Trans people are not an inherent threat to free speech

More than two weeks ago D’Anne Witkowski of Pridesource, in her Creep of the Week column discussed the nasty guy saying, “Transgender for everyone.” Does that mean everyone gets a new transgender friend? With an estimated 2.8 million trans people in a population of 342 million, each trans person has to deal with 120 new friends. Not so good for introverts. Or maybe it is a call for body acceptance and positivity? People dress and use pronouns however they want with everyone else respecting their choices. Cool! But probably not – well, definitely not – what the nasty guy means.

The idea that gender isn’t a rigid dichotomy scares the hell out of conservatives. Conservative men believe that women are lesser-than. Thus, for a man to “become a woman,” he is trading in something valuable for something worthless. Conservative men believe similarly about homosexuality. To trade in being straight for being gay is to degrade yourself. In order to make sure a guy doesn’t lose his “man card,” gender roles and gender presentation must be limited to two. If any lines are not clearly visible, a cis het man might accidentally cross one of them. And that must be avoided at all costs. And the costs are very high! Especially when the people who are in control of the whole freaking country believe that masculinity is the highest form of currency next to money and that masculinity requires a high level of cruelty to achieve.

Which is how we got the Department of War. And, no, this is not a distraction. At the end of December Jake Angelo, in an article for Gay Times Magazine and Uncloseted Media posted on Pridesource, discussed Americans leaving Christianity because of LGBTQ+ animus. The article centers on Garth Huelskamp, who is gay and grew up Mormon.

After years of rumination, he couldn't bring himself to live as an openly gay man and be part of the Mormon Church. So he decided to leave. The process — which took about five years — was far more challenging than being open about his sexuality. It included hours of therapy, countless conversations with friends and family, years of turmoil and cut-off relationships from friends and relatives. "I still held a lot of beliefs and values that the Mormon community still had," he says. "I had to internally question all of that; I had to question a lot of the narratives that I've been taught since I was literally a baby. I, quite literally, had to recreate myself from the ground up."

In 2024, 47% of adults left their faith due to treatment of LGBTQ people. That’s up from 29% in 2016. For those under 30 60% left religion for that reason. Yet, conservative denominations remain adamant in their anti-LGBTQ positions. Yes, there are liberal denominations. I am a member at one of them. Psychologist Darrel Ray said the culture makes a change and the church adjusts or goes extinct. Other reasons for leaving are: A denomination’s emphasis on politics and the blurring of church and state. The clergy sexual abuse scandals – leadership that says one thing and does another. Leaving isn’t easy. “The more fundamentalist the beliefs, the harder it is to leave,” according to Ray. Leaving can involve trauma and grief. They realize the community that loved them now hates them just as much. Huelskamp again:

Imagine if you were going in a very intense long-term relationship with someone [and] had a really nasty divorce, and then you find yourself in a world where all of your family and friends, quite literally worship your ex. And so [I feel] a lot of anger in that regard.

He has cut off contact with friends and family who remain Mormon because their participation is an affront to his identity. He is in contact only with those who have also left. He now has a husband and a son. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported on the nasty guy’s decision to close the Kennedy Center for two years to renovate it. Critics are saying the real reason for the closure is dropping ticket sales and performers canceling their programs. Breeden reported that the closure is likely illegal, in violation of the law establishing the center. And there’s this quote from the nasty guy:

I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure. We’re using some of the marble, and some of the marble comes down. But when it’s open, it’ll be brand new and really beautiful.

