard to know how any magazine stays in business with new media’s power, but as long as the cover matches the article subject there’s no reason not to do it. What’s critical is drawing attention to subjects that matter, so if it takes a little shock value to get people to care about issues, so be it.

There is also a certain segment of women in this country who are afraid of public depiction of nudity and breasts, as well as anything provocative at all, thinking life needs to be serious and sober to be important. Politico wouldn’t even show the entire cover while writing about it! Back when I watched “Morning Joe” regularly, Brzezinski would freak out every time the boys brought up anything having to do with women scantily clothed or nude, coming off as prudish, schoolmarm or old-fashioned.

Feminism is also attached to a strict sense of female propriety where nudity is concerned, something I always equated as part of the multiple choice party of liberation. Unfortunately, many feminists have a politically correct dos and don’ts list for women that all of us are to live by. I blew past that one decades ago.

As for the philosophy of “extended breast-feeding,” it’s just plain creepy and reminds me of the shame I’ve seen through girlfriends who couldn’t breast feed no matter how hard they tried, but were made to feel guilty because they couldn’t.

I’m child-free by choice, so this story is completely out of my personal experience base, though I have interviewed women on children’s issues many times. I’ve yet to find anyone who embraces “extended breast-feeding,” though many have chosen co-sleeping, up to a certain age, and wearing their baby across their body in a sling, though these two issues are quite different from what the Time cover depicts.

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Why Occupy Should / Shouldn’t Be the Left’s Tea Party

By on 10 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

It’s surely no surprise that my response to whether Occupy should or shouldn’t “be the left’s tea party” is the latter. That’s my Two Party Front for the Oligarchy perspective. The status quo-ed corporate Duopoly system is working just fine for those for whom it’s designed to work just fine. Serious challenges and changes require efforts from within and without that system. Occupy is creating “outside” space.

Last week Josh Harkinson, at Mother Jones, wrote Why Occupy Should Be the Left’s Tea Party. Harkinson has reported on the Occupy movement for months, but in this piece writes as a “pundit.”

A few days later, Max Berger – an “Occupy organizer” – wrote at OWS, Why Occupy Can’t and Shouldn’t Become the Progressive Tea Party.

From Harkinson:

… if the movement is going to sustain the kind of momentum that captured the nation’s attention six months ago, it must begin to evolve in a different direction. …

I have the utmost respect for original OWS organizers … who took the art of calling bullshit on the political system way further than the chattering classes thought it could go. …

In the early days … Occupy Wall Street seemed poised to grow in any number of directions. There were people who wanted to make concrete political demands or get involved in electoral politics, and people who didn’t. … (M)any of them were happy to collaborate with more mainstream groups, such as labor unions, on protests against common enemies like Wall Street.

For a while I believed that this kind of limited partnership could be enough to keep the Occupy movement relevant. … This has certainly happened to a degree … .

Though politicians don’t always fulfill their promises, history shows that social movements tend to advance when they help elect people who at least feel compelled to listen to them. …

Since the Occupy movement probably can’t stomach campaigning for Obama, it could instead loan its 99 percent message to MoveOn.org and the unions and progressive PACs … . But while occupiers are justifiably skeptical of Obama, they’re also unjustifiably paranoid about being co-opted by Obama supporters … .

Occupy activists … seem to think that MoveOn is taking its orders from the White House. In reality, MoveOn polls its 7 million members on which candidates to support … . What Occupy really ought to do … is plunge directly into electoral politics on the local, state, and congressional level. It ought to co-opt the Democratic Party.

Though Occupy could support many sympathetic candidates in Democratic primaries, some pundits haven’t pushed the idea because they worry about a tea party effect on the left, with liberal Democrats losing to Republicans in the general election. …

… Occupy has drawn attention to the rigging of the political system by boycotting it. Now it can campaign against that political system … by working to elect people who will unrig it.

From Max Berger:

As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall Street, there have been people who’ve suggested it should become the left’s version of the Tea Party. Josh Harkinson’s piece is a notable contribution to the conversation … suggest(ing) that Occupy should recruit and run candidates … . According to this logic, it doesn’t matter if Occupy does this itself or essentially outsources the job to our progressive allies … .

