I Didn't Say It ...

Raymond Buckley, former Democratic party chair on Pete Buttigieg’s candidacy:

“As we move forward, what is fascinating about this year is that while in theory people support marriage equality, you’re seeing it with Chasten [Mr. Buttigieg’s husband] and Pete. And the visual from last weekend — for it to be absolutely normal as the spouse to come out, hug, embrace, kiss, hold hands — for the generation over 30, that was an amazing thing to witness. I talked to some folks in New Hampshire who are in their 20s, and it was nothing to them. Because their adult life has been marriage equality. They can’t imagine the sort of sense that we all felt. But there was still a tremendous sense of progress and pride with that picture.”

It is something I never thought I’d see, a gay man running for president, so it is kind of thrilling that it’s happening now. It gives me hope that there are more of us who are inclusive and accepting and understanding than there are on that other side.

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Kirsten Gillibrand, vowing to only nominate judges who will protect Roe v Wade:

“As a candidate, Donald _____ said he would punish women for accessing abortion, and as president, he’s made good on that promise by stacking the Supreme Court with anti-choice extremists Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Republicans nationwide push these bills because they want a court ruling that guts abortion access nationwide, forever. We simply cannot let that happen. The decision about if and when to start a family should be made by a woman and her doctor — not Republican legislators, not Brett Kavanaugh and certainly not Donald _____.”

Funny about _____ because I imagine that, with some digging, you’d find a woman he got pregnant and then paid for her abortion.

Of course, his evangelicals hypocritical base wouldn’t mind that.

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George Clooney, on Brunei backing down from its death by stoning penalty for gay sex:

“This is a huge step forward after a giant leap backwards. It promises that the citizens of Brunei won’t be executed for being gay. It also sends a very crucial message to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia that there is a cost for enacting these laws. And the cost isn’t folks boycotting their hotels. The cost is that corporations and big banks won’t do business with you.”

Clearly, money talks, and you punch folks in their bank account and they bend.

Boycotts work.

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Madonna, playing victim:

“People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough. So they just keep trying to find a hook to hang their beef about me being alive on. Now I’m fighting ageism, now I’m being punished for turning 60.”

The only person trying to silence Madonna is Madonna playing the victim.

Remember this is a multi-millionaire complaining about her life and how people have tried to shut her up.

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Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, lying like his boss:

"Look, the facts speak for themselves: America is the world's leader in caring for the environment."

The way this administration can simply open their mouths and lie is frightening.

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Bill Maher, on Real Time, on Barr and _____:

“Bill Barr is so far up _____’s ass he bumped into Hannity. So Barr went before the Senate this week, on Wednesday, and the Democrats looked all so happy after they gave him a good grilling. But I think they missed the big picture. _____ is still President and the big gotcha was they got Barr to commit perjury, which is apparently some old-timey law about lying being wrong. Nancy Pelosi said, ‘That’s a crime and I’m going to report it to…oh, yeah.’ See this is the problem when the guy who is supposed to be enforcing the law is the guy who’s breaking the law. Democrats don’t seem to get it. You know, ‘It’s in the rules,’ is not an argument that works on Donald _____. You’re playing Monopoly with a hyena. When it bites you and shits on the board, saying ‘It’s not your turn’ really doesn’t work.”

Hey Democrats? Do something.

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Ben Domenech, Meghan McCain’s husband, Federalist publisher and conservative commentator, Tweet raging at Seth Meyers like a certain Asshat-In-Chief after McCain and Meyers had an exchange on Late Night over comments by Representative Ilhan Omar:

“I see that @sethmeyers, the untalented piece of sh*t who only has his job because he regularly gargled Lorne Michaels’ balls, went after my wife tonight with his idiotic anti-Semitic bullsh*t. Seth is an awful person who is known within the industry for how terrible he is. He is a monumental a**hole who is utterly unfunny. He deserves the mockery he receives from all the people who laugh at him. Here is proof that white men get ahead despite their obvious lack of talent: it’s @sethmeyers, who would beg for a third of the viewers at @TheView. He’s awful, untalented, and a perfect definition of a cuck”

Wow. Someone is angry and childish and stupid, and this totally explains why McCain married him: he’s just like her father [sarcasm font].

Domenech later deleted those asshatted Tweets and apologized:

“I love my wife. I apologize for rage tweeting about how Seth Meyers treated her. I don't like him, I think he's a hack, but I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry to anyone I offended.”

