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LGBT

Why ‘It Gets Better’ Works: Watch One Young Man Express His Gratitude

By Zack Ford on Sep 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm

One of the biggest challenges in social justice advocacy is demonstrating success. When the whole goal is to prevent people from having negative experiences, it’s hard to prove that strategies are actually working, because there isn’t physical evidence. The desired result is “no negative experiences,” but some might see this as merely “nothing.”

Take the “It Gets Better” project. Tens of thousands of videos have been made since the anti-bullying campaign launched a year ago. Surely one of IGB’s undeniable successes is the way it has rallied many people in the public sphere to take pro-LGBT stances, from politicians to sports teams. But does the campaign actually make a difference for the young people it targets? Some have critiqued it as “self-congratulatory back-patting,” suggested it’s “useless,” or expressed concern that it includes “no path to change.” Even the Disappointing Gay Best Friend was unimpressed. While we can track suicide attempts, mental health trends, and rates of bullying, it would arguably be difficult to ever directly connect IGB to the positive results it might be fostering.

But there’s one exception: young people saying thank-you. Box Turtle Bulletin posted this video today from a teenager named Dylan:

Dylan found an “It Gets Better” video from YouTube user “depfox,” gay couple Jay and Bryan Leffew with their kids Daniel and Selena. Through the Leffew family, Dylan saw that he didn’t have to pray away the gay or repress his identity. He could, in fact, grow up to have the loving family that he has dreamed of. Since posting his thank-you to the Leffews last month, he has since made a follow-up video telling his own coming out story in which he also talks about how important Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns’ video was for him as he was figuring out his identity.  Dylan’s journey is far from over, because though he came out to the world at large on YouTube, he still hasn’t talked to his family about his identity. Still, by coming out, he is already on a better path.

Is it fair to suggest that IGB saved Dylan’s life? Yes. Nobody will ever know what his story might have been, but if some Internet videos helped him avoid a life of denial, depression, and psychologically harmful ex-gay therapy, that is surely a victory. It’s pretty hard to call something “useless” that has saved a life, and it would be foolish to assume Dylan is alone. “It Gets Better” is making it better one video at a time just by being there for young eyes to see. Keep them coming.

Security

Cheney Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’

By Ben Armbruster on Sep 9, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Dick Cheney wrapped up his book tour on home turf this morning at the American Enterprise Institute. The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes — the official Cheney biographer and famous peddler of the false “connection” between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda — moderated the event and eventually got to the sticky topic of torture. In what he called “a thoughtful critique,” Hayes asked Cheney to respond to those who argue “the things that we did amounted to torture and the sense that maybe the moral position of the United States was eroded because of the things that we did here in this country.”

Cheney dismissed the question, saying they waterboarded only “a handful” of people, which, he claimed, “produced phenomenal results”:

CHENEY: When we get into the whole area of one of the most controversial techniques, waterboarding. … Three people were waterboarded — not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected most often to that was Khalid Sheik Mohammad and it produced phenomenal results for us.

There are reports that the intelligence committee did of the results of the program which were declassified at my request and are now available on the internet that talk about the quality of information that we got as a result of our enhanced interrogation techniques applied to a handful of individuals. We are talking about only a handful of people who were indeed part of the al Qaeda organization.

Watch it:

The “reports” Cheney is presumably referring to are two CIA documents the agency released in 2009 — at Cheney’s request. However, they do not prove torture worked and in fact, they “actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.”

The bottom line is that there is no evidence to support Cheney’s claim that torture “produced phenomenal results.” “What we got [from waterboarding] was pabulum,” said one FBI agent. A former senior CIA official said most of what came from waterboarding “was total f*cking bullsh*t.” “K.S.M. produced no actionable intelligence,” said another former Pentagon analyst.

“[Cheney] fears being tried as a war criminal,” former top Colin Powell aide Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said last month, “This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will ‘Pinochet’ Dick Cheney.’”

