just plain angry
some weeks start off better than others. this one started with massive casualties in both iraq and afghanistan, obama once again lying about “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the realization that not only are we not moving forward as women in america, we are moving backwards–the recession has apparently made it easier to fire men and hire lower paid women in their place.
i could have just gone back to bed after the 5 a.m. news, it still being dark and all, but what would have been the point? once you know what’s going on, can you really ignore it? (if you aren’t a republican or a blue dog democrat, that is?)
here’s what i learned before the sun came up:
our soldiers in afghanistan are working to wipe out the opium trade.
wtf? you say?
seven soldiers and three american DEA agents were killed in a helicopter crash, no enemy fire involved.
here’s the backstory: the helicopter was on a drug mission because the obama administration is focusing on wiping out the opium trade in afghanistan.
got that? we are getting our troops killed to stop drugs in afghanistan. (now we have been doing that in columbia and mexico for years, but that’s a different story, apparently.)
here’s my response to this move by the obama administration: just say no.
then there was the horror story from iraq: a series of car bombs killed 155 people and injured more than 500. among the dead, 35 babies from a nursery.
babies burned alive. think about it for a second, please.
why is it the only military personnel who have come home from iraq since obama became president are those discharged under DADT?
which brings me to news item number three: remember when the president said DADT should be overturned? in case you forgot when he said it, he just gave a big speech about it at HRC two weeks ago. two weeks ago.
now i am still waiting for obama to do something (anything) about queer civil rights. but even i was stunned that a few days after the do-nothing congress actually managed to pass the Matthew Shepard Act which obama had promised to sign immediately but still hasn’t, obama’s justice department was busy trying to stop a lawsuit being filed over DADT by–wait for it–the Log Cabin Republicans –the queer republican political group.
now i am a long-time critic of the log cabin boys. their mission statement is about making the republican party more inclusive. how can anyone take that seriously?
but even the proverbial stopped clock is right twice a day.
here’s the log cabin press release:
Obama Administration Aggressively Defends “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in Court
UNUSUAL MOVE GOES BEYOND GOVERNMENT’S “DUTY TO DEFEND”
(Los Angeles, CA) – In a move consistent with other contradictory behavior on LGBT issues, the Obama administration has directed its Justice Department to file an extraordinary motion to get Log Cabin Republicans’ lawsuit against the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law thrown out of court, despite a federal judge’s ruling that it can proceed. The 11th-hour move for interlocutory appeal, which seeks to stay proceedings and block discovery, was surprisingly formulated at the same time that President Obama was reassuring LGBT activists that he still firmly opposes the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner earlier this month in Washington, DC.
“After President Obama clearly stated that his highest priority for the LGBT community was to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, it is quite troubling to see this ‘about face,’” said Terry W. Hamilton, national Chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans. “This aggressive move by President Obama’s Justice Department seriously undermines not only his commitment to our community and to the defense of our nation, but it also casts doubt on the motives of those at the highest levels of LGBT leadership in Washington who refuse to criticize the President over this double speak.”
The case in question, Log Cabin Republicans vs. the United States of America, is the first direct challenge to the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law filed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas. It is also the only contemporary legal challenge to this law to succeed at the district court level. One of the injured parties named in the case, Alexander Nicholson, is a former U.S. Army Human Intelligence Collector who speaks multiple languages, including Arabic, and who was fired because of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law just six months after 9/11. Another injured party in the case, listed simply as ‘John Doe’ currently serves in the Armed Forces and would face a discharge if his identity were revealed.
“These continued obstructions launched by the Obama Justice Department are as insulting to the LGBT community as they are a serious threat to our military readiness,” remarked Log Cabin Republicans spokesman Charles T. Moran. “The constant delay tactics and attempts to have this case hurriedly dismissed without any discovery or argument would be a disservice to all those who have been involuntarily and abruptly fired under this law.”
District Court Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District Court of California will consider the defendant’s motion on November 16th, 2009. The law firm of White & Case LLP has been representing Log Cabin Republicans since the case was initially filed over 4 ½ years ago.
how much of a liar is president obama going to turn out to be? it would seem that he might actually be using dick cheney and karl rove and FOX news as flaks to make him look less dastardly than he actually is. apparently obama thinks that being the smoothest talker in the western world can get him anything at all. (it got him a nobel prize, didn’t it?)
and yet, he lies. not about the stuff joe wilson was complaining about during the speech to congress–obama wasn’t lying about that. but obama told us one thing during the campaign: troops out of iraq, ending DADT, ending torture, closing gitmo, following the rule of law pre-bush/cheney.
and then five seconds into his term he’s doing something totally different: supporting torture, still practicing rendition, sending 27,000 more troops to afghanistan (apparently to curtail the opium trade), not one soldier, sailor, marine or national guardsman has been brought home from iraq and the president has filed a brief equating same sex marriage with incest, bestiality and pedophila and now is trying to stop gay republicans from filing suit against a discriminatory policy that the president has repeatedly said should be ended. as recently as two weeks ago in a speech lauded by ass-kissing queers everywhere.
remember, the sun hasn’t even risen on the day yet when all this news comes in. and then there is the coup de grace, which is a business news item: men are suffering more from the recession because when men are let go, employers who are re-hiring are hiring women to fill the places because women don’t get paid as much. in addition, the jobs in manufacturing, and so forth–the union jobs, as they were described on NPR–were men’s jobs, not women’s. and then the little cherry on the sundae of this particular news item was this:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Female chief executives earned just 58 percent of what their male counterparts did in 2008, and their compensation packages were slashed three times as much as their male peers, according to a survey released today.
that’s some glass ceiling. even in non-corporate american women make between 70 and 77 cents on the dollar.
monday mornings are when one is most likely to have a heart attack. is there any wonder?
thank goodness the phillies are in the world series or there would be absolutely nothing to look forward to.—vab