Which means he’s not planning a simple renovation. He’s planning to tear out the insides and tear down the exterior and rebuild it in his own gaudy tastes. Clio2 of the Kos community posted an LGBTQ news update. Some of the things written about: A tweet from brandontour show that in the Epstein files the nasty guy was mentioned more than 38,000 times, Reid Hoffman – 2,658, Bill Gates – 2,592, Peter Thiel 2,281, Elon Musk 1,116, and a few more, down to Trans people – 0, Drag queens – 0. Michael Mann tweeted links to an article in The Guardian from last fall that says the father of Elon Musk has been accused of sexually abusing his children and stepchildren. Yes, only accused. Even so, this could explain why the son is such a nasty person. In the Olympics, Elis Lundholm, male, of Sweden is the first trans skier in the Winter Olympics. He’s not on hormone therapy. He’ll be competing in the women’s division. Amber Glenn, competing in lady’s figure skating is out and proud. She criticizes the nasty guy and won’t “shut up about politics.” An article in The Pink News reports a landmark study suggests trans women may not have any fitness advantage in sports. There’s no need to keep them off the team. Graham Lineham is a very anti-trans and is trying to open debate on Ireland’s Gender Recognition Act of 2015. His role in the government is not mentioned. An anonymous response:

Graham Linehan is testifying in the Judiciary Committee on "free speech." Naturally, he argues that in order to have "free speech," society must get rid of trans people. "I want everyone to understand that gender ideology and free speech cannot coexist." He means trans people when he says "gender ideology." He's casting trans people existing as an inherent threat to free speech. What he really means is, he wants to bully and harass a minority group without pushback or social ostracization, which he views as impinging on his right to monologue.

QueerAF tweeted a quote and link from their website:

The notion that queerness is "un-African" is one of Britain's most successful lies, and most enduring exports.

Trying to oversaturate us with nonstop chaos

My Sunday movie was Nowhere Special. It was of interest to me because it shows a man taking care of a child. John is a single man, caregiver of his son Michael, about three years old. John clearly loves his son and does a pretty good job of caring for him and giving him a happy life. But John has only a few months to live. He is working with an adoption agency and he and the case worker interview prospective parents. None of them seem quite right, several are definitely wrong. And John agonizes over the decision as he recognizes he is running out of time. John must also figure out how to prepare Michael. The case worker proposes a memory box, an idea he resists. Why can’t Michael just seamlessly fit into a new family? Yeah, there is that sad ending. However, watching John care for his son was a joy. The IMDb trivia page says before filming started James Norton, who played John, often visited the bedroom of Daniel Lamont, who played Michael, and the two played with Daniel’s toys. That established a bond that came through in the acting. IMDb also says the movie is based on a true story, though the real father and son remain anonymous. The story takes place in Northern Ireland. I’m intrigued that it was a co-production with Romania and Italy and much of the crew was from those countries. Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted a thread, starting with:

Look, Trump is trying to oversaturate us with nonstop chaos so we can’t react meaningfully to any one thing.

Murphy then detailed one of those things, the freeze on foreign aid. He details how dumb and deadly that will be. Over a few days I accumulated many browser tabs, several of them related to deportation. In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Keith Boykin that was also a link to an article in the New Republic.

About 75% of immigrant farm workers did not show up for work this week in Bakersfield, California, as the threat of Trump’s immigration raids looms. Trump’s immigration threats are already wrecking the food industry. Immigrant farm workers are too scared to show up for work.

In the comments of another roundup, this one by Chitown Kev of Kos, exlrrp posted a meme with the words, “Make America Great Again Patriots Wanted. Civic Duty Volunteers needed to pick crops.” Also in the comments is a cartoon by Chris Britt showing a church with the nasty guy in the front row and the rest filled with sleepy national media. Coming down the aisle is Bishop Mariann Budde saying, “Let me show you how it’s done.” In the main body of the roundup Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson of her “Letters From an American” Substack on the firing of 15 Inspectors General from federal government departments. I’ll summarize: It’s one of the items in Project 2025. Florida Patriot of the Kos community wrote that things could get bad really quickly, as in over a month. The reason is that immigrants are afraid to show up for work. We’ll notice it first in food, as immigrants do a lot of the harvesting. And the harvest has a definite time limit – don’t harvest the crop and it rots. Immigrants also clean offices and hotels and wash restaurant dishes. And a lot of other things in our economy.

Now these folks are terrified, and for good reason. No city or state is safe. The raids are random, here, there, potentially anywhere. The risk is real. Not just for the undocumented, but for anyone who looks Hispanic and who works these dirty essential jobs. America may be about to discover just how essential these workers are to the very fabric of our economy. Imagine what happens if supply chains grind to a halt. Grocery store shelves empty out. Panic buying ensues. Panic selling tears through the stock market.

