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Trump Administration Has ‘Corrected’ 2020 Census Form by Removing Proposed Inclusion of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity

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‘Yet Another Step to Deny LGBTQ People Freedom, Justice, and Equity, by Choosing to Exclude Us’

Mandated by the U.S. Constitution, every 10 years the federal government conducts the U.S. Census. In addition to determining the number of people living in America, the Census determines population by race and gender. It asks questions about employment, how long it takes you to get to work. How many people live in your household. If any of them are disabled. If you have a computer and access to the internet. If a woman has had a child in the past year. How much you pay a month in rent, or the value of your home. And more.

Every federal department and agency uses these data in a wide variety of ways, all with the goal of being better able to serve the American people, tailor their focus and programs to how people actually live, and work to create a more equal nation.

Under the Obama administration, many federal agencies requested the 2020 Census include sexual orientation and gender identity. Under the Trump administration, as the National LGBTQ Task Force first noted, those were proposed subjects in the Trump Administration’s report submitted to Congress on Tuesday, and on the same day, removed.

The Task Force notes the Trump administration’s report already “conspicuously excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) people on the list of ‘planned subjects.'” 

The Washington Blade reports, “Trump’s U.S. Census proposes, immediately cuts LGBT survey questions.” The Blade notes the U.S. Census Bureau issued a statement “indicating the report was corrected because the initial appendix ‘inadvertently’ included LGBT categories.”

“The Subjects Planned for the 2020 Census and American Community Survey report released today inadvertently listed sexual orientation and gender identity as a proposed topic in the appendix,” the statement says. “The report has been corrected.”

The Task Force does not see the latest version as corrected, however.

“Today, the Trump Administration has taken yet another step to deny LGBTQ people freedom, justice, and equity, by choosing to exclude us from the 2020 Census and American Community Survey,” says Meghan Maury, Criminal and Economic Justice Project Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement.

“LGBTQ people are not counted on the Census—no data is collected on sexual orientation or gender identity. Information from these surveys helps the government to enforce federal laws like the Violence Against Women Act and the Fair Housing Act and to determine how to allocate resources like housing supports and food stamps,” Maury adds. “If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in a community, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections and services we need?”

Indeed, here’s why that’s so very true.

Last year The Daily Beast’s Samantha Allen noted, “the Census Bureau could easily produce a crystal-clear figure if it asked about sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Transgender women of color face horrific levels of violence and homicide. But how many of them are there? Census data shows that 36.3 percent of all women in the country are women of color but there’s no way of knowing how many of them identify as transgender—especially when the best estimate of the trans population has doubled in the last five years.

Allen spoke with Laura Durso, senior director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress:

“When we can’t say things about who LGBT people are and what they need, we’re unable to develop public policies that serve them appropriately,” Durso told The Daily Beast. “It really kills me that we’re having these consequential policy debates and I can’t put a number on how many people are affected.”

On social media, LGBT activists and allies reacted immediately, united around the hashtag, #CantEraseUs.

To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.

Image by jasleen_kaur via Flickr and a CC license 

 

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News

Trump Appears to Violate Gag Order After Judge Threatened ‘Incarceration’

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53 mins ago

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May 16, 2024

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Despite New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan explicitly warning Donald Trump last week that any future violations of his gag order could result in jail time, the ex-president appears to have done so directly on Thursday.

“A lead person from the DOJ is running the trial,” Trump claimed, obviously referring to prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, as Law & Crime reports.

“So Biden’s office is running this trial. This trial is a scam and it’s a sham and it shouldn’t happen,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom.

Judge Merchan’s gag order specifically prohibits trump from attacking anyone in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, except for the D.A. himself.

“Colangelo, a lead prosecutor in the case, was criticized one day earlier by Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, largely raising the same complaints that Trump repeated outside of court,” Law & Crime noted.

READ MORE: ‘Ready to Start Another Insurrection’: Gaetz Support for Trump Echoes Proud Boys Order

The gag order explicitly states Trump is “directed to refrain from”:

“Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding; Making or directing others to make public statements” about attorneys “in the case other than the District Attorney,” “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member” or “any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”

Ten days ago Merchan wrote in his order: “Defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and warranted, future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration.”

Watch below or at this link.

 

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‘Ready to Start Another Insurrection’: Gaetz Support for Trump Echoes Proud Boys Order

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2 hours ago

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May 16, 2024

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House Republicans’ efforts to demonstrate unwavering support for Donald Trump as he stands trial in his election subversion, business records falsification, and “hush money” trial are growing, with GOP lawmakers showing up at trial and reading speeches reportedly written or edited by him that may violate the indicted ex-president’s gag order, and even pausing a House hearing so members can travel to the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building to appear behind Trump, literally and figuratively.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a self-professed “ultra-MAGA” lawmaker, came under fire Thursday after posting support for Trump in words that echo the ex-president’s direction to the far-right neo-fascist group the Proud Boys. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Proud Boys as an extremist hate group.