Sound like Ben is an angry little hack himself. Seth Meyers disagreed with Precious Meghan and her husband behaved like _____. Again, Daddy would be so proud.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Seth Meyers, on _____’s plan to outsmart Democratic House members—“I think I know more than they know.”—who have promised to investigate him once they take the majority:

“No, no you don’t. _____’s like a Gotham City gangster who thinks he can outsmart Batman — and ends up dangling from a gargoyle. Grifters always think they can outsmart everyone else. And that’s what _____ is. A grifter who surrounds himself with other grifters. Right now, as we speak, _____ is being sued in Federal court for defrauding investors. He just appointed an acting attorney general who advised a firm accused of scamming customers and his candidate for Senate in Florida, the state’s governor, was involved in one of the largest Medicaid frauds in American history.”

I’d love to see him dangling from a gargoyle.

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Emmanuel Macron, French president, taking a shot at _____ over his comments that he’s a “nationalist”:

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values.”

Bu you’re talking of _____ and we all know he has no morals.

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Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, also taking a dig at _____ for not wanting to het his rug wet:

"As we sit here in the rain, thinking how uncomfortable we must be these minutes as our suits get wet and our hair gets wet and our shoes get wet, I think it's all the more fitting that we remember on that day, in Dieppe, the rain wasn't rain, it was bullets."

_____ wouldn’t know from bullets, either, since he claimed to have bad feet and so he couldn’t go to war, but could play football.

Still, good on Prime Minister McCutie for the shade.

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_____, on his choice of Matthew Whitaker to replace Jeff Sessions:

“I don’t know Matt Whitaker. Matt Whitaker worked for Jeff Sessions, and he was always extremely highly thought of, and he still is. But I didn’t know Matt Whitaker. He worked for Attorney General Sessions.”

First off, it should concern the entire country that _____ appointed a man as acting attorney general that he claims he doesn’t even know. I mean, why not appoint me, then?

Plus, as we know that was a Big Fat Lie from a Big Fat Liar; on Fox & Friends in October, _____said:

“I can tell you Matt Whitaker is a great guy. I know Matt Whitaker.”

For goddess’ sake, Seriously, the man is a nutjob.

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Susan Orfanos, whose son, Telemachus, was murdered in that bar shooting last week, had survived the Las Vegas mass shooting last year:

“My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn’t come home last night, and I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me any more prayers. I want gun control. No more guns.”

Seriously, will someone please listen.

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Kirsten Gillibrand, on _____’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general:

“Because he’s such a senior position, you need advice and consent of the Senate…There was a succession plan. It should have been Rosenstein. They not only disregarded that, but then put someone in place who has not had hearings and approval by the Senate…He should recuse himself [from the Mueller probe] … He’s a lackey of the president.”

You say lackey, I say lap dog.

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Jimmy Kimmel, saying White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckleberry Sanders should be fired for sharing a doctored video of CNN’s Jim Acosta “assaulting” an intern:

“That’s where the Hucka-B.S. machine comes in. Jim Acosta clearly never touched that White House intern. That’s just a lie. And I think this also might be the first time I’ve seen Sarah Sanders take the woman’s side on any subject ever. So good for her, baby steps. But she should be forced to resign for that. I mean, she intentionally disseminated doctored video footage to discredit a reputable journalist. She’s the White House press secretary! She should be fired for that. She should be fired…Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be fired and sent to live at a Joann’s Fabric Store for all the rest of her days.”

I’m just happy that one day, when all the leis are exposed and proven to be actual lies, that Huckleberry will have to explain to her children why she goose-stepped along with a racist misogynist pig.

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Michelle Obama, in her book, Becoming Michelle, on _____’s birther comments:

“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald _____, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”

Nor will I.

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Kirsten Gillibrand Standing up [AGAIN!] For LGBT Rights

New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner:

"Dear Mr. Speaker,

In a letter to you last week, the Attorney General advised that the Administration has concluded that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and therefore will cease to defend the statute in pending litigation. It is in the best interests of taxpayers and the constitution for you to refrain from appointing special counsel to defend this law. A decision to appoint special counsel would be an unnecessary cost to taxpayers, and would detract from our shared goal of cutting wasteful spending and creating jobs.