Kos of Kos wrote that Nebraska went heavily for the nasty guy and is more dependent on immigrant labor than most other states. It also has a severe labor shortage. The nasty guy’s deportation could ruin the economy in a state that strongly supports him. Also, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen will support deportation efforts while others doubt the deportation threats can actually be carried out. Back before Musk bought Twitter and turned it into the far right hellhole of X I used to regularly read Leah McElrath and include her wisdom in my writing. I stopped when Musk no longer let non members (and I refused to be a member) look at more than individual posts. McElrath has now shifted to Bluesky and I can read her wisdom again. I’ve got a bunch of her posts in tabs waiting for a day I can include them. In a thread she wrote:

People on TikTok are reporting ICE raids happening in small cities in various states. To get past algorithmic censorship, they’re writing down the information on paper and holding up and shuffling through the handwritten signs as they talk about pretend subjects like shopping, food, and animals. ... To be clear, I don’t know if these reports of ICE raids are correct. ICE raids happen, they happened before Trump, and it’s plausible they’re happening now. IF the reports are correct, the scale is unknown. My impression is these youths are presenting word-of-mouth information they believe is true.

Morgan Stephens of Kos reported that Attorneys General in Democratic states are suing to stop the nasty guy’s threat to prosecute state and local officials who don’t help with deportation. The AGs say Constitutional limits on federal authority and Supreme Court rulings say the federal government cannot commandeer state resources to enforce federal laws. Kos community member howabout me noticed something about the first few days of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. They were all in blue states. Well, one was in Salt Lake City, whose recent senator was Mitt Romney, someone the nasty guy doesn’t like. So why hasn’t ICE done big raids red states? They’re likely to find a lot more immigrants in places like Tampa, Dallas, and meatpacking plants in Montana. Alix Breeden of Kos reported the numbers of people being deported isn’t meeting the targets the nasty guy wants. Also, one raid included Dr. Phil McGraw – talk show host Dr. Phil – with cameras rolling. That means the raids so far are for PR purposes, for the nasty guy to boast – and to make immigrants feel afraid. Another post by McElrath quoting, I think, Shannon Heffernan who mentioned the Dr. Phil incident:

“How do we share…information…without…becoming part of spectacle” is an important question for journalists, but I’d adjust it to “without becoming a propaganda service for Trump and heightening racism.” Trump creates these spectacles because his supporters get off on and are emboldened by them. For example, the deportation rate under Trump during his first week in office (≈1k people) was in the range of the averages during the Obama and Biden admins. The difference is Trump is highlighting the actions through news media so it makes him look “tougher” on immigration to his supporters.

Breeden also noted that there was a raid on Native American workers. Also that many deported are being treated in a demoralizing manner. That last part is reported by Brazilian officials complaining about “blatant disrespect.” Alex Samuels of Kos reported on something that was reported in wider news. Colombia did not allow two US military planes with deportees to land. Colombia President Gustavo Petro objected to migrants being treated as criminals and wanted the deportees returned in civilian planes. The nasty guy threatened tariffs. Petro threatened retaliatory tariffs, then backed down. Of course, the nasty guy bragged of his dominance. In a second post Samuels said it wasn’t that simple. Petro got a significant concession – Colombia supplied its own air force jets to pick up the deportees. They could travel in dignity, without handcuffs. Lalo Alcaraz posted a cartoon on Kos showing a native person pointing to an ICE agent and saying, “Show me your papers!” At some time the nasty guy said he could tell a criminal immigrant “by the look.” Pedro Molina posted a cartoon on Kos showing on one side a person picking apples labeled “Criminal” and on the other side one person stomping on another and labeled “Hero.” Kos of Kos looked at the daily arrest numbers that ICE is bragging about. The average over four days is 600 a day. That’s lower than Biden’s average of 744 a day. If the nasty guy kept to that average over his four years in the Oval Office he’ll manage to deport less than one million of the 11 million he says need deporting. Which means so far the raids are mostly PR, to be able to brag to his base. If he really wanted to get those number up – 1,200 to 1,500 a day being the goal – he’d have to increase raids in red states. And that would decimate the economies of his base and raise food prices across the country. In the comments of a third pundit roundup exlrrp posted a meme that looks like the cover of a cookbook with the title: “How to cook like the people you just deported, authentic ethnic flavors for bigots who don’t deserve them.”

