They’re used to leaders with closets jam-packed with skeletons

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote five things Democrats should like from the results of the New Hampshire primary. 1. After coming in much better than expected (though still definitely second in a two person race) Nikki Haley is now swinging hard against the nasty guy. She calls him geriatric and a loser (about time someone made an issue of his age and mental state instead of Biden’s age). 2. The nasty guy seethed about Haley for not dropping out.

But this is who Trump is—a seething loser. And the more it's on full display and the more voters get reacquainted with it, the better.

3. Haley overwhelmingly won independents. 4. Since Biden wanted South Carolina to be the first primary he wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire. He still won as a write-in candidate with 55%. Say goodbye to challenger Dean Philllips. 5:

Haley planning to stay in the race is the icing on the cake for Democrats, especially as she appears to finally be hitting her messaging stride. Haley could drop out, but frankly, what else does she have to do?

Mark Sumner of Kos also reports consequences of the NH primary. The nasty guy’s win, for a guy who is portraying himself as an incumbent, was unimpressive. Because Haley didn’t drop out he went to his social media to declare that anyone who supported her will be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” Then he released a video statement saying he would also purge rogue bureaucrats, security officials, justice officials, and anyone else that isn’t MAGA.

Give it time, and a good MAGA rating might soon also be required to get a government contract. Or to travel freely around the country. Or to stay out of the massive internment camps Trump is planning. Trump has dropped all pretenses. Anyone who wants a future in Trump’s America had better get in line, and they better get in line now. And that’s exactly what Senate Republicans are doing.

That shows up in the combined Ukraine aid / Southern border deal Republicans said was required. Senate Republicans appear to be close to a deal.

Then, on Wednesday, Trump told Republicans to kill the deal so that he could continue to talk about the border for his campaign. And just like that, what Republicans were calling a crisis and an invasion became something that could be put off. Because nothing, nothing, nothing matters more to them than pleasing Trump. “I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that [Trump] would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the border deal seemed to be veering towards a crash on Tuesday. She included tweets by Sen. Mike Lee complaining that senators aren’t allowed to have enough time to review it – they should have at least three weeks. That ignores Congress has been talking about immigration for two decades. And he needs another three weeks. To come up with poison pill amendments?

That’s the perennial story of immigration reform in Congress. There’s two decades’ worth of supposed bipartisan history on immigration that’s been killed by the Republicans. This is too salient a political issue for them. They don’t want to secure the border with new funding and new policy directives. They want to keep the so-called border crisis in the headlines, just like they’ve done since 2001.

I heard a prediction a few weeks back that Republicans tied Ukraine aid to the border situation because the nasty guy didn’t want it to pass and the link was a way to do that. The prediction went on to say border security was chosen for the link because that wasn’t going to pass either. Lexie Schapitl, Eric McDaniel, and Susan Davis of NPR covered much of the same story, though added the reasons why the nasty guy shut down the border deal – it wasn’t “perfect.” As in: How could it be perfect if a Democrat agreed to it? Back to New Hampshire. Matt Wuerker posted a cartoon of of a news woman pointing to two people holding “IA” and “NH” signs and saying “The people have spoken!” as 48 other people holding other state signs stand behind her. That was posted the day before this news from Sumner that the cartoon might be true: The Republican National Committed has drafted a resolution to scrap its own rules and declare the nasty guy to be the “presumptive nominee” without bothering with primaries in the other 48 states. One reason for doing this is their rules say they can’t support a candidate unless he is the nominee. But it seems (to me) easier to scrap that rule than all the others. Another reason is the nasty guy is ahead in the polls. So why did they bother with Iowa and New Hampshire? I wonder if this is a way to keep Haley from being in the news attacking the nasty guy. Yes, all of this is very much not democracy.

But hey, at least Republicans are being consistent. They hate democracy in the general election, so why pretend it matters in the primary? No word yet on when the coronation will be held.

Eleveld reported the nasty guy and his MAGA backers are getting annoyed at Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Comer has been digging for impeachable dirt on Biden for a year now and has nothing. The annoyance is because:

When pundits call him the twice-impeached, four-time indictee, Trump has to be able to point at Biden and say he's the one who's really corrupt. Just look at what Congress found on him.

The annoyance has been expressed through leaks. That means:

In many ways, the leaks seem specifically designed to put Comer on notice that he not only needs to produce, but he'll be singularly on the hook if he doesn't.

Sumner wrote that Democrats have gotten organized and are now making hearings of Comer’s committee more fun.

Democrats aren’t just tearing Republican arguments apart: They’re derailing hearings and getting their opponents genuinely flustered. ... If all that seemed like it took a lot of behind-the-scenes planning, it did. But it won’t be the last time. Because as The Daily Beast reports, Democrats have a plan to make these hearings just as silly as the claims Republicans are making about Biden.

