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Obama: Our “Profoundly American” LGBT Work Is “At The Heart Of Who We Are”

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President Obama last night spoke at an LGBT fundraiser in the home of a same-sex couple, Karen Dixon and Dr. Nan Schaffer, in NorthwestWashington, D.C. Highlighted are his comments specifically related to LGBT issues, starting with, “And so the work that we’ve done with respect to the LGBT community I think is just profoundly American and is at the heart of who we are.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release

February 9, 2012

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT CAMPAIGN EVENT

Private Residence

Washington, D.C.

7:09 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Laura, for the wonderful introduction — the best introduction that a Cubs fan has ever given me. (Laughter.) The rivalry is fierce in Chicago, but I’ll make an exception here.

And I want to thank Karen and Nan for opening up their incredible home. (Applause.) To all of you, and to everybody who helped put this together, thank you so much. I am very grateful.

I’m going to be very brief at the top, because I want to — usually in these things I like to spend most of my time in a conversation. I do want to acknowledge that I have as good a Cabinet as I think any President in modern history has had. And one of the stars of that Cabinet is sitting right here, Kathleen Sebelius. (Applause.)

All of America has gone through an incredibly difficult, wrenching time these last three years. And it doesn’t matter whether you are black or white, whether you are Northern or Southern, rich or poor, gay or straight; I think all of us have been deeply concerned over these last three years to making sure that our economy recovers, that we’re putting people back to work, that we stabilize the financial system. The amount of hardship and challenge that ordinary families have gone through over the last three years has been incredible. And there are still a lot of folks hurting out there.

The good news is that we’re moving in the right direction. And when I came into office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, and this past month we gained 250,000 — that’s a million job swing. (Applause.) And for the last 23 months, we’ve now created 3.7 million jobs. And that’s more than any time since 2000 — or, yes, since, 2005 — the number of jobs that we created last year, and more manufacturing jobs than any time since the 1990s.

So we’re making progress on that front now, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Today, we announced a housing settlement, brought about by our Attorney General and states attorneys all across the country. And as a consequence, we’re going to see billions of dollars in loan modifications and help to folks who are seeing their homes underwater. And that’s going to have a huge impact.

In my State of the Union, we talked about the need for American manufacturing — companies coming back, insourcing, and recognizing how incredibly productive American workers are; and our need to continue to double down on investments in clean energy; and making sure that our kids are getting trained so that they are competing with any workers in the world, and are also effectively equipped to be great citizens and to understand the world around them.

And we talked about the fact that we’ve got to have the same set of values of fair play and responsibility for everybody — whether it’s Wall Street or Main Street. It means that we have a Consumer Finance Protection Board that is enforcing rules that make sure that nobody is getting abused by predatory lending or credit card scams. It means that we have regulations in place that protect our air and our water.

And it also means that we ensure that everybody in our society has a fair shot, is treated fairly. That’s at the heart of the American Dream. For all the other stuff going on, one thing every American understands is you should be treated fairly; you should be judged on the merits. If you work hard, if you do a good job, if you’re responsible in your community, if you’re looking after you family, if you’re caring for other people, then that’s how you should be judged. Not by what you look like, not by how you worship, not by where you come from, not by who you love.

And so the work that we’ve done with respect to the LGBT community I think is just profoundly American and is at the heart of who we are. (Applause.) And that’s why I could not be prouder of the track record that we’ve done, starting with the very beginning when we started to change, through executive order, some of the federal policies. Kathleen — the work that she did making sure that hospital visitation was applied equally to same-sex couples, just like with anybody else’s loved ones. The changes we made at the State Department. The changes we made in terms of our own personnel policies. But also some very high-profile work, like “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

And what’s been striking over the course of these last three years is because we’ve rooted this work in this concept of fairness, and we haven’t gone out of our way to grab credit for it, we haven’t gone out of our way to call other folks names if they didn’t always agree with us on stuff, but we just kept plodding along — because of that, in some ways what’s been remarkable is how readily the public recognizes this is the right thing to do.