(Before Occupy) … I didn’t see how the left could create real change in America without taking control of the Democratic Party. Now I think it’s important to recognize that the problems we face … can’t be solved … even by electing more good Democrats. A progressive Tea Party would be a welcome addition, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to create the kind of change we need. …

… Starting a progressive Tea Party is a completely legitimate, useful goal—but it’s something for the progressive institutions to take on. …

… the unfortunate reality is that our political system as presently constructed is simply incapable of responding to people’s needs. … The Democrats’ inaction (following 2008) proved that our political system was designed to serve the whims of the market … .

My generation doesn’t … hate the player, so much as we hate the game. … The system is fundamentally incapable of healing itself. …

Occupy transformed the public debate by naming the problem —gross inequality of wealth and power—and the cause: the power of Wall Street. …

…The Occupy Movement would be derelict if we focused on the electoral at the expense of systemic change. The entirety of civic life cannot be reduced to a get-out-the-vote campaign. …

… Like the civil rights, women’s rights, environmental movements before us, we can’t afford to ignore the electoral realm, but we also shouldn’t expect to succeed by voting alone. …

For all those who think it’s essential to work within the progressive established ways and methods of doing things, do that. For all who think it’s essential to work outside that system, do that. Harkinson and Berger show it’s possible to disagree without attacking the other, and to see merit in the other’s perspective. Expecting Occupy to do your progressive electoral work for you would make no more sense than Occupy expecting the progressive establishment to do its non-electoral focused work for them.

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews Follow Catholic Church in Child Abuse Disgrace

By on 10 May 2012

THE RELIGIOUS PROTECTION RACKET is torn down again, this time the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is the target, in a story by the New York Times today.

The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested.

Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”

… The small cadre of ultra-Orthodox Jews who have tried to call attention to the community’s lack of support for sexual abuse victims have often been targeted with the same forms of intimidation as the victims themselves.

There is nothing more worthy of criminal prosecution than the molestation of a child.

That this heinous act is being perpetrated by men masquerading as religiously pious likely doesn’t surprise anyone at this point.

The woman of the child in a wheelchair mentioned above is not fit to call herself mother.

That the disabled are involved in the molestations should bring the wrath of society down on the ultra-Orthodox community and shame them into dislodging their cozy protection racket that has turned a synagogue into a molesters’ refuge.

The Times cites Our Place, in Brooklyn, as a place that discovered abuse, but then they, too, “received threats” for trying to bring child molesters to justice.

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Republicans Already Lost Hispanics, Now Shoot for Losing Next Generation

By on 10 May 2012

“While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear. We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.” – Reince Priebus, RNC

Fox Nation headline, via Media Matters (It was changed within an hour.)

IT’S GOING TO BE A HOT TIME at George Clooney’s Hollywood fundraiser for Pres. Obama tonight.

May the gods bless V.P. Joe Biden, who laid down a solid roll out for Barack Obama by speaking out on “Meet the Press” that was followed by a statement from the President that made history.

Even Alex Castellanos on CNN, after Obama’s statement became breaking news, questioned the intelligence of Republicans being against love, which will leave the next generation out of reach. Yes, Alex Castellanos actually said that, though he also said Obama will lose “Reagan Democrats, the cultural blue-collar Reagan Democrats in states like Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania — important swing states.” Evidently, Mr. Castellanos missed the jailbird vote in West Virginia from Tuesday, because the voters he cites are already long gone for Obama.

If you want to be cynical, the President’s statement on marriage equality will excite Obama’s Democratic base, if anything, which is really what he needs to do right now.

Obama’s statement of support for marriage equality also lands same sex couples in a position to put states rights on trial through their pocketbooks. Because if you’re gay or lesbian and in a committed partnership or want to be, there’s no reason to continue to live in a state that doesn’t respect your civil right to form a legal family, proving it doesn’t deserve your money. Jobs make it rough to bolt, but living openly and being legally protected in a loving family should become an economic issue for states, because that’s where the battles will now be fought.

A message from Pres. Obama is important, but it won’t change everything, because we all know Congress is worthless, with Pres. Obama making the decision his administration would no longer defend section 3 of DOMA over a year ago.