The goal of the hearings are, of course, to dig up dirt on Biden to reduce his chances of reelection and to tell the nasty guy they’re working on revenge for his two impeachments. For this purpose Democrats now have a Truth Squad of Reps. Jamie Raskin, Greg Casar, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Daniel Goldman, and Jared Moskowitz. I’ve reported on some of what they’ve done already, such as completely flustering Republicans when Hunter Biden showed up to testify. Sumner then mentioned the leaks on Comer’s competency I mentioned above:

These anonymous Republicans don’t seem to be seriously considering that maybe Comer is failing not because he’s incompetent (or at least, not only because he’s incompetent) but because Joe Biden did nothing wrong. But then, they are Republicans. They’re used to having leaders whose closets are jam-packed with skeletons.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos it shows almost a dozen prominent Republicans with Mike Johnson saying, “We sold our souls to Trump and are awaiting payment...” I haven’t written about Ukraine in at least three weeks. So I’ll start with an article Sumner wrote on January 5. The front hasn’t changed. Ukraine keeps pushing back Russian assaults.

What has changed is that there are increasing reports that Ukrainian forces are just bloody tired. That operations are running on superhuman efforts that can’t be sustained. That Ukrainian artillery units are being forced to retreat, or are incapable of halting a Russian advance because they are too low on shells. And that some Ukrainian units are unable to fill their ranks because Ukrainians are all too aware of conditions at the front.

Ukraine is considering raising the age limit of soldiers who want to stay. It is also considering lowering conscription from 27 to 25 – which seems quite high to Americans dragged off to war at 18. But Ukraine doesn’t want to win a war by losing a huge percentage of young men. Yeah, it is Russia who is taking kids out of school and drafting pensioners and not giving them sufficient training. Their soldiers are getting tired of the “meat assaults.” There are reports of shortage of artillery shells. Ukraine isn’t using shells at the same rate as Russia – which is now using shells decades old. But the West relies on combined arms operations which doesn’t depend as much on artillery, so the West doesn’t stockpile as much. North Korea is restocking Russia’s shells, maybe as many as a million – which should last a few weeks. Drones have changed the war and neither side has a formula to give themselves an advantage. The situation is still a stalemate. Also in early January in a pundit roundup on Kos exlrrp commented with a meme. It shows Putin saying:

Buy American. I bought one Trump and got the whole Republican Party for free.

On January 10 Kos of Kos wrote a Ukraine update that was more about the current axis of evil. That’s a phrase Bush Junior used to justify invading Iraq. The current axis is Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. Kos wrote that if the US doesn’t lead the opposition, no one will.

These nations have realized that their global aspirations cannot be accomplished as long as a militarily and economically dominant West acts as a roadblock to their regional ambitions. Still, that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. Take a look at the world’s war-ridden hotspots and you’ll see that virtually every one of them has at least one of these nation’s fingerprints on it.

The invasion in Ukraine is by Russia supported by North Korea. Next to Israel Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are supported by Iran. Russia backed a coup in Niger. The spat between Venezuela and Guyana is supported by both Russia and China. North Korea changed its policy of reuniting with South Korea to one of conquest. And China is being belligerent to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, prompting Australia to update its navy. This axis is watching Ukraine – and Republicans in the US Congress – very carefully.

If Putin succeeds in even annexing part of Ukraine, it will be a rousing victory and a call to arms for this new axis. But if the West rallies, builds up its military arsenal, maintains and even strengthens its sanctions, the axis will likely determine that any military adventurism is too fraught with risk, and the status quo, however tense, will remain. The alternative—a hot war in the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan strait, or Europe—would be catastrophic both in terms of lives lost and to the global economy. The bigger the cost to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the less likely a war between major powers becomes. The bigger Russia’s defeat, the greater the damage to Iran, North Korea, and maybe even China. (At the same time, China appears to be in a win-win scenario at Russia’s expense. If Russia wins, China has an emboldened ally that would almost assuredly aid in an invasion of Taiwan. And if Russia loses, China gains a new vassal state with the natural resources to feed its own machine.) Ultimately, the West needs to do everything in its power to help Ukraine win—and do so as quickly as possible. We need the Republican Party to stop being Iran and China’s biggest international ally. (Their support of Putin is well past absurdity.) Global peace depends on it.

On January 19 Kos wrote about German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who said Putin could attack NATO in 5 to 8 years. So is that really a threat? That ignores Putin is already attacking NATO through election meddling and cyberattacks. He has also pushed migrants towards NATO borders to destabilize European governments. But a conventional war against the West? Extremely unlikely. But that’s still a reason to help Ukraine. The ground war in Ukraine is at a stalemate. They can’t advance without horrific casualties. The war probably can’t be won on the battlefield. It is now time to press the economic war and push Russia to its economic and sociological brink.

The German defense minister is right that Russia is a threat, and Ukraine has gone a long way to neutering it. The best way to avoid the nightmare “World War III” scenario is to not just keep supporting Ukraine but also to give the country what it needs to eliminate Russia’s war-making potential. That won’t pay dividends just in Europe. It will be a signal to China, too, that any military designs on Taiwan would be similarly doomed to failure.

Sumner wrote that this past Wednesday marked 700 days since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia expected Ukraine to fall in days. Remember that 40-kilometer convoy where officers brought along dress uniforms?