Think about — just take “don’t ask, don’t tell” as an example. The perception was somehow that this would be this huge, ugly issue. But because we did it methodically, because we brought the Pentagon in, because we got some very heroic support from people like Bob Gates and Mike Mullen, and they thought through institutionally how to do it effectively — since it happened, nothing’s happened. (Laughter and applause.) Nothing’s happened.

We still have the best military by far on Earth. There hasn’t been any notion of erosion and unit cohesion. It turns out that people just want to know, are you a good soldier, are you a good sailor, are you a good airman, are you a good Marine, good Coast Guardsman. That’s what they’re concerned about. Do you do your job? Do you do your job well?

It was striking — when I was in Hawaii, there is a Marine base close to where we stay. Probably the nicest piece of real estate I think the Marines have. (Laughter.) It is very nice. And they have this great gym, and you go in there, you work out, and you always feel really inadequate because they’re really in good shape, all these people. (Laughter.) They’re lifting 100-pound dumb bells and all this stuff. At least three times that I was at that gym, people came up, very quietly, to say, you know what, thank you for ending “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Now, here’s the thing. I didn’t even know whether they were gay or lesbian. I didn’t ask — because that wasn’t the point. The point was these were outstanding Marines who appreciated the fact that everybody was going to be treated fairly.

We’re going to have more work to do on this issue, as is true on a lot of other issues. There’s still areas where fairness is not the rule. And we’re going to have to keep on pushing in the same way — persistently, politely, listening to folks who don’t always agree with us, but sticking to our guns in terms of what our values are all about. What American values are all about.

And that’s going to be true on the issues that are of importance to the LGBT community specifically, but it’s also going to be true on a host of other issues where we’re just going to have to make persistent steady progress. Whether it is having an energy policy that works for America; whether it is having an immigration policy that is rational so that we are actually both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants; whether it’s making sure that as we get our fiscal house in order we do it in a balanced way where everybody is doing their fair share to help close this deficit. It’s not just being done on the backs of people who don’t have enough political clout on Capitol Hill, but it’s broadly applied and everybody is doing their fair share.

On all these issues, my view is that if we go back to first principles and we ask ourselves, what does it mean for us as Americans to live in a society where everybody has a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, we’re playing by a fair set of rules, everybody is engaging in fair play — then we’re going to keep on making progress.

And that’s where I think the American people are at. It doesn’t mean this is going to be smooth. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be bumps in the road. It’s not always good politics — sometimes it’s not. But over the long term, the trajectory of who we are as a nation, I believe that’s our national character. We trend towards fairness and treating people well. And as long as we keep that in mind, I think we should be optimistic not just about the next election, but about the future of this country.

Thank you. (Applause.)

END

7:20 P.M. EST

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‘Draconian and Brutal’: Trump to Rescind Ban on ICE Arrests in Schools, Hospitals, Churches

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Despite public opinion polls that find the majority of Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the incoming Trump administration is forging ahead with President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to begin his mass deportations of millions of people “on day one.” That will now include the green lighting of arrests of undocumented immigrants who happen to be sick in the hospital, worshipping or marrying in a church, synagogue, or mosque, or studying — or even teaching — in a school classroom, according to an NBC News exclusive report.

Since 2011, under the Obama administration, ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, has been banned from, as NBC reported, “arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals or events such as funerals, weddings and public demonstrations without approval from supervisors.”

That ban has been described as a “fundamental” principle by the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. “Adherence to this principle is one bedrock of our stature as public servants,” he noted.

As Trump positions himself to achieve his promised goal of enacting the “largest deportation operation in American history,” that ban will be rescinded to remove as many barriers as possible that stand in his way.

READ MORE: House Republican Says They Were Told ‘In Conference’ Hegseth Accusations ‘Were Anonymous’

The Biden administration had expanded the ICE policy to include “colleges or mental health institutions, and even places where religious studies were happening,” according to NBC News’ Julia Ainsley in her on-air report Wednesday. She noted that the ban will also be lifted on arrests at events, including rallies.

“So that means if you have a protest against mass deportations where you would expect undocumented immigrants to show up, that could be a place that ICE could target for arrest,” Ainsley explained.

Immigration experts oppose allowing arrests at sensitive places, believing that access to them, including by undocumented immigrants, benefits society as a whole.

