No wonder there’s no policy change for the civil rights of GLBT citizens

She may be a friend of Barack, but she's no friend to civil rights.

WAPO reporter Jonathan Capo interviewed Obama loyalist Valerie Jarrett who is rumored to be on the short list for Chief of Staff. One of her answers showed how little support there really is in the West Wing for civil rights for GLBT citizens. This is appalling and explains why we can t see a change in DOMA or DADT. DADT is a policy that Obama could end with a signature.

You can see the video at Petrelis Files because Capo didn’t share the hatred on his blg . PF was more than willing to go there.

Today the Washington Post’s gay kapo Jonathan Capehart shares a video interview he conducted on Monday with senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. She clearly states a belief that Minnesota gay teen Justin Aarberg, who committed suicide in July after being bullied, made a “lifestyle choice.”

Unbelievable.

Capeheart: One of the things you’ve put a spotlight on, and to veer sharply away from infrastructure, and that was on the rash of suicides of gay youth. You gave a speech to the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner, where you named the victims. You talked about the President’s committment to making a more inclusive, tolerant, accepting country. Why did you feel it was important to deliver that message, and deliver it there?

Jarrett: Well, I think what we’ve seen over the last few months are some very tragic deaths of young people, our children. And avoidable deaths. They were driven to committ suicide because they were being harassed in school, and driven to do something that no child should ever be driven to do. And in many cases, the parents are doing a good job. Their families are supportive. Before I spoke at the HRC dinner, I met backstage with Tammy Aarberg, her son Andrew. These are good people. They were aware that their son was gay. They embraced him. They loved him. They supported his lifestyle choice.

How do you build a more inclusive, tolerant and accepting country when policy makers that are supposed to represent the Democratic party use language like that? “Live style” choice is something you’d expect to hear from Tony Perkins or Ralph Reed. Why did she take a play book from the religionist right?

Valerie Jarret needs to be show the door. No one should be writing checks to any party that let’s a major spokesperson use terms like “life style choice” when representing the GLBT population. That is the language of an intolerant religionist.

The Religious View

The question of what causes some people to be gay has been a topic of endless debate among the general public and the mental health community. Generally speaking, the religious community of every persuasion views homosexuality as an abhorrent sin against God and nature. Deeply religious groups among Muslims, Christians, Catholics and Jews reject homosexuality as totally unacceptable in the eyes of God. Therefore, most orthodox religious leaders view it as a life style choice thereby condemning the homosexual to eternal hell.

The American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association, the organization that writes and publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, with the cooperation of professionals from psychology and social work professions, listed homosexuality as a mental disorder until the 1970’s. Based on increasing amounts of research the APA decided to drop homosexuality as a diagnostic category. They found that as long as gay people adapted well to their sexual orientation and were able to function in society, there was no reason for them to be placed in the category of having a mental illness. Therefore, when gay people seek psychiatric counseling there is no reason to attempt to counsel them to change their sexual orientation. In other words, there is no reason why a gay person should not be considered normal.

The folks in the White House just keep on keeping on when it comes to homophobia. Feel okay doke’d yet?

Reversal of Fortunes

Disturbingly sexist image of powerful Nancy Pelosi.

Politico has some indepth analysis of the future of many powerful democratic women in Congress. The key descriptive phrase is “wipe out’. In a year of Mama Grizzly transcendence on the Republic side of the aisle, this election may silence the voices and votes of the Democratic women elected during the so-called “year of the woman”. That would be 1992. If you need a refresher, that’s the year that sexual harassment in the work place and treatment of women by senate committees introduced us to Anita Hill. Many Democratic women candidates benefited from frustrated women who saw the sexist games senators played. We were determined to bring down the ultimate old boys club. Nearly two decades later, the trend of more women’s voices within the beltway appears to be at an end. Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, beneficiaries of the woman power in the 199os are engaged in the fight of their political careers. America’s first madam speaker is likely to lose her gavel. Marin Cogan believes that as many as a quarter of the 56 Democratic women in the House are vulnerable.