The truth is, almost everyone expected Ukraine to lose—and lose quickly. Except the Ukrainians. The next time anyone saw those Russian dress uniforms, they were being pulled out of tanks destroyed along the highway after Ukraine drove away Russian forces. Putin couldn’t take Kyiv in three days. Or three weeks. Or three months. And he’s not going to take it in three years. Because he’s simply not going to win this war.

Mourn the Dead. Fight Like Hell for the Living.

On Sunday I watched Young Royals season 2 episodes 3 & 4. It is the story of Prince Wilhelm of Sweden who has fallen in love with Simon, a commoner. After I watched episodes 1 & 2 I wrote that one aspect of this season’s story is vengeance for a betrayal at the end of last season. Now it looks like the possibility of reverse vengeance. By that I mean person A betrayed person B and B has been making A’s life miserable. That’s being done through indirect means – psychological games. Now A has been given incentive to target B again. Which makes me wonder if the queen understands the situation. A good (as in not boring) romance story puts the lovers through challenges. And there are definitely challenges. Beyond that I don’t want to spoil the story. I finished the book The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. The story is told by Adunni, a 14 year old girl in Nigeria. Her mother assured her she would go to school, which she adores. A louding voice is one that can speak for itself, that others will listen to. She knows a voice can be louding through education. But Mama died and Papa needs money. So he sold her to be the third wife of Morufu whose first two wives have given him only daughters. When something happens to the pregnant second wife Adunni has good reason to believe she will be blamed, so flees. Mr. Kola gives her a ride into Lagos to work for Big Madam – fortunately not that kind of Madam. Adunni is to clean the house, though her salary is paid to Mr. Kola, who disappears. Big Madam is cruel. Big Daddy is lecherous. The previous girl left under mysterious circumstances. She does have a friend in Kofi, the chef. And the house has a library, where she continues her education. She eventually meets Ms. Tia from down the street and is drawn to Ms. Tia’s kindness. Through her Adunni learns of a scholarship at a boarding school given to young domestic workers like herself. Tia helps her apply. Through it all Adunni shows how strong she is. She maintains her kindness for others and her drive for becoming someone important while struggling to understand injustice. I had thought the novel would be about the importance of education, how Adunni got what she needed and where that took her in life. But there is only a hint of that at the end. However, in the author interview at the end of the book she says the story is about the plight of many young Nigerian housemaids, how they are lured into what becomes slavery without chains and how badly they are treated. Adunni tells the story in a style of English of one who knows many of the words, but not how they fit together, as if English is a second language or she learned it in a community that freely mixed English words with the local language. Even so she can express complex thoughts, to the point I wondered if the author forgot to keep the dialect going. Here is an example from page 7:

My head been stoning my mind with many questions since this morning, questions that are not having answers. What is it meaning, to be the wife of a man with two wifes and four childrens? What is making Morofu to want another wife on top the already two? And Papa, why is he wanting to sell me to a old man with no any thinking of how I am feeling? Why didn’t he keep the promise he make to Mama before she dead?

This book is a good one. I downloaded Michigan COVID data. I get the data from here. The program I wrote to draw a chart of the data says Tuesday, the day this data was last updated, is three days short of a thousand days of data. Michigan’s data goes back to March 1, 2020. A thousand days from then will be tomorrow, November 25, 2022. The peaks in the number of new cases per day for the last few weeks are 1537, 1615, 1250, and 1080. I like this trend! But the pandemic isn’t over yet. The deaths per day for the last week is in the single digits. That’s also great news, though I wonder if data collection is up to date. Another mass shooting. Another mass shooting in an LGBTQ club, this one is Club Q in Colorado Springs. A mass shooting in what is supposed to be an LGBTQ safe space. Five LGBTQ people and allies dead just a few minutes before the start of Transgender Day of Remembrance. I think two of the dead were trans. There were also 25 injured. Lauren Sue of Daily Kos has details. She also collected a litany of anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric that has been coming from Republicans and from the far right. She also lists the 37 Republican Senators who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act working its way through Congress. Gabe Ortiz of Kos lists and describes the five people who died in this shooting. They are Daniel Aston – transgender, Kelly Loving – I think transgender, Ashley Paugh – not a member of the LGBTQ community and just enjoying a good time, Derrick Rump, and Raymond Green Vance – also not LGBTQ and there for a birthday party. The community is pleased that when Police Chief Adrian Vasquez read off the names he also included pronoun preferences. David Neiwert of Kos explained the prominent role stochastic terrorism played in the case. We don’t know much about the motives of this particular shooter, but ...

What we do know, however, is that this horrific act of domestic terrorism occurred in a cultural environment in which the LGBTQ community has been under siege by an American far-right apparatus wielding eliminationist rhetoric: Demonizing and dehumanizing them (particularly transgender people and drag queens) as pedophilic “groomers,” attacking specific events that are targeted by far-right social-media influencers, and setting them up for a range of levels of violence, including the extreme and lethal kinds. This is exactly how stochastic terrorism works.