So, with all this to talk about, it makes perfect sense that an article from Politico, written by Glenn Thrush and Carrie Budoff Brown, surfaced casting “blame” on Biden. Because we all have to keep churning stuff out no matter how ridiculous and Politico couldn’t seem to think outside their insider bubble to cast a net toward Republicans and what it means for them. Instead, the high school version was assigned, with thesaurus at the ready, on how Biden “forced” Obama’s hand, “deeply annoyed Obama’s team,” followed by the weirdly written phrase “nor did it tickle anyone” that Joe had been caught on video being Joe. It was followed by “chafed,” to once again describe the Obama team’s reaction to V.P. Joe Biden’s remarks. All of this came after an initial piece from Politico reporting “Biden forced Obama’s hand”… blah, blah, blah.

Politico’s Thrush and Budoff Brown dumbed it all down to this: “But the damage control was anything but a joke.”

When does a statement of support delivered by the president of the United States to people who love one another, encouraging acceptance of them to be able to form a family with legal protections, including for children, require “damage control”?

Maggie Haberman reports what I believe is the strongest angle in the whole unwinding, which didn’t begin this week, whether we’re talking Biden or Arne Duncan, but was a cumulative evolution that was helped exponentially by the strong views of First Lady Michelle Obama, along with an assist from Valeria Jarrett. These two women have given Pres. Obama his best council, most of which surfaced in action well after Rahm Emanuel’s departure, in case anyone is keeping track.

Then there was Barack Obama’s two young daughters, Sasha and Malia, the next generation capable of teaching each of us where the future lies if we listen. Is it so hard to believe their dad did just that?

However, if any one thing was the trip wire for Obama speaking out now it was just as likely to have been the painful and obviously disastrous White House press briefing by Jay Carney. If that didn’t shock Pres. Obama into moving nothing would, because it unfolded in a manner that proved the subject was never going to be tamped down.

The most important story beyond Pres. Obama making history is where this leaves the Republican party and Mitt Romney.

In the dust of things undone from the 20th century and they’re evidently not going to budge. This is the story, because it’s a jolting moment for the GOP, as the Democratic party lays down yet another historic civil rights marker, this time for activists to follow in states across the country.

Mitt Romney’s comments were predictably small, because they’re moored in religious conservatism, well outside the fulcrum of civil rights.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, while challenging Obama on marriage equality, which has now been met by the President, easily wipes the floor with Romney on the issue, who’s becoming a less attractive presidential candidate every day.

“Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told KDVR. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not.” – Yahoo! News

We can no longer accept or tolerate religious interference in the business of progress, because as a nation we can no longer afford the price we pay in productivity.

It’s like the entire world is moving to a place in the 21st century that encourages the expansion of civil rights and human rights, while Republicans hold fast to the notion that “Leave it to Beaver” can be recreated off a Hollywood set in a century that will leave the U.S. behind if we don’t empower every American to their best self, their best life, which includes bringing more and more families, as well as forgotten children, together, uniting loved ones in honor, dignity and protected status so that no person feels excluded from the pursuit of happiness and the American dream.

Fox Nation screencapture via Media Matters.

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Queer Talk: Obama Evolves, Comes Out for Marriage Equality

By on 09 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.



President Obama in an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, this afternoon [Via Think Progress]:

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

This follows Biden’s remarks on Sunday, yesterday’s vote in North Carolina that passed a “marriage definition” amendment, intense and widespread conversations and editorials over the last several days … and literally decades of work by LGBT and supportive advocates, including the last three years of the Obama administration.

As Joe Sudbay writes:

Obama became the first President of the United States to support marriage equality. It’s a very welcome development. As you know, the President first announced that he was evolving during our interview on October 27, 2010.

Sudbay includes this from John Aravosis:

A few points. First, this is major news and these aren’t “just words.” When the President of the United States makes a statement about an issue this big, the words have impact. They can impact court cases around the country, and just as importantly, people’s attitudes. Those attitudes matter at the ballot box and in the schoolyard. The President’s opinion matter. …

What happened, I think, was that it finally became more obviously harmful than helpful for Obama to continue the “evolving” process. I’d guessed that, if something didn’t basically force it, he would wait until after November to make such an announcement, and wondered if it would happen even then. Whatever the various reasons that brought him to his announcement today, he finally got there, and for that, I’m grateful.

As I am to all those grassroots people, and organizations and bloggers and more, who have done the work that made this happen, as they made the repeal of DADT happen, and will, eventually, bring about marriage equality, employment protection, and more.

This post was updated with video.

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Missouri’s Disgrace

By on 09 May 2012

SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL is receiving extra Secret Service protection at public events, because of an extremist Republican, Tea Party branch, who made rhetorical threats that can’t be taken lightly. These are the same people who come to rallies with guns at their side, not even concealed.

