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DOMA Action Alert: Time to Make Boehner Sweat

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Editor’s note: This guest post by Scott Wooledge was originally published at Daily Kos and is published here with his permission. Scott Wooledge writes at the Daily Kos under the handle Clarknt67.

Have you read Scott’s previous post here, Remembering “The Homosexuals”?

This is a developing story. Stay tuned for updates throughout the day, posted at the bottom.

A grassroots effort to put Speaker Boehner squarely in the heat of a hot national spotlight for his decision to move forward with the defense of the unconstitutional law, Defense of Marriage Act.

GetEqual, Credo Action, Equality Ohio, Impact Cincinnati, and Human Rights Campaign, have all joined forces today to put the heat on Speaker Boehner’s despicable unilateral decision to defend bigotry.

At 2:00 pm ET, five GetEQUAL Ohio activists will enter Speaker Boehner’s West Chester office to deliver 33,233 CREDO Action and GetEQUAL petition signatures. asking that he not spend tax-payer dollars defending DOMA. After delivering the petition signatures they will ask to speak to their representative. Simultaneously, there will be a solidarity protest/rally outside the office, where GetEQUAL Ohio activists will be joined by Equality Ohio and Impact Cincinnati.

What can you do to support this action and demand Speaker Boehner protect the rights of ALL Americans by focusing on job creation and not discrimination?

Join the virtual protest. Speak out and tell him, he’s taking America off-track with this decision.

Call his West Chester office: (513) 779-5400

If the line is busy, call his Washington DC Office: (202) 225-6205

Speaker Boehner is  scheduled to have a Press Conference Today at 4:30. The larger and louder this protest is, the more likely he is to be confronted by the press with similar questions. This is the time to roar on this issue.

Just four hours ago, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi tweeted:

Lend your voice to hers, and these activists. Ask Boehner, why are you wasting your time and taxpayer money on divisive social issues?

Of course, you’re welcomed and encouraged to improvise. But if you need a little help, these sample questions have been provided by Michael Cole-Schwartz, Director of Media Relations for Human Rights Campaign.

7 Questions:


  1. There are as many as nine lawsuits in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA.  Will House Republicans intervene in all of these lawsuits?
  2. Who will represent House Republicans in court? Will the House hire outside private counsel to defend the cases? If pro-bono legal counsel will be asked to represent the House, who will that be? Will a conflict and ethics check be conducted? Will the BLAG be consulted on strategic decisions related to the litigation?
  3. How much taxpayer money will this all cost?
  4. What will the House argue in defending DOMA?  Will they go back to Congress’s 1996 arguments for passing the law – that it is necessary because marriage equality is “a radical, untested and inherently flawed social experiment” and contrary to the “moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality”?
  5. The Justice Department stopped defending DOMA because they concluded that laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation should receive a higher level of scrutiny by courts.  Will the House Republican leaders disagree?  If so, will they argue that gays and lesbians have not suffered a long history of discrimination?  That sexual orientation is somehow relevant to an individual’s ability to contribute to society, when they have four openly-gay colleagues?  That gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation, a position at odds with every major psychological organization?  That gays and lesbians are politically powerful, ironically in defending a law passed by Congress specifically to disadvantage them?
  6. Do they think they’ll win, especially given that in two DOMA-related cases in Massachusetts, a federal judge appointed by President Nixon has already found Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional even under the lowest level of scrutiny that gives great deference to the legislature?
  7. Apart from these cases, will Republican House leadership do anything to address the inequalities that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face?

Social Media Outlets


Updates To Come


Check back with in the hour for updates on how the signature delivery went.

Update: Well, I called and spoke to a staffer. I actually played really dumb. I said “Now, I hear he’s going to be addressing this issue at a press conference today?” And she told me he was not. I reconfirmed and said, “Really? I heard otherwise.” And she said “not today.” Which could mean, the activists are misinformed, the staffer is misinformed, or the game plan for today may have suddenly changed? Hmmmm… Well, public schedules do change in DC, quickly and without notice.

Anyway, I went on in my best earnest voice to express my deep and great concern that nine Constitutional challenges were a lot of work, how much was this all going this cost? She didn’t know. Would he be reporting back to the taxpayers an accounting of these monies? She said she’s share my concerns with the Congressman.

