Hate Lost

In Maine, Maryland, and Washington state, voters approved ballot initiatives legalizing same-sex marriage.

In Minnesota, voters defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage, although a legal prohibition remains in place.

In Iowa, a state Supreme Court judge who ruled in favor of marriage equality was re-elected in spite of rightwing attacks on him; and Democrats retain control of the Iowa Senate, averting the Republican determination to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Wisconsin voters elected the first openly gay Senator. Her House seat was won by Mark Pocan, who is also gay.

In Troy, Michigan, Teabagger mayor Janice Daniels lost a recall election, in large part because national headlines about her homophobic pronouncements embarrassed the city and alarmed business leaders.

It’s not just homophobia that voters all over the country rejected.

Sexism lost. Republican candidates who asserted that rape isn’t really rape lost their elections. The U.S. Senate will have a record number of female members.

In New Hampshire, the governor and the entire Congressional delegation are all women.

Florida voters rejected an amendment that would have severely restricted abortion rights.

There are still many battles to be fought (and re-fought), but I’m feeling pretty good about the battles we won on November 6.

Colin Powell Endorses President Obama

General Powell is on target with his explanation of why he’s endorsing President Obama for re-election. There’s a video at the link. It’s worth a listen. He praises the president’s achievements in both domestic and foreign policy, and criticizes Romney for his shifting positions (and, tacitly, his untrustworthiness). I’m feeling the irony that Powell criticizes Romney’s Neocon advisers, since Powell chose to work with those people and support that agenda in the Bush regime. But his endorsement is one of the strongest, clearest statements for why Obama should be re-elected that I’ve heard.

Christians Being Christian

Here in southeastern Michigan, an Evangelical church is producing a play with a message of compassion for gays.

The play will be a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, which provides a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.

[The church's pastor, the Rev. Bill] Barnwell said the church is conservative by most standards, but is taking a stand against the harsh mistreatment of the gay community.

…

Barnwell said if a church proclaims to be pro-life, then its leaders and members should care about the lives of gay teenagers.

Whatsoever you do for the least of these…

More Like This, Please

The quote of the day is from New York state senator Mark Grisanti, who is a Republican and a Roman Catholic, which gives him a double dose of institutional opposition to equal rights for homosexuals. Senator Grisanti explained his vote to legalize same sex marriage in New York:

I cannot legally come up with an argument against same-sex marriage… I cannot deny anyone in my district and across New York the same rights I have with my wife.

Donate for Earthquake/Tsunami Relief

If you’ve been looking for a way to make a donation for relief efforts in Japan, go to The Hunger Site and click the “Japan Earthquake & Tsunami – HELP NOW” graphic. The donations will be administered by the site owner, GreaterGood.org (CharityUSA), which will use 100% of the donations for emergency assistance and recovery (i.e. not for “administrative costs”).

Donations through the site are tax-deductible in the U.S.

Pro-democracy Politicians

Kudos to the Mahoning County commissioners for listening to their constituents.

The commission fired the law firm that had been representing the county in labor negotiations, because the firm supports the anti-union bill the Republicans are pushing through the Ohio legislature.

The Most Open Administration in History

Read the following with the understanding that the Bush Administration suppressed this as well. But things like this make one wonder whether the DoJ under Eric Holder has improved since the days of Alberto Gonzales. Denial of legitimate FOIAs is illegal, not a good thing for the nation’s top law enforcement agency to be engaged in.

From the National Security Archive, an invaluable independent organization which seeks to pry things loose from the archives of the national security state:

Washington, DC, November 13, 2010 – The Department of Justice censored dozens of pages of a candid history of Nazi-hunting (and Nazi-protecting) by the U.S. government to such a self-defeating extent that former officials leaked the entire document to the New York Times this week, instead of fulfilling the Freedom of Information request and lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive and its counsel David Sobel.

“Now that we can compare the redacted document with the complete text of the original report, it is clear that the Justice Department is withholding information without legal justification,” said David Sobel. “For an administration – and an Attorney General – supposedly committed to an ‘unprecedented’ level of transparency, this case provides a troubling example of how far the reality is from the rhetoric.”

The National Security Archive submitted its FOIA request for the history of the Office of Special Investigations in November 2009, only to be denied by the Justice Department on grounds that the document – although completed in 2006 and never revised since then – was only a draft and was “predecisional” and therefore withholdable under the 5th exemption to the FOIA.

News Flash: Giving People Real Choices Gets Them To The Polls

Much of the talk I’ve seen on the nationally-oriented political blogs — such as my other blogging home, FDL — is about how the Democratic turnout was really, really low in yesterday’s primaries, and a sign of Democratic dispirit.

The big exception: Minnesota. Per the Strib, the turnout was almost 590,000 voters, or 15.5%. That’s the highest since 2000, and included more than 31,000 absentee ballots.

Why the eagerness in Minnesota, when it’s been absent elsewhere?

One reason could be this, as Spotty mentions in his discussion of how Mark Dayton won last night’s primary:

“Oh dear!” say some; he’s fomenting [spell checker helpfully offers fermenting] class warfare! The class warfare, however, has been mounted by the wealthy on the rest of us, and they’ve been winning it.

It surprises me not at all that the candidate who seems to understand that essential truth, and said so directly, won the primary.

Indeed.

Helping Haiti

As you may know, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti. Its epicenter was at Carrefour, a few miles west of central Port-au-Prince. The ground was saturated with rain, causing mudslides. Fires sprung up, intensifying the damage. Larger structures, such as hospitals, were the worst damaged. It is, according to Kim Ives of Haiti Liberte (on DemocracyNow), “apocalyptic.”

(Image from Haiti Liberte)

Greater Good.org, which runs The Hungersite and related sites, is volunteering its network to collect funds for relief. Greater Good includes many grassroots organizations that do work in Haiti, such as Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health, so that is one source. Just go to The Hungersite. The link to donate is, at least for today, mid-way down the page. Partners in Health is on the ground, delivering emergency medical relief. They are a good organization.

Kim Ives suggested an organization called Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, which is associated with HaitiAction.Net, the major news source for events in Haiti. One can donate online or by mailing to

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund/EBSC
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant
2362 Bancroft Way
Berkeley CA 94704-1604

As Kim Ives said, the delivery of aid, especially development aid but also to some degree humanitarian aid, has been used to destroy the country, so it pays to be careful how one gives. But Haiti was desperately poor before this disaster, the disaster has taken the last shreds of its last patrimony.

Please, open your heart.

Congressional Democrats, Please Heed Mark Morford

Mark Morford tells us how to talk to complete idiots:

Remember, facts do not matter.

So reasoning with them, expecting them to acknowledge facts and logical conclusions, is futile. And now I’m talking to you, Congresional Democrats: negotiation and compromise are forms of reasoning. Don’t waste your time, they’re not listening. You cannot reason with unreasonable people.

Follow Morford’s advice:

The absolute best way to speak to complete idiots is, of course, not to speak to them at all.

That is, you work around them, ignore them completely, disregard the rants and the spittle and the misspelled protest signs and the fervent prayers for apocalypse on Fox News. Complete refusal to take the fringe nutballs even the slightest bit seriously is the only way to make true progress.

When your Republican colleagues assert that providing a government-administered program so everyone in the country can get health care means the government is going to kill us all, and that the highest priority in reforming the health-care system is maintaining the status quo they are fringe nutballs. Work around them.

Please remember: Being in the majority means you get to decide government policy. That’s how “majority rule” works. Do it.