“We have to kill the Claire Bear ladies and gentlemen,” Boston said. “She walks around like she’s some sort of Rainbow Brite Care Bear or something but really she’s an evil monster.” – St. Louis Post Dispatch

When I left Missouri decades ago, it was a right wing, anti-feminist factory. Today, it’s a state that continues to disgrace itself politically.

Republican Senate hopeful John Brunner firmly repudiated the wacko Tea Party cretin. Unfortunately, as Dick Lugar’s loss proved yesterday, they’ve infiltrated the party of Reagan so that they’re now wagging the dog.

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Richard Lugar Deserved to Lose and Does

By on 08 May 2012

Republican foreign policy elder statesman Sen. Richard Lugar, 80, first elected to the Senate in 1976, was defeated in the Indiana primary Tuesday by state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who was backed by conservatives ranging from the National Rifle Association to local Tea Party activists to the Washington-based fiscal conservative group the Club for Growth. Mourdock appeared to be headed for a landslide victory. – Six-term Senate veteran Lugar defeated in Indiana primary

SEN. LUGAR’S LOSS will be lamented by the bipartisan, insider crowd, but how anyone can think anything other than he deserved to lose is beyond me. Richard Lugar didn’t even have an Indiana residence to call his own. It doesn’t get more out of touch than that.

For his foes, the fact that Lugar did not maintain an Indiana residence came to symbolize his disconnection from the state he had represented in the Senate since Jimmy Carter was president. Democrats mocked him in February for telling Indiana reporters that he was unsure what address was on his Indiana driver’s license.

Sen. Lugar was an odd one, helping Democrats pass the DREAM Act while voting against re-authorizing money for the Violence Against Women Act recently.

But not having residency in the state where you are representing the people? I guess he figured his good service, which he delivered for decades and for which Indianans should be grateful, made living in the actual state where he was senator irrelevant.

That’s just clueless.

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Chipping Away at the Wall of Money

By on 08 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

This is probably one of the busiest months in a long while, for advocacy / activist groups, Occupy and others. It’s extremely difficult to break through the Wall of Money, and the incessant electoral politics “news” it funds.

Depending on MSM, you’d likely miss most the following.

May 6-9 Converge for Justice: Occupy Wall Street South – Bank of America

Via OWS:

On May 6-9 people … will be converging in Charlotte, NC, home of Bank of America’s Headquarters and their annual Shareholder meeting, to demand an end to their practices that are bankrupting our economy and wrecking our climate.

May 8-19 Occupy TPP

From OWS:

International trade ministers and corporate lobbyists will be descending on (Dallas) Texas from May 8 to 18 for a critical trade summit aimed at rushing the secretive new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement toward completion. The Texas Fair Trade Coalition and our allies are planning to welcome them … .

The May 12th rally and march is the main event while negotiators are in town. It features a permitted rally with trade justice advocates …, followed by a march down to the negotiation site. It has been endorsed by the Citizens Trade Campaign, Code Pink, Communications Workers of America, Dallas AFL-CIO Council, Dallas Peace Center, Friends of the Earth, International Association of Machinists, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, MoveOn.org Dallas, National Family Farm Coalition, North Texas Jobs with Justice, Occupy Austin , Occupy Dallas , Occupy Texas , Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Texas AFL-CIO, Texas State Building Trades Council, United Steelworkers, United Students Against Sweatshops, Welcoming Immigrants Network and many others. …

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a

… new international trade and investment pact currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the United States and countries throughout the Pacific Rim. …

Approximately 600 corporate lobbyists have been given special ‘cleared advisor’ status to review negotiating documents and advise negotiators. Meanwhile, the general public has been barred from even reviewing what U.S. negotiators have proposed in our names.

According to protest organizers, TPP is making decisions which will adversely impact working conditions around the world, and environmental and consumer safety policies; deregulate banks, insurance companies and more; concentrate global food supplies in fewer hands; and restrict access to generic medications.

May 12

Described as a “global action,” via May 12:

We demand, firmly but without violence: social justice, wealth distribution and an ethic of commons.

May 18-19 Camp David / G8

When the G8 summit was moved from Chicago – where NATO is meeting – to Camp David, the Occupy and other actions seem to have remained primarily on Chicago, though there are some actions listed here, including by Occupy Frederick and Thurmont – Occupy Baltimore. Of course, any G8 protest actions won’t be anywhere near the Camp David participants.