Alyssa

Cinderella Stories

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Sep 9, 2011 at 4:08 pm

Apparently, in addition to the 10 million Snow White projects under development, we’re also getting a new Cinderella movie. I have absolutely no hope that this will happen, but it would be pretty awesome if the writers considered the example of Ever After. Not only does it do a good job of thinking about fairy-tale settings — there’s Leonardo Da Vinci and sharply drawn class distinctions — but it’s an awesome story about protagonists who fall in love because they have shared political interests. I don’t actually mind a lot of fairy-tale tropes, be they deserving poor girls or rewarded morality, but love at first sight is silly and not that interesting. Even if they can’t pull off political consciousness, I’d settle for a story where Cinderella and the prince actually get to know each other, or where love at first sight doesn’t work out.

NEWS FLASH

43 House Members Slam Justices Scalia, Thomas, And Alito For Ethics Scandals | As ThinkProgress previously reported, Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) circulated a letter calling upon the House Judiciary Committee’s leadership to hold a hearing his bill ending the Supreme Court’s immunity to key judicial ethics laws. Murphy’s bill is inspired by numerous recent ethics scandals involving the Court’s most conservative members:

There have been alarming reports of justices – most notably Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – attending political events and using their position to fundraise for organizations. These activities would be prohibited if the justices were required to abide by the Judicial Conference Code of Conduct, which currently applies to all other federal judges. [...]

Recent revelations about Justice Thomas accepting tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from individuals and organizations who often have an interest in matters before the courts calls into question the Court’s impartiality. Canon 4D of the Code of Conduct incorporates regulations providing that “[a] judicial officer or employee shall not accept a gift from anyone who is seeking official action from or doing business with the court.” Yet Justice Thomas received a gift valued at $15,000 from an organization that had a brief pending before his Court at the very moment they gave him the gift. Incidents such as these undermine the integrity of the entire judiciary, and they should not be allowed to continue.

Forty-three Members of Congress have now joined Murphy’s call to end the Supreme Court’s ethics immunity.

Climate Progress

Are the Chinese Using Predatory Pricing to Knock America Out of Solar Manufacturing?

By Stephen Lacey on Sep 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm

Armed with tens of billions in loans from the Chinese government, Chinese solar companies have scaled at a rate unthinkable only a few years ago. At the end of this year, there will likely be 50,000 MW of manufacturing capacity in place around the world, with much of that new capacity being developed in China and other Asian countries. (In the year 2000, there was only 100 MW of production capacity world-wide.)

In four years, the solar manufacturing sector shifted from being led by a geographically-dispersed number of companies to one dominated by Chinese companies. In 2006, there were two companies from China in the list of top-ten cell producers.  In 2010, there were six, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. There are currently only two non-Asian manufacturers in the top ten, and those companies — First Solar and Q-Cells — have shifted a lot of their production to Asia.

So what happened? How did the Chinese come to completely dominate the solar industry in such a short period of time?

Bryan Ashley, the Chief Marketing Officer for Suniva, an American company that produces high-efficiency solar cells in Georgia, doesn’t mince words.

“The Chinese strategy is very clear. They are engaging in predatory financing and they’re trying to drive everybody else out of the market. When you’ve got free money you can out-dump everybody below cost,” Ashley said in an interview with Climate Progress.

That “free money” Ashley refers to is the cheap debt provided by the Chinese Development Bank (CDB).  Here’s how the CDB works its magic:

Read more

Economy

REPORT: As Their States’ Bridges And Roads Crumble, GOP Leaders Remain Opposed To Infrastructure Investment

By Travis Waldron and Tanya Somanader on Sep 9, 2011 at 3:25 pm

This Minnesota bridge was also rated "structurally deficient"

President Obama’s plan to kickstart the economy and put the American people back to work includes investing in the nation’s rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, which, as studies have shown, is in need of as much as $2 trillion in immediate investment just to bring it up to date. In the past, Republicans have agreed that infrastructure improvements are needed, but in the context of economic stimulus and in their effort to remain opposed to anything Obama offers, they have chosen to ignore the nation’s infrastructure and jobs crises. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t mean either crisis will go away.

