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UN Gay Rights Vote Result Of Growing Global Support for LGBT Rights

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The United Nations this week, in an historic vote led by the United States and cosponsored by 85 countries, voted to condemn violence against LGBT people around the world — in stark contrast to a vote last November that initially allowed gays to be executed without cause. How did it happen? What are the roots of this new-found tolerance and support? Columbia University human rights professor and Eurasia expert Tanya Domi points to Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton as two pieces of a very large puzzle as she explains the backstory.

Despite horrific incidents of violence perpetrated against gay people from New York City to Moscow, from Kampala to Sarajevo and from Dakar to Tehran, Wednesday’s burgeoning, supportive vote by the UN Human Rights Council that condemned violence against persons for their sexual orientation or gender identity and affirmed that international human rights values and principles apply to sexual minorities, was actually set in motion in Vienna in 1993, when the UN convened the World Conference on Human Rights–called by many historians a “rare and defining moment.”

Read: “UN Condemns Violence Against LGBT Persons Ahead Of Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill

The 1993 Vienna conference convened member states for a review and affirmation of human rights laws and practices in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948 and drafted under Eleanor Roosevelt’s visionary leadership — arguably her greatest legacy. With Rene Casio, a Canadian lawyer, Roosevelt rhetorically and intellectually through the drafting of UDHR sought to achieve the human rights aims originally contained in the UN Charter through the direct participation of non-state actors, whom she described as “a curious grapevine that would penetrate closed societies and could potentially transmit the messages of human rights abuses to the international community.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_6YNIXPGXKo%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

At the founding of the UN there were approximately 41 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) registered with the UN and over the years these numbers have grown exponentially into the thousands.

Also over the years, through the Helsinki Process and the opening up of Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall, followed by the Anti-Apartheid campaign against the former South African regime and into the 1990s, women globally began insisting that women’s rights are human rights too, eventually articulated by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton at Beijing in 1995.

Thus the human rights moment presented at Vienna almost two decades ago was a culmination of NGO advocates’ efforts over many years of work, representing hundreds of non-governmental organizations from across the world descended upon the World Conference demanding a greater direct role in the UN human rights processes. The NGO activist presence at the Vienna Conference ultimately persuaded 170 Member States to support the transformation of the UN human rights regime by creating the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, originally envisioned at the founding of the UN in 1945.

The other main UN instruments that support its human rights mandate include the Economic and Social Council, originally established under the United Nations Charter as the principal organ to coordinate economic, social, and related work of the 14 UN specialized agencies, functional commissions and five regional commissions. The Human Rights Commission, now known as a council, meets three times a year and has a 10 point standard agenda that shapes the work and focus of the council throughout the year.

But the establishment of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights at Vienna is viewed by scholars and many advocates as the ultimate actualization of  “We the people,” as described under the UN Charter.  The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, articulated in 1993, lays out the High Commissioner’s mandate and roadmap to advance human rights policy and work at the UN. (Here is a detailed action guide on processes of the Human Rights Council.)

This past Wednesday, during the discussion on follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration of the agenda, 85 countries called for an end to anti-LGBT violence and were joined in support by 118 NGOs who signed a Joint Statement in celebration of this “stunning” vote, thus formally affirming human rights for LGBT people in the Human Rights Council by growing numbers of supportive States.

It is my belief that U.S. foreign policy is leading the way forward  to secure human rights for LGBT peoples globally, by the Obama Administration with Secretary Clinton articulating it most forcefully, stating “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” echoing her transformative words about women rights at Beijing 16 years ago.

Among the U.S. based NGOs that have been active on LGBT human rights issues and signed onto the joint statement of support present in Geneva this week included the Council for Global Equality, The Center for Women’s Global Leadership, based at Rutgers University, Human Rights First (formerly known as the Lawyer’s Committee,) Human Rights Watch, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Queer African Youth Network , and The American Jewish World Service (headed by Ruth Messinger, former NYC Councilwoman and candidate for Mayor.)

Read: “UN Vote Allowing Gays To Be Executed Result Of Political, Religious Fundamentalism

The Uganda LGBT community was represented by more than 10 NGOS and  among activists present included the highly respected Ugandan lesbian activist Kasha Jacqueline. Also attending and signing onto the Joint Statement of Support was the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, ARC International (Canada and Switzerland) the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (Canada, Mexico and South Africa) and The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (New Delhi and London.)

Much work remains to be done  to formally establish human rights protocols that provide protections to persons who are sexual minorities, as more than 70 UN Member States continue to prosecute people because of their sexual orientation. Naysayers use “cultural relativist” arguments against the inclusion of LGBT recognized rights, such as the African Union and other con arguments offered by Pakistan, for example, asserting that the Human Rights Council was setting about to create a new set of human rights that has no legal foundation in any existing human rights instruments. Nonetheless, Wednesday’s vote at the UN Human Rights Council is a watershed moment marking the universality that human rights are LGBT rights and strongly indicates a new impetus in the UN’s continual advance toward realizing human rights for all people, including those who happen to be gay.

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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