The designated First Amendment areas within the Catoctin Mountain Park were open during the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David in July 2000 and the National Park Service issued permits for protests there. However, when asked about the First Amendment areas for people wishing to peacefully protest the G8 Summit, the superintendent of Catoctin Mountain Park Mel Poole said in an interview, ‘There are First Amendment areas set aside in the park, but the closure pre-empts the First Amendment activity’.

May 18 – 21 Chicago / NATO

This is the one that I’m guessing will get the most attention, in part because of crowd sizes, and in part because the security measures being employed (more about that later) are so restrictive. For now, via OWS News:

Free Bus Trips & Call to Action for People’s Summit in Chicago 5/18 …

May 18 – The People’s Summit
May 19 – the 99% Solidarity People’s Convention
May 20 – CANG8 rally and march. …

May 21-23 Whistleblower Summit-Civil and Human Rights Conference

If you only have time to follow one link, make it this one, at OpEdNews:

A Letter to President Barack Obama about workplace violence at the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces the themes of the historic Whistleblower Summit-Civil and Human Rights Conference …

The conference themes are 1) combating Obama’s War on Whistleblowers, 2) fighting Obama’s War on Women, and 3) Count It Up – adding up the total costs of retaliation and discrimination to taxpayers.

The letter, dated September 29, 2011, written by Lesa Donnelly, Vice-President, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and one of the participants in the conference, begins:

I wrote to you on May 19, 2011, requesting your assistance for women and minorities in the USDA, Forest Service, particularly women in Region 5, California. …

The situation in Region 5 is so dire that we women were compelled to establish our own crisis intervention group. …

Last week, a Native American firefighter was going to quit her job because male firefighters wrote, ‘whore’ on the wall at her fire station. … This is the same woman I spoke of in my last letter who was sexually harassed, physically assaulted, and forced to urinate in front of the men. …

… Workplace bullying in the USDA and Forest Service is rampant, pervasive, and crosses all lines of gender, race, national origin, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Retaliation is institutionalized.

I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, but even so, I find it encouraging to know so many people are working toward equality and justice, in and out of the very well established corporate / political system. Fighting a way through the wall of money is a long, tough battle. The more people involved, the better.

( Wall of Money graphic via Occuprints )

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Queer Talk: ‘Dumb’ Becomes ‘Dumber’ in the WH Scramble on Marriage Equality

By on 08 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

The more the WH attempts to “explain” VP Biden’s comments regarding marriage equality, the “dumber” they look. “Dumb” was how John Aravosis described things yesterday. (See my earlier post here).

On Meet the Press, Biden said

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties.

The walk-back scramble began almost immediately, with efforts to convince everyone that Biden hadn’t said what he said, but is really right there with Obama, evolving.

For an indication of how bad things are, check out the transcript of Jake Tapper, and others, questioning WH spokesperson Jay Carney, via Pam’s Houseblend. It’s much too long to post the whole thing, but Tapper and others relentlessly pressed Carney about Obama’s, and Biden’s, views on marriage equality. This whole exchange serves as an example of “what goes wrong when you’re stuck repeating the same two or three talking points over and over and over.”

A very brief selection from the transcript, with Pam supplying the headline:

The #FAIL of Carney’s waffling and redirection and dodging is EPIC.

Q … This morning, the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, put himself on record in favor of gay marriage. Yesterday, the Vice President indicated something along the same lines. Does this box the President in ahead of the election? Have his views changed at all on this subject?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I have no update on the President’s personal views. What the Vice President said yesterday was to make the same point that the President has made previously …

That’s followed by the now very familiar list of Obama’s accomplishments on behalf of the LGBT communities. The repetition of “personal view,” “no update,” and Biden’s saying the same thing Obama is saying, along with the list of accomplishments, basically provided Carey’s response to every question.

