Two White Men Hold United States Hostage

The Hug That Sank 800,000 Jobs

We are now in day 28 of the government shutdown–the longest government shutdown in US history. What a national embarrassment; I suppose it probably provides poor sad Theresa May some cold comfort. Let us just be clear and use facts about why the government is shut down. 45 has continued to lie about the safety of our southern border. He and Faux/Fox News have used fear to scare his base of support into spending nearly 6 billion dollars on a racist wall. However, Trump is not holding the country hostage alone: he has his loyal sycophant and award-winning hypocrite Mitch McConnell to help strangle the country. Lest we forget, during this shutdown Trump and all of Congress are still being paid their full salary.

More on the spineless, sexist, lying, egotistical, hypocritical, bigot, Mitch McConnell: this is the same bully who proposed the identical initiative that the Democrats are now to prevent a government shutdown–the same initiatives that he won’t allow to reach the senate floor, even though they passed by UNANIMOUS CONSENT in December. Party over politics and a huge fuck you to the American People to demonstrate his loyalty to the Dark Lord Covfefe Hamberders (are you missing Dan Quayle now?), and his loyalty to Putin, who gave him 3.5 million dollars. The Dark Turtle from Kentucky says he won’t allow a “show vote” that 45 won’t sign. This despite the fact that he allowed TWELVE votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act that he knew President Obama wouldn’t sign; he’s also allowing an anti-choice measure onto the floor this week, even though it has no chance of passing the house. Those are the very definition of show votes. Racist, sexist hypocrisy much, Mitch?

Let us talk about the serious and far-reaching impact of Trump’s racist temper tantrum. Over 800,000 employees are affected by the shutdown and going without pay; this includes 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 53,000 TSA agents, 42,000 Coast Guard employees, up to 88% of Homeland Security are working without pay. Maybe it is just me, but this does not make me feel safer. In fact, Trump’s tantrum has put the nation in jeopardy.

More than 380,000 people will be furloughed. This directly impacts NASA, the IRS, the Department of Commerce, the National Park Service. It seems to me this does not take an economics degree to understand that this is bad for the economy. Refund checks will now be delayed. There are now new barriers to homeownership, as there are now delays in processing and approving loans. This also negatively impacts all local economies that depend on tourism dollars to visit national parks.

While it is a Sisyphean task to keep track of all of the lies from Trump and his administration, it is important to note two huge whopper lies here.  Trump claimed that all of the previous presidents supported the wall, which in fact, is NOT true. Trump also made the claim that 63,000 Americans had been killed since 9/11 by people at the southern border. Again, this is NOT true. In fact, the number was made up by the self congratulating racist Steve King, who has now been censured for his charm free comment: “White nationalist, White supremacist,–how did that language become offensive?” I don’t even know how to unpack that, except to say that I’m grateful that at least a handful of Republicans have denounced King’s comments.

CALL TO ACTION: I implore you! Make those phone calls! Let Mitch know he can’t hide in his shell while the country suffers. Call your Senators! Thank the Democrats for holding firm and demanding that Congress perform its Constitutional duty of checks and balances. Demand that Republicans put their constituents before a pointless racist wall and force Mitch to allow a vote on measures that will easily pass.

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How Dare You Kate Brown!

Watching the myriad Knute Buehler commercials on every network seems to address how truly systemic, institutional, and ubiquitous misogyny is, even here in “progressive” Oregon. How dare you, Kate Brown for being an effective, smart, and strong woman. Don’t you know that here in the United States we don’t want to see or hear smart and strong women? Watching the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings 27 years ago to watching the Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh hearings this week, it is painfully clear that we don’t want women’s voices in government. So who is going to save the country? Who will save Oregon? It looks to me like some angry women in elevators (true heroes, Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila) will save the country, and I think Kate Brown is the woman to lead Oregon and who will remove barriers for all who carry targeted identities.

It is particularly difficult to watch the almost comical lies Buehler is spreading about Governor Brown. His lies range from the outrageous to the insane. I’m waiting for Buehler to blame Brown for the Scotts Mills earthquake that hit Oregon in 1993, or that she orchestrated the tsunami that just hit Indonesia–my she is powerful. Let us unpack some of the lies, so that we can all be better informed–granted this is for people who are concerned with facts, since facts have now become passè with Buehler and the Republican party. Let’s address the big ole lie regarding his blaming Brown for Oregon ranking number 48 in public schools. The fact is that, sadly, we already held that ranking before Brown became governor. Moreover, I need to underscore that Herr Buehler voted against creating smaller class sizes and voted against increasing teacher wages; this behavior/voting record only contributes to weakening our public schools. Buehler also lays the problem of homelessness at the feet of Brown–wow! Really? This attack is so unseemly and categorically false, yet I fear people will believe him because he is using the GOP method of lying: “just keep repeating it and people will eventually think it is true.” What is also disturbing is that Buehler has no realistic plan to address the system of poverty and homelessness. Whereas Governor Brown has been working to address poverty and remove barriers from people experiencing homelessness. It is also nice to see that President Obama endorsed Governor Brown.

Rep. Buehler’s website contains many “issues” pages with one common theme: start with a rant against Gov. Brown with no facts or substance, then spout lofty, vague platitudes about “working together” and “solving problems”. How committed is he to addressing Oregon’s problems? According to his voting record, not very. Over the past five years, he has voted against all of the following: statewide access to healthcare, requiring coverage for abortions and contraception, extending gun purchase background checks, prohibiting immigration status requirements, protecting tenants from capricious evictions (thus increasing the population experiencing homelessness), increasing the minimum wage, requiring employers to provide paid sick leave, and establishing seamless voter registration (one of Gov. Brown’s signature accomplishments, by the way). He has a 0% rating from the SEIU and a 93% rating from the NRA. The ACLU gives him a 33% and the Oregon Education Association a dismal 31%. Business and corporate groups consistently rate him in the 90s while environmental groups all rate him 40% or lower.

Knute Buehler is really good at finding marginalized and targeted people who are legitimately frustrated and spinning their stories into his web of lies. What he isn’t good at is actually identifying solutions to Oregon’s problems. He attacks PERS because it’s convenient, ignoring the fact that PERS security and education funding would both be solved by fixing our state’s ridiculous tax laws.

Gov. Brown is a dedicated, creative, passionate public servant. She’s actually interested in putting in the work to solve Oregon’s problems. Rep. Buehler is a self-serving, self-identified “moderate” who cares more about being Governor than being honest. His legislative record shows a callow conservative who votes against women, immigrants, victims of violence, the poor, and the disenfranchised. For all his talk about “fixing education”, he votes against schools.

Don’t be fooled. Knute Buehler may not be a raving lunatic like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC, aka Gollum serving his dark lord 45), but his calm demeanor hides a corporate agenda that will do nothing to make Oregon better.

I also want to give a shout out to the brilliant Stacey Abrams, who is running for Governor of Georgia. Like Brown, she is enduring false attacks from the very racist, homophobic, misogynist, Brian Kemp. Again, we see a woman, and a woman of color who is being attacked for being smart, a woman, and being black–definitely a common theme in the United States.

Call to action: VOTE! Call your senators. Campaign for candidates that support all people, not just white, heterosexual, cis, able bodied men.

In an attempt to be fair to Knute Buehler, I tried repeatedly to call his office and his campaign staff, only to get a voice recording. I left messages, but Mr. Buehler, nor anyone from his campaign got back to me.

45, Subterfuge, and Russia

Love’s Twisted Secret

Forgive my absence, but I have been experiencing such fatigue from 45 that there are days I can barely hold my head up. We seem to awake to a new disaster from 45 every morning, with his late night or early morning tweets.

Where do we even start to unpack the number of lies perpetrated by 45 and his administration? When do we as a nation say ENOUGH! STOP! Clearly, the morally bankrupt GOP are not going to put 45 in check, as he is implementing the pathetic agenda of the Republican party: stripping people of healthcare, fear mongering, normalizing racism, homophobia, and, misogyny. Sadly, if we impeach 45 we are stuck with people that are just as nefarious and just as sociopathic as he is.

I hear and read about the number of distractions by 45 and have come to my own conclusion that these distractions matter just as much as Trump’s connections to the Russians during his campaign. Sadly, we have at least 25% of the population that can’t be bothered with facts or science. The fact that 45 lied about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, the fact that 45 lied about an attack on Sweden, the fact that Kellyanne lied about a fictional Bowling Green massacre and made up a bizarre story that our microwaves are spying on us — none of this seems to be enough for the nation to put these people in check. Where do we go when the leader of the United States outright lies on a daily basis–lies that are so huge that I would think they amount to treason. You know it is bad when even the very conservative Wall Street Journal has had enough of 45 and his lies when they say: “The President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle,” referring to the complete fiction about being wire tapped.

I also want to come back to this attempt at repealing Obamacare which will strip at least 24 million people of health insurance, including my family. What most thinking people have always known, it has become increasingly clear that the resistance around the Affordable Care Act was rooted in racism–that it was a product of that black president.

On to hypocrisy. The always morally corrupt Mitch McConnell, issued a mandate during President Obama’s tenure that the GOP would block any SCOTUS appointment. Regrettably and most embarrassingly for us as a nation, Merrick Garland was not even allowed a hearing. If we follow the GOP’s logic (wow–talk about oxymoronic) then would it not also stand to reason we should not even bother to entertain allowing the horrifically racist, homophobic, misogynist Neil Gorsuch a hearing while 45 is under investigation by the FBI?

Moving on to the myriad connections to Russian and the tampering of the 2016 election. The number of ties of 45 and his family and administration to Russian is more than just problematic–it calls into question our very democracy. And now sadly, I have to divulge a secret that I hope will finally produce an investigation that will bring down the reprehensible and hypocritical GOP.  Even Vice-President Mike Pence has connections to the Russians–connections that some might find less than savory. Pence has paid for sex with none less than the infamous Katya. Yes, Katya who seemed so innocent on RuPaul’s Drag Race, whom I so wanted to win RuPaul’s All Stars slept with Pence for money. Sorry to have outed this secret of Katya’s.

Oh goodness!  I feel a bit dizzy. The fatigue, anxiety, and fear of the past 60 days of 45 being in office allowed my head to be full of confusing facts. For a minute there, I thought Mike Pence was having sex with Katya. Dear Reader, please practice some serious self-care. We need to stay alert, in solidarity, and we need to find some joy and laughter!

Post-Truth: The New Order

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has named Post-Truth  as the word of the year for 2016. Post-Truth is defined as:

Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief: in this era of post-truth politics, it’s easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire. (OED)

The New Order: I do wonder if anyone else has thought to use that framework. I suspect one would have to be familiar with facts and not just feelings to know the answer to that. Yes, one would have to know history. Sadly, we in the United States have demonstrated we cannot be bothered with facts or history. We seem to pride our selves in ignorance, as we show great disdain of science and facts; we steep ourselves in jingoism, racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Given the recent election for President in the United States, it seems abundantly clear that post-truth is in fact the word of the year. What do we do now? My question for those who voted for Trump is when will you take action to put his administration in check? Will you take action when he deports members of the Latino community? Will you take action when he creates a registry for Muslims? Will you create resistance when he tries to criminalize what is protected under the first amendment?  Will you protest when police, health care workers, and all service providers can deny LGBT people necessary services based on Pence’s perverted idea of “Religious Freedom”? When will you take action? How will you explain to our youth that actually it is categorically unacceptable to sexually or physically assault women, when the leader of the free world has tried to normalize it? Will you step up to the plate and help to STOP normalizing racism?

This denial of science and facts in favor of feelings not only seems absurd, but shows great hubris in our collective disregard for history. I’m waiting for climate change deniers to tell me the earth is flat. I fear that if Galileo were alive today, we would once again imprison him. If the Trump administration shapes up the way it looks like it will, he won’t be lonely.

Now is the time for us all to keep vigilant and engage in honest reflection. We need to pay close attention to Trump’s cabinet and the civil rights of all targeted people that are now in peril. I would maintain that all the white people who supported Trump because they are feeling disenfranchised, this is the time for you to keep vigilant; this is not a president who cares about you or your family. Here is evidence to support my claim. Trump has appointed Steven Mnuchin Secretary of the Treasury. You remember Mnuchin: he headed the foreclosure machine in California, profiting from the loss of homes by millions of Americans. Can someone tell me how this is Trump “draining the swamp?”

Call To Action: all of us need to be accountable in demanding facts and not feelings. Your belief in something does not make it true, even if Faux news repeats it every 17 minutes. As the post-truth administration takes power, let us  insist on policy based on facts and established rights, not the whims of the angry, manipulated minority.

Associated Press: An Apology For Hillary ?

How sad and disheartening that the Associated Press (AP) has devolved to the likes of Fox News, where one can “report” a series of lies and present it as news. What is even more profoundly disturbing is that when confronted with the fact that they the AP had no evidence of wrong doing and should offer a retraction, they took a very petulant “I got my hand caught in the cookie jar”defense. Is the AP trying to model itself off of the behavior of Trump?

For those not familiar with the story, some brief background. Last week the AP pitched a story that screamed “Half of the people Hillary Clinton met with as Secretary of State were Clinton Foundation donors!!” The problem? They only looked at two years of her time as Secretary of State. They threw out every meeting she had with anyone they considered a “government official.” Left with 154 PRIVATE CITIZEN meetings (out of over 7000), it’s a wonder that only 85 turned out to be donors to a major philanthropic organization. When major news outlets — including professional Clinton basher the New York Times — called them out and asked for details, the AP refused.

Honestly, I was embarrassed for Stephen Braun and Eileen Sullivan of the AP. Their claims and allegations are not only unfounded but read as though it is a parody from The Onion: “Secretary of State Clinton talked to very important people and even took money for her foundation.” Really? Is it that far of a stretch to think that high profile people talk to other high profile people and ask them for money for a foundation–and by the way, The Clinton Foundation helps to provide medication for more than half of all adults and 75% of children impacted by HIV/AIDS world wide, not insignificant.

In fact, if you take the time to comb through Braun and Sullivan’s article, you will see they have zero evidence to corroborate any wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton. Sadly, when faced with this subterfuge by Braun and Sullivan last Tuesday, they have offered no apology, no repair, and in fact have approached the debacle in a very Trumpian manner.  Perhaps, they are trying to build a wall around Hillary and they will force her grandson Aidan to pay for it? Journalism requires honesty and transparency. How sad that the AP instead opted for innuendo and smear tactics, picking “facts” to prove a flawed thesis.

What is of great concern is that the AP article reads like a bunch of anti-Hillary bumper stickers. There seems to be great intent on behalf of Braun and Sullivan to deliver talking points without any substance, an approach we have seen used by the likes of Fox News. Yes, I admit, it is a low blow to be compared to Fox, and that is where you are now AP (in my best, “but y’are Blanche, y’are!” voice). When did AP start to stand for Appalling Practices?

Dear Hillary: How Very Dare You!

Let me be as candid and transparent as possible: I was a very strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, and until the past four weeks, held out great hope that he would become our next President. Over the course of the past month, I have had to do a great deal of reflecting and ask myself where does this seemingly irrational antipathy for Hillary Clinton come from? Why have I participated in it? After doing some research and looking hard at systemic misogyny, I have had to confront myself with the truth that I bought into a narrative about Hillary Clinton that has been produced, packaged, and perpetuated by mostly the GOP with the help of many democrats and independents.

This narrative is a 30-year-old vilification of a woman who is bright, independent, wealthy, and powerful — a woman who asks for what she wants and needs. How very dare you, Ms. Clinton? How dare you have a mind of your own? How dare you be bright and powerful? How dare you ask for what you want and need? Don’t you know these rights are still exclusively for white, Christian, cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual men?

My research indicates that the reality — the facts (I realize facts are immaterial when talking to many Trump supporters) — are that Hillary Clinton is one of the most honest politicians tracked by the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checking project Politifact. I would also call upon Jill Abramson’s piece in the Guardian. Most of you probably know Abramson from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Abramson writes:

As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.

Members of the press, in their misguided attempt to be “balanced”, love to point out that we face a presidential contest between the two least-popular candidates ever. What they fail to do is analyze their own complicity in blindly adhering to the cartoon version of Hillary Clinton. Trump is unpopular — even with many Republicans who weakly support him — because of his stated positions. Secretary Clinton is unpopular largely because of an aggressive campaign of fictions and slander. That campaign has succeeded largely because of systemic misogyny.

Journalist Michael Arnovitz points out in his article Thinking About Hillary–A Plea for Reason (I strongly recommend his piece) that propaganda around Hillary’s “dishonest” nature stems from the pablum written by conservative writer William (I can’t be concerned with facts or evidence) Safire. Safire wrote the 1996 article Blizzard of Lies in which he vilifies and demonizes Hillary as a “congenital liar” without any evidence to support his claims. (How’s that for irony?) What I find profoundly sad is how quickly and how easily I — and so many Americans — bought into this false and misogynistic narrative. This tragically illustrates  how systemic sexism/misogyny is: how it is in the water we drink, the air we breathe, in every fiber we wear.

In fact, most of the resistance to Hillary initially was about how “smug” she was in pushing that “Universal Health Care” agenda. How dare she want all people to have health insurance–why that means that health care is a community health problem–there she goes again, with a mind of her own! Furthermore, apparently she was not behaving as a First Lady should. What the hell is that? How should a First Lady behave? The intense misogyny is too overwhelming to ignore here, and sadly, we are all implicated in this system of oppression. Just this past June, Hillary was shredded by the media for the Armani jacket she wore. Really? The day she was announced as the Democratic Nominee for President, it was a picture of her husband that made the front page of the paper. This is some intense sexism at work. Did anyone ask what Bill Clinton was wearing and who designed it?

Sadly, any time there is a claim of sexism at play, people roll their eyes as though such a thing does not exist, because women, women of color, people of color, LGBT folk, all of the intersecting identities of all targeted communities are always under suspicion. We are disbelieved disproportionately for asking to be treated the same way our white, heterosexual, Christian, cisgender counterparts are treated. All of a sudden being treated equally becomes “special rights.” So say those within the dominant narrative and power structure.

While I have never been a fan of David Brooks, he actually was able to offer some reflection and repair work on Friday’s NPR commentary with  E.J. Dionne. Brooks made the claim that Hillary is too guarded (why wouldn’t she be?).  Kudos to E.J. Dionne for pointing out the double standard to Brooks, that he would not make the same claim about a male candidate for President. Brooks connected and agreed that this was a sexist statement.

What I find profoundly sad is the blatant double standard of how we individually and collectively punish women who seek power, as opposed to how we reward men for the same ambition. As Arnovitz notes in his article:

What I see is that the public view of Hillary Clinton does not seem to be correlated to “scandals” or issues of character or whether she murdered Vince Foster. No, the one thing that seems to most negatively and consistently affect public perception of Hillary is any attempt by her to seek power. Once she actually has that power her polls go up again. But whenever she asks for it her numbers drop like a manhole cover…Even NBC news, looking back over decades of their own polls, stated that, “she’s struggled to stay popular when she’s on the campaign trail.” If this has nothing to do with gender, then wouldn’t the same thing happen to men when they campaign? But it doesn’t. Why not?

When I try to ask people for specific examples of why they “hate” Hillary, or how has she been dishonest, all I get is “everyone knows she is,” or “that’s just the way I feel.”  These two answers are problematic in so many ways. Regardless, this sentiment is testament to how effective the messaging/propaganda from Republicans has been over the past two decades. All I am asking is this: can we slow down and think critically and not accept without caution or question what is presented to us as the narrative of Hillary Clinton? Can we also allow for the fact that she has made mistakes and more importantly that she grows and learns from her mistakes.

I know I have gone from a true supporter of Bernie Sanders to an apathetic supporter of Hillary to now an excited and enthusiastic supporter of our first female President. It’s certainly true that she isn’t as progressive a candidate as I would like. Neither was Bernie and his stand on guns. Neither is absurd long-shot Jill Stein and her strange anti-science positions. That’s the reality of American politics in 2016.

I truly believe that Hillary and her platform are beneficial to targeted communities: people of color, people in poverty, people with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ people, and all of the intersecting identities thereof. She is a hard-working, fundamentally honest person for whom — as she so nicely framed it — “the service part has always come easier than the public part.” I welcome people’s input here. All I ask is that you put in check any misogynistic comments and please have evidence to support your assertions.

Every election matters, but this one has even deeper resonance than most. Please remember to vote!

 

Dr. Monica Wehby, the Hollow Candidate

The 2014 mid-term elections have conservatives salivating, and the Tea Party holds out hope they can gets folks to drink their rancid brew. With many Congressional Democrats retiring and a handful of red-state Democrats seen as highly vulnerable, the GOP is working hard to retake the Senate. If they succeed, President Obama’s final two years in office will make his first six look like a productive picnic. Despite the friendly playing field, conservative operatives are trying not to take anything for granted, noting the many deeply flawed candidates that have cost them probable seats in the past two cycles. (Remember these charm free folks: Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle?) To hedge their bets, they’re looking at less likely pickups and dumping huge amounts of money on some long-shots. The amount of money being poured into GOP hopeful Monica Wehby’s campaign is disturbing. I suspect there are many countries that run on budgets that are much less than what the Koch brothers are pouring into campaigns such as Wehby’s.

The support for Wehby is perplexing. She’s running against Senator Jeff Merkley, the first man to receive the Marilyn Epstein Pro-Choice Champion Award from the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, who is finishing his first term. He’s popular, effective, and honest, but as a Freshman may be vulnerable. Despite the conventional wisdom, Oregon is NOT a blue state, but rather a very purple state with a slight Democratic edge in statewide races. The Koch Brothers and their ilk (The top 1%) have decided that this makes Oregon a potential pickup, so they found themselves a candidate.

Sadly, they did a worse job of vetting their pick than Sen. John McCain (R – Angrytown) did when he chose half-term half-wit Sarah Palin as a running mate. Dr. Monica Wehby is a surgeon and a political newcomer. In a “throw the bums out” year with Congressional approval ratings at an all-time low, this telegenic candidate seems promising. Until she tries to pick a position on, well, anything. Sadly, a number of advertisements against Senator Merkley  are already in full swing.

Before winning the GOP primary, Wehby made headlines for her history of stalking ex-boyfriends. She spun that as proof that she’s a determined person who would work hard to get what she wants in the Senate. The two different and independent stalking cases are pretty serious and my first thought was: “Oy! I only hope she does not have a gun on her.”  She also gained some notoriety for fleeing press conferences and debates once she’d used up her carefully crafted talking points. When pressed about LGBT rights in a TV interview, she kept talking about marriage equality, even though the question was about anti-discrimination laws. She says she’s pro-life but would support a woman’s right to choose while celebrating laws like “partial birth” abortion bans. She says she supports equal pay for women while saying that laws that actually enforce equal pay are bad because they would make employers hire more men to avoid lawsuits. Really. Stammering, stunned, and wide-eyed, she clearly isn’t comfortable taking a position that hasn’t been fed to her by the Kochs and their cronies. Again, I am reminded of Charles Durning’s performance of Dance A Little Sidestep from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Suddenly that Koch money is showing up on the airwaves. Wehby’s new ads are everywhere, trying to make her sound like a smart fiscal conservative. She attacks Sen. Merkley for voting to raise the debt ceiling and for opposing a balanced budget amendment. With a homey but deeply flawed analogy between the Federal budget and household money management, she manages to avoid any real fiscal facts. Raising the debt ceiling was critical to avoiding another, worse financial meltdown if the US were seen to ignore its obligations. The debt that Sen. Merkley wisely voted to keep paying is mostly the result of the fiscal ineptitude of George W. Bush and two pointless, costly wars. The balanced budget amendment is a nightmarish concoction that would hamstring the government. Economists both liberal and conservative decry it as a disaster that should be avoided at all costs. As an experienced legislator, Sen. Merkley knows this. I continue to be shocked and mortified that such falsehoods are allowed to be aired!  I know that in Georgia the Koch money is spreading lies and attacking Democrat hopeful Michelle Nunn. Koch money is fueling elections across the entire country.

It’s clear that Dr. Wehby is intended to be the anti-Merkley. That’s certainly true. Sen Merkley is an experienced, talented legislator with a deep understanding of the issues and a true passion for the needs of Oregon’s citizens. Monica Wehby is a shallow political puppet pursuing a Senate seat just because. Oregon’s choice this November is clear.

Update: Wow! I’m rather appalled and nonplussed to see Ben West doing a commercial supporting Wehby. Mr. West, I’m curious as to how you would support Wehby when she was NOT pro-marriage equality until after it was a fait accompli?  I’m also curious that she was not at Gay Pride nor has she attended a Basic Rights Oregon function?  In the commercial you assert that she is for all families, but it seems rather obvious that she is only for white wealthy families, and now you her token gay friend.

Mr. Sanford Hikes Back to Washington…

“Which way to the Trail?”

Sadly, South Carolina has proved yet again how out of touch with reality voters can be.  Thus far, Mark Sanford’s legacy to the world is abandoning his family and his elected job as GOVERNOR OF A STATE while using taxpayer time and money to visit his girlfriend in Argentina. After a mysterious absence, Sanford lied and said he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” creating a new euphemism for adultery and abuse of power.

Since resigning his office in disgrace, he’s been largely absent from the news — other than that little matter of trespassing on his ex-wife’s property and violating a court order. Apparently bored — or feeling like he’d been out of office long enough that a tepid “oops, sorry!” was enough — he decided to run for his old seat in the U.S. House, SC District 1. Despite his being away from that office for over a decade and his controversial past, Sanford refused to complete most candidate position questionnaires and based his campaign largely on being a Republican in a very Republican district.

Frankly, I don’t care about his personal life. The party that just re-elected him ought to, given their whole “family values” pitch and the fact that House Republicans impeached President Clinton for a much less egregious lapse.

What everyone should care about is his clearly sloppy attitude toward public service: funding his activities with tax dollars and abandoning the public trust placed in his office for personal pleasure.  Is this really who you want to have represent you in Congress?  Maybe so in SC-1, since this is the same state that voted for Jim DeMint!

The fact that Sanford won by the narrowest margin for a Republican in his District in decades is small comfort. That just underscores how gerrymandered districts and partisanship trump common sense and true public service.  My public service announcement for all is: Don’t drink the Tea at the Party in South Carolina.

Regnerus Revisited: What’s hiding in his closet?

Regular readers will remember Mark Regnerus, the ethically challenged researcher from the University of Texas at Austin. I need to thank my friends Scott Rose and LGBT ally Devon for their vigilance around this nefarious man and the far reaching impact of his lies (flawed research). His “New Family Structures Study” appeared in the journal Social Science Research and argued that children raised by LGBT parents suffered negative outcomes. His statistical methods were deeply flawed (at best) and his conclusions so tenuous that even he could provide only the flimsiest defenses when challenged. It is pretty clear that the Witherspoon Institute, the homophobic far-right think tank that underwrote his research had a very political agenda.

