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Op-Ed: Human Rights Campaign Once Again Proves Itself a Clueless Wealthy White Privileged Gay and Lesbian Club

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HRC’s Refusal to Revoke Its Endorsement of a Republican Senator Who This Week Mocked His Female Democratic Opponent’s Biracial Heritage Again Proves Its White Privilege Runs Deep

If you, the reader, are a member or supporter of the Human Rights Campaign, then I, the writer, will advise you to quit reading as I am about to cause you great offense. That said, now comes the organization’s latest act of political clumsiness and entitled rich white privileged gay and lesbian attitude.

HRC previously published a list of politicians that it had endorsed and given a percentage rating for this election cycle, based on their overall treatment of public policy issues that concerned the greater LGBTQI community. This list included Illinois Republican, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (photo), who received a rating of 78% and received the HRC’s blessings this past Spring. Conversely, his Democratic opponent, Illinois Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, has a 100% rating from the HRC. A spokesperson for the organization told me that Kirk’s rating and the subsequent March 2016 endorsement, (to paraphrase), were “for the Senator’s assistance and support for LGBT issues and that the HRC was making every effort to be non-partisan in its selections.”

An objective critical review of the Senator’s “support” would reveal that he was “lukewarm,” if that, in his total support for full LGBTQI equality across the board whereas Congresswoman Duckworth’s support has been unwavering and complete on all aspects of full equality for LGBTQI persons.

This brings me to the events that transpired Thursday evening during an Illinois Senatorial race debate. David Badash, the Editor at The New Civil Rights Movement wrote:

On Thursday at a town hall debate between the two candidates, Duckworth, a veteran who lost both her legs and damaged her right arm in the Iraqi war, spoke about her and her family’s long history of military service to the United States. 

“My family has served this nation in uniform, going back to the Revolution,” Duckworth told voters Thursday. “But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound. Because people are quick to sound the drums of war, and I want to be there to say this is what it costs, this is what you’re asking us to do,” she continued. “Families like mine are the ones that bleed first.”

Sen. Kirk’s response has become headline news.

“I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said, mocking Duckworth’s biracial heritage.

On Friday, as the day wore on, I made several calls to sources I’ve cultivated over the years in the progressive community of activists and leaders in Washington and across the United States, including some within HRC staff at their headquarters building on Rhode Island Avenue in Northwest D.C., and virtually every one with whom I spoke to said the same thing, “HRC will not back down.”

As this op-ed is being composed late Friday evening, HRC is still refusing to rescind its endorsement, even after Kirk’s blatantly xenophobic and racist remarks, for which he apologized Friday afternoon – via a tweet.

Now mind you, this election cycle has definitely brought out the absolute worst in the American body politic, especially on the right side of the political spectrum. The candidacy of Donald Trump has made a mockery of the so-called values of bipartisan and issue driven politics. Instead, the American public has been treated to crass, xenophobic and racist driven hate speech that has filtered its way even into the local, state, and Congressional races.

Still, there absolutely must be limits, a proverbial or metaphorical “line that is drawn and should not be crossed.” It is incumbent then that organizations like HRC must enforce and uphold values that reflect a greater good, an all encompassing view that takes in and protects “the least of these.” 

In full transparency, I have never been a great fan of HRC. During my travels and my thirty-five years worth of professional work experience as an accredited journalist, particularly in the nearly six years I served as the Washington D.C. bureau chief for LGBTQ Nation magazine, I found the HRC organization to be self-serving, self-promoting, somewhat misogynistic, transphobic, and overall ineffective in the very areas of public policy that affect the LGBTQI community it claims to serve.

More annoying were that in several instances on issues that I covered as a reporter, HRC was guilty taking a lion’s share of the credit for other LGBTQI advocacy group’s efforts having joined at the last minute or spending minimum effort on the high profile issue at hand. (The efforts to end the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and Marriage Equality being the two most significant examples of HRC poaching.) 

The other impression I received was that it was an organization that seemed to function like a “white privileged” country club for wealthy white elite gays and lesbians, especially on issues say that dealt directly with trans persons of color. HRC seems to be adept at paying lip service or funneling limited efforts into the issues that affect the trans community of color, making an appearance that its a leader in advocacy for that under-served and marginalised group, when reality is quite different.

