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Week In Review: Transgender Day of Remembrance, Crackdown on Occupy Movement, Clinton to Visit Burma

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Yesterday and this week, we honor our transgender sisters and brothers, recognize the power of the Occupy Movement as mayors and police organize against fellow citizens and  rely on journalists to keep us informed on the deeply troubling news emitting from Penn State University’s child abuse scandal.

International

13th Transgender Day of Remembrance

 Sunday marked the 13th International Transgender Day of Remembrance. As we take a moment to commemorate transgender persons’ efforts to achieve justice for the living and pay tribute to those from our community who have been so cruelly murdered because of their gender identity. The New Civil Rights Movement stands with trans people in America and across the world in their efforts to achieve justice and equality and call on all LGBTQ groups to redouble their efforts to advance trans rights–in jobs, housing, medical and identity documentation, to name just a few. We have all witnessed the unprecedented mass media cultural breakthrough by Chaz Bono since his sexual transition from woman to man. We believe that these media outreach efforts, if done properly can advance the public’s awareness about the lives and needs of trans people and provide a window into the challenges of leading a transgender life. Check this calendar for commemorative events.

Clinton to Visit Burma–First in 50 Years

During President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia last week he announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would travel to Burma (also known as “Myanmar,” the previous military regime’s given name) next month to meet with a new civilian government formed earlier this year, that has signaled openness to the West in word and deed.  Its release of home detained Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Sung Suu Kyi, the enduring leader of the democratic opposition in Burma and her positive conversations with President Obama and Secretary Clinton gave the green light for the visit, the first by a U.S. Secretary of State in 50 years.  A photograph of Clinton side-by-side with Suu Kyi will be an historic one,  worth more than a thousand words. Clinton laid out the policy foundation for the Obama Asia trip early in November by delivering a speech titled “America’s Pacific Century.”

Syrian Regime Escalates Violence, Egypt Protesters Challenge Military

Sectarian violence continues to plague Syria, where the city of Homs is ground zero for government orchestrated killings estimated at several hundred casualties a day now, that has been weeks in duration since Arab Spring hit Syria in February. President Bashar al-Assad’s actions, in wake of the Arab League’s suspension, indicates he has no intention of seeking a brokered mediation to end hostilities between the government and Syria’s opposition. Egypt on the other hand, whose opposition succeeded in removing dictator Hosni Mubarak earlier in 2011, has returned to Cairo’s streets in opposition the the military rulers who have slowed a turnover to elected civilian leadership. Demonstrators were violently removed from Tahrir Square in clashes on Friday when the military and police used tear gas on the opposition, that was estimated more than 1,000 persons were injured and 10 persons were killed. Demonstrators are demanding elections and a quick transition to civilian rule.

National

U.S. Mayors Coordinate Arrests of Occupy Activists, Capitol Hill Weighs In, UC-Davis Cops Overreact

From Oakland to New York City during the past week, the nation’s mayors and police forces engaged in an apparent coordinated effort to drive the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators out of park encampments coast-to-coast, resulting in arrests, violence and outrage by demonstrators, who vowed to continue the anti-Wall Street movement, who seem only limited by their imaginations and ability to adapt to harsh conditions.

The police effort in New York City began early Tuesday morning after an order by Mayor Michael Bloomberg who directed the police action that began at 1:00 a.m. when NYPD raided Zucotti Park in full anti-riot gear, accompanied by the New York City Department of Sanitation and the FDNY, who assisted in throwing away all personal items, including bedding, clothing, books and food.

Not only were demonstrators arrested, but so were journalists, even if they were clearly identified as media. The raid’s obvious timing was directed to avoid and severely limit media coverage, given the action took place during the early hours of the morning. David Badash, the New Civil Rights Movement publisher and editor in chief reported NYPD’s actions, posting blogs at 2:10 a.m. and 4:13 a.m., that were followed up throughout the week, including court judgements evicting movement participants from Zucotti Park and directing that no demonstrators could return to the park with tents or stay overnight.