Q Jay, on June 23rd, he told an LGBT audience, ‘Everybody deserves to be able to live and love as they see fit. … ’ What is he referring to if not gay marriage? …
Q … how (is) Vice President Biden … saying that he is absolutely comfortable with men marrying men and women marrying women having equal rights, is not an endorsement of gay marriage?
MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the Vice President expressed his personal views. He also said he was evolving on the issue. I think the description –
Q When?
Q When did he say that?
Q He did not say that, Jay.
MR. CARNEY: He did.
Q No. His spokesperson said that afterwards.
MR. CARNEY: Let me just be clear, though. The Vice President — what he said about the protection of rights of citizens is completely consistent with the President’s position on this issue …
Q You’re trying to have it both ways before an election. …
MR. CARNEY: No. Look, this President has been extremely aggressive in supporting LGBT rights. …
Q Positing that the President has done more for LGBT individuals than any other President in history — so you don’t need to say that again — (laughter) — the question is –
MR. CARNEY: But I will.
Q … I think there are very few people who think that the President is not going to, after November, whether he’s reelected or not, come out in favor of same-sex marriage. … It seems cynical to hide this until after the election.
MR. CARNEY: Jake, I think the President’s position is well known. … I don’t have an update …
Q It’s not that I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear the same talking points 15 times in a row. …
Q … where would the President be then on the amendment in North Carolina that would ban gay marriage?
MR. CARNEY: The President, through the campaign — but the same person opposes efforts to deny the rights of citizens in any state where those rights have been established.
Q So he opposes — so help me out there. He opposes bans on gay marriage but he doesn’t yet support gay marriage? …

There is much more of the same. And there is speculation that Obama will come out for marriage equality after the election, and that Biden is positioning himself for 2016. Whatever. The point isn’t political games for same-gender couples who want to marry. It’s about equality.

For more information and other takes on what’s happening, here are some links:

John Aravosis, Marriage-gate continues; Joe Biden has evolved. Why not Obama?; White House Press Sec being grilled by reporters over Biden’s endorse of gay marriage; Signorile on Obama’s ‘gay panic’; Some top gay donors allegedly withholding donations to Obama SuperPAC, (this one about Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors).

Lisa Keen, Biden: Pressuring Obama, or paving the way.

There are multiple stories at Think Progress, including Media Coverage Of Biden’s Remarks Demonstrates That Marriage Equality Is A Mainstream Position.

Bilerico, Biden, Duncan Support for Marriage Equality Underscores Political Minefield.

Joe My God, Obama’s Balancing Act On Marriage.

This continues to get attention because Mr. Obama’s “trying to have it both ways” position on marriage equality appears so purely political. But who knows? Maybe he really is unsure about same-gender marriage. I kind of doubt it, but at some point, you have to wonder.

Just as important to remember: Mitt Romney signed a pledge to amend the U.S. Constitution to make “same-sex” marriage even more illegal than it already is.

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Obama Slams George W. Bush Economic Legacy in New Ad

By on 08 May 2012

With the Occupy protesters resuming battle stations, and Mitt Romney in place as the presumptive Republican nominee, President Obama has begun to fashion his campaign as a crusade for the 99 percent–a fight against, as one Obama ad puts it, “a guy who had a Swiss bank account.” Casting Romney as a plutocrat will be easy enough. But the president’s claim as avenging populist may prove trickier, given his own deeply complicated, even conflicted, relationship with Big Finance. – Why Can’t Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice?

“We’re certainly running on our record.” – David Axelrod, senior Obama strategist on ABC’s “This Week.”

CANDIDATE OBAMA is always so much better than elected Obama. It’s the cross the Democratic Party has had to bear.

Candidate Obama didn’t show up in 2010, so there was an avalanche of Republican wins across the country, which revved up the war on women like we haven’t seen since the early days of Ronald Reagan.

It’s important to remember that Barack Obama came into office with a Democratic House and Senate. Instead of doing the job of a partisan leader, which is implementing why you were elected, president-elect Obama decided to play nice with Republicans, which played into the right’s hands. It allowed his first term narrative to get well out of his control.

Now that his presidency is on the line Obama’s locked and loaded, with Republican economic policies the target. With the Paul Ryan budget the template of the Republican party in 2012, it makes team Obama’s job so much easier.

Women are the vote to rock this year. Single women and younger females don’t respond well to negative ads. They also don’t trust them. Positive ads of comparison that also show what you’ve done is what works for them. Reminding them of where the country was when George W. Bush left office is a good thing. Because whether you like Pres. Obama or not, he was handed a crap sandwich on multiple fronts, sometimes screwing things up, but we are on the mend and every economist worth his or her credentials knows or has seen from the examples around the world that austerity won’t work, because it simply hasn’t.