“Immigration enforcement has always required a balance. In the past, Presidents of both parties have recognized that merely because it may be lawful to make arrests at hospitals and schools doesn’t mean it’s humane or wise public policy,” Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told NBC News. “We don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies.”

“There are churches that have historically served as sanctuaries, knowing that ICE can’t come in and arrest them there, and they do that in communities to offer a safe space for migrants,” Ainsley reported, noting that now, faith leaders and others are “worried not only because of policies like these, but because what they see as a change, a shift to the right, in the American public where people are more in favor of deportations than they were previously, and they’re worried about threats to them or to backlash if they continue to give migrant sanctuary within their spaces.”

But as Vox reported in October, Americans are more supportive of deportations only when there are no other legal avenues open to the undocumented, like a path to citizenship.

READ MORE: Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

A Pew Research poll in August, Vox reported, found “that about 6 in 10 registered voters say that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to ‘stay in the country legally, if certain requirements are met.’ And a similar share, 58 percent, favored ‘allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work and stay in the country if they are married to a US citizen.'”

Trump, in an NBC News “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday said he supports deporting legal U.S. citizens who are children of undocumented immigrants, in what he called an effort to not break families apart.

In September of 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo explaining the ban on arrests in sensitive areas.

“In our pursuit of justice, including in the execution of our enforcement responsibilities, we impact people’s lives and advance our country’s well-being in the most fundamental ways. It is because of the profound impact of our work that we must consider so many different factors before we decide to act. This can make our work very difficult. It is also one of the reasons why our work is noble,” Secretary Mayorkas wrote. “When we conduct an enforcement action – whether it is an arrest, search, service of a subpoena, or other action – we need to consider many factors, including the location in which we are conducting the action and its impact on other people and broader societal interests. For example, if we take an action at an emergency shelter, it is possible that noncitizens, including children, will be hesitant to visit the shelter and receive needed food and water, urgent medical attention, or other humanitarian care.”

“To the fullest extent possible, we should not take an enforcement action in or near a location that would restrain people’s access to essential services or engagement in essential activities. Such a location is referred to as a ‘protected area.’ This principle is fundamental. We can accomplish our enforcement mission without denying or limiting individuals’ access to needed medical care, children access to their schools, the displaced access to food and shelter, people of faith access to their places of worship, and more. Adherence to this principle is one bedrock of our stature as public servants.”

Mayorkas offered some examples of sensitive areas where arrests should not be made. Presumably, under the Trump administration, arrests will be allowed in some or all of these locations.

They include:

“A school, such as a pre-school, primary or secondary school, vocational or trade school, or college or university.”

“A medical or mental healthcare facility, such as a hospital, doctor’s office, health clinic, vaccination or testing site, urgent care center, site that serves pregnant individuals, or community health center.”

“A place of worship or religious study, whether in a structure dedicated to activities of faith (such as a church or religious school) or a temporary facility or location where such activities are taking place.”

“A place where children gather, such as a playground, recreation center, childcare center, before- or after-school care center, foster care facility, group home for children, or school bus stop.”

“A social services establishment, such as a crisis center, domestic violence shelter, victims services center, child advocacy center, supervised visitation center, family justice center, community-based organization, facility that serves disabled persons, homeless shelter, drug or alcohol counseling and treatment facility, or food bank or pantry or other establishment distributing food or other essentials of life to people in need.”

“A place where disaster or emergency response and relief is being provided, such as along evacuation routes, where shelter or emergency supplies, food, or water are being distributed, or registration for disaster-related assistance or family reunification is underway.”

“A place where a funeral, graveside ceremony, rosary, wedding, or other religious or civil ceremonies or observances occur.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, says: “Not even most ICE agents want to barge into churches or schools and carry out arrests. But the Trump admin wants people to be afraid; so they want nowhere to seem safe, no matter how draconian and brutal the operation may seem and how much backlash it may generate.”

READ MORE: ‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

 

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House Republican Says They Were Told ‘In Conference’ Hegseth Accusations ‘Were Anonymous’

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A key Republican who sits on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees is defending Donald Trump’s embattled nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense amid a flurry of allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, on-the-job use of alcohol and “aggressive drunkenness,” mistreatment of women — an accusation by his own mother — an affinity for Christian nationalism, and financial mismanagement of two veterans’ charities.