Even with the rise of Republican women candidates, the change sweeping the nation is likely to sweep women out of national office. Not only that, many of these women have achieved seniority and are poised to sit as chairs of powerful committees. This is where the real insider deals occur. Why are the winds of change impacting these woman? Are Democratic women no longer viewed as change agents and assigned ‘outsider’ status? Why are we losing ground?

Well, my first thought is that Pelosi’s powerful ultimate insider status and her ability to work the system is actually creating some

Right wing obsession with the concept of Botox Barbie

blowback. Is part of this reversal of fortune due to sexism or just the general feeling of rage at the political machine of which Pelosi is CEO and skilled worker? Pelosi’s face on beltway machinations–something she at which she excels–is both a blessing and a curse. It demonstrates that women can wield power effectively. It also demonstrates that women on the inside can become part of the problem as well as some of the solution.

Pelosi has had an enormous impact not only on policy — muscling through landmark legislation like health care reform and a massive economic stimulus — but also on the culture of Capitol Hill and the framing of legislative debates.

“After passing this bill, being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing condition,” Pelosi declared on the House floor the night health care reform passed — repeating a mantra that would guide her throughout the health care debate.

Under her tenure, women have held key leadership positions — including New York Rep. Louise Slaughter as chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro as co-chairwoman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney as chairwoman of the Joint Economic Committee. New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez became chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee.

Pelosi also recruited Democratic women on the campaign trail, creating a girls’ club to counteract the old boys’ network that’s long dominated congressional politics.

“I think the record speaks for itself,” said California Rep. Jackie Speier, who was elected in 2008 and serves on the House Financial Services Committee, ticking off the number of women in leadership roles. “She has really placed women in positions of leadership.”

Power comes with benefits and scrutiny in this country. That’s a good thing. But I still feel that some of these women have been held up to a different mirror than their old boy counterparts. Were their expectations of kinder, gentler, ladylike politicians or is it strictly disappointment that none of these liberal feminists have stood up enough to the old boys club they were elected to change? Boxer’s facing a tough Republican woman so her race might be viewed more through a sex neutral lens. However, both women are subject to sexist treatment. Some times the characterization is too close to the ‘cat fight’ meme. Can we say the same about “mom in tennis shoes Senator Patty Murray” who is facing perpetual Republican candidate Dino Rossi? What about relatively new Colorado congresswoman Betsy Markey?

Still, Markey hasn’t exactly played it safe. She’s voted for or supports much of the Democratic agenda, including climate-change response, the stimulus bill and even the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act. She did, however, vote against health care reform, the second half of the bank bailout, the 2010 Democratic budget and permission to transfer Guantánamo prisoners to the U.S.

In many respects, Markey, 54, is a symbol of the new Colorado, made up of transplants from the coasts. Her father was a staunchly pro-union construction worker in New Jersey, where Markey grew up the sixth of seven in a large Irish Catholic family. She worked at the State Department after going to graduate school for cybersecurity and then built on that experience in the private sector, launching along with her husband an information-technology business called Syscom. Beckoned by the tech industry’s prairie corridor, the couple moved to Fort Collins, where Markey eventually founded the Northern Colorado Democratic Business Coalition and worked for former Democratic Senator (and now Interior Secretary) Ken Salazar.

What if these women are replaced with anti choice/anti GLBT rights Republicans? While many of their Republican challengers are coming in on the typical small government, low tax agenda, they also have had to pass the usual grass roots litmus tests. I’ve met Republican after Republican office holder that really doesn’t care about the abortion agenda but has been pushed into it by the aggressive activists who have no other issue. What if we lose elected women who have been voices for women’s rights? On the other hand, how quickly did these women cave to the ridiculous requests of Stupak and Ben Nelson during the Health Care Reform act? Didn’t they actively choose to win one for Obama and potential sold birth control access to just get the deal done? What happened to the outsider status and pro-woman agenda then?

That’s my biggest problem with Pelosi. She is a master of congressional rule and representative wrangling but she has also lost sight that a win and numbers aren’t the only goals of legislation. Many of these women have sadly become what they were supposed to come in to change.

How will these endangered Democratic women survive November? Should we support them just to hold our numbers together or hold them to a high standard? How much do we lose if they lose? Are we still looking for a critical mass of women in elected office or has that goal post changed?

