>Tough Times or A Bedtime Story, You Choose

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I didn’t get to see much of President Obama’s–I’m with Joy at BabbleOn in that I love writing that and saying it aloud–speech last night…..and I missed all of Bobby Jindal’s response….which is to say that I didn’t miss much.

President Obama spoke to us like adults with a problem on our hands and some ideas to solve said problems; he took some of us to task for the way we’ve done things. Yeah, he was talkin’ to you, Wall Street Fat Cats….

I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.

And he was talking to you, too, you people who overextended yourself buying houses you couldn’t afford, with money you didn’t have. President Obama gave the tough talk that we haven’t heard from a president in a long while; the last guy…..what Was his name?….could barely put together a sentence without string and tape.

Obama admonished those kids who dropped out of school and the parents who let them. He talked tough but these are tough times.

And then Bobby Jindal, the Great Repugnant Hope, spoke…..or told a story. I felt like I was being read a fairytale by a kindly uncle, who wasn’t all there, and didn’t really know what the story was about.

This is what you’re hanging your hopes on Repugnants?

It was bad enough when you were all goosestepping behind Sarah Palin…..it was bad enough when you put Michael Steele–who has the nasty habit of saying different things to different people at the different time–into the head seat at the RNC. Now you give us Bobby Jindal, who, even members of your own party felt had bungled the RepugResponse.

Some of his own party called him ‘amateurish,’ and they were bing kind.

This is the same Bobby Jindal, who as Governor of Louisiana, will not allow unemployment benefits in his state to continue under the new stimulus package.

Bobby Jindal is flippin’the bird at ya’ll Louisiana.

So we have a couple of choices.

Go with the President who talks of tough times and tough choices, not just for the bands, or for Wall Street, but for all of us. He has plans for energy, for health care, for education, all the things that We The People say we want fixed/changed.

Or go with Bobby Jindal and listen to a good story that will never have a happy ending.

>Amen!

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“We are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. We can’t embrace the losing formula that says only tax cuts will work for every problem, or failing schools, and crumbling bridges and roads and levees. I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November and that’s what we intend to deliver.”

>And Now Back To Bob and The News…..Or His Opinions On The News

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Tell3.org

Tell 3 is a new call to action. Tell 3 people that you’re gay. Tell 3 people that you know someone gay. Just three. It shouldn’t be that hard. Let three people know who you are and that you don’t deserve being treated like a second-class citizen; that you deserve equal rights.

—–California voted to get rid of marriage rights for our community.
—–29 other states have done the same.
—–LGBT people get fired from their jobs just for being who they are.
—–Kids get beat up in school for seeming “queer” while school administrators do nothing.
—–Same-sex couples can’t foster or adopt while children in need go without homes.

This needs to end.
Tell three people what it’s like to be gay. What helps people see that we are all really alike is having close relationships with one another.
And the best way to do that is by Telling 3.
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Jessica Simpson.
I don’t like her. To me she is a no-talent-hair-tits-and-ass-wannabe-who-never-will.
But now all people can talk about is that she has apparently gained weight. Even women, who should be sticking up for women, are attacking her. Because she got fat, or so they say.
I’ve seen the recent pictures of her, and I’ve seen old pictures of her. She looks a bit heavier, yeah, but she looks healthy and happy, so why drag her down? Why put the most horrendous cartoons of her on the net?
Think about your own child, or yourself for that matter. Would you want that kind of attention for your child? For yourself?
I didn’t think so.
She is still, to me, a no-talent-hair-tits-and-ass-wannabe-who-never-will, but leave her alone.
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Michael Phelps.
What is wrong with America that we have a desperate need for heroes, and then we begin to tear them down? Or heaven forbid they get caught doing something, and we all jump on the bandwagon calling them names and ratting them out?
He’s a swimmer, folks; he swims. And he’s pretty good at it, too, because he’s got lots of gold bling to show for it. And after he won that jewelry all of America stood on his shoulders and shouted to the world, Look at us! We.Are.The.Best!
Then Phelps picked up a bong and someone picked up a camera.
Sheesh.
Now, I don’t smoke pot; tried it once….hated it….never again. I also cannot stand the smell. But that’s me. Apparently Phelps doesn’t have the same lack of interest in pot as me. So he smoked, got snapped, and now everyone wants to drag him down.
How dare he?
We trusted him.
What kind of role-model is he?
Well, he isn’t a role-model, people. He didn’t sign up for that. He signed up to be a spokesperson for various companies, and to use his celebrity as a golden boy to make some dough so he could keep training and maybe get some more bling.
He didn’t ask to be a role-model. You all made him one, and then waited like wolves at the door for him to stumble, and then you pounce.
Grow up.
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Octuplets.

