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Farewell Hillary For the Moment: Rest, Relax and Keep the Door Open to 2016!

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Hillary Clinton departs her post as Secretary of State today to an unknown future. While millions of supporters wish her well, she no doubt deserves to take a long rest, as many fervently hope for a Clinton presidential run in 2016

 Today marks the end of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure as America’s chief diplomat and she goes out on the top enjoying sky high public approval marks of 69 to 66 percent from the American public.  Having been removed from the rough and tumble of the day-to-day fights of domestic politics during the past four years, her time in the international arena has served her well.  She steps off to a well deserved rest after logging nearly one million air miles (minus the bonus points for a mileage club) to visit 112 countries, as she championed women’s and girl’s human rights, but in the process she also became the idol of the American LGBT community and a heroine to LGBT activists around the world.

As Secretary of State, Hillary routinely ripped off the “L-G-B-T” acronym in human rights speeches like most people can say “A-B-C-D;” all the while most politicians, particularly those faint-hearted ones who usually avoid saying it or using it–including President Obama, who more times than not, uses the generic “gay” reference in his speeches.  As she  steps down, no other politician in America  is as beloved within the LGBT community as Hillary Clinton.  From the Democratic National Committee to Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, progressive groups are capitalizing on her popularity, furiously sending out appeals as she leaves public life to rack up names and personal data of her supporters and raise some cash for their causes.

In the earliest days of her tenure, she told State Department bureaucrats to give foreign service officers and their same-sex partners every legal benefit that should be availed to them, not withstanding the Defense of Marriage Act.  And she reformed criteria making it much easier for transgender persons to access passports.  She told the staff, let’s find a way to accommodate our LGBT employees and treat them with dignity and respect.

A workhorse to the end, just yesterday she made one final appearance in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department to deliver one last acknowledgement to a myriad of public-private partnerships launched during her tenure.  And of course she pointedly included a tip of the hat to the Global Equality Fund for LGBT human rights launched in conjunction with the Geneva speech:

 

 

“We’re also expanding on some of our successful partnerships. In 2011, I launched the Global Equality Fund to promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons around the world. And I want to welcome the Governments of Norway, the Netherlands, and France to this partnership. And I thank the Arcus Foundation and MAC AIDS Fund for their recent contributions. Also with us is Michel Togue, a human rights lawyer from Cameroon who has fought tirelessly to defend LGBT persons with support from this fund, and we greatly applaud his commitment and his courage.”

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MudnsExyV78

 

The New Civil Rights Movement leaves our readers with her powerful words delivered in “the speech” in Geneva:

“…Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct; but, in fact, they are one and the same. Now, of course, 60 years ago, the governments that drafted and passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not thinking about how it applied to the LGBT community. They also weren’t thinking about how it applied to indigenous people or children or people with disabilities or other marginalized groups. Yet in the past 60 years, we have come to recognize that members of these groups are entitled to the full measure of dignity and rights, because, like all people, they share a common humanity.

This recognition did not occur all at once. It evolved over time. And as it did, we understood that we were honoring rights that people always had, rather than creating new or special rights for them. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.

The second issue is a question of whether homosexuality arises from a particular part of the world. Some seem to believe it is a Western phenomenon, and therefore people outside the West have grounds to reject it. Well, in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors.

Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality. And protecting the human rights of all people, gay or straight, is not something that only Western governments do. South Africa’s constitution, written in the aftermath of Apartheid, protects the equality of all citizens, including gay people. In Colombia and Argentina, the rights of gays are also legally protected. In Nepal, the supreme court has ruled that equal rights apply to LGBT citizens. The Government of Mongolia has committed to pursue new legislation that will tackle anti-gay discrimination…”

Get some rest Secretary Clinton.  Put your feet up.  Get regular massages.  See your doctor. Take your vitamins.  Write a book.  And then, you know…run, run one more time in 2016.  We will be waiting for you.   
Tanya domi 1.2010Tanya L. Domi is the Deputy Editor of the New Civil Rights Movement blog.  She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and teaches human rights in East Central Europe and former Yugoslavia.  Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi was a nationally recognized LGBT civil rights activist who worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the campaign to lift the military ban in the early 1990s. Domi has also worked internationally in a dozen countries on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights and gender issues.  She is chair of the board of directors for GetEQUAL.  Domi is currently writing a book about the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.