That said, I did find that the one thing that HRC is extremely effective at accomplishing, is raising money through lavish Black-Tie celebrity attended galas with a who’s who of Washington political elite, and also pushing the ongoing promotional fund-raising campaigns which include paying professional fund raising organizations or companies, who use young college age persons, to directly canvass for monies out on the streets of major U.S. cities on HRC’s behalf.

I note that I later researched and discovered that virtually very little of those monies raised, ended back up assisting the very communities where the canvassers were working the streets.

Instead, apparently the monies raised by HRC seem to be mainly spent on the lavish six-figure salaries of its top executives and the endless media buys, oft times on matters that other LGBTQI groups have pioneered in leading the way on only to have HRC swoop in and grab the credit – or at least attempt to do so.

It has become the same old tired litany of claims that the organization is accomplishing all these great things but the tangible benefits overall quite frankly seem nil.

One last thought: it is a political reality that any progressive agenda which essentially includes accomplishing the list of priorities to further advance towards full and equitable treatment of LGBTQI citizens, which HRC claims it desires and is working hard towards, means that Congress, or at least the Senate, must be in the hands of the Democrats. In fact Democrats just like Congresswoman Duckworth. So I ask? Of what value is HRC support of a xenophobic, racist, and quite frankly nasty politician? Is there a net gain here or is this yet another example of the deaf cluelessness of HRC?

 

Images of Mark Kirk, HRC, via Facebook

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News

Trump Team Pushing ‘Utter Propaganda’ on Deportations to Create ‘Climate of Fear’: Experts

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January 24, 2025

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The Trump administration’s long-promised “largest mass deportation operation” in U.S. history, which was announced to begin “on day one,” has so far resulted in what some experts and immigration advocates suggest are an average number to mild increase in arrests and deportations. Activists, experts, and journalists are working to provide context to the White House’s claims of its own effectiveness.

“The White House said immigration agents have arrested 538 undocumented immigrants with criminal records and deported ‘hundreds’ more,” The Washington Post reported Friday. “Those numbers, if accurate, would be relatively modest for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge operations — a possible indication that the Trump administration’s show of force has so far outpaced the government’s capacity to deliver on the president’s lofty goals.”

Ahead of his inauguration on Monday, the media was awash with reports that President Trump’s mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would start Tuesday, the day after he was sworn into office, and one day after it was originally supposed to. Chicago was identified in reports as the first city to be targeted by Trump’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities.

“ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one,” Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan said, according to the BBC. “We’ll be arresting people across the country, uninhibited by any prior administration guidelines.”

RELATED: ‘Hunting Grounds’: Trump Cancels Biden Ban on ICE Arrests at Schools, Churches, Hospitals

But Homan, who served as acting director of ICE during Trump’s first administration, then served up a curious claim: “Why Chicago was mentioned specifically, I don’t know.” He went on to suggest that the “leaked” Chicago details could be putting the safety of federal agents at risk.

“What was leaked in Chicago was more specific, what was happening, and that raises officer safety concern,” Homan said, according to The Hill.

Homan on Fox News had promised a “big raid” across the country, BBC had reported, and “has previously said Chicago will be ‘ground zero’ for the mass deportations.”

The mass arrests and deportations, despite appearing to be average, were heralded by the media.

Wednesday night, Fox News host Jesse Watters posted video to his Facebook page, declaring, “FOX NEWS ALERT: The largest mass deportation operation in American history is underway, and Primetime has exclusive photos of ICE’s first arrests.”

READ MORE: ‘Not Good’: Trump Proposes ‘Getting Rid of’ FEMA, Conditioning California Aid on Voter ID

Numerous media outlets blared that the Trump administration on Thursday arrested 538 undocumented immigrants.

And yet, according to a former Capitol Hill staffer, President Joe Biden’s average was often higher.

The White House on Friday posted an image to social media, declaring, “Deportation Flights Have Begun.”

Immigration experts, activists, and journalists pushed back hard.