Neiwert then discussed who this shooter is. He then discussed previous events and talking heads that have been spewing rhetoric sounding like calls to terrorism. Ortiz reported that Richard Fierro was at Club Q with his wife, daughter, and daughter’s boyfriend. When the shooting started Fierro’s military training kicked in. He raced across the room, pulled the gunman to the floor, jumped on him, and beat him with his own weapon. An unnamed drag performer also beat him with their high heels. His daughter’s boyfriend was Raymond Green Vance, who died in the shooting. Leah McElrath tweeted an image created by NoBonzo that could be printed and used for coloring therapy. It shows people lighting candles around the words “Mourn the Dead. Fight Like Hell for the Living.” Mike Luckovich tweeted a cartoon. On the left is the rally outside the Capitol that turned into an attack. The caption says, “Lies about the election caused this.” On the right side is an image of Club Q wrapped in crime scene tape. The captions says, “Lies about LGBTQ caused this.” Kevin Necessary tweeted a cartoon showing an elephant wearing a MAGA hat offering a gun to a young boy. The elephant says in part, “Lash out at those who are different than you. ... And if ya feel threatened, well, that’s why ya got this baby.” The caption says, “The Groomer.” Just a few days of that shooting was another. This one had six dead in Chesapeake, Virginia. M Adryael Tong tweeted a thread starting by saying that back in the 2000s the Human Rights Campaign removed gender identity from the Employment Non Discrimination Act to help get it passed.

There was a conscious decision that was made in the aughts to focus on gay and lesbian acceptance especially for wealthy, white gender-conforming people. Incrementalism, people said. I said back then it was BS and I said back then we’d pay for it. And lo and behold.

And we’re paying for it in far right people who can’t or won’t tell the difference between a drag queen and a trans woman. We have to support the whole community. I had mentioned above that 37 Republicans voted against the Respect for Marriage Act. From an article posted last week – before that procedural vote – Joan McCarter of Kos describes the bill and what it does. It is on the Senate agenda, and will likely be passed (though I haven’t heard that it has). It is on the agenda because Justice Clarence Thomas has invited cases that would overturn the 2013 decision that found the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional. So the big thing the RFMA will do is repeal DOMA. However, RFMA does not protect the Supreme Court ruling that grants same-sex marriage. Congress can’t – the high court has an anti-commandeering doctrine that says the federal government can’t force states to pass state laws. What Congress can do is withhold funding from states that don’t pass their own laws. Marriage is a state issue, as we saw in the early 2010s as one state after another approved same-sex marriage. While the Supreme Court can declare a state law violates the federal constitution, Congress does not have the same power. So if the Supremes reverse themselves Congress can’t fill in the gaps (and all that makes me wonder about a federal law that mandates the right to an abortion in all states or bans abortion in all states). What RFMA can do is regulate marriage across state boundaries. And it does – if a couple gets married in one state and then lives in another the state where they live must honor the marriage and honor the children of the marriage. RFMA also repeats what is happening now, that a religious denomination cannot be forced to conduct a same-sex wedding. That clause allows the Mormon church to support it. McElrath, who has started using Mastodon to establish a presence in case Twitter goes down, tweeted (or whatever the Mastodon equivalent is) to add a bit to McCarter’s explanation:

Alert: There’s a bipartisan bill being considered by the Senate that’s being promoted as “codifying same-sex marriage” rights. Except it doesn’t. The “Respect for Marriage” Act merely guarantees federal recognition of same-sex marriages recognized at the state level. If SCOTUS overturns Obergefell (which is likely), many states will revert to pre-existing laws prohibiting same-sex marriages or pass new ones.

Michel Martin of NPR talked to Kate Sosin, the LGBTQ+ reporter for The 19th, a nonprofit news outlet that focuses on gender policy and politics. They talked about the recent election results in a time of so much anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric. Some of Sosin’s points: Yes, there are a lot of anti-trans bills. Those having to do with gender-affirming care reject what doctors and scientists say about treating gender dysphoria and replace it with what Republican lawmakers say. Less than 5% of voters said gender-affirming care or trans kids in sports was a motivating issue in why they voted. For the vast majority of people this isn’t an issue. It’s only an issue for the Republican base. This year state legislatures introduced 344 anti-LGBTQ bills. 25 passed. Also, there were 1,065 LGBTQ candidates on the ballot and 340 of them were elected. Also, 1 in 5 hate crimes are motivated by anti-LGBTQ bias. Alisa Chang of NPR talked to two trans people elected to state legislatures in 2022. They are James Roesener of New Hampshire and Zooey Zephyr of Montana. Zephyr ran because she was alarmed with several anti-LGBTGQ bills in the Montana Legislature in 2021. She testified against one of them and saw others pass by one vote. Friends left the state, even though they lived in a caring community. That prompted her to run. She added:

And in Montana, when the Department of Public Health and Human Services proposed a new rule about banning updating your birth certificate if you're trans, they held a public hearing, and one person came out to support that anti-trans piece of legislation and 100 came out in opposition to it. And that's across Montana. And if it's true here, I know it's true across the country as well.

Roesener has volunteered at a clinic that provides gender-affirming care and abortion care. Things became personal when laws threatened to lock up friends for providing health care.