Breaking News On Sit-In Action by GetEqual


This just in from GetEqual. Will post pictures or more news when I find it.

GetEQUAL Ohio Activists Refusing to Leave
Speaker Boehner’s West Chester Office

Speaker Boehner:
Focus on Job Creation, Not the Destruction of American families!

West Chester — Minutes ago, activists from GetEQUAL Ohio — a direct action LGBT civil rights group associated with the national organization GetEQUAL — entered Speaker Boehner’s West Chester office to demand the Speaker not use tax-payer money to defend Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  At this moment, five protesters are holding a sit-in, demanding to speak to their representative.

GetEQUAL State Organizer Tom Morgan issued this statement, “Later today the Speaker will be meeting with his bipartisan legal advisory group to consider whether to defend DOMA.  We strongly encourage the Speaker to heed the advice of Rep. Pelosi and the millions of Americans who are demanding the Speaker focus on job creation and not discrimination.”

Shortly after President Obama announced his decision to stop defending the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act, Speaker Boehner responded, “It is regrettable that the Obama administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs and the challenges facing our economy.”

GetEQUAL Ohio Western Region Organizer, Sean Watkins, responded to Speaker Boehner: “You continue to speak about fiscal responsibility. You have dismal unemployment rates. You’re unable to balance the budget. Yet, you’ve decided now is the appropriate time to divert your focus and spend taxpayers’ money and government resources to defend a law that enforces discrimination — a law that the Attorney General and the President have declared unconstitutional. This isn’t leadership, this is one more example of government over-reach and waste.”

The protest began when a group of people entered Speaker Boehner’s office to deliver 33,233 GetEQUAL and CREDO Action petition signatures urging the Speaker to focus on job creation, not discrimination and to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.  After being denied their right to speak to their Representative, five of the activists began their sit-in.

In addition to Sean Watkins, other activists participating in the sit-in include:

Willmington College student and GetEQUAL Ohio activist Liz Mills explains why she decided to participate in today’s action: “Harvey Milk said it perfectly, ‘Hope will never be silent!’  I have plenty of hope that DOMA will be repealed and I will not be silent!  Today I’ve chosen to sit-in for those in the LGBTQI community who can’t — to let my hope radiate and spark in the hearts of others a sense of urgency to stand up for their rights.”

Mills’ girlfriend, Morgan Bonney, is also participating in today’s sit-in and offers her reason for taking action: “I’m ready to wake up this nation and tell them that ‘Silence = Consent.’ I will never be silent!  Second-class is NOT equal and I will continue to fight for my equality by standing up to the type of religious-based bigotry Speaker Boehner stands behind in his decision to tear apart American families.”

Nineteen-year-old Jesse Bonney, a constituent of Speaker Boehner, issued this statement: “The equality of people is a basic right!  While I recognize we as a growing country have a long way to go, I believe this sit-in and the use of non-violent civil disobedience brings us one step closer to equality, one step closer to a truly united country.”

Thirty-year-old Wilmington College student Karay Martin expressed her growing frustration with the Speaker: “We, as a people, are protected under the Constitution equally.  Everyone has the right to live a life that does not suffer from discrimination — it is innate to our understanding of who we are as a country.”

An outdoor protest is also taking place, as well — including members of Equality Ohio, Impact Cincinnati, and GetEQUAL Ohio — to voice objections to the Speaker’s continued refusal to extend equality to ALL Americans.

Where:  Speaker Boehner’s West Chester office, 7969 Cincinnati-Dayton Road, Suite B

When:   Wednesday, March 9, at 2:00pm

GetEqual’s Twitter feed:

A clarification:

The activists have been locked out of the office and are waiting to deliver the petition to Boehner’s staff. Right now they are outside of the doorreading the 33,233 names of those that have signed on to stand up and fight back against discrimination. More information to follow.Where we are heading now is to make sure that we prove the point to Speaker Boehner that he agreed to protect America’s house and yet he is still shutting out LGBT American’s from basic equal rights protections.

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Stephen Miller Melts Down on Live TV: ‘I Will Be as Excited as I Want to Be!’

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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller repeatedly had to be asked to “calm down” during a wide-ranging CNN interview on Tuesday that has set the internet on fire.

