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LGBTQ Leadership: Gone The Way Of America’s Automakers

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Remember the Big Four Automakers? Who are now the Big Three Automakers? Maybe soon the Big Two Automakers, now that GM has declared bankruptcy? They had their glory days, but failed to see the coming change, spent too much time and money on misguided efforts, and ultimately lost relevance, credibility and the support of their customers. They grew too big, became loath to change, and are dying a slow death. The automobile will live on, but those companies that drove it into the twenty-first century, and themselves into bankruptcy, may not.

Just as the automobile itself was truly a vehicle for social change during much of the twentieth century, so were the Big Four. Not the automakers, but the main LGBTQ activist organizations: Human Rights Campaign (HRC), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). The LGBTQ community now has grown up strong, thanks to our leaders, the Big Four. And I say thank you to the The Task Force, the oldest LGBTQ activist organization. Thank you to HRC. Thank you to the ACLU. And thank you to GLAAD. I say thank you, and I say, goodbye.

Now, for the first time, the LGBTQ community is in a position of power. We are winning marriage equality, slowly but surely. Our goals are well-defined. They include passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill, repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), passage of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as well as full marriage equality in all 50 states, all territories, and in Washington, D.C.  We’ve won marriage equality in six states, hopefully seven (New York) before month’s end. And yet, despite a clearer path and major successes, despite increasing public attention on our issues and rising public support, despite a Democratic Congress and Democratic President, the ire and anger within our community is at a level not seen, many would say, since Stonewall. And the big difference now, the sign that we’ve achieved critical mass: the anger is directed at our allies. Why? Because, when you’re so close to achieving your goals, when you succeed despite the efforts of your leaders, and sometimes fail because of them, it’s clear you need new ones.

The Big Four did their job. They drove us to the twenty-first century. But they didn’t push themselves into it. Collectively, like the American automakers, they are old, outdated, ineffective, over-lapping behemoths whose lack of achievement demand they either declare bankruptcy, then refocus on their core competencies and truly re-create themselves, or turn over the wheel to the new leaders of our community: national grassroots organizations like Join the Impact, and local ones, like Mass Equality, Equality Maine, and One Iowa.

These are the groups that are able to mobilize hundreds of thousands, to get the attention of the media and voters, focus our energy and our message more efficiently, more effectively, without concern for the ways of the past, and without concern for their boards of directors. These groups are inter-dependent, act quickly, and can attack an issue from many different angles, because they’re down in the trenches and accessible. They aren’t thinking of themselves as leaders, but as partners, forging new ground. And they’re successful because they care more about our cause than about their corporate boards and sponsors, if they even have any.

Contrast them with the old guard, the Big Four. The Task Force’s main focus is developing and educating at the grassroots level. But they have fourteen different focuses and address too many tangential issues that have little to do with the success of our mission. For example, the murder of Dr. George Tiller. An atrocity, to be sure. But it has little to do with DADT, ENDA, DOMA, or, even, the Hate Crimes bill. And yet, the Task Force was quick to release a statement condemning it. Why? How much energy and time was spent on that issue, especially when three days earlier they had just begun their Twitter social media effort. Why has it taken them so long to begin to harness social media?

Or the Human Rights Campaign, which focuses on thirteen different issues. Which actually has had to start sending out emails that read “What has HRC done for me lately?”. Which, recently, has been forced into the position of denying a close relationship with the White House and Congress, when it should be touting its ability to access and to partner with government on planning and executing strategy.

GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has done little to attack the Right Wing or to change the tone and perception of anti-gay Conservatives. How can I say this? Their websites do not even mention extreme Right-Wing blogger Michelle Malkin, barely mention Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization For Marriage, and only once mention Michael Savage, whose views are so outrageous he was actually banned from entering Great Britain. Can you name any three people in the media who have had more to do with defamation of the LGBTQ community?

The ACLU, which is not solely an LGBTQ-focused organization, has had its share of successes and failures, but overlaps many efforts and suffers an overextended focus.

And now, we have countless LGBTQ activists and organizations. Hundreds of dedicated bloggers. All acting independently. All acting on their own agenda. Most, if not all, looking for attention and funding. Most, if not all, overlapping efforts. Our diversity, which has always been our greatest strength, is now threatening to become our greatest weakness.

Here’s what needs to happen:

Organizations like HRC, GLAAD, the ACLU, and the Task Force need to look at themselves and strip down to their most basic assets. Be the support services for legal, educational, media, and lobbying national issues. Embrace all the twenty-first century has to offer, starting with social media opportunities like Twitter and Facebook, YouTube and MeetUp. And act as background, technical support and capacity-building for the grassroots groups that are in the trenches, truly making a difference.