Bernie is stunned

Bernie Sanders is leading Hillary in both New Hampshire and Iowa. Sanders says he is "stunned" by that development. A commenter to this post added this little infographic, which explains a lot of his appeal:

We have the power to end your career

Back in June of 2011 four GOP state senators in New York joined Democrats to vote for marriage equality. The National Organization for Marriage vowed vengeance -- can't have GOP lawmakers breaking ranks. That would set a very bad example for the rest of the country. So, NOM put a great deal of effort in making sure there were anti-gay GOP candidates to run against the defectors.

The primary was a couple days ago. Time to check up on how much power NOM has.

One senator dropped out due to a scandal having nothing to do with gay marriage.

The most public defection was Mark Grisanti. He had opposed marriage equality, then did something that seems foreign to the GOP -- he listened to his constituents and changed his mind. Grisanti trounced his NOM-backed opponent.

Both Steve Saland and Roy McDonald are in races so close that the winner will be decided by absentee ballots and recounts. Incumbents usually have no trouble keeping their seats.

NOM endorsed candidates in two other races. In one the NOM candidate lost big. In the other the NOM candidate won because the opponent had been charged with conspiracy to funnel state money to a private charity.

Final tally: Two NOM targets won decisively. One lost for reasons not related to gay marriage. Two are still a tossup.

So, does NOM have the power to end careers as it claims? Depends on who you ask (and we won't ask NOM because their response would be obvious). Two big wins says NOM doesn't have the power. Two tossups says it does -- that might be enough to give other GOP lawmakers pause.

But on to the general election. It appears NOM will continue its vow -- and that may include backing a pro-equality Democrat to punish a pro-equality Republican.

NOM is also trumpeting that in New Hampshire two pro-equality GOP incumbents were defeated. But there were 119 pro-equality GOP incumbents. You do the math.

Living in authenticity

The GOP in New Hampshire brought a bill to overturn their marriage equality law. They have enough party members in both the state House and Senate to override a promised veto by the Dem. governor. So the speculation was whether the GOP would have enough votes that they could consider an override vote.

There was a great deal of surprise last Wednesday when the bill lost and by sizable margin in the House. There was a large number of GOP legislators that had "unavoidable scheduling conflicts" and didn't show up to vote. Final tally on the question of: Do you agree this bill is inexpedient to legislate? was 211 (53%) yes (kill it), 116 (29%) no, and 70 (18%) not voting.

This is a fantastic surprise from a GOP controlled legislature.



The Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians is considering amending their tribal constitution to permit same-sex marriage. This would be the first such group in Michigan. Alas for my sister, at least one partner must be a member of the tribe.



That Etch-A-Sketch flap by a Romney staffer reminds all of us that we're used to politicians saying one thing during a campaign and doing something different once in office. Two words: Compassionate Conservatism. Campaign lies are old news.

According to "cocktailhag," a contributor on FireDogLake, it is also old news for an elected official to describe a bill for public consumption with the actual bill doing something quite different. Famous political lies include No Child Left Behind is really about undermining public education. and Medicare Part D (drug benefit) actually about enriching pharmaceutical companies.

There is also the lie that I've accused Obama of -- something promised but doesn't do because, gosh, the GOP opposition is just so fierce. Obama isn't the only Dem guilty of this one.

But this writer noticed something. When the GOP lies, their base (or backers) win. When Dems lie, the GOP base or backers win.

Sigh.



A blogger who calls herself Seething Mom summarizes her story of finding out her son is gay and how that prompted her to stop voting for the GOP and leave the Catholic Church. She sees her conservative friends beginning to question what the GOP says. And what they are hearing is 12 talking points conservatives use to guarantee Obama's election. And each of the dozen is a succinct soundbite. Check them out!



The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus has another winner. The song is Testament with music by Stephen Schwartz and words by Dan Savage from his It Gets Better project. In the first half of the song the words are from gay kids who are terrified of what their future might be like and who don't want to be gay. The second half is from It Gets Better stories of older gay people -- I hung on through the bad times and look at all the great things that have happened to me since then. And there is the joy of living in authenticity.



A week's worth of Occupy news from the Occupy Wall Street website.

Laws for symbolic purposes

I had a good afternoon and evening at the Detroit Institute of Art yesterday. I didn't get into the Rembrandt exhibit (sold out), but I have a ticket for next week. The Detroit Revealed exhibit has some marvelous photos. I especially liked the one looking down the hall of an abandoned factory in the Ford Rouge Plant.

The highlight of the day was an evening showing of Being Elmo, the story of Kevin Clash who has the job of manipulating Elmo on Sesame Street. My inner child had a delightful time. Look for it eventually on DVD.

Yes, it has been a week since I've had something to write about and then a free evening to do the writing. Much of what I write today will only be brief descriptions with links to full articles.

Here's a nice and brief suggestion for all of our lawmakers.



The Supreme Court declared sodomy (sex between two men) laws illegal back in 2003. Kansas GOP still won't repeal their law. Even if they can't enforce it, they want its symbolic value.



The New Hampshire legislature (under GOP control) was supposed to vote to repeal gay marriage this past week, even though the Gov. (Dem) promised a veto. But, surprise, the year's legislative agenda was released and gay issues were not listed.