Republican leadership has continually blocked efforts by Obama and Congressional Democrats to invest in infrastructure improvements, and as a result, bridges and roadways in their states are crumbling. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 12 percent of the nation’s bridges are considered “structurally deficient,” the same rating given to the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people. Roughly another 12 percent are considered “functionally obsolete.” In four of the five states represented by Republican congressional leadership, the rate of structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges outpaces the national average. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the status of roads and bridges in each of those five states and, where applicable, individual congressional districts:

OHIO: 27 percent of the bridges Speaker John Boehner’s home state of Ohio are either “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” while one-fourth of its roads are considered poor or mediocre. At the heart of the Midwest, Ohio’s share of the national highway system has 171 highway bridges that are structurally deficient. 10 of those bridges are located in Boehner’s own district. Indeed, Obama singled out the Brent-Spence bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky as “one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.” A recent Cincinnati Enquirer investigation into the bridge noted that it “is one of only 15 major interstate bridges in the country labeled by the federal government as ‘functionally obsolete’ for failure to meet safety or traffic flow standards.”

KENTUCKY: More than one-third (34 percent) of the bridges in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state are structurally deficient or obsolete, including the Brent-Spence Bridge. Of those bridges, 108 are located on the national highway system, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Nearly one in five of Kentucky’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

VIRGINIA: In House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home state, 26 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient or obsolete, 104 of which are on the national highway system. Nearly one in four of the state’s roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition. In Cantor’s congressional district, 11 national highway bridges are considered deficient.

ARIZONA: In Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl’s home state, 12 percent of the bridges are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Of those in the national highway system, 25 are structurally deficient. Indeed, a recent report found that the poor rural roads and bridges in Arizona, where 21 percent of roads are considered poor or mediocre, have earned the state the eighth highest rural traffic fatality rate in the nation.

CALIFORNIA: Home to House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, California is perhaps most in need of infrastructure improvement. Thirty percent of its bridges are “structurally deficient or fundamentally obsolete.” Though a well-traveled state, California has a whopping 976 bridges on its national highways that are structurally deficient; 24 of those bridges are in McCarthy’s district. California ranks 19th in the nation for percentage of rural bridges that are structurally deficient, and two-thirds of its major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

Even as roads and bridges in their states fall apart, Republicans remain opposed to Obama’s efforts to invest in improvement projects. When progressives and Democrats pushed for more infrastructure spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Republicans demanded a bigger emphasis on tax cuts. When House Democrats passed a jobs bill geared toward infrastructure investment in February 2010, Republicans derailed it in the Senate. And unless the GOP undergoes a radical shift in priorities in the next few months, yet another plan that will help solve both America’s infrastructure and jobs crises will die at the hands of Congressional Republicans.

The result, as statistics from these five states show, is that the country continues to watch its infrastructure crumble while leaders in the Republican Party sit idly by, refusing to do anything about it.

Politics

Rick Perry’s Newest Fan: Birther Queen Orly Taitz

By Scott Keyes on Sep 9, 2011 at 3:15 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from Newport Beach, California.

At Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) campaign stop in Orange County yesterday, an inauspicious character made a surprise appearance: “birther queen” Orly Taitz. Taitz, who has earned infamy for her long-held conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the United States, stood near the stage with a large sign reading “Go Perry 2012″.

Standing in the rope line after Perry’s speech, Taitz spoke with the Texas governor as he wrote on her sign, “♥ Rick Perry”. Audio of the exchange was difficult to make out, but according to Taitz, she told Perry that he will “get Obama” and “will have him in prison for Social Security fraud.” Taitz was confident that Perry was receptive to her message.

Taitz also told ThinkProgress that she’s “pretty sure [the Perry campaign] will” bring up the birth certificate issue, but she said their strategy “will be to wait and use it at the last possible moment to make sure that there is no primary challenger in the Democrat Party.”

KEYES: I saw you were able to get a bit of face time with Governor Perry on the line. What did you talk with him about?