But whether it’s Obama or Romney we’re still going to get some sort of entitlement “grand bargain” once 2013 hits.

For some reason elite politicians don’t understand that today’s blue collar worker has the same back breaking job that people like my husband do every day. Anyone who thinks new workers should have their retirement age pushed, which goes for waitresses and others in grueling jobs, is as out of touch as our political elite.

Who’s fighting for the new blue collar workers in November?

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Queer Talk: Obama / Biden on Marriage Equality are ‘Dumb Dumb Dumb’

By on 07 May 2012

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

Being “against against-marriage”, but not for marriage equality is not the stuff of fierce advocacy. What VP Biden said on Meet the Press Sunday, however, did sound a bit fierce, even evolved, and something like leadership on an issue of full equality for LGBTs. Then the back-tracking began, and we returned to “evolving,” and election year strategizing.

Here’s what Biden said, via Pam’s Houseblend in response to the question “You’re comfortable with same-sex marriage now?”:

Look, … (t)he president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties.

He’s clear that in terms of policy, it’s Obama’s call. But what he states “comfort” with marriage between same-gender couples.

Both LGBT and media in general jumped on the remark. Then the WH, followed by Biden, started walking it back. First, David Axelrod, via Aravosis,

… wrote that what Biden said ‘that all married couples should have exactly the same legal rights’ is ‘precisely’ the position of Obama.’

Wrong. Biden talked about the marriages of gays and lesbians being the same as heterosexual marriages.

Then from Biden’s office, also via Aravosis:

‘The Vice President was saying what the President has said previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights. That’s why we stopped defending the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in legal challenges and support legislation to repeal it. Beyond that, the Vice President was expressing that he too is evolving on the issue, after meeting so many committed couples and families in this country.’

“Roll back”? We’re talking about federal rights we of Queerdom don’t have. Opposing rolling back something that doesn’t exist is rather … lame. And un-evolved. And not so fierce.

Biden’s office also contacted MTP, illustrating the tangles of attempting to tweak what you said into something you didn’t say. Aravosis at AmericaBlogGay:

Chuck Todd said on Meet the Press that Biden’s office immediately contacted Todd and said that Biden was speaking only for himself. But that conflicts with Biden’s subsequent clarification that he was only talking generally about gay people not being discriminated against under the law, and not endorsing gay marriage, they were agreeing with the President’s past statements. But if Biden was agreeing with past Obama statements, his office wouldn’t need to say that Biden was just speaking for himself.

The evolving drama continues today. Via Think Progress:

This morning, Joe Scarborough and David Gregory mocked the White House’s efforts to push back against Vice President Joe Biden’s embrace of marriage equality … . Scarborough asked why the president’s rich gay donors ‘don’t just give to Dick Cheney because Dick Cheney supports gay marriage?’

And via AmericaBlogGay:

‘On Morning Joe, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan echoed Biden. Asked by TIME’s Mark Halperin whether he thinks same-sex couples should be legally allowed to marry, Duncan said flatly: ‘Yes I do.’

Aravosis writes:

This is beginning to feel like we’re being played. Like Biden’s pro-marriage comments yesterday, and the White House pushback, were all some larger ploy to woo the gays further into the Obama camp before the election, while at the same time letting the President maintain his distance.

After yesterday’s walk-backing began, multiple LGBT organizations moved from encouraged to disappointed statements. This is one of the best I read, via Politico:

‘It’s not enough to be against against-marriage. The president needs to be forthrightly for the freedom to marry,’ said Freedom to Marry Executive Director Evan Wolfson, who’s helping lead the fight to get the marriage equality plank in the convention platform.

That platform effort, by the way, now includes the chairs of eleven state Democratic Parties. As Freedom To Marry notes, those states are “CA, NY, MA, MN, OR, TX, VT, WI, WA, NJ, & KS.”

Some of these have constitutional amendments banning “same-sex” marriage, and tomorrow, North Carolina voters will decide whether to join them. NC is the only state in the Southeast that hasn’t done that. Opponents of the measure have made huge efforts to defeat the amendment, but it appears it will pass, if by smaller margins than those in other states. Even that is a sign of progress, but it’s difficult to get excited about losing by smaller margins, and understandable to be disappointed by WH equivocating.

All of this is just a few days after the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group

… sought to intervene … in the challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act and related laws brought by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on behalf of LGB servicemembers and veterans and their spouses.