The ACLU should attack all our legal issues and court cases that deal with discrimination, hate crimes, the military, and marriage equality.

GLAAD should be our media arm, but partner with the Task Force, the ACLU, and the HRC. Let’s get our messaging clear and into the right media outlets.

The Task Force should focus only on educating grassroots organizations.

Finally, the HRC, with new, better leadership, should be our representatives to government. They should be lobbying and creating legislative strategy to ensure successful outcomes on DADT, ENDA, DOMA, and the Hate Crimes Bill.

The Boards of Directors and CEOs of the Big Four should be in regular contact. The CEO of The Task Force should sit on the Board of HRC. The ACLU’s CEO should sit on the Board of GLAAD, and so on.

It’s time the Big Four start working together. End whatever old animosities they harbor, for the good of the community. Step back, give their power to the grassroots. The LGBTQ movement has once again become a grassroots movement. We no longer need the old guard, the Big Four. But it would be nice to have them, if they can learn to adapt. If not, we’ll be happy to remember them fondly. Like General Motors.

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News

‘Ghoulish and Repugnant’: Congressman Slammed for ‘Joke’ About JFK Assassination and RFK Jr.

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May 8, 2024

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Less than one week after being pummeled for praising college students mocking a Black woman by making monkey sounds, a sitting U.S. Congressman is once again being criticized, this time for “joking” about the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, amid news about presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia, last week posted a video on the social media site X, which appeared to show college students at the University of Mississippi, “Old Miss,” taunting a Black woman protestor by making money sounds, a longtime racist trope. They also called her “Lizzo,” and chanted, “lock her up.”

Congressman Collins commented on the video, writing: “Ole Miss taking care of business.”

Outrage was strong, coming from social media users and even the White House. The NAACP called for Collins to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

“Which part is your favorite, Mike?” asked Fred Wellman, the former executive director of The Lincoln Project. “Is it the white kid acting like a monkey at the black woman or the white security guy acting like she’s a threat? I’m trying to figure out which flavor of racism has you all excited the most?”

READ MORE: Johnson Goes After Nearly Non-Existent Non-Citizen Voting

Collins finally issued a statement on his remarks, but neither apologized nor removed his post, as Popular Information reported.

On Wednesday, the Georgia GOP lawmaker, responded to news that RFK Jr., as The Washington Post reported, had “contracted a parasitic worm that got into his brain years ago and ate a portion of it before dying.”

“You either die a Kennedy with a hole in the brain or live long enough to become a Kennedy with a hole in the brain,” Collins posted to his official government account on X.

Former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), now running for the U.S. Senate, scolded Collins: “TIL [Today I Learned] this is an actual congressman, not a parody account. I’d seen some of the posts and honestly thought it was trying to portray an exaggerated version of an awful congressman.”

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David Simon, the well-known author, journalist, screenwriter, and producer, observed, “There is a vast universe in which we can joke robustly about RFK Jr. asserting a brainworm problem without ever going anywhere near the sick, soulless void where this gutter trash wants to enjoy a laugh.”

Retired Naval Intelligence Officer Travis Akers said, “This is the most disgraceful post I have ever seen from a sitting member of Congress. Absolutely ghoulish and repugnant.”`

Author and well-known political commentator Charlie Sykes wrote simply, “You, sir, are really a sick fuq.”

Journalist Ron Fournier wrote: “Cruelty is the brand.”

Political strategist and mass shooting survivor Parker Krex responded, “Gun violence is never, and should never, be a punchline. Embarrassing.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley
 

 

 

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Johnson Goes After Nearly Non-Existent Non-Citizen Voting

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4 hours ago

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May 8, 2024

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is promoting new legislation to make it illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections, despite an existing law that does just that.

After his joint press conference last month with ex-president Donald Trump on “election integrity,” the embattled Speaker is teaming up with former top Trump official Stephen Miller, the architect of the previous administration’s family separation policy that led to thousands of immigrant children being ripped apart from their parents and siblings. Other Trump orbit guests present included Cleta Mitchell, Ken Cuccinelli, and Hogan Gidley (full video below).

Johnson, now fending off a small but loud faction of his conference threatening to oust him, on Wednesday held a press event on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to promote his Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

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“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that’s easily provable. We don’t have that number,” Johnson falsely told reporters.

Commenting on Johnson’s remarks that  “intuitively” we know that “a lot of illegals are voting,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, wrote: “It’s already very, very illegal. Many systems in place. Punishment including jail or deportation. That Cleta Mitchell, a conspirator (on ‘find 11,000 votes’ call) & Stephen Miller stood there says it all. It’s the Big Lie in legislative form.”

