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What 2009 Taught Me About 2010

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How To Make Good Use Of A Bad Year And A Bad Decade

It seems appropriate that 2009 would be a terrible year, to top off a terrible decade. Eight years of George W. Bush & Co. ensured much of the first decade of the twenty-first century would be terrible, but I don’t think many foresaw just how bad it was going to get  – and that’s lesson number one.

We pay our leaders in large part, not to “predict” the future, but to see the potential pitfalls and to steer us clear from them. And yet, time and again our leaders croaked, “No one could have predicted…”

At the start of this year, commenting on an interview former Vice President Cheney gave, Jon Perr in “Cheney Defends the “Nobody Could’ve Predicted” President,” summed Bush & Co. up nicely:

“Cheney deflected blame for the calamity on Wall Street and the deepening recession by declaring, “nobody anywhere was smart enough to figure that out” and “I don’t know that anybody did.” Then, Cheney magically converted failure into a virtue and ignorance into a shield in explaining away the Bush presidency:

“No, obviously, I wouldn’t have predicted that. On the other hand I wouldn’t have predicted 9/11, the global war on terror, the need to simultaneous run military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq or the near collapse of the financial system on a global basis, not just the U.S.”

At every turn, of course, voices both inside and outside the government warned a Bush administration asleep at the switch.”

Yes, many had warned Bush all along the way of what could happen. But he ignored them all, and the world in which we live today is the result of his ignorance and denial.

As I said, we pay our leaders to see the potential pitfalls and to steer us clear from them. The trick is in finding the right leaders, leaders who have enough wisdom and insight to look into the future and steer the ship of state through the right waters – not necessarily the calmest – but the right waters.

As a community, we haven’t done a very good job of this. The LGBTQ community is about as diverse and fractured as any group out there today. As a result, we suffer infighting, lack of an agreed common purpose – heck, we can’t even agree on what to call ourselves, much less what our priorities are. Leadership? That’s a far-off dream. What we need right now, more than anything, is a uniter – someone who can harness the best of who we are and enable us to meet to achieve some shared goals.

We don’t have that in HRC, the Task Force, the ACLU, or even our grassroots organizations. As much as the National Equality March in D.C. literally brought together thousands of people from our community, it was equally in effective in pushing members of our community apart.

And so 2009, despite our wins, was also a year of great loss. We won marriage in Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and just recently, Washington, D.C. And we lost marriage in California (Prop 8 supreme court decision,) Maine (repeal of marriage law,) New York (38-24 Senate vote,) New Jersey (decision to not vote.) By my count, that’s five wins and four losses. As much as it feels like at least we had a stellar year in marriage, we really didn’t.

Did we at least win hearts and minds? Well, it feels like we did, a little, but the numbers say, not really. And, certainly, not enough.

However you slice it, we still have a lot of work to do to win hearts and minds – and that’s lesson number three.

Elsewhere, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act finally was signed into law. Sadly, just two weeks later, the murder and decapitation of a Puerto Rican teenager, whose Governor refused to label a hate crime demonstrated clearly the need for the law.

Passage of ENDA, the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, along with repeal of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” appear stalled. Nancy Pelosi has declared there will be no “controversial” legislation taken up by the Houise in 2010, so seeing these pillars of modern gay rights goals stalled is at best, disheartening.

The Democratic Party is not our friend. Not by my definition of what a friend is. At best, we can call the Democratic Party a “fair-weather friend” – there when they need us, not there when we need them. And right now, we need them and they’re not answering the phone.

This is lesson number three – know who our friends are, and reward them appropriately.

Obviously, lesson number four is the opposite: know who our enemies are. Let’s just call them Maggie & Co. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM,) along with those hate icons (that blogger Joe.My.God lets you vote for the worst!) like Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera, along with Tony Perkins. And so many more. Like the C Street crowd. And Rick Warren.

The point here is we need to stand vigilant and ready to counter all their lies, hate, and misinformation. This is critical, and I have dedicated myself to this task. I hope you’ll join me this coming year in confronting their attacks.

So, what did 2009 teach us for 2010?

  • Look to the past while protecting the future. There will be many more attacks against us and the narrow victories we have achieved. We need to never say, “No one could have predicted.” Someone always predicts. We need to listen and be ready to take action.
  • Choose the right leaders and work toward uniting along common goals and issues.
  • Keep fighting to win hearts and minds – regardless of how hard it gets.
  • Identify and support our true friends.
  • Identify, stay vigilant, and battle our enemies to protect our rights, our reputation, and our future.

Stay safe, have a Happy New Year, prepare, prepare, prepare.

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U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is facing sharp backlash after falsely defining the core constitutional principle of habeas corpus during sworn testimony before Congress—and defiantly, yet inaccurately, insisting that presidents have unilateral authority to suspend it.

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“That’s incorrect,” U.S. Senator Maggie Hasan (D-NH) interjected, before serving up the correct response and a bit of a legal lesson—and a warning.

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“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea.”

