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ENDA: 38th Time Is The Charm, They Say!

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Editor’s note: This guest post is by Scott Wooledge who also writes at Daily Kos under the handle Clarknt67.
Read Scott’s most recent previous post here, “One Of The White House 13 Anti-DADT Protestors, Facing Jail: “Try Me.”

 

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is being introduced into the House this morning. Press release from Barney Frank’s office:

BARNEY FRANK AND COLLEAGUES TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMATION ACT (ENDA)

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday morning, March 30th, Congressman Barney Frank and other prominent Members of the House of Representatives will make an important announcement about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

The legislation would extend federal employment laws, which currently prevent job discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability, to also cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill applies both to the public and private sectors.

On the night before the event, Frank said that “passing an inclusive ENDA is a difficult but winnable fight – winnable if supported by a serious lobbying effort. The bill we are about to introduce provides an important vehicle for that effort.”

Although some states have passed laws to prevent such discrimination, it is legal in 29 states to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and legal in 38 states to discriminate on the basis of gender identity. According to research by the Williams Institute, there is an ongoing pattern of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity nationwide.

In attendance: Rep. Barney Frank, joined by Rep. George Miller, Rep. Jared Polis and other cosponsors of the legislation. Also present will be representatives of leading LGBT equality, civil rights and social justice organizations.

Well, isn’t that special?

Now, Dear Reader, before you burst out of closet and into the corner office, and treat your Boss to a rousing rendition of “I Am What I Am,” maybe take a moment to peruse the ENDA Timeline Of Broken Promises, provided by GetEqual. Well, maybe more than a moment, it’s really very long and it begins:

March 14, 1974— On the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) and Rep. Ed Koch (D-NY) introduce H.R. 14752, dubbed the “gay rights bill” or “Equality Act of 1974,” but it fails to make it out of committee. It proposes that new categories of sex, sexual orientation and marital status be added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Abzug’s version bars anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations and housing, but not transgender protections.

Fast-forward over the next 37 years, much changes, employment and gender expression are added, accommodations lost. It’s now 2010, but the song remains the same: “failed to get out of committee.”

This despite a May 2007 Gallup poll, one of many, that showed overwhelming support for the principle of equal job opportunities for lesbian and gay Americans, 89%! Heck, a 2001 Harris poll that showed that 42% of Americans believed such a law already exists.

Look, Congress Critters, I suppose it doesn’t hurt anyone if you want to keep doing these little, queer, dog and pony shows, year after year after year. Toss me my rainbow pom-poms! Yay! Go Gay Rights! But the fact remains, we can’t help you if you insiders won’t tell us; what is the real problem with this frickin’ bill?

Because, we don’t know.
What we do know is you had a golden opportunity to finally pass this bill in 2009 and 2010. And all we got were assurances from Rep. Frank, Speaker Pelosi, Jared Polis, Tammy Baldwin, Joe Solomnese and other so-called insiders that “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming,” and “It’s coming…”

Psst? You know what? It never came. ENDA is the trick from Hell. And it can have its $20 back. We just want a cigarette break now.

Barney? Jared? Joe Solomnese?

We’ve made the calls, wrote the letters. We’ve been doing it for years. We’ve talked our family and friends’ ears off. We’ve talked strangers’ ears off, some of us for 37 years. The voters are there. We’ve turned the public opinion overwhelmingly to the side of equality. That’s right! They’re there! America’s on board with the idea. And we’ve even taken to making a nuisance of ourselves to make you guys take a vote on it.

Gay activists shut down traffic in Las Vegas, July 2010, calling on Congress to pass ENDA.

 

Now, you tell us. What more do you need from us?

I’m stumped. I’m not the only one. White House correspondent, and Equality Matters principle and LGBT politico extraordinaire Kerry Eleveld wrote just last month:

Second, although I have asked a good number of questions about ENDA and its prospects for a vote, I still can’t tell you why it never happened. Meanwhile, I can recall with decent clarity nearly every twist and turn of the battle to pass “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) repeal. This is not due to a bias on my part, but is rather indicative of the fact that no one seemed willing to talk with any specificity about what was or wasn’t happening with ENDA.

Because, I have to be frank with you, Frank. When you say you the bill is “winnable if supported by a serious lobbying effort,” a couple things go through my mind. One, you guys can’t get a bill passed that consistently polls in the 80%? Why are we sending you guys to DC?

And it’s really hard to get ourselves pumped up year after year to work for a bill, when it really doesn’t seem like anyone in charge is serious about actually passing it. Democrats’ well of credibility has run dry on this issue. Yours in particular, Rep. Frank.

Particularly when you yourself spoke just six months ago to our community on the prospect of LGBT legislation passing in Congress under the Republican-controlled House:

“Next year there’s no chance of anything happening,” he said of pro-LGBT legislation. “There’s zero chance.”

It was the one time I wasn’t skeptical of you. Now you’re telling us to lobby hard? Maybe you should think about giving the ground troops a year off so you guys in DC can regroup and come up with a serious strategy for actually getting this bill passed. And let us know what you come up with, because this isn’t working.


For more ENDA news, see also The Bilerico Project. Tico Almeida served as the lead counsel on the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has some interesting history, insights and strategy suggestions there.

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OPINION

Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

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Right-wing talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt is facing backlash after declaring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was ousted after her hiring cost NBC News a tumultuous five days, a “normal” person who has “never denied the election.”

