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Melissa Harris Perry: Obama’s LGBT Rights Broken Campaign Promises

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Melissa Harris-Perry on Sunday explored candidate Barack Obama‘s 2008 campaign promise to include LGBT non-discrimination policies in an Obama White House — promises that this week were broken. Harris-Perry brought out Obama’s 2008 answers to a questionnaire from the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, promising to implement an LGBT non-discrimination policy. This week, the Obama administration stated it would not sign an executive order banning discrimination by employers with federal contracts.

As you can imagine, the LGBT community has been angered and disappointed — but in a sign of the community’s increasing influence and support, many straight allies and organizations have echoed our frustration.

Harris-Perry’s new MSNBC show is proving to be an excellent addition to the liberal cable news network’s lineup, and Sunday’s edition was no exception. At the roundtable were Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality, Kai Wright, editorial director at Colorlines.com, Joy-Anne Reid, MSNBC Contributor and Managing Editor of TheGrio.com, and Allison Kilkenny, reporter for The Nation.

Harris-Perry pointed out that the HUD ended anti-LGBT discrimination in housing just a month ago — without any religious exemptions, to boot — so why won’t Obama make that ruling consistent across all federal agencies?

Wright came out of the box noting that “this administration is not going to be a political leader” when it comes to LGBT rights. He noted later that “the Right will use LGBT issues as a divisive force in every single electoral cycle,” which makes the Obama administration’s lack of leadership “a problem.”

Calling the LGBT community “unfair,” Joy-Ann Reid noted that an executive order eliminating discrimination at federal contractors is not as easy as it sounds, and thinks the LGBT community needs to place the blame and responsibility on Congress, not on the President.

Keisling was impressively optimistic: “They didn’t say ‘No,’ they said, ‘No, not now’,” adding, “We hear ‘no’ all the time in trans activism, and ‘no’ don’t mean nothing.” Keisling added that “President Obama is going to be part of the solution.”

Later, Keisling made an excellent observation:

I think conservatives have done us a real real favor by attacking trans people, buy attacking LGBT people, because — I don’t know how else to say this — we’re part of who you defend if you’re a reasonable person.

Kilkenny noted that “anger’s a good thing” to motivate the base, and made the point — that I’ve been making for years — that Obama is not good at branding.

That’s why the GOP keeps controlling the conversation.

 

Note: Melissa Harris Perry continued the conversation on trans issues:

Watch: Melissa Harris-Perry Explores Being Transgender In America

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

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Melania Trump Hails Herself as a ‘Visionary’ at Women’s History Month Event

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First Lady Melania Trump, in remarks at a White House Women’s History Month celebration, hailed herself as a “visionary” as she gave advice to guests.

“As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather takes shape after long, and sometimes challenging process,” the First Lady said. She also described herself as “a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.”

Mrs. Trump also mentioned her new film, “Melania,” saying that she “shaped its creative direction, served as a producer, managed post production and activated the marketing campaign.”

Noting that “curiosity is a core value” that keeps her “ahead of the curve,” she said that her “unrestricted mindset” has led her to “build across very different sectors,” including, “fashion, digital assets, publishing, accessories, skincare, commercial television, and of course, filmmaking.”

Sharing advice and personal experience, Mrs. Trump told the audience, “Often alone at the top, I follow my passion. Listen to my instincts, and always maintain a laser focus.”

She also declared that the “strength of America is closely tied to the role women play in shaping their children’s character, education, and morals. The values cultivated within our communities shape the voice and vision of our next generation.”

“A woman’s influence strengthens our democracy, capital markets, and time-tested business institutions,” she said. “Across the country today, women are finding unique ways to balance career, ambition, and family.”

Image via Reuters 

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‘Seems to Be No Plan’ Expert Says on Trump Securing Iran’s Nuclear Material to End War

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President Donald Trump says he is bombing Iran so it “does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” but a veteran nuclear policy expert is blasting his war strategy, warning there appears to be no plan to secure Iran’s nuclear stockpile — a failure that could leave the U.S. in the “worst of all worlds” while Iran is “holding all the nuclear cards.”

“This may be the worst planned war in history,” Joe Cirincione told Mother Jones. “I see no sign that they knew what they were doing. It seemed to be just literally bomb, bomb, bomb. There didn’t seem to be a plan for how you were going to get at that particular material. If there is one, it hasn’t emerged.”

He warns, “there seems to be no plan for how to end this war.”

“Almost all wars end by some sort of negotiation,” Cirincione says. “If you project forward several weeks, it’s going to have to end. Usually there’s some sort of arrangement that’s made to end a war.”

But, he says, President Trump “seems to be flying by the seat of his pants and making this up as it goes along,” so “we just don’t know.”

READ MORE: Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

Cirincione warns that “it’s possible that Trump has put us into the worst of all possible worlds. He’s made it impossible for us to have a negotiated solution to this. And we can’t use any military means to solve the problem. So we’re left in this worst of all worlds, which is Iran is holding all the nuclear cards at the end of this war.”

Mother Jones reports that “with his war in Iran, Trump has created a big, possibly catastrophic problem: A half-ton of highly enriched uranium, which can be made bomb-ready, is somewhere…out there—available for use by Iran’s new regime or perhaps not fully secured and susceptible to theft or expropriation.”

So, what are the options?

“The United States either has to conduct some high-risk military maneuver where we would land people from the 82nd Airborne or an Israeli commando unit into the site at Isfahan and try to find the uranium, go down hundreds of meters underground, retrieve the uranium and pull it out or perhaps destroy it on site,” says Cirincione. He calls it “a high risk proposition.”

“What you’re left with is really the only other solution where we started: a negotiated deal.”

President Barack Obama signed one with Iran. Trump tore it up during his first term.

With a negotiated deal, “You have to get Iran’s agreement to secure that material, declare it, allow inspectors, and then either secure it under inspection or downblend it—the process in reverse, bring it down to a 3-percent or 4-percent level. That’s the only two solutions to this problem.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

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President Donald Trump says not only does he not know if his war against Iran will help win him the Nobel Peace Prize, he also doesn’t care, and doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Trump claimed to have ‘no idea’ if Operation Epic Fury will ‘get him over the finish line’ with committee members,'” the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday, after a telephone call with the president.

“I don’t know,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not interested in it.”

“No, I don’t talk about the Nobel Prize,” Trump also said, when asked if the topic came up in his recent talks with foreign leaders.

The Examiner’s Christian Datoc, who spoke to the president, reported via video that Trump “appears to be having a massive about-face about winning the Nobel Peace Prize amid his war with Iran.”

“He told me over the phone that he’s not sure if he’s deserving of this award anymore,” Datoc added. “This is a massive change in the president’s rhetoric from really anything he’s said over the past thirteen months.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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