Meanwhile, a news story reported by the San Francisco Bay Guardian on Friday said that The Police Executive Research Forum, an international non-governmental organization was intimately involved in facilitating a national coordinated effort to roll-up the Occupy Movement at the request of 40-city governments from Oakland to New York City. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan tipped off media that a coordinated effort had been underway during an interview reported by MSNBC on Tuesday. Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! confirmed the media reports on Thursday when she interviewed Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum. Goodman, describing the interview, writes on her blog:

We host a discussion on policing and the Occupy Wall Street movement with Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which helped organize calls among police chiefs on how to respond to the Occupy protests, and with Norm Stamper, the former police chief of Seattle, who recently wrote an article for The Nation magazine titled “Paramilitary Policing from Seattle to Occupy Wall Street.” “Trust me, the police do not want to be put in this position. And cities really need to ask themselves, is there another way to handle this kind of conflict?” Wexler says. Stamper notes, “There are many compassionate, decent, competent police officers who do a terrific job day in and day out. There are others who are, quote, ‘bad apples.’ What both of them have in common is that they ‘occupy,’ as it were, a system, a structure that itself is rotten. And I am talking about the paramilitary bureaucracy.”

By Saturday morning the Occupy Movement story moved from city parks to Capitol Hill when MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, host of Up with Chris Hayes reported he had obtained a copy of a memorandum prepared by the D.C. lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranfor, which reportedly has close ties with Speaker John Boehner, who wrote a memorandum to the American Bankers Association proposing an $850,000 strategy that would include monitoring and efforts to undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement in support of politicians who are opposed to the grassroots movement.

But the denouement of the week was video and photographs of the University of California-Davis police pepper spraying protesting students who were sitting on the ground, engaged in non-violent constitutional civil disobedience. This video and photographs give new meaning to the adage that “a photograph is worth a thousand words.” The two officers involved in the pepper spray incident are under investigation by a University task force and are currently on paid administrative leave. Faculty and students are calling for Chancellor Linda Katehi to step down. Katehi has dismissed such calls for the time being.

Failure Likely as Deadline Looms for Super Committee on Deficit Reduction

The Democratic co-chair of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that calls for $1.2 trillion in the government debt over the next 10 years, says that a compromise with Republicans  is not likely who face a looming deadline tomorrow and a Wednesday vote by committee members on negotiated cuts and revenues. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) said Sunday during a CNN television interview that “no-compromise with the Republican members of the committee is in sight” and that the main sticking point was concerning “shared sacrifice” by all Americans, a euphemism for raising taxes on those who earn more than $1 million a year, a Democratic policy that the Republicans have refused to agree to during the past 10 weeks of debate and negotiation.

If the Super Committee fails to reach a compromise on the cuts, a process known as “sequestration” will kick-in automatically cutting substantially large sums of money across the U.S. government budget. Both Democrats and Republicans admitted  today that sequestration is probably the only way out of the shameful morass.

Prop 8 Ruling Allows Anti-Gay Marriage Proponents Standing

The California State Supreme Court issued an advisory ruling on Thursday that gives standing to Proposition 8 proponents to challenge the Court’s  constitutional ruling on December 8.  The full transcript of the Court’s decision is here.  The American Foundation for Equal Rights seems unperturbed by the ruling and fully expects the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the District Court constitutional ruling on behalf of marriage equality.

Penn State:  Sandusky Claims Innocence, NCAA Opens Investigation of Penn State’s Athletics, Paterno Diagnosed with “Recoverable” Lung Cancer

The second week of the Penn State University sexual abuse scandal seems to only get worse, as more new stories emerged, including a Saturday announcement that former coach Joe Paterno has been diagnosed with “recoverable” lung cancer. Paterno is 84-years old. The painful reality that there are more terrible facts to emerge is something truly hard to fathom, with the media taking command in reporting each new fact that emerges to a stunned and captivated story that is simultaneously repulsive and deeply offensive.

Stunningly, Jerry Sandusky, former defense coordinator coach for the football team, who has been charged with 40 counts of sex abuse of children, gave a telephone interview to Bob Costas, the highly regarded NBC sports journalist, that was initially broadcast on MSNBC’s Hard Ball with Chris Matthews and later on NBC’s Hard Rock with Brian Williams on Monday evening that revealed a halting Sandusky, who delayed his denial that he was sexually aroused by young boys, in a direct question posed by Costas, but admitted that he “should not have showered with those kids.”

More investigations have ensued, including the NCAA who communicated by letter to Penn State on Thursday which informed the university, in a blow that it would not be limiting its investigation to the football program, but would include all athletics at Penn State University. Other agencies investigating the beleaguered university include the Attorney General of Pennsylvania State, the Board of Trustees of  Penn State University, The Second Mile, the organization that Sandusky founded for at risk children, the U.S. Department of Education and potentially the FBI, who could be looking into Sandusky’s travel to out-of-state sporting events, which he took children with him who he allegedly sexually assaulted and raped during these trips.

