As a lifelong, loyal Democrat I am filing this complaint against the DNC because the road to social justice sometimes demands that our political family and friends be held accountable when they do not act for the common good.
Respecting the Democrats' opportunity to regain the majority in both Houses of Congress, I remained silent throughout the last year about my illegal termination and subsequent ongoing defamation from the DNC. Prior to filing this lawsuit I tried several times to settle this matter in a reasonable and professional manner, but the DNC refused and continues to attempt to discredit me and my political opinions.
Prior to my position at the DNC, I worked for 10 years advocating for equality for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. When I was recruited by the DNC to serve as the Director of its Gay and Lesbian leadership Council, I was told that my professional and activist background would be helpful to achieving Governor Dean's goals. Once I joined the DNC, however, senior staff made it clear that they had no interest in LGBT equality. Instead, Democratic LGBT constituents and employees are treated as second-class citizens, whom the DNC tries to ignore unless fundraising is involved –reducing the community to a little more than an ATM. As a DNC employee, I tried to push the organization to treat the LGBT community with greater respect. The DNC ultimately terminated me after my long-term partner criticized the Democrats' lack of a strategy to combat anti-gay ballot measures - a critique made without my input and which the DNC recently admitted was accurate.
It is clear that the DNC fundraisers have no intention of ceasing their personal attacks against me. Their goal is to keep LGBT money flowing to the DNC, no matter what. For some, if truth is not convenient they find it expendable for the cause. They have spent time researching my political and charitable contributions and even claimed publicly that I was not a loyal Democrat since I did not donate a part of my salary back to the party. Social justice is not for sale, nor should it have to be bought.
The LGBT press has rightly criticized the DNC for its failure to recognize and promote basic human rights for the community. Rather than respond to legitimate questions about DNC policy and strategy impacting the LGBT community, the DNC has retaliated against publications and former employees by attacking the messengers personally. The DNC now has fewer openly gay and lesbian members than before the 2004 election. This is not progress.
I expect my party to embody the Democratic values of fairness and honesty. It is important that the DNC be able to acknowledge its failings and live up to its promise to protect the human rights of the LGBT community as we move forward. To help attain this goal, I cannot remain silent on matters of policy and substance.
The military just said on ABC that they're happy to talk and work out an amnesty for Al Qaeda insurgents and maybe even insurgents who killed US troops - they're actually currently negotiating with a group that attacked US troops only 3 weeks ago. The military spokesman said he thinks 80% of the insurgents can be convinced to lay down their arms, i.e., give them amnesty.
But this doesn't empower the insurgents or Al Qaeda. Uh huh. According to ABC, many suspected insurgent supporters recently negotiated with the US military and indicated they all want jobs with the local police force. Yeah, I bet they do.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I just think it stinks that Bush and Cheney and Rudy and McCain and all the rest have the nerve to suggest that any and every Democratic proposal on Iraq "empowers the terrorists" when they're talking about giving all the terrorists amnesty and jobs where they carry guns and enforce the law as they see fit. Yeah, no terrorist victory there.
Froomkin on the White House's comments about us staying in Iraq another 50 years, just like in South Korea.
It's troubling because American troops have been in South Korea for more than 50 years -- while polls show the American public wants them out of Iraq within a year.
It's flawed because in South Korea, unlike Iraq, there's something concrete to defend (the border with North Korea); and because Iraq, unlike South Korea, happens to be in a state of violent civil war.
It's dangerous because the specter of a permanent military presence in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the most inflammatory incitements to Iraq's ever-growing anti-American insurgency, and may even be destabilizing to the entire region.
And it's telling because it gives credence to persistent suspicions that establishing a long-term strategic presence in the Middle East was a primary motivation for this misbegotten war in the first place.
WorldNetDaily, a silly publication that is an important source for right-wing talk radio and FOX GOP operatives, is joining the attack on Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, and her partner Heather Poe for having a baby. More background on this story here.
[New Hampshire] Couples entering civil unions will have the same rights, responsibilities and obligations as married couples. Same-sex unions from other states also would be recognized if they were legal in the state where they were performed.
Several Northeastern states already offer civil unions.
Massachusetts alone among the U.S. states allows gay marriage. Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, as well as California and Washington allow either civil unions or domestic partnerships, and Oregon will join the list with New Hampshire in January. Hawaii extends certain spousal rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs.
I just happened upon this White House press briefing from last December in which White House spokesman Tony Snow referred to Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe, as "parents." At the time, it kind of slipped by me. But in view of the growing brouhaha over the White House Web site officially acknowledging Heather as a "parent" (she and Mary just gave birth to a baby boy), Snow's earlier comment takes on much more meaning.
Q Tony, in an interview with People Magazine, the President was asked about Mary Cheney's pregnancy, and said he's confident -- he believes she'll be a loving soul to her child. In the past, he said that he believes the ideal is that a child be raised in a married family with a man and a woman. Does he still believe that's the ideal?
MR. SNOW: Yes, he does, but he also believes that every human life is sacred and that every child that comes into the world deserves love. And he believes that Mary Cheney's child will, in fact, have loving parents.