“This president, for the first time in history, is committed to restoring accountability at every level of the federal government,” Miller declared. “You may assert there’s no waste in the Pentagon. You may assert there is no waste in Treasury. You may assert there’s no waste in HHS.”

CNN’s Brianna Keilar made clear no one is asserting there is no waste.

READ MORE: ‘Ridiculous’: Federal Judge Scorches Trump DOJ Lawyer Over Military ‘Pronoun Use’

“Then why are you not celebrating these cuts if you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted?” Miller, shouting, asked.

“Every day that no action is taken —” Miller, still yelling, continued.

“Stephen, let’s calm down,” Keilar insisted.

“The entire salaries of American workers that are taxed disappear forever —”

“Stephen, let’s calm down,” Keilar again asked. “We’re not having a debate.”

“Well you are clearly trying to debate me,” Miller claimed. “And I will be as excited as I want to be about the fact that we are saving Americans billions of dollars, that we are ending the theft and waste and grift and corruption, that we are stopping American taxpayer dollars from subsidizing a rogue federal bureaucracy that has been relentlessly weaponized against the American people.”

Many have questioned the Trump administration’s assertions.

That exchange led veteran journalist John Harwood to declare, “Stephen Miller is bat— crazy.”

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

In another exchange, Miller condescendingly told Keilar, “The way that Article II” of the Constitution “works is a president wins an election, and then he appoints staff.”

CNN’s Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, a co-host on ABC’s “The View,” responded to a clip of Miller. She wrote: “Insane? Hysterical? Deranged? Off his meds?”

Miller, whose “ideology” is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “Anti-Immigrant,” is the architect of President Donald Trump’s family separation policies during his first administration. Over one thousand children have yet to be reunited.

“From March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016, Miller,” the SPLC reported, “sent over 900 emails to Breitbart News editors.”

“Throughout the emails, Miller promotes literature, conspiracy theories, and policies supported by white nationalist and anti-immigrant hate groups,” according to the SPLC.

Watch the video above or at this link.

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‘Ridiculous’: Federal Judge Scorches Trump DOJ Lawyer Over Military ‘Pronoun Use’

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A federal judge sharply criticized an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice over Pentagon policy asserting that the U.S. Armed Forces could somehow be compromised simply by requiring service members to use a colleague’s preferred pronoun.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, appeared skeptical of both the President’s and the Department of Justice’s stance on transgender service members during Tuesday’s hearing.

Reyes “asserted flatly that the idea that the greatest fighting force in the history of the world would be adversely effected by the need to use specific pronouns for a few thousand members of the military is, ‘Ridiculous,'” Fox News producer Jake Gibson reported.

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

According to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, this is how the exchange went:

“REYES: Can we agree that the greatest fighting force… is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1 percent of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them?

DOJ ATTORNEY: I can’t agree with that here.

REYES: Would you agree with me that if our military is negatively impacted in any kind of way that matters… We all have a lot bigger problems than pronoun use. We have a military that is incompetent. Any common sense rational human being knows that it doesn’t. It is pretext. It is frankly ridiculous. If you want to get me an officer of the U.S. military who is willing to get on the stand and say that because of pronoun usage the U.S. military is less prepared because of pronoun usage. I will be the first to give you a box of cigars.”

An estimated 15,000 service members are transgender.

In another striking exchange, Judge Reyes also called Trump’s executive order on transgender service members “unadulterated animus.”

Currently, the Pentagon has ordered service branches to stop accepting new transgender recruits into the military, and to pause any gender-affirming medical care for transgender troops.

READ MORE: ‘Sociopathic’: USAID Worker Sues Alleging State Dept. Medevac Refusal for Pregnant Wife

“One of the plaintiffs,” in the case, WUSA9‘s Jordan Fischer reports, “Koda Nature, a 23-year-old transgender man from Texas, said he had been working with a recruiter to join the U.S. Marine Corps when he was informed last month he would no longer be able to enlist. Nature said joining the military had been his dream since he was 5 years old – a dream to follow in the footsteps of 17 generations of his family.”

