LUV News on the Banksters

To view our mass media, you would think the banksters didn’t rule the nation, among the top renters of our elections (Glenn Greenwald points out this morning that the largest ever recipient of bankster donations, President Obama, after saving the banksters with billions in government bailouts coupled with trillions in government loans to repair the losses from their scams gone awry, “there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.”

Here‘s a slide show of pictures of the Bank of America HQ protest yesterday, that may as well be classified TOP SECRET as far as the mass media are concerned.

Since 1973, when wages peaked in the Land of the Free, we have been sliding toward third world status, with the rich getting immensely richer, and the poor getting immensely poorer. It takes thousands of poor people to create a billionaire, and there are more billionaires than ever before.

So with more and more poor, many can no longer afford college tuition, and our businesses are going abroad in search of educated people, who will work for less than educated Americans. You would think there aren’t millions of people in this country looking for work, the way our corporations say they can’t find anybody and are forced to import labor.  —Jack Balkwill

Mario Piperni on Gay Repugs

What the Hell Is the Problem With Gay Republicans?

May 10, 2012 By mario piperni

I’ve never understood Log Cabin Republicans – gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under the law. There is a self-loathing quality to it all. R. Clarke Cooper is one such person. In fact he is the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans and yesterday he found reason to bitch about a President who had just expressed his wish that gays be granted the same civil liberties as heterosexuals and be allowed to marry the person they love.

That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous. Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.

That is pretty screwed up. As a conservative, Cooper is more than entitled to criticize Obama on a number of issues he disagrees with – be it his handling of the economy or his views on abortion. I get that part. What I don’t get is how a member of the LGBT community, conservative or liberal, can choose to criticize this President at a time when he’s just declared his full support for marriage equality. It’s idiotic and a sign that there is something about conservatism (at least in some many) that shuts down the cognitive, rational part of the brain.

Obama speaks in favor of marriage equality and he is called “offensive and callous” by a gay man. Amazing. This is the same Obama who repealed Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell and…

• Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — the first positive federal LGBT legislation in the nation’s history.
• Reversed US refusal to sign the UN Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
• Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees in 2009 and, further, in 2010
• Lifted the HIV Entry Ban
• Committed to ensuring that federal housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity
• Banned job discrimination based on gender identity throughout the Federal government (the nation’s largest employer)
• Instructed HHS to require any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds (virtually all hospitals) to allow LGBT visitation rights
• Extended domestic violence protections to LGBT victims
• Endorsed the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools improvement Act targeting discrimination and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity
• Appointed the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench
• Nominated the first open lesbian US attorney
• Successfully fought for UN accreditation of IGLHRC (the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission) — against Republican attempts to block it
• Hosted the first LGBT Pride Month Celebration in White House history
• Named open transgender appointees (the first President ever to do so)
• Launched a muscular, game-changing campaign for global LGBT equality, highlighted by the Secretary of State in a half-hour address to the United Nations

And that’s just a tenth of the accomplishments from this President and his administration in favor of LGBT equality (see the full list here) and yet fools like Cooper choose to criticize Obama and instead promote the candidacy of Mitt Romney – a man who refuses to recognize civil unions and who said he would sign a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. A freakin’ constitutional amendment! And this is the guy a gay man will vote for next November.

Pathetic and ridiculous.