The executive branch’s responsibility to defend federal laws is not absolute, particularly in instances such as the present case, where the federal law is in direct conflict with the confines of the Constitution. At this critical economic juncture in our nation’s history, it is imperative that we as legislators do not devote resources to defending an antiquated and unconstitutional law."

Hat Tip to Joe.My.God.

Kirsten Gillibrand. Yes. Harold Ford. No.

Harold Ford couldn't get elected in his home state of Tennessee, so what does he do? he loads up the truck and moves to New York and decides to run for office there.

Nothing wrong with that. It's a free country, for some of us.

But his decision to run against Kirsten Gillibrand has quite a few members of the LGBT community, and it's supporters, up in arms. See, Harold Ford is your average run-o-the-mill anti-gay politician, who would do anything, and move anywhere, to get elected.

Lets be clear about Harold Ford:

• He supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In fact, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment both times it reached the House floor.
• He has gone out of his way to condemn court rulings, like New Jersey’s, that calls for equal treatment under the law for same-sex couples.
• He received a 25 rating, out of a possible 100, on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard.

Kirsten Gillibrand, on the other hand:

• She has been an outspoken and passionate supporter of every single piece of pro-LGBT legislation that currently exists at the federal level.
• She has often led the charge in the Senate for calling for the repeal of DADT.
• She was the first Senator from New York to support marriage equality.
• She actively lobbied members of the New York State Senate to support the marriage equality bill before it received a vote on Dec. 2, 2009.

Seems clear cut to me.

Kirsten Gillibrand works for us.

Harold Ford does not.

Five LGBT Allies

Sometimes it's hard to tell the gay-friendly from the homophobes--yes, I'm talking switch-hitter Tim Pawlenty, for one. And then you have the blatantly homophobic, anti-gay, anti-equality Jim DeMint from the great :::cough cough::: state of South Carolina who gets physically ill at the idea of homosexuality; and then we also have Queen Of The Asshats, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who believes that the LGBT community is a bigger threat than terrorism.

Still, we do have Tammy Baldwin, Barney Frank and Jared Polis taking up our issues in Congress, but, um, they kind of have to, being gay themselves. So, who else is there? Are there are any gay-friendly heteros in office willing to stand up for us and against the likes of Bachmann and DeMint?

We do....and here are five of them that deserve our thanks, our time, and our support:

Number Five:

Senator Tom Harkin, who did what a handful of Senators did this year: he publicly stated that he regretted his vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Harkin joined Senators Arlen Specter and Chris Dodd in denouncing their vote for DOMA. But Harkin had a sense of eloquence in his comments, and it didn't hurt that they came right on the heels of Iowa's Supreme Court ruling that the state’s constitution required the recognition of same-sex marriage.

Tom Harkin: “We all grow as we get older, and we learn things and we become more sensitive to people and people’s lives. And the more I’ve looked at that, I’ve grown to think differently about how people — how we should live. And I guess I’m at the point that, you know — I’m to that point of live and let live.”

Number Four:

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, of Oregon, who also blasted the Defense of Marriage Act. Blumenauer also issued a statement regretting his original vote for DOMA, going so far as to say he not only regretted the vote, but felt it was the worst vote he ever cast in his entire political career. Blumenauer vowed to lobby his fellow legislators in efforts to overturn DOMA.

Earl Blumenauer: “I will work to make sure that my colleagues who once, for whatever reason, joined me in supporting [DOMA] take this opportunity to correct their record and eliminate an injustice.”

Number Three:

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who has, well, for lack of a better term, come out strongly as one of the Senate’s biggest supporters for equal rights. Hers is one of the loudest voices in the Senate for ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell and has called the battle for marriage equality the civil rights battle of today’s generation. Gillibrand even tried to exert some pull with the New York State Senate in their [failed] marriage equality vote, and supports a fully inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Number Two:

Congressman Patrick Murphy is the first Iraq war veteran to serve in Congress and is one of the loudest and strongest voices on ending DADT. He seems to be making it one of his goals, even touring with the Human Rights Campaign’s “Voices of Honor” tour, calling attention to how eliminating gays and lesbians from the U.S. Armed Forces not only smacks in the face of equality and freedom--the very principles that our military stands for--but also threatens our national security.