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“Yeah, I support habeas corpus,” Noem replied, before again promoting a false narrative.

“I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not,” she insisted.

“It has never been done without approval of Congress,” Senator Hassan responded. “Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller recently suggested the administration was looking into suspending habeas corpus.

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Critics blasted Secretary Noem.

“The Secretary of DHS does not know (1) what the writ of habeas corpus is or (2) which branch of gov’t has the constitutional power to suspend the great writ. Given her expected role in detaining millions of people, that’s not great,” warned civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo.

“This is extraordinary,” exclaimed immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t know what the right of habeas corpus is (the ancient right to go to court to challenge government detention) and offers an incoherent definition which suggests she thinks it’s a presidential power to deport people?”

“Kristi Noem says that habeas corpus is the president’s right to remove people from this country. Really great that someone this ignorant of people’s constitutional rights is in charge of removing people from this country,” lamented The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

“Noem just turned a centuries-old safeguard against tyranny into a talking point for authoritarianism,” wrote investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze. “Founding Fathers just face-palmed in unison.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Vulgar Trump Boast Claims Credit for Olympics—and Blames ‘Rigged’ Race for Comeback

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President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Kennedy Center board dinner Monday night included a vulgar expression, a conspiracy theory about the 2020 election, pointed criticism, unfounded self-congratulatory claims, and a suggestion of political retribution.

“What a group of good friends,” Trump told the Kennedy Center’s leadership at the White House event, The Daily Beast reported. “We’re gonna bring this place back. It’s not so good. I thought it was gonna be beautiful.”

Trump also “accused Kennedy Center’s previous leadership of wasting millions of dollars on ‘rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows.'”

“Who thinks of these ideas?” he asked. “We’re bringing our country back so fast.”

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In remarks promoted by the White House Director of Communications, Steven Cheung (video below), an unleashed Trump did not hold back.

The President told the captive audience, “we got the Olympics, and then we got through Johnny, the boss, we got — he’s a friend of mine — we got the World Cup. I got ’em both. And I said, ‘Man, I won’t be president. I won’t be — I got the Olympics and the World Cup, and I won’t be president. And they’re gonna forget that I got them. Nobody’s gonna mention it, because, you know, a little bit, that’s the way life is.'”

Trump’s lament continued: “And then they rig the election.”

“And then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again, and I’ll shove it up their a–,'” Trump said, to applause. “And that’s what I did, and all of a sudden, I then realized, I said, ‘You know what? I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup, and I got the 250th [anniversary].”

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“So if they would have left us alone and wouldn’t have cheated on the election and wouldn’t have rigged it, I would have been retired right now. I would have been happily doing something else, and instead they have me for four more years. Can you believe it?”

HuffPost noted that Trump “appointed himself chair of the Kennedy Center earlier this year amid a pro-MAGA purge of the historically bipartisan organization.”

The video, posted to Cheung’s official account on X, has been viewed over 300,000 times in just 12 hours.

Watch below or at this link.

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is bragging that President Donald Trump has submitted the largest budget ever for the Pentagon: one trillion dollars, about $150 billion more than President Joe Biden’s final budget request. Critics are blasting the White House for insisting that the Republicans’ new budget—which guts Medicaid, reduces taxes (primarily for the wealthy), and eliminates the Department of Education, does not increase the deficit.

“He’s gonna be the first president to introduce a trillion-dollar budget,” Secretary Hegseth told Fox News’ Will Cain on Monday (video below). “That’s not just spending more. It’s also being serious about an audit. It’s also finding cuts where we pull out the Biden garbage and put in President Trump’s priorities. So we’re going to invest a generational investment in those capabilities.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Monday if President Trump is “okay with this bill adding to the deficit?”

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“This bill does not add to the deficit,” Leavitt insisted, before claiming that it “will save $1.6 trillion.”

Economist Justin Wolfers appeared to disagree, posting a chart that shows that the GOP/Trump budget legislation increases the deficit by more than one-third.

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“Tables from the JCT, which is the official revenue scoring body of Congress, show that extensions of the 2017 tax cuts and other measures will add about $5.6 trillion to the deficit, while cuts to renewable energy incentives and amped international tax enforcement will reduce the deficit by about $1.9 trillion.”

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U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) commented, “It doesn’t ‘save’ a $1 trillion, it slashes it from programs like Medicaid and SNAP, kicking millions of Americans off their healthcare and nutrition programs You also forgot to mention the other $3-4 trillion being spent on tax cuts for the wealthy that’ll explode our deficit.”

The Wall Street Journal delivered more math, saying that the GOP “plan won’t reduce federal budget deficits and would make America’s fiscal hole deeper.”

“The current proposal would increase projected budget deficits by nearly $3 trillion through 2034, locking in tax cuts and spending increases that outweigh reductions in spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance. While Republicans, who have vowed to reduce red ink, say higher economic growth will fill the gap, budget analysts across the political spectrum have panned the Republican plan, warning that it worsens the U.S. fiscal picture.”

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