Yesterday Ezra Klein, at the Washington Post, wrote a piece that’s gotten a lot of attention. (emphasis added throughout post) The fiscal cliff deal comes clearer: a 37% top tax rate and a higher Medicare eligibility age Right now, the fiscal cliff negotiations are proceeding on two tracks. One track includes the press releases, public [...]
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Queer Talk: Holiday Traditions – ‘War on Christmas’ and Salvation Army Vouchers
You know the “holidays” are drawing near when the American Family Association begins the annual “war on Christmas” warnings, and when you see the vouchers (to be dropped into the kettle) protesting the Salvation Army’s anti-LGBT position. First, the mythical “war” story, beginning with AFA warning: Scrooge Alert: Boycott Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic [...]
Queer Talk: White House Still Says ‘No” to ENDA Executive Order
The Washington Blade questioned WH Press Secretary Jay Carney about an idea that’s been around since the beginning of Obama’s first term: how about an executive order that would ban federal contractors from employment discriminating against LGBTs? Under questioning from the Washington Blade, Carney reiterated that the administration prefers a legislative solution to the problem [...]
Queer Talk: Notre Dame Allows First LGBT Student Organization, With Qualifications
As reported by WSBT: Gay Notre Dame students are celebrating a landmark announcement, that the Catholic university is expanding support programs, and creating an official organization to make students from all walks of life feel more welcome. ‘We want every student on this campus to feel welcomed and included,’ said Erin Hoffmann Harding, Notre Dame [...]
The ‘Hottest Property’ From Obama Win: Voter Database
From Politico: (emphasis added) Democrats to Obamaland: Share your data The hottest property to emerge from Barack Obama’s … victory over Mitt Romney … : Obama’s unprecedented database of an estimated 16 million voters, volunteers and donors, which gave the Democrat an indisputable edge in November. … From the candidates running in 2014 to the [...]
Queer Talk: Rubio Asked, ‘Is Homosexuality a Sin?’ (VIDEO)
The answer from Rubio to the question in the headline is, of course, yes. I think Josh Israel is probably correct, when he says of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) response to the question posed by Politico’s Mike Allen – “Is homosexuality a sin” – that Rubio “sought to adopt what he must have viewed as [...]
The ‘Fix the Debt’ Coalition of the Very Wealthy: The Rest of Us Need to Pay Attention
The Fix the Debt coalition is gaining more attention, no doubt in large part because its members are being very vocal and public. They are not shy about making known their interpretation and solutions of what ails the economy. And of course, another neat crisis – replete with “fiscal cliff” and “doomsday” gamemanship – is [...]
Queer Talk: West Point Chapel Hosts First Same Gender Marriage
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed just over a year ago. On this past Saturday, December 1, the Chapel of West Point Academy was the site of the marriage of Brenda Sue Fulton, a key opponent of DADT and a 1980 graduate of West Point, and her partner of many years, Penelope Gnesin. See Buzzfeed [...]
Austerity, Imposed From the Top To Bottom: The ‘Fix the Debt’ Spin
Some information and analysis follows, as we continue considering the DC created “fiscal cliff” (for example, see Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come), the debt/deficit, austerity, shared sacrifice, and all the other spins, going on for decades, on why the tiny number of people at the very top deserve [...]
Queer Talk: Remembering Harvey Milk and George Moscone
Today is the 34th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. In 1977, Milk was elected to a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming what is often said to be the first “openly gay” man elected to public office in the U.S. The two were murdered [...]
Queer Talk: Living Out Wherever You Are, Including ‘the South,’ Red and Rural Areas
I’ve written about this before – the “when” and “how” to come out – but thought about again today as I read a post at Northwest Public Radio, Rural Gay Community Living Out in Open. And that reminded me of an October article in the NY Times, We’re Here, We’re Queer, Y’all. Something that frustrates [...]
Estimated 8000 Protest Austerity in Dublin: ‘Come Back St. Patrick. It’s Still Full of Snakes’
The quote in the headline is from a sign held by one of the thousands who participated in an “anti-austerity” march in Dublin on Friday. Follow the link to The Journal article that provides details and some great photos. The demonstration, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, is protesting cutbacks ahead of the [...]
Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come
These were all built by and for those who will profit from them; our job is to come to accept what we’re told about them: deficit reduction; fiscal cliff; shared sacrifice; entitlements; Grand Bargain; austerity; disemployment (Lambert Strether’s excellent term); privatization; too big to fail. That’s just a partial list, of course. Feel free to [...]
Queer Talk: CNN’s Toobin Predicts SCOTUS Will Hear DOMA Challenge But Not Prop 8
Last week the American Foundation for Equal Rights reported that the Supreme Court will “discuss whether to hear AFER’s federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8 at its private Conference on Friday, November 30.” In a forum at JFK Presidential Library yesterday, CNN’s Jeff Toobin said he thinks SCOTUS will decline to hear the Prop [...]
Online Petitions for Secession from All 50 States
Should this raise some at least semi-serious questions? From RT: 700,000 Americans petition the White House to secede from the US In the one week since US President Barack Obama won his bid for re-election, representatives from all 50 states have filed petitions with the White House asking to secede from the United States. … [...]
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