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Why Dick Cheney Will Be Voting for Kamala Harris, According to Liz Cheney

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September 6, 2024

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Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney will cast his ballot in November for the current Democratic Vice President, Kamala Harris, according to his daughter, Republican former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney.

Dick Cheney, now 83, is also a former U.S. Secretary of Defense, U.S. Congressman, White House Chief of Staff, and the first-ever White House Deputy Chief of Staff. (To put that in perspective, that was exactly 50 years ago. There are currently now three Deputy Chiefs of Staff.) He is from a generation ago and possibly not well-known to many Americans. A hard-core Republican, during his time in the public eye and behind the scenes in the White House as President George W. Bush’s Vice President, Cheney was reviled by many Democrats, especially for his role in what the Bush administration would come to call “the Global War on Terrorism.”

But Friday, at the annual Texas Tribune Festival, The Atlantic’s Mark Lebovitz interviewed the former Vice President’s daughter (full video), who also served as Vice Chair for the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

“Dick Cheney, your father, a beloved figure among Democrats for many, many years,” Lebovitz said, joking (video below). “Do you, if you know, who he will be supporting or who will be voting for? Do you care to share with us who he will be voting for?”

READ MORE: ‘Traitor’ Trump Trashed for Response to DOJ Kremlin Cash and Russia Disinfo Indictments

“Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris,” Liz Cheney replied, to howls and cheers from the audience. She had endorsed Harris for President earlier this week, and became one of hundreds of prominent Republicans who publicly have said they will not just not vote for  Donald Trump, but will vote for Harris for President.

“If you think about the moment we’re in, and you think about how serious this moment is, my dad believes — and he said publicly — there has never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to our democracy as Donald Trump is,” Cheney explained, as The Texas Tribune reported.

Two years ago Liz Cheney posted video of her father endorsing her bid for re-election, and denouncing Donald Trump.

She continued her remarks on Friday, explaining that, “obviously Vice President Harris and I have had and have policy disagreements on some issues, but I have been really impressed watching, for example, the Democratic Convention, listening to her speech at that convention, learning about her life story, learning about, you know, the story of her success, and the the extent to which it’s an American story and and I think we all have to walk ourselves back from this abyss that we’ve looked over in our politics and and work together to build a better future for this country.”

The former Congresswoman lost her seat over her opposition to Donald Trump and her participation and leadership on the January 6 Committee. On Friday she went even further in announcing her endorsements.

“One of the most important things we need to do as a country as we begin to rebuild our politics is we need to elect serious people,” Cheney continued. “Here in Texas, you guys do have a tremendous, serious candidate running for U.S. Senate.”

READ MORE: ‘Incoherent Gibberish’: Experts Trash Trump’s ‘Incomprehensible’ Answer to Policy Question

“It’s not Ted Cruz,” she said, announcing her support for Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the GOP Senator.

“Imagine telling yourself in the early oughts that Dick Cheney would one day endorse the Democratic candidate for president because the GOP’s 2024 nominee poses an existential threat to American democracy,” remarked Democratic strategist DJ Koessler. “The stakes in this election are truly historic.”

Political scientist David Darmofal commented, Kamala Harris’s “coalition now extends from AOC to Dick Cheney. She’s a uniter, not a divider.”

Watch Cheney’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Something’s in Play Here’ Says Ex-Trump NatSec Official on DOJ Russian Disinfo Indictment

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‘Traitor’ Trump Trashed for Response to DOJ Kremlin Cash and Russia Disinfo Indictments

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September 6, 2024

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Donald Trump’s latest attack on American rule of law and the U.S. Dept. of Justice is facing condemnation. The GOP presidential nominee and convicted felon awaiting sentencing, while speaking at a courthouse press conference on his efforts to appeal a $5 million judgment in a New York sexual abuse and defamation civil case, called the DOJ’s bombshell indictments in the Kremlin cash and Russian disinformation case a “scam.”

“It’s always the same,” observed foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf. “Defend Putin. Defend Russia. Defend corruption. Accuse those who are enforcing the law of being engaged in a scam. Why does he sound this way? Because he is a traitor and a criminal.”

Trump told reporters Friday, “This is a long and complicated web and story, but it all goes back to the DOJ and Kamala and sleepy Joe and all the rest of them.”

“We have a whole rigged election system,” he declared, as he often does, promoting his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen while appearing to be paving the ground for the same response should he lose in November.