TAITZ: [...] From what I understood, he knew who I was and what I was talking about. [...] I told him that you will get Obama, you will have him in prison for Social Security fraud. [...]

KEYES: Did Governor Perry seem very receptive to your messages?

TAITZ: Yes.

KEYES: Do you think he’ll be taking that message forward, particularly with the birth certificate issue? Are you hopeful that he will?

TAITZ: I’m pretty sure they will, but I’m also sure that their strategy will be to wait and use it at the last possible moment to make sure that there is no primary challenger in the Democrat Party.

Watch it:

According to Taitz, she was “invited by local leadership of GOP” to the event, which was indeed held by the Orange County GOP.

NEWS FLASH

Oprah’s Canadian Network Runs Tar Sands Ads | “Ethical Oil,” a front group for the oil industry’s effort to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from Canada, is airing ads exclusively on the Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada. The group makes the argument that tar sands oil — which destroys indigenous lands in Canada and has a much higher carbon footprint than other oil — is more “ethical” because it doesn’t come from places like Saudi Arabia. “The ad is the worst kind of propaganda that manages to exploit both women and our environment,” argues Credo Action, which has begun a petition drive to ask Oprah to stop the ad campaign.

By Brad Johnson on Sep 9, 2011 at 3:13 pm

Health

At First Meeting, Republicans On Super Committee Announce They Want To Lower Health Spending By Increasing It

By Igor Volsky on Sep 9, 2011 at 3:00 pm

Inside Health Policy’s Sahil Kapur reports that Republicans on the Super Committee continue to insist on lowering the health spending by increasing it — that is, repealing the one law that will not only reduce the deficit over 10 years, but also slow the rate of growth in national health expenditures. From yesterday’s inaugural meeting of the committee:

House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-WI) floated two specific proposals: reforming medical malpractice laws and cutting some spending from the Affordable Care Act.

“We can eliminate nearly $60 billion in federal spending by reforming our broken medical liability system and we can save tens of billions more by simply wiping out some of the unaccountable spending in the health care law,” Upton said in his opening statement.

House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), who kicked off the hearing, said he believes the Medicare, Medicaid and health spending are the “biggest drivers of the debt.”

Again, Republicans aren’t wrong to argue that Medicare spending — all of health care spending — must be contained if we want to strengthen the economy, but the way to do that is to bolster the cost containment provisions in the Affordable Care Act, not repeal them. There is certainly some middle ground to be found on reducing malpractice costs (although those savings are relatively modest), but the real compromise has to come from expanding the bipartisan cost containment provisions already in the law.

After all, both Republicans and Democrats support the excise tax (Republicans wanted to do away with the entire employer health subsidy, while the ACA only eliminates the tax break for high-cost plans), a cost containment commission (the GOP calls the IPAB rationing, but Paul Ryan proposed very similar boards in his health bills), and delivery system reform (here is Newt Gingrich praising the efficiency improvements of CMS administrator Don Berwick). But Republicans are now seeking to repeal these measures because 1) they’re part of a Democratic bill signed by President Obama and 2) the current crop of Republicans is really more interested in privatizing the entire health care system — which would actually INCREASE health care spending — than they are in lowering health expenditures.

NEWS FLASH

Israeli Foreign Minister Reportedly Seeks Meetings With Anti-Turkish Terror Group | Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman plans to hold meetings with the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group which has maintained an armed struggle against the Turkish government since 1984 and is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. Word of the meeting was published on Ynet.com which also suggested that the the PKK might ask Lieberman for military aid. The proposed meeting, which would add additional stress to Israel’s tense relationship with Turkey following Turkey’s recent decision to expel Israel’s ambassador from Ankara, was met by cautious remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Haaretz reports that the Prime Minister’s office did not confirm or deny Lieberman’s retaliatory plan but called for restraint with regards to statements concerning Israel’s relationship with Turkey, stating, “Our policy was and remains to prevent a breakdown of relations with Turkey and easing the tensions between the countries.”

By Eli Clifton on Sep 9, 2011 at 2:54 pm

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