Q Does he believe that children who are raised by gay and lesbian parents are at a disadvantage?
MR. SNOW: He does not make comments on that, and nor will I.
Note that Snow also refused to take the bait and knock gay parents. The Web site posting last week takes on a whole new light knowing that Snow acknowledged Heather's legitimacy as a gay parent all the way last winter.
BUMP: This is rather important, I'm bumping this from last night.
50 years is the current thinking for when we'll complete our withdrawal. Certifiably insane. From AP:
President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.
The comparison was offered as the Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January. The last of about 21,500 combat troops to arrive were an Army brigade in Baghdad and a Marine unit heading into the Anbar province in western Iraq....
In South Korea, about 29,500 U.S. troops are stationed...
And a second rather important point, the Bushies keep telling us how all the surge troops won't even be all there in Iraq until July, so it's way too early to talk about success or failure. Now we learn that the combat troops have all arrived - it's only May. Yes, another lie. But just as important, it means that September will be ample time to judge the success or failure of the "surge."
The economy nearly stalled in the first quarter with growth slowing to a pace of just 0.6 percent. That was the worst three-month showing in over four years.
The new reading on the gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department Thursday, showed that economic growth in the January-through-March quarter was much weaker. Government statisticians slashed by more than half their first estimate of a 1.3 percent growth rate for the quarter.
As a side note to the GOP, France was twice this number.
Now a religious right news service is jumping on the bandwagon. The Bushies, with Mary's help, created this religious right monster by happily embracing these bigots into the GOP. Now they'll have to deal with the consequences of their own actions.
It's going to be a hot, humid day in D.C. with bad air quality. And Congress isn't even in session. They're all back home -- where any member who voted last week to give Bush the blank check for Iraq should really be hearing about it. Their recklessness has to end.
After months of agonizing delays and withering criticism from advocacy groups and lawmakers, the Bush administration has finalized new guidelines to screen Iraqi refugees, including those seeking asylum because helping the Americans has put them at huge risk.
The 2 million-plus people — the fastest growing refugee population in the world — have left Iraq, but Washington has balked at allowing them into the United States for security reasons.
So Bush creates this disaster and then hides behind the security issue - always a winner with the pro-fear crowd - to block the refugees from coming to America. With Chertoff at the helm, it's true that expectations should be pretty low for managing this process but to accept fewer people than Sweden is simply pathetic.
The Big Farm payday from the government continues to have a negative impact, now with the price of dairy rising. Alternative energy research and development makes all the sense in the world but corporate welfare like this, without planning and without researching the full impact, is just another example of the Bush administration hard at work. The GOP has a belief that if you throw millions and billions of dollars at a problem, it will somehow all work out. The fly in the ointment has consistently been that they never think about the full consequences of their policies beyond wads of cash to friends.
U.S. retail milk prices have increased about 3 percent, or roughly a dime a gallon, this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But University of Illinois dairy specialist Michael Hutjens forecasts further increases of up to 40 cents a gallon for milk over the next few months, and up to 60 cents for a pound of cheese.
Again, it's the middle class footing the bill for another failed GOP program.
Hutjens and others said higher gasoline prices have increased the costs of moving milk from farm to market, and corn — the primary feed for dairy cattle — is being gobbled up by producers of the fuel-additive ethanol. The USDA projects that 3.2 billion bushels of this year’s corn crop will be used to make ethanol, a 52 percent increase over 2006.
Ethanol has increased the average American's grocery bill $47 since July, and Iowa State University study concluded.
The Washington Post has been covering the subject of Big Pharma testing in the developing world for years. In Africa it is not unusual to hear rumors of such testing and distrust of Big Pharma is widespread. If people volunteer for experimental treatment, perhaps, but the allegations in this lawsuit are horrifying not to mention illegal, with a complete disregard for human rights.
The panel said Pfizer administered an oral form of Trovan that apparently had never been given to children with meningitis. It said there were no records documenting that Pfizer told the children or their parents that they were part of a drug trial. And it said an approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions, was a sham concocted long after the trial ended.
"The families of the children who [Pfizer] used as laboratory guinea pigs were led to believe and in fact understood that the Defendants were providing their children with volunteer relief, clearly focused humanitarian medical intervention and nothing more," the lawsuit says.
Parents were not told that alternative treatments were available, it adds.
The suit charges that parents were barred from Pfizer's ward and that the company's own lab tests had shown Trovan's life-threatening side effects. Researchers allegedly administered the comparison drug, Rocephin, in dangerously low doses to make Trovan look more effective.
CNN's Jack Cafferty gave a big shout out to our buddies at CREW today. It's about Dick Cheney hiding the list of conservative religious nuts who have visited him at the vice president's mansion.
Gee, you think? It's not like the immigration debate hasn't played out along the typical GOP game plan - if you don't have anything to rally the base, pick on a minority and make them a threat to all of western civilization. The Republicans have already worked their way through blacks, women, Jews, gays, then Muslims, and now Latinos. Perhaps Bush is getting concerned that the bigotry-well is starting to run a little dry - after all, to twist the words of Martin Niemöller, once you've demonized everyone, there's no one left to demonize. More from Froomkin at WashingtonPost.com:
President Bush said yesterday he fears that the backlash against immigration being incited by opponents of his legalization proposal could result in the nation losing its soul.