During the 2020 presidential debates, Donald Trump got into a heated exchange with moderator Chris Wallace and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Wallace asked Trump to condemn white supremacists, but the ask quickly became directed toward the Proud Boys, as this clip from Politico shows:

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” quickly became a rallying cry for the Proud Boys, who went on to have leading roles in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Four Proud Boys leaders were later convicted of seditious conspiracy, as the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced.

READ MORE: ‘Chop Them Up, Distort Them’: White House Slams ‘Improper Threats’ as It Blocks Hur Tapes

On Thursday, Congressman Gaetz posted to his social media account a photo of him standing behind Trump at the courthouse, with these words: “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President.”

“Just seeing here that Matt Gaetz [made] an overt allusion to Donald Trump’s Sept. 2020 command to the Proud Boys here (some of whom are now in prison for taking that comment as a call to action on Jan. 6),” noted Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney.

Reuters’ Nathan Layne, remarking on Gaetz’s post, wrote: “Last year former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the attack on the Capitol.”

Critics expressed concern and outrage.

“They’re ready to start another insurrection,” warned national security attorney Brad Moss.

Condé Nast Legal Affairs Editor Luke Zaleski observed, “The insurrection is coming from inside The House.”

Attorney Robert J. DeNault remarked, “Lead Proud Boy Matt Gaetz reminds us all that he will work with Donald Trump to employ violence and crime to hold onto power.”

Watch the video and read Gaetz’s post above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Long History of Playing Games’: Biden Campaign Shuts Down Trump’s Tantrum

 

 

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‘Chop Them Up, Distort Them’: White House Slams ‘Improper Threats’ as It Blocks Hur Tapes

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4 hours ago

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May 16, 2024

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As House Republicans move to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to hand over the audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with President Joe Biden, the White House Counsel has notified two House committee chairmen President Biden is invoking executive privilege on those tapes.

“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal—to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” White House Counsel Edward Siskel wrote in his letter to Republican Chairmen Jim Comer and Jim Jordan, as Politico reported. “Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”

Siskel also reminded the chairs that the Dept. of Justice has already provided them with the transcripts of the interviews, and noted “the Attorney General has warned that the disclosure of materials like these audio recordings risks harming future law enforcement investigations by making it less likely that witnesses in high-profile investigations will voluntarily cooperate.”

The White House Counsel also unleashed strong criticism of the House chairmen’s prior actions, as proof of what he says is their likely goal.

READ MORE: ‘Might Use it to Vote’: Kudlow and Blackburn Fearmonger Biden Giving Undocumented Green Cards

“Rather than demonstrating respect for the rule of law, this contempt proceeding is just the latest in the Committees’ damaging efforts to undermine the very independence and impartiality of the Department of Justice and criminal justice system that President Biden seeks to protect. Your subpoenas and contempt threats come in the wake of the Committees’ efforts to go after prosecutors you do not like, attack witnesses in cases you disapprove of, and demand information from ongoing investigations and prosecutions, despite longstanding norms that these law enforcement processes should be allowed to play out free from such political interference.”

House Republicans for the past week have taken rotating shifts to show support for indicted ex-president Donald Trump at the courthouse where his trial on 34 felony charges is being held. House and Senate Republicans, and even the Speaker of the House, at various times have attacked the judicial system, witnesses, the judge, his daughter, and the District Attorney.

Siskel closes his letter with an apparent accusation of “improper threats.”

“The President will continue to protect the rule of law, and his Administration will continue to work in good faith to accommodate Congress’s legitimate interests, while standing up to improper threats to the independence of the nation’s justice system.”

READ MORE: Johnson Promotes Making ‘Crime a Crime Again’ After Standing Up for Trump at Courthouse

Attorney General Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former Trump-era U.S. Attorney, to become a special counsel and head the investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents when he was a Vice President. While Hur found no evidence of criminal conduct and declined to press charges, his highly-controversial and, according to Democrats, highly-politicized 345-page report, was fodder for the media and congressional Republicans for weeks.

At one point in the report Hur described President Biden as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” while, in a transcript of his interview with the President, the special counsel told him he appeared to have “photographic” recall. Those details were the subject of a tense exchange when Hur testified before Congress.

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and a special counsel for ethics and government reform under President Barack Obama, says he supports President Biden’s move.

“I handled executive privilege assertions as Special Counsel in WH & for Congress,” Eisen writes on social media. “Witness interviews are some of the most sensitive materials & DOJ commonly protects.”

“I agree with Exec[utive] Priv[ilege] call here.”

He notes the “Hur investigation is done & dusted, with NO finding of criminality.”

“Special Counsel report was already subject of mischief.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

 

 

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