“Deportation flights were taking place under Biden too. What’s new is the military aircraft,” noted The Bulwark’s Sam Stein. CNN’s Brian Stelter added, “Also new: The PR strategy.”

PR appears to be a major focus.

The Washington Examiner’s DHS reporter, Anna Giaritelli, quickly corrected the record on the White House’s above social media post: “DHS official authorized to speak with media said this is not a deportation flight — these are roughly 80 Guatemalans who were arrested AT the southern border recently and are being REPATRIATED. That is legally not a deportation.”

Immigration activist Thomas Cartwright, who, according to The Washington Post “tracks ICE deportations for the immigrant advocacy group Witness at the Border,” pointed to this data, and also challenged the White House’s narrative.

“Theater of the absurd,” he charged. “The only thing new about this is subjecting people to transport on a cargo plane rather than charter and the LOWER number of people on the plane – 75-80 compared to the average for ICE deportation flights to Guatemala of 125. In 2024 there were 508 deportation flights to Guatemala and in 2020 – 2023: 247, 184, 369, and 470, respectively. The 508 in 2024 represents just under an average of 10 deportation flights per week to Guatemala. Counting this flight there have been only 5 this week through Thursday.”

Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, also responded to the White House’s post: “This is utter propaganda and you have to make sure not to fall for it. There were dozens of deportation flights every single week over the last year and before that. Deportation flights never stopped. If they try to claim otherwise, they are lying to the American people.”

Reichlin-Melnick also blasted White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in response to another of her posts on immigration. “Are these people seriously trying to suggest the deportation flights have not already been going on? They’re lying to you. The Biden administration had already ramped up deportations from the border to a higher level than it was under the Trump admin.”

And pointing to Cartwright’s data, he noted, “In 2024, ICE carried out an average of 4.27 deportation flights per day (which includes weekends and holidays) The normal weekday total was above 6 deportation flights a day, per @thcartwright. Deportation flights never stopped. This is propaganda.”

Meanwhile, The New York Times’ Hamed Aleaziz on Friday afternoon told MSNBC that the Trump administration is really going “on the offensive when it comes to putting out pictures of ICE deportations from the White House Twitter account, from Tom Holman being on several new spots, talking about deportations, it is front and center. And I think it’s an effort to show that President Trump is fulfilling this promise of mass deportations.”

He says their goal is they “want people to be uncomfortable. They want there to be a climate of fear. And ultimately, maybe people will decide that they want to leave this country voluntarily?”

See the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: Danish MP Follows Profane Message to Trump With Warning to Greenlanders on US Civil Rights

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Not Good’: Trump Proposes ‘Getting Rid of’ FEMA, Conditioning California Aid on Voter ID

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January 24, 2025

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President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency during a visit to Hurricane Helene-damaged parts of North Carolina on Friday, announcing he is planning on reforming or “getting rid of FEMA,” and proposed an unprecedented move to condition disaster relief on the passage of a voter ID law by California’s lawmakers, “as a start.” Trump’s trip, which will include travel to California later Friday, appears designed to target the emergency management agency, which he has been criticizing for months.

In what appeared to be scripted remarks, Trump later elaborated that he would “sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think frankly, FEMA’s not good. I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and, uh, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time.”

“Calling FEMA and then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area,” Trump claimed. “They’ve never been to the area and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about, they wanna bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have,” he alleged.

“FEMA turned out to be a a disaster. And you could go back a long way, you could go back to Louisiana, you could go back to some of the things that took place in Texas. And it turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work. It just complicates it. I think we’re gonna recommend that FEMA go away. And we pay directly and we pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix it.”

RELATED: Is Trump Using Project 2025 to Eliminate FEMA?

In his wide-ranging remarks, President Trump also claimed that “rather than going through FEMA,” disaster relief aid to California and North Carolina “will go through us,” meaning, through his administration. FEMA is a federal government agency under the wide umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The president nominates the HHS Secretary, a cabinet level official, and the FEMA administrator.

And Trump appeared to say that he will assign Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley to manage financial aid to North Carolina, removing FEMA from the state.

“Trump also said FEMA would not be involved in further relief efforts and instead suggested that Whatley, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein (D), and a trio of Republican House members would be working with the White House directly because the agency ‘hasn’t done the job,'” The Independent reported.