READ MORE: ‘Incoherent Gibberish’: Experts Trash Trump’s ‘Incomprehensible’ Answer to Policy Question

“Nobody’s ever seen anything like what’s happening now. I understand yesterday, they’re bringing up Russia, Russia, Russia again, that they’ve done for years. Never found anything,” Trump falsely claimed. “But they should be looking at China, China, China, Iran, Iran, Iran, lots of other places.”

“I haven’t spoken to anybody from Russia in years. They know that, but it’s a scam,” he claimed. “But, it all goes back to the DOJ because we had a trial today. It’s an appeal of a ridiculous –.”

Trump was referring to this week’s indictments that reveal a U.S. media outlet that platformed several far-right pro-Trump influencers was funded with millions of dollars from Russia in a scheme to help Trump.

“The allegations,” NBC News reported on the indictments, “came as part of a wide-ranging move by the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury to target what the Biden administration says are Russian government-sponsored attempts to manipulate U.S. public opinion ahead of the November election.” In a separate report NBC News calls the influencers, “paid messengers for Russian propaganda.”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for Republican President George W. Bush, responded to Trump’s remarks, saying: “The only topic on which Trump never flip flops.”

READ MORE: ‘Something’s in Play Here’ Says Ex-Trump NatSec Official on DOJ Russian Disinfo Indictment

The liberal super PAC American Bridge responded to Trump’s comments by pointing to an Associated Press article and writing: “YESTERDAY Trump’s former senior campaign aide was charged for accepting $1 million to spew Kremlin talking points.”

Podcaster Fred Wellman remarked: “I’m a bit of a news hound and I didn’t see anyone saying that Trump had been talking to Russia yesterday. He is incapable of not blurting out confessions.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Can’t Even Find a Complete Sentence’: Trump’s ‘Gobbldygook’ Childcare ‘Solution’ Slammed

 

 

 

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‘Incoherent Gibberish’: Experts Trash Trump’s ‘Incomprehensible’ Answer to Policy Question

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September 6, 2024

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The fallout continues over Donald Trump’s remarks during what was billed as a “major economic speech” Thursday, now with business and economics experts blasting the ex-president’s “incoherent” answer when asked at The Economic Club of New York to explain what he would do to lower childcare costs for parents.

“Word Salad was served at the Economic Club of New York this afternoon. Despite the audience knowing it was a plate full of empty calories that may cause food poisoning… they ate it up,” MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle remarked on social media. An NBC News senior business analyst, Ruhle worked in the finance industry for 14 years.

“Calling Trump’s remarks at the NY Economics Club incoherent gibberish is not a biased attack. It is a completely rational observation. He did not speak in coherent or complete sentences. And when he did, proposals like (tarriffs – childcare) do not make sense,” Ruhle added on X overnight.

RELATED: ‘Can’t Even Find a Complete Sentence’: Trump’s ‘Gobbldygook’ Childcare ‘Solution’ Slammed

“The 11th Hour,” the MSNBC show Ruhle hosts, called Trump’s remarks “economically illiterate.”

Ruhle was far from the only expert to blast Trump’s comments.

Reshma Saujani is the founder of the nonprofits Moms First and Girls Who Code. her bio says she “has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and most recently advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic.”

Saujani is also the person on stage who asked Trump the childcare question.

“Incomprehensible at best,” is how she later characterized his response, “at worst, outrageously offensive to the millions of families drowning in costs.”

READ MORE: ‘Something’s in Play Here’ Says Ex-Trump NatSec Official on DOJ Russian Disinfo Indictment

Professor of economics and public policy Justin Wolfers, who often has appeared on MSNBC and CNN, posted a transcript of Trump’s remarks but deleted what policy issue he was actually discussing.

“With the context of his entire answer, can you guess what that issue is?” he asked.

Wolfers adds: “This policy analysis yields two substantive claims that relate to the topic:
1. “childcare is childcare” (fact check: true)
2. childcare is inexpensive relatively to his proposed tariffs (fact check: clearly false for many families with kids)”

New York Times financial columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin on MSNBC Friday said Trump’s remarks “seemed incoherent,” while warning that “the Republicans and the Trump machine have become really good at trying to bully people into submission, to some degree. To believe something that they don’t even believe because they’re seeing with their lying eyes and they’re unwilling to recognize what’s in front of them.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Absolutely Bombing’: Trump Makes Pre-Inauguration Ukraine War Vow in Economic Club Speech

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