Last summer, The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump reported McDaniel “is still elevating 2020 election skepticism,” and “won’t say the election was fair.”

“I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that,” McDaniel had said to CNN.

“CNN teased an upcoming interview between host Chris Wallace and Ronna McDaniel,” Bump wrote. “In the clip, Wallace asks McDaniel when she stopped being an ‘election denier’ — that is, someone who espouses skepticism about the validity of the election results. And, surprise! McDaniel never stopped.”

Bump also explained the danger in election denialism: “McDaniel won’t say Biden was legitimately elected because the base doesn’t want to hear it — but the base doesn’t want to hear it in part because leaders such as McDaniel won’t simply admit without qualifications that Biden won.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

“Establishing a system in which any loss can easily be framed as illegitimate means establishing a system in which no loss is accepted as valid,” Bump continued. “It means institutionalizing the idea that elections are inaccurate gauges of public opinion and, therefore, that the winners of those elections have no mandate to serve.”

On Wednesday Hewitt, a Washington Post columnist and former Reagan White House aide, said on Fox News that McDaniel “is a fine Republican. She is not an election denier. She has never denied the election.”

Former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh responded to that clip.

Bullshit Hugh. With Trump, she pressured MI canvassers to not certify the results; with Trump, she pressured other state attorney’s to sue & invalidate results in MI, PA, & WI; she worked with Trump on the fake electors scheme; she lied about charges of voter fraud well after those charges had been debunked. No major party chair in American history has done more to dispute a legit election. Shame on you,” Walsh wrote.

Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld, also responding to that clip: “Somebody who helped coordinate fake electors and passed a resolution calling Jan. 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’ is not normal, and we must at all steps refuse to treat them as such.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

Hewitt had also told Fox News, “I don’t know who is going to keep MSNBC informed of what normal people think, because Ronna McDaniel is about as normal as they come. She’s a Michigan mom, she’s been in the job seven years. She represents the Republican Party.”

McDaniel, it could be said, does not represent the Republican Party, not the MAGA America First Republican Party of today, neither literally nor figuratively. Donald Trump engineered her ouster and installed his handpicked replacements, including his daughter-in-law and Michael Whatley, a right-wing attorney who was part of the Bush recount team during the contested 2000 presidential election.

The Atlantic’s Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), blasted Hewitt, calling him “an utter disgrace,” while adding, “shame on those like the Washington Post who showcase him.”

Adam Cohen, vice chair of Lawyers for Good Government, pointedly responded to Hewitt: “Hate to tell you this, but normal people don’t try to foment a coup, or deny the truth about election results Like Ronna McDaniel did.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

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Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

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Last year House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.

Now, Chairman Comer says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”

“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”

The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”

Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”

Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”

“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”

READ MORE: Trump Says He Thinks He’s ‘Allowed’ to Accept Foreign Money to Pay Fines

“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.

They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”

Despite their extensive allegations, Chairman Comer is refusing to open an investigation.

“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”

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Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

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Despite filing a motion to vacate the chair last week, which could end Mike Johnson’s short term as Speaker, and despite pummeling him in the press, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says she will take no responsibility if House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker of the House before the November election.

Appearing on right-wing media Tuesday, the far-right Georgia Republican targeted Speaker Johnson again, telling GOP voters Johnson stabbed them “in the back.”

Johnson “has a duty and responsibility to care for our conference,” Greene told Real America’s Voice. “That means not force us to vote on full-term abortion, funding the trans agenda, DEI funding, 300 million to the Ukraine war, and many other horrific far-left funding wishlist items that the Democrats were thrilled with.”

“He shouldn’t make us vote on that in order to pay our military soldiers. That’s outrageous. It’s also an election year,” she continued, “and that means that Republicans are out trying to get re-elected and he forced our Republican conference, those that voted for this basically walked the plank for him and that is outrageous.”

READ MORE: $500 Per Second: Ronna McDaniel Reportedly Has a Few Expectations

After talking for several minutes about how Johnson “broke” and “violated” the rules by holding votes to keep the government from shutting down, she insisted her attacks are “not personal against Mike Johnson.”

“I filed the motion to vacate basically issuing a pink slip saying you’re going to be fired, we will not tolerate this any longer. And Republican voters all over this country agree with me,” she insisted.

In October, after Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own party as Speaker of the House, CBS News reported its new polling “shows the American public wants the next Republican speaker to prioritize federal spending cuts, but also work across the aisle with Democrats and stand up against the ‘MAGA’ movement.”

Declaring, “Our conference needs a new Speaker of the House,” Greene insisted her actions have no effect on Republicans, who increasingly are exiting Congress early.

She also insisted that pinning a possible Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries on her is merely “twist” and “spin.”

READ MORE: ‘Absurd & Dangerous’: Truth Social Made Donald Trump Billions Today

“This is simple math,” she said. “The more Republicans like Mike Gallagher that resign and leave early, guess what that means we have less Republicans in the House. So every time a Mike Gallagher or Ken Buck leaves that brings our members down and brings us dangerously closer to being in the minority. It’s not Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“I am not going to be responsible for Hakeem Jeffries being Speaker of the House. I am not going to for a Democrat majority taking over our Republican majority. That lies squarely, squarely on the shoulders of these Republicans that are leaving early because they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to handle the real fight, and the responsibility that comes with leadership at the end of our Republic when our country is nearly destroyed and when our Constitution is being ran through a paper shredder. So no one is going to blame that on me.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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