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Gay Marriage, Abortion Aren’t Problems. Child Homelessness, Poverty Are.

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Throughout the year in the United States, an estimated two million children will be homeless, over three million will be living without either of their parents. 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ. At least half a million U.S. children live in foster homes. States that offer marriage equality also have the lowest rates of child homelessness.

Republicans and social conservatives — including the Tea Party — spent the better part of the past year railing against President Obama’s fiscal and social policies, and crowing about “jobs, jobs jobs!” Perhaps rightly so, as the Congress last year did little directly to create jobs programs. But at least they didn’t pretend they were.

In the run up to the 2010 election, the Republican mantra was “jobs, jobs jobs!,” and Republican and Tea Party candidates and incumbents all promised the American people once they were in charge they would focus solely on “jobs, jobs jobs!” They used the term “jobs-killing” as an adjective attached to anything-Obama more times than Sarah Palin has Facebook friends.

Yet, here we are, almost one-quarter of the way through 2011, and the GOP has passed not a single bill that will create a single job. Not one. Instead, Republicans at the local, state, and federal level have spent their time focused on making it as difficult as possible for a woman to get an abortion or any reproductive health services, they have focused on union-busting, making creationism the law of the land in schools, ending federal coverage for low-income child immunizations, taking families who go on strike off food stamps, defunding “Obamacare,” defunding NPR, defunding Planned Parenthood, supporting DOMA in court, voting to take away rights of LGBT public employees and their spouses, voting to ban same-sex marriages, and killing the EPA.

Read: “The GOP’s War On Women And Children

The past seven days must have held considerable angst for social conservatives, religious leaders, and the politicians who pander to these extremists. Polls and studies have rolled in, finding great majorities and pluralities supporting marriage equality and the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), even among conservatives. Even among Catholics and Christians and Protestants. Even among almost every single demographic group in the country.

Old, young, white, non-white, college-educated, high school educated, men, women, northern, eastern, southern, western, you name it — the American people have spoken and they have said not only do they want the government to repeal DOMA, but they want the government to allow same-sex marriage, and to stop addressing social issues and focus on jobs. And they want their religious leaders out of their bedrooms, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and classrooms.

(What is also staggering is the vast disparity between what the American people in general actually want, and what their political representatives and religious leaders are actually doing.)

Here, at The New Civil Rights Movement, we posted the news about the Vatican’s speech to the United Nations this week, during which the Holy See bemoaned what it classifies as the “vilification” of people who speak out against same-sex marriage. Interestingly, this prompted a rather curious debate in the comments section, fueled by one conservative and several regular readers.

Some of the comments from the anti-marriage equality conservative were about “traditional marriage” creating “socially licensed male/female homes,” and another curious one about marriage: “A marriage license equates children like a fishing license equates fish. The requirements for a fishing license doesn’t require you to catch fish, but people who apply for one hope to catch fish. Most people who get married hope to have children.”

You can imagine what followed.

When I started to jump in to defend my position, it dawned on me, much as it dawned on me earlier in the week when I decried our bombing Libya, in a tweet, “Great. Shock and awe in #Libya. America again steps in. Where are the jobs, Mr. Gaddafi?,” what the hell are we doing?

My point is simply this.

Much like the overwhelmed employee who is so far in over his head he doesn’t know what part of his job to do first, America is playing whack-a-mole — and losing, badly, I might add — in her job of caring for her people, and making their lives, and the world, better.

And so, the time has come to say this: Don’t talk to me about the “evils” of what conservatives call “gay marriage,” or the “evils” of abortion, until you have solved the problems of child homelessness, child hunger, child poverty, education, and jobs.

Republicans are now doing everything they can to constrict a woman’s right to abortion and reproductive services. What do they think will happen to all those unwanted children? They’re not thinking, but you and I know many of these children will end up unwanted, and become wards of the state, at an increased cost to taxpayers.

How is it that the same people in Congress who want to end abortion are the same people who want to take away food stamps, education, and health care from children? Does the so-called “sanctity of life” only exist in the womb? Could there be anything less responsible that this?

Call it GOP logic. Make it your sole goal to cut taxes and end abortion and see what you get.

Nevermind the increased costs of human suffering that goes along with all this. Never mind that it’s just plain wrong.

Add to this lunacy the conservative’s desire to end the teaching of evolution, and substitute “creationism,” as well as reduce spending, by the billions, on children’s education, and what will we have in a decade? In two decades?

A lot more unwanted children, poor, sick, and ignorant.