“I wanna see two things in Los Angeles,” Trump also told reporters late Friday morning, “voter ID so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California ever has ever seen.”

“I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farm land that’s barren and dry,” Trump claimed. This week the President appeared to suggest that water runs only north to south.

READ MORE: Danish MP Follows Profane Message to Trump With Warning to Greenlanders on US Civil Rights

“So, I want two things,” Trump repeated, “I want voter ID for the people of California. They all want it. Right now you have no, you don’t have voter ID. People want to have to voter identification. You wanna have proof of citizenship. Ideally, you have one-day voting, but I just want voter ID to start, and I want the water to be released, and they’re gonna get a lot of help from the U.S.”

Trump later responded to a reporter’s question about his remarks on ending FEMA, calling the agency “a very big disappointment” that costs “a tremendous amount of money.” He alleged, “they end up in arguments if they’re fighting, all the time over who does what, it’s just it’s just not a good system.”

“I think it’s, I think when there’s a, uh, when there’s a problem with the state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state. That’s what we have states for. They take care of problems, and a government can handle something very quickly,” Trump said, appearing to not mention the scope of FEMA’s actions, responsibilities, and resources.

Jordan Weissmann, reporter for Yahoo Finance covering federal agencies, offers this explanation on California water: “The water issue Trump is fixated on doesn’t really have anything to do with the wildfires. It’s a fight between Central Valley farmers and Northern California farmers and environmentalists about who gets more fresh water.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump’s J6 Pardons Are ‘High Crime’ and ‘Abuse of Power’ Legal Expert Says

 

Image: Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and Franklin Graham in North Carolina Friday, via Reuters

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Danish MP Follows Profane Message to Trump With Warning to Greenlanders on US Civil Rights

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20 hours ago

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January 24, 2025

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President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark isn’t going over well with some Danes, including one of Denmark’s politicians who used vulgarity to express his opposition earlier this week, and is now citing a century-long historical record to issue a warning to Greenlanders on America’s refusal to grant full voting rights to its citizens in U.S. territories.

Anders Vistisen, a Danish Member of the European Parliament, reminded Trump earlier this week that “Greenland has been part of the Danish Kingdom for 800 years,” and “is not for sale.”

“Let me put it in words you might understand: Mr. Trump. f*** off,” Vistisen said.

Thursday night on CNN, Vistisen, a member of a right wing populist party, expanded his battle against Trump’s aspiration to annex Greenland.

READ MORE: Trump’s J6 Pardons Are ‘High Crime’ and ‘Abuse of Power’ Legal Expert Says

Addressing what he called the “argument that America can make a great deal,” an apparent reference to Donald Trump, Vistisen said, “we actually have some historical precedence for this. A hundred years ago we sold you what you call the U.S. Virgin Islands. Today, that territory still doesn’t have voting rights for your presidential elections.”

“That place doesn’t have a voting member of your parliament, the Congress — or the House of Representatives, and the Senate, and when I visited, when we had the hundred years commemoration, there was not a great lot of enthusiasm about the way the U.S. is handling that.”

“So I think if the Greenlandic people are looking carefully at this and they are looking on the U.S. overseas territories,” Vistisen continued, “looking at how Indigenous people are treated in the U.S., it’s very hard to make a compelling argument that they will have a better deal from the United States than what they have within the Danish realm, the kingdom of Denmark, where they have full voting rights in the Danish parliament are actually are overrepresented, and as you clearly stated, they have a very beneficial agreement, economically with Denmark.”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a former Bush 43 White House speechwriter, responded to Vistisen’s remarks.

“In 1917, Denmark (legally neutral but sympathetic to the Allies) sold the [Virgin] islands to the USA to prevent Germany from seizing them for a submarine base. Also, the islands were economically desperate, and war-isolated Denmark could not aid them. As part of the deal, the US guaranteed Danish sovereignty over Greenland. Another reason that seizing Greenland would be an act of US bad faith,” Frum wrote.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Is Trump Using Project 2025 to Eliminate FEMA?

 

Image by Elekes Andor via Wikimedia Commons and a CC license

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