The Obama administration, as a part of its evolutionary process, declared they would no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA, so the Republican House majority courageously took up the fight.

As for Obama / Biden’s latest evolving – devolving moment, three concluding remarks.
From Winnie Stachelberg of the Center for American Progress:

‘The campaign shouldn’t force Biden’s comments back into the closet … ’

From Pam:

I guess you could see this as yet another attempt to placate the LGBT community (i.e. open the gAyTM), or a hint that the President is about to tip-toe out of the closet, perhaps after the election. I don’t hold my breath for such things … .

And the last word to John Aravosis:

Dumb dumb dumb.

( Joe Biden photo via WhiteHouse.gov )

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Arne Duncan Joins V.P. Biden, Comes Out in Support of Same Sex Marriage

By on 07 May 2012

Look, I am Vice President of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that. – V.P. Joe Biden on Meet the Press

WILL PRESIDENT OBAMA “evolve already”?

Today, Education Secretary Arnie Duncan joined Biden.

Mark Halperin asked Duncan on “Morning Joe” if he thought same sex men and women should be able to get legally married in the United States. Duncan’s simply reply: “Yes, I do.”

It comes after V.P. Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, made news on “Meet the Press” yesterday.

The Catholic Church will not approve, but will they deny Biden communion like one diocese threatened to do to John Kerry, because of his stance on women’s individual freedoms?

Looks like the Catholic League’s going to be very busy this year. Their boycott of Jon Stewart hasn’t gone so well, so maybe revving up a bigot campaign over The Gays might invigorate them.

Mitt Romney and the Republicans are against marriage equality, as well as women’s individual freedoms, while newly crowned Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson sides with equality for all, as do most Democrats.

We’re still waiting for Pres. Obama to get off the fence.

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SNL Spotlights ‘Tanning Mom’

By on 07 May 2012

WHAT WAS this woman thinking?

Patricia Krentcil is now an international punchline.

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Gary Johnson, More Consistent Libertarian than Ron Paul, Wins Nomination

By on 06 May 2012

“Individual choice and responsibility have been eroded by our over-reaching government. A woman’s right to choose is no exception. The decision to end a pregnancy is one of the most difficult a woman can face. I believe that choice is hers alone to make.” – Gary Johnson

LIBERTARIAN GARY JOHNSON won his party’s nomination this weekend. He’s a lot more consistent when it comes to Libertarian principles than Ron Paul, whose philosophy falls apart on women’s individual freedoms, because Paul thinks freedom is just for men, like most Republicans and even some Democrats.

Johnson’s vice presidential running mate is Judge Jim Gray, who speaks about the drug war in the video below [h/t reason]. Gray makes more sense than the Democrats and Republicans combined on this subject. “Regulate it, control it, tax it,” says Judge Gray, also talking about “the Holland effect.”

Republican voters are too ignorant about the drug war to begin to grasp his points, with Democrats too afraid they won’t be centrist enough to win if they actually propose a solution.

Johnson lashed out at the intolerance of Republicans, which the recent disgrace of Mitt Romney’s handling of Richard Grenell highlights perfectly.

“I believe the majority of americans are fiscally responsible and socially tolerant,” Johnson told BuzzFeed in a phone interview. “I believe the majority of Americans could care less about whether or not there is a gay individual working in the Romney campaign.” Romney’s newly hired foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell was openly gay, a fact that raised the ire of social conservatives, whose reaction resulted in Grenell’s leaving the campaign. “It speaks volumes to the intolerance that continues to be present in the Republican Party,” Johnson said. He said he doesn’t attach that intolerance to the majority of Republicans but to “the activists driving that agenda.” – Buzzfeed

How many state ballots they can get on and whether they can compete remains their biggest challenge, but that’s the case for anyone outside Democrats and Republicans. The other reality is most people still can’t get out of the either-or choice to give an outsider a chance.

This is where the media comes in.

Traditional and new media, including and cable networks, need to open the playing field to other parties, covering Johnson and others, but that will only happen if people demand it. Debates should expand to also include Gary Johnson, but again, the American people would have to show an interest, which can’t happen if they don’t get press, which is where social media and the web comes in. It’s the first step in challenging the current political landscape that’s going to take a very long time to change.

Ron Paul voters could consider Johnson, because his platform is Paulesque, but also includes the principle that women deserve to be as free as men.

What a 21st century concept.

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