Who is forced to care for unwanted poor, sick, and ignorant children?

The taxpayers.

And what do Republicans want to do? Cut taxes.

Do you see where we’re going here?

Now, on top of all this illogical, inhumane stupidity, the GOP, the Tea Party, and social conservatives want to stop same-sex couples from marrying, and adopting children.

Why?

Because homosexuality, according to them, is “evil,” unnatural,” and against the will of God. (Bull, but this is their “thinking.”)

I’m pretty certain those same Bible-thumpers who are against same-sex couples marrying and raising children are the same ones who are all for cutting taxes, reducing the amount of money spent on schools, education, unionized teaching professionals, healthcare, and so on, and so on, and so on.

(Now, back to all those polls. Just a reminder: The majority of Americans, no matter how you slice it, want DOMA dead and same-sex couples to be able to marry. Sadly, no one’s been able to get politicians to understand what the American people want.)

So, let me recap.

There’s a group of people in America who’s life’s mission is to:

  • Cut taxes
  • Cut government spending on healthcare
  • Cut government spending on education
  • Cut government spending on the arts
  • Cut government spending on news and information services
  • Stop the government from regulating pollution-causing industries
  • Stop the government from reacting to climate change
  • Stop the government from regulating food, toys, business in general
  • Teach creationism
  • Teach abstinence-only sex education
  • End abortion
  • End teenagers’ access to contraception
  • Stop same-sex couples from marrying
  • Stop same-sex couples from adopting

And I’m sure a great many more things.

What will we get from all this?

Sadly, many unwanted children, who will not be immunized, who will not receive proper health care, who will not be properly fed, who will not be properly educated, who will end up having more sick, un-educated, and unwanted children of their own, all of whom will not be cared for at all because the state won’t pay for them because Republicans want to cut taxes.

And yet, we have loving, willing, desperately-wanting same-sex couples ready and able to raise children, create families, and get married.

See my point?

Conservatives talk about the “fact” that children must be raised in a family headed by a mother and a father. Well, first of all that’s not necessarily true.

Two long-term studies recently published found just the opposite. In fact, one of them, a twenty-five year-long and vigorously peer-reviewed study published in the journal Pediatrics, found that adopted children raised by lesbian parents are better-adjusted and do better in school than their opposite-parented peers. Add to this the fact that we now have, “a study of gay dads that finds they are more likely than straight ones to focus on parenting over career, at least when their children are young.”

Children deserve to to be raised in a loving home by adults who can teach and raise them well, provide for their material, social, educational, and emotional needs and development. Whatever that looks like, I know that as a stipulation it far exceeds what possibly a majority of children face today.

Now, look at these clips from recent news stories:

Four years ago, 1 in 10 Americans struggled with hunger. A year later, it rose to 1 in 8. Today, it’s 1 in 6. That’s 50 million Americans, including 17 million children — and contrary to popular opinion, only 10 percent of these people are homeless.”

Families with children make up 47 percent of the homeless population in the Dallas metropolitan area.”

Almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance– 3 million more than a year ago, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The report finds one in five people were uninsured during some portion of the last 12 months.

Nearly two-thirds of all the inmates interviewed on Feb. 25 said they dropped out of high school before they graduated, and fewer than half of those dropouts have a diploma or a GED.”

Evangelicals are the only major religious group where a majority opposes the federal government’s efforts to reduce childhood obesity, a Pew Research Center survey shows.”

Over 20 percent of children live in poverty, and over 36 percent of the extremely poor are children. Also, over half of the children in this country under age 6 who live in a household where there’s a single mom are poor.”

Air Pollution as an Emerging Global Risk Factor for Stroke

Air Pollution Called Health Peril. Linked To Cancer, Other Diseases.”

(Oh that last one? It’s from 1962, the year I was born. I guess we haven’t learned much in 49 years.)

Even if conservatives succeed at denying same-sex couples the right to marry (don’t worry, they won’t!) same-sex couples are still going to be raising children, forming families, and living our lives. And there’s nothing those anti-marriage equality social conservatives can do about it.

But the fact remains. There’s a new war in America. I don’t mean Libya. Right here at home, the Republican war on women and children, on gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, on minorities, on Muslims… the list goes on. So does the evil of the GOP. Until we vote them out of office and make damn sure, in the mean time, they know they can’t get away with their social agenda of hate any longer.

Republicans are waging war on the wrong targets. The LGBTQ community, women, and children aren’t the enemy, they’re the solution.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

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

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

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

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

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

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

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

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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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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