Organizing Equality Under Obama, No Better Than Being Under Bush?
As I stated in “Marriage Equality Through A Netroots Nation Looking Glass,” I was at Netroots Nation, a progressive conference, this past weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada. My partner, David Badash, and I took part in quite a few panels/caucuses/and discussions about the LGBT movement and where it should/could be heading.
After listening to the panelists for the forum, “Organizing the Equality Movement in the Obama Era,” which was hosted by Rick Jacobs from the Courage Campaign, and included Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend, Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, Arshad Hasan, the training director for Democracy for America, and Thomas A. Saenz, the President for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Equality Fund (MALDEF), I don’t know what I should be feeling.
The view of this panel seems to be as diverse as the number of issues that we must fight for every day. I understand that is what it means to organize equality. It is about every issue, not just marriage, not just immigration, ENDA, or DADT. It is all about equality on each and every issue.
Spaulding talked more generally about rights but ran over DADT quickly, while Wolfson hit on marriage and its importance to the movement in general. Hasan basically talked about the LGBT and progressive movements and how they are NOT in line with one another, and Saenz brought on his view of immigration.
The lack of focus and the huge number of issues that we must fight for is making our movement and our fight seem less important within our own community. How can we focus on all these issues? How can we come together and fight as a united front and not as a divided group? The thing here really is that the percentage of people that are fighting for our rights in the first place is smaller then the majority, so splitting up that small percentage into even smaller ones by not sharing common goals or a shared focus makes our movement obsolete. I believe that all these fights need to be fought, but honestly we can’t fight all of them all the time.
We need to start supporting the people that support us. Reward those fighting for equality by backing them with money, support, and votes. We also need to let those who do not support us know that we are watching and we will fight back. We need a strong ally in the White House. We need allies in Congress, local governments, and in our neighborhoods.
If you look back and see what we have gained during the presidency of George W. Bush and the year and a half we’ve dealt with our proclaimed ally and defender Barack H. Obama, you will notice… not much. Throughout Obama’s campaign it was “I promise ‘this’,” and “We will fight for ‘that’,” but really we’ve seen very little significant action. So how is this any better? I understand that there are things that are better. Small things are beginning to change, but I don’t see any advocacy from the man in charge. (He can talk but fails to deliver.)
Now on the upside, I am encouraged that we are finally getting together to talk. Bringing the minds together to ask questions and to share ideas. However, I feel we don’t do this enough. That we don’t build relationships within our ‘family.’
So really, how have things changed?
In 2006 America voted to CHANGE the house, and in 2008 America again voted to CHANGE, this time it was the presidency and the way the country was to be run. To CHANGE the ‘issues’ that we focus on, or at least the way we look at them.
But where is that change?
Granted, Obama has done quite a few little things for us as progressives and as LGBT. He signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He’s signed a couple executive orders when he entered office. One was for the withdraw of troops in Iraq, another to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, he also reduced the security given to presidential records. Nominating Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
So I’m not saying he hasn’t done anything, I’m just saying it hasn’t been what he promised…for example: when will Guantanamo Bay actually close? When will our troops be out of Iraq? I also know he didn’t promise marriage for the LGBT community, but overall I thought his election would have meant a bigger ally in the White House.
We need to hold all in Congress, the White House, and local Government accountable to their constituents and their promises.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