Humanity's spiritual maturation into living in global peace and harmony

My Sunday movie was The Quiet Girl, an Irish film. Cáit is nine years old. She has three older sisters, a toddler brother, and another sibling on the way. She’s the middle child and can get overlooked in the crowd. She’s also good at hiding. Her family is a bit dysfunctional and is poor. To give Mam a break leading up to the baby’s birth, her parents take her to live with her mother’s cousins, a couple with no children. Of course, Cáit is not consulted. Over the summer her guardians don’t do anything special, just include her in their daily tasks of keeping a farm and treat her with love. It’s a tender film. I can’t really say she blossoms under their care – she sheds only a bit of her passivity. Once with her summer guardians the woman says there are no secrets. “If there are secrets in a house, there is shame in that house.” But there is a secret in that family’s past, though it doesn’t have much consequence in the story. This came out last year and was Ireland’s submission for this year’s Oscar for Best International Feature Film. It was the first Irish language film to be shortlisted for that award. I enjoyed it. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Daily Kos community reported on the latest efforts of the Wisconsin Republicans to protect their gerrymandered maps. Yes, they’re gerrymandered – in a state that is evenly split for the parties (the nasty guy edged out Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden squeaked by in 2020) Republicans hold 64 of 99 seats in the Assembly and 21-11in the Senate. There will be a case challenging the gerrymandered maps before the state Supremes, as an Associated Press article posted on Kos reports. The big question is what happens when it gets there. Back to Pennyfarthing’s post. The Wisconsin Supremes recently switched from a conservative to progressive majority when Janet Protasiewicz was elected by a wide margin and took her seat. She ran on abortion and gerrymandering. And now Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said that if Protasiewicz doesn’t recuse herself for this case he will begin impeachment proceedings on the grounds that she “prejudged” the case. Since that was one of her campaign issues Vos says she cant be an impartial observer. Michael Li pointed out that once Protasiewicz is impeached she cannot participate in any case until she is acquitted. So if the Assembly impeaches and the Senate stalls on the trial she is sidelined and the Court is balanced between conservatives and progressives. There are several voices that are saying that not prejudging the case would be difficult – it is obvious that the districts are gerrymandered. And Protasiewicz would have to be “dense, corrupt, or a Republican” to not see it.

“That type of reaction shows how threatened the Republican majority is by a challenge to their rigged maps,” Rep. Evan Goyke, a Milwaukee Democrat, told The Journal Sentinel. “It's really good evidence that the state is gerrymandered, that they'd be willing to go to such an unprecedented maneuver.”

The Daily Kos Elections team warns the Wisconsin Republicans using the lesson of Ohio – Issue 1 to increase the amendment approval threshold lost by a big margin because so many voters were upset with Republican overreach. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by David Pepper that linked to and quoted an article from the Ohio Capital Journal:

There’s a tendency by political professionals to think that voters can be inherently and consistently manipulated.

In the roundup’s comments Denise Oliver Velez included a cartoon by Jesse Duquette. It is titled “Conservatives throughout history” and shows Jesus giving sight to a blind man. In the background is a guy in a red hat who says, “It’s not fair! I can see perfectly fine and this guy gets his blindness forgiven just like that?” Duquette added the caption, “Woke Commie Jesus Trades Student Loans for Loaves and Fishes Because Bootstraps Haven’t Been Invented Yet.” Last week Hunter of Kos reported that Republicans have been calling for a special counsel into whatever Hunter Biden’s been doing that’s illegal. And now that Attorney General Merrick Garland has done what they asked they’re outraged. Hunter has a few examples of their outrage. The core of the Republican anger is that the guy named as special counsel – David Weiss, who has been on the case since the nasty guy appointed him – is the guy who hasn’t found anything worthwhile so far, in spite of years of trying. So from the Republican perspective he’s part of the cover up. Pennyfarthing wrote about the crop of Republicans running to be President. He noted:

[Chris Christie is] the only Republican who’s actually running for president in 2024. Or running to do the job, anyway. Trump is running, but mostly because he wants to stay out of jail and likes the way his Diet Coke button looks on the Resolute Desk. Sure, some of Trump’s other opponents are taking little swipes at him here and there, but Christie is the only one talking about Trump the way he needs to be talked about.