U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who has an extensive résumé in the U.S. Armed Forces and is a medical doctor, says he and his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill were “told” that the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous,” that Hegseth himself does not know who made the allegations, and that Hegseth is “saying to us … ‘it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ ”

But Hegseth has admitted to the sexual encounter, although he has “maintained that their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer,” The Washington Post has reported. In addition to the statement from his attorney, The Post also cites “other documents” it has obtained.

The sexual assault allegation involves a married woman who was attending a Republican conference with her husband and two children in 2017. She has accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her. She reportedly had no memory of how she got to his room, where, she alleged, he prevented her from leaving.

READ MORE: Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

“Her next memory was when she was on the bed or couch and ‘Hegseth was over her,’ barechested, his dog tags ‘hovering over her face,’ the [police] report said,” according to The Independent. “After ejaculating on her stomach, Hegseth ‘threw a towel at her and asked her ‘are you ok?’ ‘ the police report said.”

Hegseth denies the assault allegations but did come to a financial settlement with her, which required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

“A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public,” The Guardian reported last month. “The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired – one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.”

The details appear to be in conflict with the narrative the Trump campaign and Trump’s and Hegseth’s allies have claimed.

“A spokesperson for the Trump transition said … that the ‘report corroborates what Mr Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false,'” The Guardian reported, before disputing that claim.

“The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey county district attorney’s office for review.”

The Guardian also explained that a nurse, and not the alleged victim, had contacted police.

READ MORE: ‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

“Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but could not remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.”

USA Today reported last month that “Hegseth’s statement to police directly conflicts with a 2017 witness account − and with recent statements by Hegseth’s attorney, who said he was visibly intoxicated on the night in question and that his alleged victim was ‘the aggressor in the encounter.'”

But on Wednesday, Congressman McCormick told C-SPAN the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous tips.”

Hegseth, McCormick said, has done “a really good job of showing up against those accusations, which are anonymous, which nobody at Fox will say anything.”

“They’re like, ‘I don’t know what he’s talking — I don’t know what they’re talking about when they they talk about these anonymous complaints.’ He doesn’t know what’s talking about. His wife doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“We’re all, they’re all kind of like, ‘just show me who it is, and and let’s address it, because, I don’t know who it is,'” McCormick said.

“Okay,” the C-SPAN host responded, “but he paid a settlement, so he does know who it is.”

“No,” McCormick insisted, “he didn’t know who it is, and and he saying to us, ‘it’s an empty, it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ That’s that’s not the same thing. And and so that’s that’s why I heard the same thing as you, and I had my concerns. But that’s not what we were told in conference. We were told, ‘no, these are anonymous tips. We don’t know where they came from.'”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

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Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

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President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Kimberly Guilfoyle, officially his eldest son’s fiancée, as Ambassador to Greece is drawing outrage as she becomes the latest in a line of what some are likening to cronyism and nepotism appointments of Trump allies with little relevant experience for the posts. Others are noting her reported history of alleged sexual harassment, and some are questioning the timing after reports that her engagement to Donald Trump Jr. may be over.

Guilfoyle, 55, was head of a Trump 2020 campaign fundraising operation that came under fire for alleged mismanagement and “irresponsible” spending. A former Fox News host, she was “forced” out, according to The New Yorker, after a sexual harassment investigation, and “abruptly” left the right-wing network.

“Guilfoyle, however, may not be an ideal emissary,” reported Jane Mayer at The New Yorker, one month before the 2020 presidential election Trump lost, referring to her status as one of several “female stars in the Republican Party” Trump was promoting.

The former assistant who filed the sexual harassment complaint against Guilfoyle, The New Yorker reported, “was hired in 2015, just out of college, to work as an assistant for Guilfoyle and another former Fox host, Eric Bolling. According to a dozen well-informed sources familiar with her complaints, the assistant alleged that Guilfoyle, her direct supervisor, subjected her frequently to degrading, abusive, and sexually inappropriate behavior; among other things, she said that she was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations.”