Harsh Words

Time Magazine‘s long time senior political analyst and editor-at-large, Mark Halperin, has a scathing feature with an even more scathing headline: Obama is in the Jaws of Political Death. How time flies and headlines have changed for the MSM OPrecious. This piece is particularly bad because the long standing Obot meme has been that Obama and his campaign were superior politically and that is why he beat the Clintons. She ran a lousy campaign and Obama was a political god. It’s hard to see any of that superior strategy these days in a Democratic Party whose first instinct on GOTV is to scold and rebuke their own base. Now that there’s been some blowback for the hippie punching strategy and we’ve moved on to demonizing the Chamber of Commerce for cheating and stealing democracy. At least it’s not the War on Limbaugh, any more.

Well, I mean really, how can you run as a party of ideals and messages when a good portion of the congressional Democrats up for re-election are running away from their own legislative agenda? The major ad down here for Charlie Melancon in Louisiana is the big things he did to buck the party and the President. That would be Health Care Reform and the oil drilling moratorium. Former President Clinton has headed to West Virginia to try to boost Joe Manchin’s senate campaign. Manchin is running to replace the late Robert Byrd. The Senator is pro-life and strongly pro-gun. Manchin is running away from Obama as far as he can. He’s even said he’s never been invited to the White House. Manchin’s Republican views don’t seem to bug The Democratic party that is more concerned with the numbers than the actual stands of the people who will come to the District and vote for things that would be Republican if the Republican party hadn’t turned into something completely off the deep end of the crazy pool.

There’s no coherent Democratic message. What kind of national political campaign can you run when you’re only message is really, they’re worse and just ignore what we’ve done the past few years, we’re just warming up? Well, I’m downright kind to the problems facing the Democrats now compared to the Halperin article. Is this the way you would want the head of the free world described to you?

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

Yeah, I could gloat because I had a feeling this would happen to some extent, but good grief, this is our country! Halperin enumerates the groups frustrated with the unemployment numbers and the economic outlook. Why couldn’t they just pass a bigger stimulus with the right kinds of spending in the first place and better yet, more timed to take care of things at least a year ago. Why are they still standing by this plan with results less than stellar? Well, the Chamber of Commerce didn’t eat their policy homework on that one nor did us hippies. Why not just stand up and say we did what we thought we could do under the political circumstances and you’re right, it wasn’t enough? Instead, what we got was just wait, it’ll work and looks it’s not as bad as it was last year.

But Obama has exacerbated his political problems not just by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around, but also by authorizing a series of tactical moves intended to demonize Republicans and distract from the problems at hand. He has wasted time lambasting his foes when he should have been putting forth his agenda in a clear, optimistic fashion, defending the benefits of his key decisions during the past two years (health care and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for example) and explaining what he would do with a re-elected Democratic majority to spur growth.

Yup, that’s a good deal of the problem. Why declare war on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Chamber of Commerce, and leftie bloggers that few people actually read? But, the deal is that no coherent Democratic message can exist in a party that kowtows to Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Congressman Bart Stupak all the while giving speeches that promise FDR. Every one’s confused and exhausted. There are a lot of Velma Harts out there who don’t understand the numbers games and the pandering to the donor base. Exactly where’s the hope and change message in terms of vision, strategy, tactics and action items?

This is a president who needs a sign on his desk that says “it’s still the economy”. Cohesive policy and political strategies come from cohesive messages. Generic hope and change messages are great for elections, but lousy for governing. Some one needs to write a speech that delineates Democratic values. If at that point, some blue dawg can’t buy into the message, then why bring them to the beltway to sidetrack the agenda? Yes, batshit crazy republicans will scream and yell, but blue dawg democrats have shredded Democratic legislation to the point that most of it wasn’t really worth passing. And, we still have massive unemployment and record numbers of homeless and poor.

Really. Democrats need a coherent message and they need to concentrate on doing a few things correctly rather than a list of things sloppily and without some consensus by the governed. This President’s main mistake is sending out too much that does too little. If he’d have just concentrated on jobs and the wars and doing them both like a good Democratic President, I doubt he’d be reading his political obituary in Time Magazinee or elsewhere.