We are cheered the miracle of the eight births. But it was less miracle and more science, so if you wanna cheer, cheer for the right team. Science.

But then we stopped cheering when we found out the mother was single, had six children, lived with her parents, used a sperm donor, seemed interested in selling, I mean telling…..no, I mean selling….her story to Oprah and Diane, Barbara, Katie and Matt.

We started to get angry. Who does this woman think she is having eight more when she has six at home? What the hell is going on? Her own mother says the woman has emotional issues. Who’s going to pay for all those kids? Well, probably Oprah et al to some extent.

I read on another blog that we don’t have the right, as pro-choice thinkers, to tell this woman what she can do with her body. Probably not. But we do have the right to question doctors who make it possible for a mother of six to have eight babies. We do have a right to question who’s going to pay for all these babies. Millions spent already for the very small people who did nothing wrong other than being born.
The mother doesn’t owe us answers, although I expect TV appearances and news specials and documentaries and books will come out of this.

But the doctors who allowed this to happen have some ‘splaining to do.

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In New Mexico, the Senate Public Affairs Committee voted 5-4 to give a favorable recommendation to a measure, the “Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act,” that extends the same legal benefits that married couples have under New Mexico law to unmarried couples, whether homosexual or heterosexual.
Domestic partners, whether gay or straight, would have the right to take family medical leave to care for a partner who is ill, the authority to make end-of-life decisions for a partner and would be entitled to property rights in a partner’s pension and inheritance rights. Domestic partners also would have the same responsibilities as married couples in child custody and visitation issues and paying child support.

Of course, the haters are up in arms already, talking about the word or God, and traditional marriage, and 5,000 years of no change to marriage, and how this bill, about domestic partners, straight or gay, is opening up the back door to gay marriage.

The back door? Really. Don’t give a sarcastic gay a line like that. I could ramble on for days about gays and back doors, and how that’s the way we do things, but I won’t.

I just want to bask in the sunshine of New Mexico, for taking this step; cool off in the icy breezes of Maine, for taking a stand, too. Bask in the glories of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
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Sarah Palin is back in the news.
My watch must be slow, because I could have sworn her fifteen minutes was up.
There’s a documentary coming out called, Media Manipulation, or something like that, by a man who apparently wants to boink Sarah, because he seems to pitch a tent in his pants whenever he talks about her. About how it wasn’t Americans who elected Barack Obama, but the media.
The media? Really?
The media showed us what was wrong with Palin. An abstinence preaching mother whose own daughter missed the sermon; a woman who couldn’t answer even the most challenging question, like What newspapers do you read? Who, when asked a question, actually said, I’ll get back to you on that.
Get back to you?
I got a flash of a Palin Presidency after Grampa John kicked the bucket, and a reporter questioning President Wink-Wink about missiles being aimed at the US and Sarah saying, Oh gosh, I’ll have to get back to you on that.
Ka-boooooom.
Now there’s this video of Ashley Judd speaking out against Governor Palin’s obsessions with shooting wolves from the sky–much like shooting fish in a barrel, but you’re in a plane and you’re shooting wolves. In the winter. When they can’t hide. Shooting a defenseless animal simply for sport.
It’s murder, Sarah. Murder.
And you think it’s fun.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick

>More Hope

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Talk about a renewed sense of hope.

Talk about an end to the last eight years.

Secretary of State Clinton was cheered yesterday as she began her new job.

That’s a first day welcome I would love.

>Instant Change. Just Add Obama.

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In an instant things can change. Right after the swearing in of President Obama, the official White House website had this to say about the LGBT community. Read it all here

Support for the LGBT Community

“While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.”
— Barack Obama, June 1, 2007
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.

Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees’ domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.

Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma — too often tied to homophobia — that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.

Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.