In another pundit roundup Chitown Kev quoted Paul Waldman of the Washington Post. Waldman discussed that Republicans have been using ballot initiatives to impose their will on a state. See the efforts to ban same-sex marriage in 11 states in 2004.

But lately, liberals have had more and more success — even in conservative states — making policy gains at the ballot box that they can’t achieve in state legislatures.

An example is Michigan. Yeah that 2004 effort banned same-sex marriage here too. But we passed a citizens redistricting commission in 2018 and last year passed abortion rights and voter rights. And a few more I can’t think of at the moment. Meteor Blades of Kos posted another Earth Matters article with a few things to mention. There is the new national monument around the Grand Canyon (I won’t attempt the Native name). A good thing about it is the Native tribes in the area will be an integral part of managing it. Blades talked about the climate news out of Antarctica, and it isn’t good. Sea ice around the continent, a vital part of keeping the ice sheet from melting, is about 20% of what it should be at this time in their winter. Blades included an excerpt from an article by Jason Bordoff in the New York Times. In spite of goals to cut fossil fuel use the amount used is still rising. And it is rising fast enough that oil companies are dropping plans to slow down production and diverting money that had been designated to develop clean energy. Yes, there is increasing investment in clean fuels, but it’s still well short of what’s needed. Rachel Martin of NPR, as part of her Enlighten Me series, spoke to Rainn Wilson. He played Dwight on The Office (I never watched) and even though it seems opposite of that role he wrote a book about spirituality titled Soul Boom. Wilson, who grew up in the Baháʼí faith, had a few interesting things to say.

You see, the backstory to Star Trek that a lot of people don't know is that there has been a horrific World War III. And coming out of the ashes of that war, humanity has essentially solved racism, solved sexism, has solved income inequality, and is then able, in its maturity, to go out into space and explore and spread the word. ... I would always look at things through a spiritual lens. So for me, when I look at Star Trek, I talk about this in terms of a spiritual path. We all have an individual path that we walk on a daily basis. I'm trying to be a better person and I've got this stress at work and I'm feeling anxious and this person is mean to me and I'm struggling with this and that. And that's our personal spiritual path. When people talk about spirituality, they're often focused on that aspect of a personal spiritual journey and we're not focused so much on the broader one, which is humanity's spiritual maturation into living in global peace and harmony. I am old enough to remember the '70s, when people would actually talk about world peace. ... And we believed that we could have peace, especially with the end of the Cold War. And nowadays, you bring up world peace and you just get that big, collective eye roll like, oh, you're the most naive idiot to walk the face of the earth to even consider world peace. ... There's another [mythology of humanity] where humans lived at peace with nature, where humans were cooperative or kind to each other or worked together, shared knowledge and enlightenment and moved forward and into progress.

I like his thinking and want us to move in that direction. I also know how difficult that is.

Go Green!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! From long ago genealogy research that my mother did I knew one branch of my father’s ancestors came from County Antrim in Northern Ireland. So on St. Patrick’s Day I knew I was supposed wear orange. I may have done that once in my youth, but mostly I wore green.

My research over the last year or so shows that another branch of Dad’s ancestors came from the South – County Meath, County Cavan, County Wexford, and Dublin. The two branches began to intermarry in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1725.

So, I and my siblings have a right to wear green.

Though from what I saw today at the grocery store lots of people wore green that looked like they didn’t have a drop of Irish blood in them.