Over 71% of college freshmen think marriage equality (not just recognition of gay relationships) is a good idea. That's up 6 points in just a couple years.



A council member of Baltimore County introduced a bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Ruth Jacobs, president of Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government, pulled out the claim that the bill would open up women to being raped in public bathrooms from men who dress as women. She even claimed it has happened in nearby Montgomery County, which already has such an antidiscrimination law.

The police chief of Montgomery County went through his records and sent a letter to the Baltimore County Council. Those rapes? Never happened.

A commenter notes it is hard to combat people so willing to lie. Refutations don't fit easily into soundbites. For this reason our best offense might be the courts where the process can root out dishonesty.



I wrote that NJ Gov. Chris Christie said that perhaps the 1964 civil rights laws should have been put to a popular vote. Well, he apologized. Sort of. As one commenter put it he discovered some people were offended so he knew he needed to say something, not that he believed he did something wrong. Put it another way, he apologized for miscommunicating, not for the sentiments behind the words.



Ari Ezra Waldman, a lawyer, says the phrase marriage equality is just fine for our fight in the public arena. But in the realm of law, he says we should be demanding a bit more: marriage recognition.



Terrence Heath notes the size of some of the gifts that some of the 1% are donating to campaign Super PACs. The size of donations has gone up a 1,000 times since the Supremes permitted unlimited spending in the Citizens United case. And you can be sure the 1% want something in return for gifts that large.

Heath says that Citizens United has indeed united people. It has united the 1% behind the candidate of the 1%. It has also united the 99% into finding a way to overturn that ruling.

Leave the law alone

The GOP in New Hampshire appears determined to hold a vote on repealing marriage equality in the state. It looks like they'll at least wait until after the GOP primary, when the national attention has drifted elsewhere. It will pass. Gov. Lynch (Dem.) will veto it. The question is whether the GOP has enough votes for an override. The citizens of the state quite like marriage equality by a large margin, though I don't have exact numbers at the moment.

The Concord Monitor, an important newspaper voice in the state, published an editorial calling to keep marriage equality. The cool part of the editorial is that it was written by Monitor staff, not a gay advocacy group.

The editorial lists the frequent reasons for banning gay marriage and debunks each one. Here is my summary:

* Marriage is between a man and a woman. Who gets to define it? It is just a statement of bigotry.

* Marriage has been restricted to straights for thousands of years. Slavery was an ancient practice too. Mercifully, times change.

* Marriage is for procreation. But we don't bar straights who have no interest in kids from getting married.

* Gay couples aren't as good as raising kids. And some straight couples aren't either. How many examples of great gay parents do you need?

* There's that slippery slope to legalized polygamy and incest. In the off chance such a bill actually comes up, lawmakers may vote no.

* Gay relationships are immoral. Yeah, some churches think so. But lawmakers must also protect freedom from religion.

* Gay marriage threatens the institutions of marriage. Nope, encouraging marriage encourages marriage.

Leave the law alone.

A hole this deep

There have been lots of stories of gay youth being bullied by straight kids. But what about straight kids bullied by gays? That's a vital question by all those adults who say they are being bullied by the Homosexual Agenda. So, here's a list of all those straight kids bulled so much by gay kids they commit suicide. You guessed right, the list is empty. The site conveniently provides the sound of crickets.



Governor John Lynch of New Hampshire, the one gay marriage advocates in the state considered their best hope to stop a possible GOP attempt to repeal gay marriage in the state, has announced he isn't seeking another term. He will be gone next November.




Michael Thornton of AlterNet lists 11 reasons why the unemployment crisis is worse than mass media would lead you to believe. Much of it goes into technical details of how jobs numbers are misreported, so if you like that kind of thing, dig in. For the rest of us, a summary. An unemployment rate of 9.1% is only a small part of the story. Add in those who have stopped looking, who are underemployed (in a part time job), who recently graduated and so don't qualify for unemployment benefits, and who immigrated. The total of nearly 17 million hurting workers (plus their families) means we should increase the number of jobs by 280,000 every month for five years to close the gap. Last month the increase was zero. A hole this deep cannot be handled by only a free market.

Aaarrrggghhhh!

Same-sex marriage became legal in Hew Hampshire in January of 2010. Now that the GOP controls both chambers of the state legislature (apparently by veto-proof majorities) they are pulling GOP stunts. A House Judiciary panel approved a bill that would repeal same-sex marriage in the state. Gay couples already married would stay married, but after enactment only straight couples could get married. Gay couples would be allowed to have a civil union. The full House can't vote on it until 2012 (but that's only 4 months away).

If the bill passes both chambers Gov. Lynch (D) will veto it. There is speculation that once he does there is just enough reticence among enough GOP members they won't try for an override.

The amendment in North Carolina is somewhat expected, given how homophobic the South is. But this is New Hampshire! With this tiny vote (only 4 people on that panel) I have a very strong feeling the GOP is blatantly saying:

We're in charge. We're supposed to be in charge. We're going to remake society to suit our beliefs whether a majority likes it or not. We don't care what you think. We don't care about the consequences. We don't care who is hurt. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it. We have the power and you don't.