READ MORE: ‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

“The draft complaint also alleged that Guilfoyle spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life, and on one occasion demanded a massage of her bare thighs; other times, she said, Guilfoyle told her to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, encouraged her to sleep with wealthy and powerful men, asked her to critique her naked body, demanded that she share a room with her on business trips, required her to sleep over at her apartment, and exposed herself to her, making her feel deeply uncomfortable.”

On Tuesday evening, the President-elect wrote, “I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Kimberly Guilfoyle as the United States Ambassador to Greece. For many years, Kimberly has been a close friend and ally. Her extensive experience and leadership in law, media, and politics along with her sharp intellect make her supremely qualified to represent the United States, and safeguard its interests abroad.”

Trump described her as “perfectly suited to foster strong bilateral relations with Greece, advancing our interests on issues ranging from defense cooperation to trade and economic innovation.”

Guilfoyle was praised by the President-elect’s eldest son.

“I am so proud of Kimberly. She loves America and she always has wanted to serve the country as an Ambassador. She will be an amazing leader for America First,” he wrote, not mentioning their relationship.

But The New York Times did, and extensively.

The timing of the announcement of Guilfoyle’s nomination “would have been unremarkable except for what preceded it: rumors that the president-elect’s eldest son was dating a socialite, Bettina Anderson.”

“The new relationship was seemingly documented in a series of photos published earlier on Tuesday by the British tabloid The Daily Mail, which described them as ‘incontrovertible proof the soon-to-be First Son has moved on’ with a ‘stunning ‘it girl.’ “

“The suggestions of a love triangle have been swirling for several months, including in July, at the Republican National Convention, where Ms. Anderson was spotted sitting behind Mr. Trump — and Ms. Guilfoyle — in a red dress,” The Times reports, noting that “speculation about Ms. Anderson’s closeness with the president-elect’s son intensified in September, with reports that the pair were seen kissing during a brunch not long before. (Adding a layer of intrigue were various reports that Ms. Anderson was a friend of his ex-wife, Vanessa Trump, with whom he shares five children.)”

The Times also reports that “Guilfoyle did not appear in a post-election family portrait, which did feature Vanessa Trump and their children. (Melania Trump — the once and future first lady — was also absent, though the photo did feature Elon Musk.)”

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

Critics are blasting the nomination of Guilfoyle, likening it to nepotism, and noting Trump has already nominated other family members to his incoming administration. During his first term Trump appointed his daughter and son-in-law to top White House advisory posts.

“Nepotism concerns notwithstanding, shipping someone overseas to live in a taxpayer-funded villa is an admittedly elegant solution for getting a potential ex out of sight and out of mind. The Greek ambassador’s residence even has a pool,” The Daily Beast reports.

“Sending Guilfoyle to Greece is an amazing twofer: sort of nepotism, but also doing your son a solid by sending his loud ex-girlfriend to another continent,” snarked Professor of Public Policy Don Moynihan.

“The disgusting cronyism (arguably nepotism) continues: insurrectionist Trump family member Kimberly Guilfoyle is nominated by her future father-in-law to be Ambassador to Greece. She has no qualifications for the position,” claimed attorney and journalist Seth Abramson.

“With Charles Kushner to France, Kimberly Guilfoyle to Greece and Massad Boulos as Senior Advisor on Middle Eastern Affairs, that makes three Trump extended family members with plum government jobs,” notes Democratic strategist Max Burns.

“Ambassadors are supposed to have some connection to (or at least deep knowledge of) the country to which they are appointed. Trainwreck Kimberly Guilfoyle? Is her qualification that she once visited the Greek Islands on vacation? What a joke,” exclaimed A.J. Delgado, an attorney and political commentator who worked as a senior advisor on Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Some also noted Guilfoyle’s involvement in the January 6, 2021 “Save America” rally at the Ellipse, where she and other Trump allies spoke ahead of Donald Trump’s infamous speech declaring they would “walk to the Capitol.”

Media Matters’ senior fellow Matthew Gertz noted that “Trump has picked 13 former Foxers to staff his next administration — so far,” naming them, including Guilfoyle.

He also adds some background on Guilfoyle’s commentary on Greek politics:

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

 

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