When I was in Northern Ireland in 2001 I visited some of the museums where I learned some of the history of the area. The English took over the six counties of the North in 1604 (I don’t remember the method). These English nobles cleared out much of the native Irish and brought in some Scots to do the labor on these estates. And this included some of my ancestors. James Moore was born in Glasgow in 1612. His son James Jr. was born in County Antrim in 1650. Junior’s son Andrew and his son James III moved to Pennsylvania sometime between 1717 and 1725.

I’d like you to meet my tax cut advisor

Back in 2012 Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback pushed through aggressive tax cuts to spur small business growth. Lots of people exploited a feature of the cuts and the state’s revenues plummeted. Of course, since Kansas is a GOP controlled state, funds for education got cut.

In March this year the state Supremes ruled that funding for schools is so low it is unconstitutional. Lawmakers were given a deadline to properly finance education to close the achievement gape between the white and affluent students and those who aren’t.

The legislature came up with a tax-hike plan and passed it with GOP help. They’re tired of the financial chaos too. Brownback vetoed it. And – finally – the legislature overrode his veto.

Alexia Campbell of Vox notes that Brownback got his tax advice from Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore. Some of us remember when Laffer advised Prez. Reagan and how well that went (spoiler alert: huge jump in federal deficits). Laffer and Moore are now advising the nasty guy about tax cuts.

Perhaps Laffer and Moore should study what just happened in Kansas.



Leo Varadkar, a gay man, is on track to become the Prime Minister of Ireland! He will also be the youngest person to hold that office. Ireland joins Belgium, Iceland, and Luxemburg in having a gay or lesbian national leader.



Philadelphia has expanded the inclusion of the rainbow LGBTQ flag by adding black and brown stripes. The flag will be flown at city hall during the pride month of June. An anonymous source said:

The black and brown stripes are an inclusionary way to highlight Black and Brown LGBTQIA members within our community. With all of the Black and Brown activism that's worked to address racism in the Gayborhood over the past year, I think the new flag is a great step for the city to show the world that they're working toward fully supporting all members of our community.

Cool!

Ireland!

Ireland voted on a constitutional referendum on whether the age of eligibility for presidential candidates should be lowered from 35 to 21. It was defeated with 73% voting no.

No, wait, that isn't the news you care about.

The other referendum on the ballot was whether the constitution should be amended with this text: "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex." That one passed by 62%! This is a big deal for several reasons.

The yes side was ahead in all districts but one. That means even most rural districts voted for marriage equality.

Ireland is only the 20th country to approve same-sex marriage.

Ireland did it through a popular vote, not legislative action or court order, the first country to do so. This was done as a change to the constitution, which had to be done through a vote, even though many think we shouldn't vote on rights. But it means it cannot be undone, except by another vote.

Turnout was about 60%, quite high for Ireland. There were lines on the last day to register to vote. There was a big effort by expatriates to return to Ireland for the vote, see Twitter tag #hometovote.

Ireland is much more Catholic and much more religious than the rest of Europe. Of course, the Catholic church was heavily involved in the No campaign. This defeat is a sign the Church's hold on the country is dwindling.

Those on the No side conceded defeat graciously, some within an hour of the start of vote counting. Not so gracious was Brian Brown, the American leader of the National Organization for Marriage (theirs, not yours). He also got the size of the No vote wrong. Irish vote counting seems a bit more civilized than what is done in America. They don't start counting until 9:00 the next morning. No need to stay up all night waiting for returns and results.

Next comes the writing and approval of a Marriage Act, which should happen in July. The law would be go into effect in August or September. Irish laws apparently must have a 3-month notice period. That means the first same-sex weddings will happen near Christmas.

I'm still here

I haven't posted in a while and my browser tabs are full of stuff to write about. Alas, a family situation has come up. I have been spending a lot of time at my parent's house on days I'm not teaching. That will likely continue for a while. I'll be back. Hopefully soon. Perhaps I'll squeeze in an occasional evening of writing.

I will mention one small item. Ireland will be voting on marriage equality soon. Of course, homophobic pamphlets have been printed. Daintree, a paper company on our side, is now selling "A Shred of Decency." They have been shredding those nasty pamphlets into confetti, "made from 100% recycled lies."

I brought the first stone

Sweet! In December Shreveport, Louisiana became the second city in that state with an LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance. There was on dissenting vote -- Councilman Ron Webb. This month Webb introduced a proposal to repeal the ordinance. Then he came face-to-face with Pamela Raintree, a transgender woman, who came to a City Council meeting. She held up a stone and said (video here):

Leviticus 20:13 states, 'If a man lie also with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they shall surely put him to death.' I brought the first stone Mr. Webb, in case that your Bible talk isn't just a smoke screen for personal prejudices.

Webb withdrew his proposal.



When same-sex marriage erupted in Utah last month the state asked the 10th Circuit Court for a fast-track ruling. The Court agreed and set dates for when the opening briefs needed to be filed. Now the state is saying, um, could we have an extension? Say, ten days? We, um, just hired our legal counsel yesterday. The 10th Circuit responded that requests for extensions "are very strongly discouraged, and will be considered only under extraordinary circumstances."

Plaintiffs said these circumstances are not extraordinary. You're only slowing down the case you said needed to be sped up.

Commenters asked what should take ten days? You don't have any more lame reasons for discrimination to add to your case.



New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, embroiled in the scandal of backing up traffic to the George Washington Bridge, famously said, "I'm not a bully." That prompted lots of people in NJ to say, oh yes you are!

Terrence Heath explores the case and explains why Christie was the darling of the GOP, if not the Tea Party, at least until now. Back in 2011 at a private GOP event Christie summed up the internal GOP philosophy: "We spend too much. We borrow too much. We tax too much. It is time to turn those three things around." And … "Now, pain will be inflicted when we change that."

Heath says "Pain will be inflicted" is the creed of the bully and fits quite well with the GOP created "bully economy." And, as we see with the GOP refusal to renew jobless benefits, a great deal of pain is still being inflicted.



Ireland's economy recovered? Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy was trashed when the economic mess started back in 2008, though not as bad as the economies of Greece and Spain. Ireland was forced to endure the austerity measures to satisfy its creditors and is working its way out. So has its economy recovered? Ask the lenders and international corporations who moved there for low taxes and the answer is yes. Ask the residents and you get a different answer.

Terrence Heath explores the economies of Ireland and Europe as a whole. Growth has been quite slow. That's because the economies of Europe are under the austerity policies of the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A big problem is that European citizens don't have a say in what these organizations do.

The Celtic Tiger has become a tiger skin rug

Yeah, it's been over a week since I've written something for this blog. It isn't because I haven't accumulated things to write about. Now that the holiday is behind us (as well as a fabulous performance of "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck at the Hilberry Theater) I can get to some of them. That means there will be a few that are no longer worth writing about. Sigh.

The GOP has been pushing for a smaller government and a bit more (perhaps a lot more) austerity for the rest of us. If the Bush years weren't a good enough example of how well that works we now have the example of Ireland. Essayist Terrence Heath explains it all for us.

Ireland is in the news (just today) because its celebrated Celtic Tiger has gone bust, the country has sunk into a depression, its banks need bailing out which puts the country under the sway of EU bureaucrats, its Parliament is pushing an austerity budget, and its people are demonstrating in the streets.

What happened?

The Celtic Tiger came into being because the Irish Parliament set the corporate tax level at 12.5%, much lower than the rest of the EU and the USA. Multinational corporations set up shop there and hired lots of Irish workers. But those corporations didn't go to Ireland because the locals were great workers, the move was to create tax shelters. Other than the pay for the workers the country didn't benefit. All that corporate profit didn't stay in Ireland, didn't enhance the local quality of life. That is now being called tax piracy. The same thing is behind the faulty claim that we shouldn't tax the rich because they create jobs. Even in the boom times the national budget was being starved of income.

The lack of local investment wasn't the only problem. As in America and elsewhere in Europe the drive to deregulate made the Irish more vulnerable.