Media reports indicate that The Second Mile is in the process of spinning off its programs to other agencies and may close its doors, due to the child sex abuse scandal.

Penn State University is required by the Jeanne Clery Act, a federal statute, to annually report all campus crimes to the Department of Education.  Failure to report crimes, can result in a $27,500 penalty for each infraction and can expose the University to violations of Title X education requirements.

Given the magnitude of the Penn State scandal, the media has taken command of this story with Sports Illustrated magazine publishing a “special edition” cover story this week titled “Special Report:  Scandal. Shame. A search for answers at Penn State.”

While the New York Times got credit for breaking this story, the reporter who initially reported that Sandusky had been summoned to a grand jury was scooped by Sara Ganim, a 24 year-old crime reporter at the Harrisburg Patriot-News on March 31st, who graduated from Penn State in 2008. Ganim has garnered national attention for her intrepid reporting, most recently for her published interviews on Nov. 7 of two mothers of children who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Sandusky. The Patriot-News published a story to readers by writing they broke the story when they had the facts.

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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News

‘You Don’t Care’: Gay Congressman Blasts Defense Secretary Over LGBTQ Troops

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U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, a Democrat and the first openly gay member of Congress from Illinois, delivered strong criticism of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, accusing the embattled Pentagon chief of not caring about LGBTQ service members, and fostering an environment where LGBTQ people do not want to join the military. He also brought up the planned renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk, which the Secretary reportedly ordered to intentionally coincide with LGBTQ Pride Month.

Congressman Sorensen told Secretary Hegseth that Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, who was assassinated in 1978, served “courageously,” but was forced to resign from the Navy because he was gay.

“You see,” Congressman Sorensen said, “as a kid, all I wanted to be was the weatherman on TV. You know, I learned that I could have gone into the Army or the Navy to learn meteorology. But someone like me was not allowed. They didn’t want someone like me, Mr. Secretary.”

READ MORE: ‘Coup’: What DHS Secretary’s ‘Liberate’ Comment Means, According to Experts

“There wasn’t anything that I could do to change myself, or the way that my nation thought of me. And so I want to keep this very simple. Do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country’s thanks?”

Hegseth attempted to dodge the question.

“Sir, the decision to rename the ship was—” Hegseth began.

“I’m just asking, do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country’s thanks? Yes or no,” Sorensen pressed.

“If his service was deemed honorable, yes,” the Secretary replied.

“I disagree with your leadership,” Sorensen said, “because I believe that every veteran deserves our thanks. We all walk in the footsteps of leaders before us, and you may not find the value in the fact that many of those people are women, with different skin colors, different backgrounds, different talents, immigrants, gay, straight, transgender, disabled.”

READ MORE: In Reversal, Trump Uses Term Tied to Ethnic Cleansing Amid Renewed Mass Deportation Demand

“You may want to change it, but you can’t. Because the America that you and I both serve is a place where everyone has the ability—or should have the ability—to grow up and be the hero their grandpa was. I wanted to do that when I was a kid.”

“We’re going back to that time,” the congressman warned. “Gay kids like me, they don’t want to go into the Army. They don’t want to go into the Navy, because you don’t care for them. It’s happening all over our country.”

“My grandpa taught me never to judge the value of a veteran’s service. And I hope, Mr. Secretary, you learn to do the same in your capacity, and you can find it in your heart, to make that part of your process.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Democrats Demand Noem Testify After Handcuffing of US Senator Padilla

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‘Coup’: What DHS Secretary’s ‘Liberate’ Comment Means, According to Experts

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Before her protective squad forcibly removed, detained, and handcuffed a sitting U.S. Senator asking a question at her Los Angeles press conference, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem delivered remarks that legal and political experts warn are explosive.

“We are not going away,” Secretary Noem vowed, regarding herself and her Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, other DHS operatives, and the U.S. Military, all of whom she promised would “continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city.”

“We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country here,” she declared, referring to Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Experts are once again sounding the alarm.

READ MORE: In Reversal, Trump Uses Term Tied to Ethnic Cleansing Amid Renewed Mass Deportation Demand

“I think the governor and mayor of Los Angeles are right,” declared U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) on MSNBC on Thursday night. “I think they’re testing out their ability to essentially commandeer National Guards throughout the country, and use them for their own purposes.”