Patrick Murphy: “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ clearly isn’t working for our military, and it hinders national security and military readiness at a time when America is fighting in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My time in Iraq taught me that our military needs and deserves the best and the brightest who are willing to serve -- and that means all Americans, regardless of their orientation.”

Number One...and we have a tie:

Congressman Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania has emerged as a fighter for LGBT equality. He says that one of the fights that keeps him going in politics is the battle to end the only form of institutionalized discrimination still legal in the U.S.--that of discrimination against LGBT people

Joe Sestak: “How can we demand that the 65,000 of our troops who are estimated to be gay act dishonestly and conceal information from their comrades and commanders? No one who serves in defense of liberty should be forced to live a lie. I cannot imagine denying equal rights to anyone I served with. How can anyone say, we fought and served together, we depended on one another, we risked our lives for this country, but back home you shouldn’t enjoy the rights that you defended?”
Congressman Jerrold Nadler also works tirelessly to get rid of DOMA, going so far as to introduce the Respect For Marriage Act that would dismantle DOMA. Nadler’s reason for introducing the Respect for Marriage Act: he wants to send DOMA “into the history books where it belongs.”

So, there you have five straight allies of the LGBT community. These are just some of the politicians who deserve our time, our support, and our donations, They understand equality; they understand marriage; they understand freedom and respect.

And they deserve ours.

list from change.org

New Ally In The Fight For Equality

There are those who say she's coming on strong for gay rights because she's up for reelection soon. But, to that, I say, where are the others in office who are up for reelection but are sitting on their hands when it comes to equality? Why aren't they talking?


Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:

"I support full marriage equality. To me, it's the civil rights march of our generation. It's about equal rights, it's about equal justice and there's no reason that any family in America...You know, my family gets certain rights and privileges, a gay couple's family should also get the same rights and privileges and there's over 1,000 rights and privileges in federal and state law that would come with marriage equality.
"And at the federal level I'm gonna work on repealing DOMA, I'm gonna work on repealing 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'. I have a bill right now that I'm considering basically putting a moratorium on the enforcement of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' for the next 18 months so the administration has time to consider it, to decide if they want this to be part of their policy and for the military to come to the table and make their own assessments because all the evidence shows us our military has been denied some of our best and brightest in America because of this policy particularly in areas where we've really needed them in language translation and intelligence services. We need all of our best and brightest at the forefront of our operations to keep America safe."

Gillibrand Makes A Move Against DADT

The president may not be doing anything, or much of anything, about it, but New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is leading the fight. She is considering bringing the battle over Don't Ask, Don't Tell to the Senate this week, by introducing an amendment that would put an 18-month moratorium on the discharge of gays serving in the military.

It would be the first time since the implementation of DADT that senators will be forced to declare their position on the gay ban. If Gillibrand's amendment passes, many gay-rights leaders expect it would also pass in the House and then be signed by President Obama.

While there already is a bill introduced in the House, by Congressman Patrick Murphy, to repeal DADT, Gillibrand's move would circumvent a long legislative process at a time when an average of two gay soldiers per day are being discharged.

The Human Rights Campaign and the Service Members Legal Defense Network, which advocate for gay and lesbian members of the military, were involved in pushing the amendment, and just this past week leaders from both groups shopped the idea around to various Senate offices, hoping to find the best possible sponsor.

"We went and explored this idea with several senators who were interested in doing something with DADT," says Kevin Nix, communications director for Service Members Legal Defense Network. "Gillibrand is one of those senators we've talking to about doing this."

Senator Gillibrand has been an outspoken opponent of the policy and has vowed to repeal the ban. Facing a contested primary next year, Gillibrand is trying to gain support from New York's gay community. Gillibrand has also been an outspoken supporter of Lt. Dan Choi, an Arab linguist who lost his job because of the policy. Choi, who served for 15 months in Iraq, has helped make the ban on gays a front-and-center issue. Dan Choi is the 266th service member to be kicked out since Obama took office.

Two-hundred-sixty-six too many.

Someone Wants To End It Now

"I am firmly committed to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. To that end, I am working closely with Congressman Murphy and Senator Kennedy's offices to develop support for repeal legislation and will be among the original co-sponsors of the bill when it's introduced. In the weeks and months ahead, I plan to work with Lt. Choi to repair the damage that has been done to his career and spare thousands of innocent, brave men and women, from the same injustice."

--Senator Kirsten Gillibrand