Really. It kills me to think of a return of Republicans, but sheesh, this legislative and message chaos needs to stop now before the electorate puts a stop to it for a very long time. I mean its nice to have huge majorities in congress, but when you’re trying to deal with the likes of Ben Nelson and Bart Stupak on your side, isn’t easier when they’re actually sitting with the bad guys? Isn’t there something to be said about a unified front? Put out a unified Democratic message and tell them to get on board or don’t support them.

Stealing Home

One of the saddest perversions of our democracy has been stealth lobbying by huge and powerful industries to gain market power by extracting market-destroying laws from their donation-hungry political cronies. No where is this more apparent than processes impacted by the FIRE lobby. In industries where lobbying has been wildly successful, few remnants of true market capitalism remain. We shouldn’t worry so much about actual socialism. We need to worry about our current status as citizens suffering from the excesses of “lemon socialism” or what is also known as crony capitalism.

I wrote yesterday on how the perpetual bailouts of Depository Institutes and Investment Banks have created such a measurable moral hazard that I believe that markets now rally around the very thought that both the Fed and the U.S. Treasury will approach a stalled economy by reducing costs and increasing revenues to huge corporate institutions. Investors recognize a situation where their nests are about to be feathered with taxpayer largess. The Health insurance industry has seen its stocks increase–and indeed their premiums/revenues are skyrocketing–since the HCR law was passed with a clause to drive hapless consumers into their benefit-denying clutches.

Increased concentration in industries that only exist to create information asymmetries in markets–real estate agents, health insurance brokers, bankers–just drive a wedge of cost between the true suppliers of a service and their customers. Their fees siphon income from sellers and wealth from buyers. Their existence in any market signals that a market is not–in any sense–a functional market. They’ve managed to lobby themselves into an economic catbird seat. I am appalled whenever I hear politicians talk about the real estate market, the financial markets or the health care markets as ‘free markets’ when they themselves are enabling the fee-sucking middle men into the market and monopoly. It does not matter if a third party payer is the government (who should at least remain a nonprofit pass through) or a private company. As we’ve seen over and over, privatization of public goods leads to cost run-ups and moral meltdowns when the government lets foxes write the laws that govern the chicken coops. They’ve put the foxes in charge of the production of the eggs. What we’re getting are overpriced eggs with salmonella and chickens that wind up in the pots of a select few. They not only game the market, they cannibalize the infrastructure.

The current parasitic relationship between megacorporations and congress leads to setting up systems and processes that benefit the third parties that bring very little value-added to a market. They simply warp the resultant price and quantity outcomes. No where is this becoming more apparent than the current foreclosure debacles. The primary asset of most Americans has become a speculative gamble designed to bilk households of wealth, income, and shelter.

Congress is scrambling to correct issues in the real estate market that they created by enabling the root causes of the problem. Their solution is to enable bad business practices. Last week, they sent a law to the President’s desk that would virtually erase the purpose and sanctity of state notary laws. We’ve gotten to the point where the rules are so warped that we are enslaved in the debt markets when we enter into a lending contract. Policy makers have established a precedent of bailing out the last crooks standing in the market and throwing the voting and working public under the bus.

It has been evident to any of us that have actually studied predatory lending practices that eventually some shock to the market would collapse the Ponzi pyramid and that the crash would ripple through the economy for a very long time. We are reaping the results of years of lop-sided incentives. The same production line rubber stamping of poorly underwritten and originated mortgages is now throwing hapless homeowners into a process set up to fleece them. Attempts at policy to encourage modification have completely failed. Owners in foreclosure are being steamrolled through a process meant to strip them off their properties as efficiently as possible.

A bigger threat to the public welfare looms, if the government allows so many parcels of real estate to be seized, what will be done with the hundreds of thousands of properties sitting vacant? Will the government eventually buy these properties from banks with taxpayer money in lieu of helping families stay in the homes? Will whatever remains of homeowner equity be shoveled into the coffers of mortgage holders? There is something inherently evil about a government system that doesn’t hesitate to bail out bad business decisions but morally and legally censures citizens who lose their jobs, health care, and everything they have to a bad economy enabled by same said government and businesses. Why should the federal government enable landlord melodramas all over the country?

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