ThinkProgress Logo

LGBT

Many Gay And Lesbian Cadets Still Uncomfortable About Coming Out

By Igor Volsky on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:30 pm

Gay and lesbian cadets and midshipmen in the nation’s service academies are struggling to come out in the aftermath of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a report by the Huffington Post’s Max Rosenthal finds. While “attitudes among cadets are generally accepting,” and “no formal complaints or reports have been lodged,” some senior enlisted people have reportedly made off-color remarks about gay members, and a formal support group for LGBT cadets does not exist:

One gay midshipman in his senior year, who requested anonymity, said the environment at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., was “better, but it still has a long way to go.” He was reluctant to reveal his sexuality to classmates for fear that subordinates would question his leadership, and he knew of other midshipmen who had come out to mixed receptions.

The lack of more formal support groups at the academies is largely a result of similar concerns, interviewed cadets said. