Drama Queens React to White House Changes Re: LGBT Agenda on Website

OK so breaking news all over the queer blogosphere last week - Obama is backpedalling on LGBT Equal rights!! Why? Because the section on the White House website has been reduced to a few lines instead of paragraphs! "Oh no he's turning his back on" "us he just wanted our vote" "whine whine bitch moan".

Please seriously shut the f&*k up already you screaming drama queens. We've got one of the worst recessions in the history of the country, millions unemployed and uninsured, auto industry and financial sector in shambles, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention trouble on the border with Mexico and their drug violence, and the man has been in office 100 days and you're already bitching? You are upset that he said "one sentence" about the Hate Crimes act passing. What did you want in the middle of a Swine Flu pandemic, a one hour speech? HELLO, the LGBT adenda, in the midst of all the other turmoil the Nation is in right now, is at about the right place on his list of priorities. Get you head out of your ass and keep watching. And I'd really bite my tongue until there is proof that there has been some change of LGBT equal rights policy from Obama, as I am not expecting to see any. I expect him to deliver. It's far too early to say he will abandon his promises. 

Even about Don't Ask Don't Tell. 

Which is the latest hot button issue. "He won't DO anything!" they whine.

Wrong screaming bitches! He says he will. But he wants to do it with Congressional action. That takes time. Again, changing this nearly 25 year old policy will not happen overnight. Not if we want it done in a a permanent, lasting way that will not be able to be stricken down the next time a right wing President takes office.

There is one thing I know about Obama - he's a Constitutional scholar, he does things in a way that will not be able to be stricken down, that have concrete legal standing. 

It's been what, 114 days into his Presidency...I've never seen such demanding people in my life. It's kind of like the people who want a crash diet, their instantaneous results, only to have it all come back later. Maybe Obama could do something quickly about this, but if it is not well thought out, it could be repealed or overturned. Do you want immediate change, or lasting change?

Immigrants, Crime, and the Media: Double Standard?

This is reprinted from a bulletin post from The Project Economic Refugee:

If an immigrant commmits a crime... it's all over the news. But if an immigrant does something positive (which is far more likely) or if the immigrant did nothing wrong but is nevertheless in deportation proceedings and is a mother or father of a U.S. soldier fighting in Iraq, why is that NOT being reported (specially on Lou Dobbs or Bill O'Reilly's Show)? Or how about the stories of families being torn apart because one family member that did nothing wrong except escape hunger and/or violence but is still is being deported? hmmmmm.....

"Separating Fact From Fiction About Immigrants and Crime"

Posted by Walter Ewing, Immigration Policy Center at 2:55 PM on January 12, 2009.


Harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.


Originally appeared on: http://www. alternet. org/blogs/immigration/119276/
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The perennially hot, and inflammatory, question of whether or not immigration is related to crime has yielded front-page stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times over the past two days. In different ways, each of these stories highlights the extent to which the myth of a supposed link between crime and immigration has long been based on emotion rather than fact. Although study upon study over the past century has demonstrated that immigration is not associated with more crime, the "myth of immigrant criminality" persists.


On Sunday, the Washington Post ran a story about how two high-profile murders recently committed by undocumented immigrants in Maryland's Montgomery County, together with a rising number of "serious crimes" in the county, have provoked fear among officials and residents, prompting new proposals to have police officers check the immigration status of suspects in violent crimes. However, as the story points out, police do not know how much of the recent rise in serious crimes, "if any, is attributable to illegal immigrants." Yet, to many people, the lack of evidence in this regard is irrelevant. As a defense attorney quoted in the story points out: "You're talking about the fear that crime evokes.

"

In a different vein, the New York Times today ran a story on the rising number of federal prosecutions for immigration offenses [as opposed to actual violent crimes], which the Department of Justice ostensibly has pursued with increased vigor as part of the government's broader counterterrorism strategy. But, the story notes, while immigration prosecutions have skyrocketed over the past five years, "white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent." One might question the wisdom of devoting more and more resources to the prosecution of undocumented immigrants for "illegal entry" at the expense of, say, arms traffickers who actually do have an adverse impact on public safety.


As the Brookings Institution concluded in a report (http://www. brookings. edu/events/2008/0925_media_immigration. aspx) last September, "when immigration is associated with crime, crisis or controversy, it makes news." But anecdote is not a substitute for fact, especially when it comes to public policy. Numerous national and state-level studies (http://www. immigrationpolicy. org/images/File/factcheck/SettingtheRecordStraightonImmigrantsandCrime9-10-08. pdf) over the past hundred years have found immigrants are less likely than the native-born to commit crimes or be in prison, and high rates of immigration are not associated with higher crime rates. Harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

Screw the Republicans Then!

They've been nothing but stumbling blocks in President Obama's Administration already. Sadly, this is the reality Preisdent Obama faces in Washington D.C.

While he may want to make bipartisan compromises, and reach across the aisle, clearly they do not.

Even the third Republican appointed to his cabinet, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire admitted he could not let his party politics not affect his role, and that in the best interest of Obama's Presidency, he would bow out.

Today, The House passed the final version of the economic stimulus bill 246-183. NO REPUBLICANS voted for the bill.

Fine then...we tried to work with them but fortunately, we can function without them.

But don't say this President didn't TRY(unlike the last President, who had no interest in working with the opposing political party)!

Why I didn't call in Gay Today etc. etc.

I didn't call in Latino a few years back (when there was the Day without a mexican or whatever) and I didn't call in Gay today. At first, in the heat of the Prop 8 protests it sounded like a good idea. Then reason sank in.

Truthfully one of my reasons, and it is not my philosophical one, is purely selfish.

I don't have sick time. It comes out of my PTO (Paid Time Off), which I would rather take for vacations etc.

But the other reason, the philosophical rationale behind this, the feeling in my gut is that I just don't really think sick-outs such as this are all that effective.

Kind of like the "Don't buy gas on a certain day" things.

We still buy gas the next day right? I mean, we still go back to work the next day too?

What would have been far more effective, and I am guilty of not doing this, is to have done what Harvey Milk urged his workers to do in Milk in the face of Prop 6, when the initiative to outlaw gay teachers in California was on the ballot: COME OUT.

Before Election Day 08, we should have come out to everyone we know. Say "hey! I am gay! This affects me! You are going to hurt MY life." I really should have done MORE of that at my workplace and to family members. They all "know", but I think they needed Prop 8 to have a face.

But it's too late for that now, right? So what now then?

Well, I say instead of "calling in gay", I would recommend everyone make a $20 donation to LAMBDA LEGAL. Lambda Legal is the nation's oldest and largest legal organization working for the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV/AIDS. They have been at the forefront of almost every pivotal court challenge on behalf of LGBT rights.

Now that my emotions have calmed down, I realize, it really does lie with the courts now. The marches were great, the activism is empowering, but that won't change laws. Lawyers and courts will.

Just my 200 cents.

More Racial Profiling from the U.S. State Department: Mexican-Americans Denied of U.S. Passport

You know, while there are many reasons to love my Country (that's the U.S. of A.), I increasingly find reasons to despise and hate the U.S. Government. Here is just one more reason why I am disappointed and disgusted with the U.S. Federal government:

No Passports, No Freedom of Movement for Many Mexican-Americans

By Roberto Lovato, New America Media. Posted September 23, 2008.

Source: http://www. alternet. org/immigration/99977/

Thousands of people of Mexican descent were subjected to unmeetable demands to prove that they are citizens of the US before getting a passport.

Texas native David Hernandez, a former U.S. Marine who served his country in different parts of the world, can no longer see the world after his country denied him a passport.

Hernandez and other residents living in and around the U.S.-Mexico border are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging that, in denying them passports, the U.S. State Department is engaging in a new kind of racial discrimination:

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