“One thing that got lost in the horrendous treatment of Alex Padilla today,” Schiff continued, “was what Kristi Noem said at that press conference in saying that it was necessary to have these troops there to ‘liberate’ the city from the socialists. That’s the kind of rhetoric the administration is using.”

He went on to say that “the fact that they would abuse the military that way and justify it that way is unconscionable.”

Other critics weighed in as well.

Quoting Secretary Noem’s remarks, Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, a top constitutional law scholar, wrote: “Using military force to displace a democratically elected state government is called a coup.”

Former prosecutor and former Hill staffer Stephen Rodio remarked, “Trump’s regime is going to liberate us from the people that we elected to represent us.”

“Be clear on what she’s saying here,” wrote podcaster Joe Walsh, a former GOP Tea Party Congressman and now a Democrat and political commentator. “She’s saying that Trump is going to use the U.S. military to overthrow both the duly elected Mayor of Los Angeles & the Governor of California. I understand she’s not very bright, but, in essence, she’s saying the federal government has declared war on California.”

READ MORE: Democrats Demand Noem Testify After Handcuffing of US Senator Padilla

“Quiet Part Out Loud?” asked U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). “Sounds a lot like she’s saying they’re there to liberate the city from its elected government.

Lincoln Project senior advisor Stuart Stevens also quoted Noem’s remarks, then wrote: “That’s a statement of intent of a coup, to ‘liberate’ a state from legally elected officials. Then armed men tackle and shackle one of those leaders. Nothing about we are here to arrest violent offenders and support law enforcement.”

“The declared purpose is to undo the choice of voters. Nothing like this has ever happened in modern America except the insurrection of Jan. 6th, which Noem supported, including her support for pardoning those who assaulted law enforcement.”

“Greeted as liberators, you say?” wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Ward, appearing to echo former Bush 43 Vice President Dick Cheney’s fated 2003 Iraq War claim.

“Do the decent thing and resign, Noem,” urged former U.S, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). “The world is watching.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Not Today Hegseth’: Dem Slams Defense Secretary as ‘Unfit to Lead’ in Fiery Exchange

 

Image via Reuters

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In Reversal, Trump Uses Term Tied to Ethnic Cleansing Amid Renewed Mass Deportation Demand

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Facing backlash from his base over an announced, possible exemption for undocumented immigrants working in agriculture and hospitality, President Donald Trump has entirely reversed course, now calling for the mass “remigration” of all undocumented individuals. The term “remigration” is closely associated with ethnic cleansing and far-right European movements, including the neo-fascist political party backed by both Trump and his vice president.

In a wild rant steeped in fascist and ethnonationalist rhetoric, Trump baselessly attacked the Biden administration and characterized all undocumented immigrants as takers costing the country billions—despite the fact that the undocumented population is a net economic positive for the United States.

“The Biden Administration and Governor Newscum,” Trump declared Tuesday evening—using his derogatory nickname for California Governor Gavin Newsom—“flooded America with 21 Million Illegal Aliens, destroying Schools, Hospitals and Communities, and consuming untold Billions of Dollars in Free Welfare.”

READ MORE: Democrats Demand Noem Testify After Handcuffing of US Senator Padilla

These claims are not supported by evidence.

“All of them have to go home, as do countless other Illegals and Criminals, who will turn us into a bankrupt Third World Nation. America was invaded and occupied. I am reversing the Invasion. It’s called Remigration. Our courageous ICE Officers, who are daily being subjected to doxxing and murder threats, are HEROES. We will always have their back as they carry out this noble mission. America will be for Americans again!”

Just one day earlier, Trump had declared that undocumented immigrants working on farms, in agriculture, the hotel and entertainment industries are “very good, long time workers,” who are “almost impossible to replace.”

READ MORE: ‘Not Today Hegseth’: Dem Slams Defense Secretary as ‘Unfit to Lead’ in Fiery Exchange

Changes are coming!” he vowed.

“Our farmers,” Trump also said Thursday at a press conference, according to The New York Times, “are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they have worked for them for 20 years.”

“They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe not.”

“We can’t do that to our farmers and leisure, too, hotels,” he said, suggesting an executive order was in the works. “We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

All that appears to have been a blip.

READ MORE: ‘Mouthpiece for the Kremlin’: Rubio Scorched for ‘Russia Day’ Congratulations

 

Image via Reuters

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