President Donald Trump has signed at least four executive orders restricting the civil rights of transgender people in the United States, including one that could be used to ban open service by transgender troops, under the guise of prioritizing military excellence, readiness, and “unit cohesion” — tropes that for decades were also used to try to prevent lesbian, gay, and bisexual troops from serving openly in America’s armed forces.

“Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” Trump’s January 27 executive order reads. Trump also alleged that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

That order specifically targeted the use of preferred pronouns, which he called, “invented and identification-based pronoun usage.”

“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

READ MORE: ‘Unconstitutional Threat’: Trump Border Czar Under Fire Over AOC DOJ Request

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‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

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After a week of disastrous messaging by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, resulting in a 180-degree turn and leaving European leaders and some Americans wondering what U.S. foreign policy is, the Trump administration is once again under fire as critics charge the team he has assembled to start discussions with Russia over its illegal war against Ukraine does not match the “heavyweights” Russia is sending.

The U.S. is already in the hot seat as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who has made clear his country will accept no peace deal if they are not part of the negotiations — appears to have been frozen out of the initial talks, which were held Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.

European officials attending the Munich Security Conference last week, “stressed the need for Ukraine to be part of peace talks to end the war. Vice President JD Vance met with Zelenskyy in Munich Friday, telling him the U.S. wants a ‘durable, lasting peace,’ while Zelensky asked for ‘security guarantees,'” CBS News reported.

“Zelenskyy told the conference of world leaders that Ukraine would not accept a deal made ‘behind our backs without our involvement,’ and called for the creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’ amid the possibility of a changing relationship between Europe and the U.S.”

READ MORE: ‘Sociopathic’: USAID Worker Sues Alleging State Dept. Medevac Refusal for Pregnant Wife

Early Tuesday afternoon the Associated Press, calling it “an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy,” reported: “Russia and US agree to work toward ending Ukraine war in a remarkable diplomatic shift.”

CNN reported that the “United States and Russia agreed on four principles following talks that lasted more than four hours in Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, including appointing a high-level team to help ‘negotiate and work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine’ in a way that’s ‘acceptable to all the parties engaged.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, said Ukraine will not ‘give in to Russia’s ultimatums’ and earlier said he would refuse to sign any agreement negotiated without Kyiv’s involvement.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who reportedly was part of Tuesday’s talks, described them as “useful.”

The talks are expected to continue after this initial meeting. Trump administration officials at the talks in Saudi Arabia included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Foreign policy expert and historian Sławomir Dębski, a former Russia foreign policy analyst, over the weekend described Russia’s team.

He named, “Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who has worked in diplomacy for over half a century,” “Sergey Naryshkin, Ushakov’s top spy, who served alongside Putin in the Soviet KGB,” and “Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard, who has ties to the Kremlin chief’s family and, according to the publication, could play a key role as an unofficial ‘backchannel’ to Trump’s negotiators.”

“A rumour says that Vladymir Medinsky is to join the Russian team in Riyadh,” Dębski added. “He is a former Minister of Culture. Now he is Putin’s key adviser on ideological aspects of Russian aggression on Ukraine.”

Bloomberg News on Friday reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against US President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

“That Putin is opting to rely mostly on highly skilled and experienced negotiators to represent Russia in any talks is hardly a surprise,” Bloomberg added. “The personnel choices underscore just how determined the Russian leader is to secure a favorable outcome in any negotiations and potentially how little his demands in relation to Ukraine have changed in the three years since he ordered the full-scale invasion.”

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Yale University Professor Timothy Snyder, a historian and expert on the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, is the author of the popular bestseller, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.”

Responding to Dębski’s post, Snyder warned: “The American team has almost no experience in high-level international negotiation, no regional expertise on Ukraine and Russia, and no relevant foreign language knowledge. Not true of the Russians, to put it mildly. Looks like a bloodbath by design.”

Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, blasted the Trump administration.

“It was a mistake for the Trump administration to negotiate with the Taliban without the Afghan government at the table. It is a mistake to negotiate with Putin without including Kyiv,” he wrote. “When the topic is the future of Ukraine, Kyiv has a right to be at the table, especially in light of the sacrifice and bravery of Ukrainians in defending their homes against Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Putin understands that the United States and Europe are more powerful together. That’s why he wants to divide us. We should not help him.”

READ MORE: Federal Judge ‘Skeptical’ of DOGE: Report

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