At least I'm better than you

Some tidbits that have accumulated over the last 10 days.

Gay legislators make a difference. David Pierce is a representative in the New Hampshire state house. He and his partner Robert Duff are raising two daughters. As is the case with other gay legislators Pierce's speeches to the chamber include personal details and sometimes sway colleagues. They form collegial relationships with members of the other party. Pierce spoke about how some people don't think he, his children, and his partner should be a family. That was enough to change at least one vote in favor of gay marriage in that state.



In Maryland a marriage equality bill passed the Senate but was shelved by the house. In Iowa the GOP is trying to drum up support for a marriage protection amendment. In Washington a bill would define out-of-state marriages as translating to civil unions within the state. Official public debates in all three places have brought out people saying things that are both ridiculous and vile. At least in Maryland and Iowa that has included prominent black pastors claiming how dare those gay people equate their struggle with ours!

Alvin McEwen, who is both black and gay, has had enough -- again. He says that it isn't about an Oppression Olympics where only those at the bottom deserve to be brought into the mainstream, that one must deeply suffer to be made worthy.

McEwen didn't quite say it but I had an insight. Black leaders may be saying this because no matter how bad they have it and how miserable they are they can at least say, "Even so, I'm better than you."



Rev. Greg Renstrom leads the Wesley United Methodist Church in downtown Minneapolis. It is near a gay district so several years ago declared itself to be gay-friendly. Renstrom is now taking it one more step. He has announced he will perform same-sex union blessings for any couple that requests it. Yes, this is in violation of church rules and could cost Renstrom his job. Not that he's concerned about it -- he is already at retirement age and his annual pay is $1 because the church is struggling financially.

The church hierarchy hasn't taken action -- yet -- because no couples have asked for a blessing yet. But the offer has gotten the notice of the gay community. And that is good.

Signs of the future?

I recently wrote that the GOP in New Hampshire was crafting bills to overturn the gay marriage law there. House Republican Leader D.J. Bettencourt says now that killing gay marriage is not on their agenda for the year. Some are wondering if that implies it will be on the agenda in 2012 (better to be an early influence prez. politics). Or, since Bettencourt is 27, the younger (more pro-gay) generation is in control and the issue won't come up at all.

I'm tired of being the punching bag

The GOP swept both houses of the New Hampshire legislature last November. They are already crafting bills to repeal the NH gay marriage law. The Dem governor will veto any such bill. The question then is how moderate are these NH legislators and are there enough of them to prevent a veto override?

How much of the Calif. gay marriage case be applicable to New Hampshire?

National gay rights organizations didn't do much to prevent 3 justices from being tossed in Iowa and don't seem to be gearing up to help out New Hampshire. The statewide groups are gearing up, but are no match for the heavily funded steamroller of the National Organization for Marriage, who (no doubt) helped get a number of GOP legislators elected and are waiting for their payback.

Please. We aren't a threat to you. Leave us alone.

It has gotten rather quiet

Here is a good explanation of the Town Hall Meeting process that voted on requests to repeal gay marriage in New Hampshire. The article also notes how quiet the anti-gay forces have become.

So much for the wedge issue

I wrote recently about New Hampshire towns holding Town Meetings with many voting on a request that all citizens vote on the new gay marriage laws. Here's some more details.

The town of Plainfield voted 185-40 to scrap the original text and replace it with instructions to the town council to write a letter to thank the state legislators for passing the gay marriage laws, affirming marriage equality for all residents.

A summary of the votes. There are 234 cities and towns in NH. The 13 cities and 88 of the towns refused to take up the call to request a vote on gay marriage. Another 70 cities took the vote -- and voted it down. That leaves only 63 towns that approved it. That's only 27% of cities and towns. If the tally took population into account (those 13 cities), the percentage would have been a lot smaller. Gay marriage will stay in NH.

Some commentators speculate that the GOP, very much on the outside in NH, was using this exercise to get a wedge issue on the November ballot as a way to get out the vote. It failed.

Just ignore that Fundie hype

New Hampshire has a blend of direct and representative democracy. The statewide legislature is, of course, full of representatives. Only a month ago it soundly confirmed the gay marriage law enacted last year.

However, NH cities have regular Town Meetings in which citizens can vote directly on issues. I suspect this is in addition to an elected city council. Coming up to the March meetings, held a couple days ago, the Fundies got a whole slew of cities to put a "warrant" on the agenda, calling for the state legislature to let the citizens vote on the gay marriage law -- as in a constitution amendment banning it. A warrant is to advise the legislators, it can't force them to do anything. It is only an expression of voter sentiment. Many cities kept the warrant off the meeting agenda. A few of the cities revised their warrant to be meaningless, but most are the straight Fundie text.

Alas, a majority of the warrants passed, many by overwhelming margins. The fickle voter is still subject to the mob.

Fortunately, there are plenty of reasons to ignore the Fundie hype that they scored a victory with these votes.

* The Fundies are ignoring towns that didn't put the warrant on the agenda or that later voted it off the agenda. Which means these are the conservative small towns, not the more liberal cities.

* Those that show up at these meetings tend to be the ornery ones, the ones with a bone to pick with any level of government. The mild-mannered ones tend to stay home.