The Associated Press last month also reported on non-citizen voting.

“There isn’t any indication that noncitizens vote in significant numbers in federal elections or that they will in the future. It’s already a crime for them to do so. And we know it’s not a danger because various states have examined their rolls and found very few noncitizen voters.”

Calling “cases of noncitizens casting ballots…extremely rare,” the AP added: “Those who have looked into these cases say they often involve legal immigrants who mistakenly believe they have the right to vote.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

Johnson, standing in front of a “small handful of Republicans,” said his legislation “will prevent” undocumented immigrants from voting, “and if someone tries to do it, it will now be unlawful,” he added, despite a decades-old law that already makes it illegal.

“If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name, that’s it, that’s all that’s required,” Johnson continued, while not disclosing known facts.

“It’s a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections,” the Brennan Center for Justice reported last month. “It’s also a crime under every state’s laws. In fact, under federal law, you could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for noncitizens to register or vote. And sure, people make bad decisions and commit crimes all the time. But this one is different: by committing the crime, you create a government record of your having committed it. In fact, it’s the creation of the government record — the registration form or the ballot cast — that is the crime. So, you’ve not only exposed yourself to prison time and deportation, you’ve put yourself on the government’s radar, and you’ve handed the government the evidence it needs to put you in prison or deport you. All so you could cast one vote. Who would do such a thing?”

Johnson went on to falsely claim that “Joe Biden has welcomed millions and millions of illegal aliens – we think the number, I believe the number is probably close to at this point 16 million illegals who have come into this country since Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office.”

Claiming there are “sophisticated criminal syndicates and agents of adversarial governments, here, in our borders, and even on humanitarian parole,” Johnson said: “And that means the millions that have been paroled can simply go to their local welfare office or the DMV, and register to vote here.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, noted, “multiple state governments have engaged in large-scale efforts in recent years to find evidence of noncitizen voting, and in every single case haven’t been able to find more than a tiny handful of cases, usually a few dozen or less, spread out over years.”

Watch the full video of Speaker Johnson’s event below and clips above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

 

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‘Scratch Off the Georgia Trial’: Second Trump Case Likely Delayed Past Election Experts Say

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7 hours ago

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May 8, 2024

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The Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to take up Donald Trump’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case in her RICO prosecution of the ex-president for election interference.

Legal experts were quick to declare this will delay the trial so far that it’s likely it will not take place before the November election. The news comes less than one day after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, announced she was postponing the Espionage Act/classified documents trial indefinitely.

Professor of law, MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst Joyce Vance posted the Georgia court’s order and her initial response.

“You can scratch off the Georgia trial too now. That’s not happening before the election either,” declared national security attorney Brad Moss.

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

“It is entirely possible that the Manhattan case is the only one that makes it to verdict before the election,” Moss added, pointing to the current falsification of business records, hush money, and election interference case prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“Georgia and the MAL docs cases are almost certainly delayed at this point,” he continued, referring to the Mar-a-Lago Espionage Act/classified documents case. “The DC election fraud case hinges on how and when SCOTUS rules. It is possible but by no means certain that the Fall campaign could see that trial take place. Or it could remain bogged down in legal fights too.”

Georgia State University College of Law constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis put it bluntly: “There will be no Georgia trial before 2025. Period. Full stop.”

But he also offered more insight.

“It’ll be a summer of Willis and Wade,” wrote Kreis, referring to Willis’ special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who had a romantic relationship with Willis and resigned after a judge ruled Willis could remain on the case if she corrected certain issues. “Whether the appeals court is more interested in the relationship and the underlying conflict claim or the issue of forensic misconduct over the church speech Willis made in response to the disqualification motion— or both— remains to be seen.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

But Kreis also attempted to tamp down negative reaction to the Georgia Appeals Court’s decision.

“For everyone complaining about the Fulton County case appeal, let me just say that our Georgia Court of Appeals has incredibly smart, hard-working, and serious judges. They are good and decent folks by and large. So cool it on your hot takes and conspiracy theories there.”

Meanwhile, former federal prosecutor of 30 years, Glenn Kirschner offers some small hope to those wanting to see the trial move forward.

“Judge McAfee said the case will keep moving forward EVEN IF the appeals court grants review,” Kirschner wrote.

Judge McAfee vowed to “continue addressing the many other unrelated pending pretrial motions, regardless of whether the petition is granted within 45 days of filing, and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court.”

READ MORE: ‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

 

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