Now it looks like Regnerus and his funders will do everything they can to hide that agenda. Journalist John Becker is trying to get to the bottom of things and has so far been blocked at every turn. The editor of the journal, James Wright, is on the faculty of the University of Central Florida, making his communications subject to public records requests. When Becker filed such requests, the University denied them, maintaining that the communications belong to the publisher, Elsevier. Becker’s attorneys are filing suit, arguing that the article belongs to the publisher — which is more than happy to have it cited and quoted widely — but that any of Wright’s communications belong to the University.

Why all the secrecy? The study was rushed to publication in just six weeks; papers usually take months, often more than a year, to review before publication. An independent audit determined that the review process was so sloppy that the “paper should never have been published.” An investigation by the American Independent makes it clear the Witherspoon Institute wanted some damning data to include in their brief to the Supreme Court opposing marriage equality in the Prop 8 and DOMA hearings.

So there you have it. Two professors — a “researcher” and an editor — cooking a study to meet a foregone conclusion and rushing it to print to meet a well-funded political agenda. Two universities supporting that work and publication. Flawed and dangerous data spreading lies about the LGBT community to influence critical court cases. Most people have rejected the publication, but it is out there for bigots to wield however they like while Regnerus and Wright suffer nothing for their abuse of power–what strange bedfellows-producing and publishing lies for money.  I believe many might just call these two whores!

Number 4 Bigot of the Year 2012: The Catholic Church

Number 4 Bigot of 2012

Regular TSM readers know that I have real suspicion of organized religion and its role in privileging dominant forces in the power structure, thus sustaining a white, heteronormative discourse. While some denominations have inched toward inclusion and social justice, the Catholic church leadership of the 21st Century has abandoned its traditions of caring in favor of narrow political dogma and oppression–completely abandoning any dedication to social justice. This year, the hate filled voices of Pope Benedict XVI and his bishops have proved that more loudly than ever.

Not content to stick with centuries old traditions of misogyny and homophobia, the bishops danced a cruel jig across the lines of church and state, issuing proclamations about candidates and electoral issues willy nilly. Some, like Newark Archbishop John Myers, went so far as to suggest that priests refuse communion to parishioners who support marriage equality, reproductive choice, or progressive candidates–my, Who Would Jesus Hate?

The church spent the year emptying its venomous purse as well. The single largest contributor to anti-equality campaigns in the four states that voted on marriage equality this fall was the Catholic Church. It spent over $2 MILLION fighting fairness. When added to money contributed by the Catholic group Knights of Columbus and the National Organization for Marriage, a church ally that uses local congregations to raise funds, Catholic contributions exceeded $6 million. How much poverty could that fight? How many lives could have been saved instead of harmed?

Just to add insult to injury, the Pope used his biggest speech of the year, the Christmas Message, to spew a little more homophobia and transphobia.

There is no denying the crisis that threatens it (the family) to its foundations — especially in the Western world. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child — essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.

Again I ask, who would Jesus hate?  I don’t want to dismiss the progressive Catholics that exist, but I feel it necessary to remind everyone that every time you tithe, a portion of that tithe goes to Rome and the Pope.

Sadly, there are a number of homophobia dishonorable mentions this year. High on the list, nearly taking the crown from Benedict’s head, is the Boy Scouts of America, which pretended to consider its anti-gay policies and then doubled down on them. Fake researcher Mark Regnerus and his “gay families are harmful” study funded by NOM and its Catholic allies wraps up this unholy trinity in a foul shroud.

Additional dishonorable mention goes to NOM itself and to the ironically named Family Research Council. Both spent huge amounts of time and energy spewing homophobia and pretending to offer “balanced” views to common sense positions of equality. Happily, they lost just about every issue they supported.  So much fear, misogyny, and homophobia.  I guess it is true, the squeaky wheel (Pope Benny the Rat) wants the grease.