Then the worldwide recession hit. Those big multinationals had to save money. Since they had no stake in Irish society (or any society) they shed workers. The recession hit Ireland first and developed into a depression. The national government, already strapped for cash could only handle the unemployed by going into debt. Until it couldn't.

There were austerity budgets, intended to calm the credit markets and get the economy booming again. Neither happened. The government told the people, "We're all in this together." The Irish people could easily see the lie -- perhaps 300 people living large and 4 million paying the tab.

The Irish people also saw something else. There had been a ladder that allowed the working class to climb to the middle class and the middle class to climb, perhaps, into the world of the rich. That ladder is being burned. Helping the poor isn't just about money (for something to eat and a place to stay). It's also about access to services that improve quality of life and expand choices in life. Those services are disappearing. Irish life is being divided into the rich and everyone else and the wall between the two is being built higher.

Austerity didn't work. Yet the price of the EU bailout is more austerity. It deeply affects everyone -- except the people who engineered the mess. Another way out is to raise that corporate tax rate. But that is one thing the government won't consider.

To those of us in America does any of this sound -- even remotely -- familiar?

Too many efforts by the American government are promoted solely by the number of jobs they will create. Yes, America needs job and lots of them. But America needs a lot more than just jobs. We need a way for the working class to climb into prosperity. We need protections for the environment. We need improved quality of life. Austerity won't get us there and will likely burn the methods of getting there. What will get us there? Raising taxes.



Sara Robinson took a look at why so many working and middle class Americans appear to be voting against their own economic interests by voting for the GOP. The insight is through a new poll about how Americans view the Bush tax cuts about to expire and in particular about the taxes on those who make over $250,000 a year.

The question was what is the percentage of families that make over $250K? Average guess is 17%. People think that about 1 family in 6 makes that kind of money. If true, then a typical family has a reasonable chance, with a little work, of pulling down the big bucks, and when they do they don't want Uncle Sam taking it all.

The real value is less than 3% of Americans make more than $250,000 a year. That's somewhere between 1 in 35 and 1 in 50 families. The average working Joe has no chance, outside a winning lottery ticket, of needing to worry about that tax bracket.

That means conservatives have pulled a masterful con job. They've convinced more people that upward mobility is possible while at the same time they've closed off the avenues for making that mobility happen.

Insisting on heterosexual privilege

Here's a bit more on the veto of the Domestic Partner bill in Hawaii. Timothy Kincaid noted that Linda Lingle, the governor wielding the veto pen, gave two examples of stories that touched her as she was deciding what to do.
* The struggle of a young man telling his parents he is gay.
* The anguish of a mother at the thought that schools will tell her children a gay relationship is as good as the parents' marriage.

The coming out story was the only one that moved her? Not the stories of gay couples facing discrimination that the bill would help alleviate?

Ah, but she is ultimately swayed by the story of a mother who insists on heterosexual privilege.


Back in 1996 Congress signed the Defense of Marriage Act, commonly referred to as DOMA. It has two parts. One part says that no state must recognize a gay marriage from another state, in contrast to straight marriages that if one state says a couple is married then all other states must honor that marriage. The other part says that the federal government cannot acknowledge any marriage except those with one man and one woman. This law went into effect even before Vermont began Civil Unions (which was 10 years ago and the sky hasn't fallen!).

Yesterday, a federal judge said the second part was unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. There were actually two cases involved. One was brought by gay couples in Massachusetts who said the federal government treats married gays differently than married straights. The other case was brought by the state, saying the federal government requires it to discriminate against its citizens to qualify for federal funding. Part of the ruling hinges on saying it is the states who define marriage, so the feds shouldn’t. But with that statement the judge didn't rule on the first part of DOMA -- if you can't get married in Michigan, the feds still won't honor your relationship.

It is theoretically up to Obama's Department of Justice to appeal. He would make up for a lot of previous anger from gays if he simply decided he didn't want to (as Arnold did in Calif.). I'm sure an anti-gay group would be glad to push the case on to Circuit Court and the Supremes.
Analysis here.


Ireland!
The country, which is 95% Catholic, has instituted Civil Unions. This link has a nice map showing the current state of Europe.