His comments came in an intense interview aboard Air Force One with McClatchy Newspapers. "I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul," Bush said. "Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country's history." He added: "If we don't solve the problem it's going to affect America. It will affect our economy and it will affect our soul."
Oh, honey, we already lost our soul somewhere between the invasion of Iraq and rescinding habeas corpus.
Yes, the vote last week was a disappointment, but in the end this war is going to be the end of Bush and the GOP. From the National Review Online:
Iraq--the Coming GOP Collapse? [Rich Lowry]
Was talking to an influential Republican strategist who thinks if Iraq looks the way it does now in September, Bush will lose about 25 Senate Republicans on a bill with some sort of timetable for withdrawal.
And the far-right got upset that we criticized Jerry Falwell after his death. That doesn't even come close to dissing a newborn baby. But there you have it, Stephen Bennett, a spokesman for the Concerned Women for America, one of the largest religious right groups, today blasted Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, and her partner Heather Poe for having a baby out of wedlock. As we reported yesterday, the White House published a baby announcement on the Vice President's portion of the White House Web site, noting that the Mary and Heather were both "parents" of the newborn child.
Well, that set the religious right off, big time. Here is what Bennett had to say about Mary and Heather having a baby, then I've posted his press release in its entirety - it's a must-read of venom.
SBM PRAISES parents and individuals - mothers and fathers - who have taken on the noble task of adopting children and giving them a chance at life in the God ordained family unit including a Daddy and Mommy. Every child deserves a Daddy and Mommy. We understand, sometimes through death or divorce, that unit is broken - and parents do the best they could to raise and nurture their child or children. That's where we as the Body of Christ step in to help and be there for the family and child. We celebrate these individuals and families. Sometimes in a second heterosexual marriage, children are adopted. We praise these men and women who do all they could to raise these children. THESE ARE REAL PARENTS. This is NOT playing "house."
Homosexual parenting though is something TOTALLY different. It "mimicks" the real and the natural....
And here is Bennett's press release. I can't even begin to excerpt it or bold it, it's that bad. Read it:
OFFICIAL SBM PRESS RELEASE 05/30/07:
White House Officially Recognizes Homosexual Unions and Parenting?
Contact: The Parents Group ~ SBM's National Office, 203-926-6960
HUNTINGTON, Conn., May 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- On May 23, 2007, the White House, silently and without any fanfare, released an official White House photo of Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, welcoming their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, into the Cheney fold.
The beautiful little tyke weighed in at 8 lbs., 6 oz. and was born at 9:46 a.m. at Sibley House in Washington, D.C.
What is extremely troubling is the official White House caption that appears underneath the photo on the official White House website:
"... His parents are the Cheney's daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe. White House photo by David Bohrer."
Since when have two homosexual women been able to naturally procreate?
Fact is Mary Cheney, the Vice President's daughter - in one way or another - received a male's sperm. She is the biological mother, parent number one, and some man, somewhere out there, is Samuel David's real biological father, parent number two.
Unlike the official White House photo caption, a man and a woman, a Daddy and a Mommy, are Samuel David Cheney's REAL biological parents.
Then who is Heather Poe?
Heather Poe is Mary Cheney's live-in lesbian lover. She may act like a parent, she may treat the baby as a parent, she may love this baby with all of her heart, but in this reality we all live in, Heather Poe is NOT the baby's real parent. She has NO biological connection to the child whatsoever. Some man, the baby's real Daddy, is the child's other REAL parent.
If the Vice President and his wife Lynne are joining their daughter Mary in playing this homosexual game of "house," then all have chosen their roles and designated lesbian lover Heather Poe as the "Daddy."
Everyone knows there can only be one REAL biological Mommy. We are all grown adults. Playing "house" is a game for children, not for The White House or the Vice President and his wife.
What is so hypocritical of this Administration is its "double-speak."
President George W. Bush held several presses conferences calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the God-ordained institution of marriage between one man and one woman, while homosexuals pushed for the union of two men or two women to be equally recognized as real "marriage."
However, the President's number two, right hand man, Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly rebels against his superior, makes a public mockery of the President and the current Administration he is supposed to represent, and clearly holds to a different set of moral standards and beliefs.
When President Bush stood on the victory stage several years ago after being elected into office by values voters, Mary Cheney was on stage as well with her lesbian lover, Heather Poe. It was a slap in the face to the values voters who had just elected the duo into office. That wound has never healed.
While this little innocent child Samuel David Cheney deserves every fighting chance at life, the sins of two women, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe, have deliberately denied the Vice President's grandson one of the most basic human rights of all: the right to a Daddy and a Mommy.
I say shame on the White House, shame on the President and shame on the Vice President for allowing such a caption to be "officially" added onto the White House website and such a beautiful photo of two happy grandparents and their new grandchild.
I guess we can tragically and officially say both the White House and Bush Administration have officially recognized the sinful sexual unions of homosexuals, as well as recognized and embraced the tragedy of the social experiment of homosexual parenting.