* Most of the votes came after several hours of dreary detail work -- should we renew the contract for the trash collection company? -- which meant the younger (and more pro-gay) folks who had kids and a job the next morning had left for bed.

* The warrant language asked for two constitution amendments, one approving gay marriage, the other banning it. With both on the ballot voters would supposedly be clear of which they wanted. Alas, the idea is confusing, easily exploited, and nobody explained it other than in cheery terms that voters should have a say.

* Nobody explained why this issue needed voter confirmation while everything else, like gun control, doesn't.

* There was little debate and in most places if anyone spoke at the meeting it was a Fundie.

* The NH constitution requires 2/3 approval of amendments. These votes fell short of that threshold.

Civil rights should not be election fodder

The New Hampshire gay marriage law went into effect at the start of this month. Of course, there is opposition. But NH makes it very difficult to pass a marriage protection amendment (I wish it was this hard in other states, like Michigan).

A commenter reports on analysis of why the gay-marriage vote failed in Maine. There are 4 reasons given:

1. Civil rights activists are weakest outside urban areas and the financial clout of Fundies can dominate rural politics.

2. Obama and the Democratic Party sat on their hands (or have been hostile to gays) rather than being the fierce advocate they said they were.

3. The state-by-state process of securing gay rights isn't working. It's time to get the prez. and Congress to live up to the national constitution that has an equal protection clause. No matter what states do, marriage will be unequal until enacted at the federal level.

4. Civil rights should not be election fodder manipulated by well-financed bigots. Why should we have to reassert our rights in every state and city when those rights are given in the federal constitution? If we wait for public opinion we'll wait a long time. People are hurt by the current system.

The Rhode Island legislature overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's veto of some pro-gay legislation. The override vote was quite sizable, 67-3 in the House and 29-3 in the Senate. As the only New England state that hasn't made an attempt at gay marriage (with most succeeding) what did RI toss to gays that got the gov. so stirred up? The right for one to make funeral arrangements for a deceased partner. Yup, that's it. But apparently enough to start the slippery slope towards the destruction of marriage.


The New Jersey Senate voted on the gay marriage bill -- and defeated it, 14-20. Since the incoming governor will veto any future bills it could be a while before gay marriage comes through the legislature. It appears the incoming governor was able to convince several senators to switch votes during the lame duck session (probably applying the same kind of pressure I sometimes wish Obama would apply to certain federal senators). The vote is disappointing in a secondary respect -- many pro-marriage legislators were easily elected and gay marriage was so much considered a done deal that it wasn't an issue in the campaign.

Garden State Equality will go back to the NJ Supremes. In 2006 that court said the NJ legislature must enact marriage for gays or provide an equivalent structure. The legislature chose civil unions. And those are proving not to be equivalent. The case is boosted by gay marriage opponents have been saying instead of gay marriage they want to "fix" civil unions -- an admission they aren't equivalent. Now the only battle is to convince the court that the only way the two structures can be equivalent is for both to have the same name.

Look me in the eye and say it

As the ball dropped on New Year's Eve New Hampshire began allowing gay couples to marry. Both Iowa and New Hampshire now allow gay marriage and both states start off the next race to the White House. By 2011 both states will have time to get many of their citizens used to the idea. And both are also small enough that candidates get grilled by lots of ordinary citizens rather than reporters. One wonders how they'll react when they look gay couples in the eye. Will they be able to say gays should be second-class citizens? Yeah, some will do it anyway.

New Hampshire!

The New Hampshire Senate voted 14-10 this morning on a bill for marriage equality with religious protections. The House voted 198-176 this afternoon. Governor John Lynch has already signed it. New Hampshire becomes the 6th state to permit gay marriage on January 1, 2010.

Need a little reassurance?

One of the holdups in the New Hampshire bill granting gay marriage is the section on reassurances that churches don't have to marry gays. What, isn't the US Constitution good enough? Yeah, it is. But… A survey of pastors of six mainline liberal denominations (the story doesn't say which ones, only that they make up 18% of the population) shows that adding the reassurances boosts support by 13%, from 1/3 to almost half! For gains that large, let's reassure them (even if the liberal churches are the quiet ones).

Your fears are unfounded. Be not afraid.

New Hampshire has already enacted civil unions, something that Bishop Gene Robinson and his partner celebrated last June. Now the state legislature is considering same-sex marriage. As part of the hearings Robinson went before the state Judiciary Committee and made his eloquent case for gay marriage. The whole testimony is worth a read (he says it well), though here are some of his points:

When civil unions were enacted we were told to fear the result -- gays would destroy marriage. The fears have shown to be unfounded.

Will this change the definition of marriage? Yes. But marriage hasn't had one constant definition through history.

This bill is not a threat to any religion. We confuse the issue when we ask clergy to act as agents of the state to officiate at weddings. But divorce doesn't happen at a church. No church will be required to conduct weddings of which it doesn't approve. In the same way that religion is not controlled by the state, the church should not control civil acts.

One frequent phrase of the bible is "Be not afraid." Don't let religious opponents of equality make you afraid to do what is right.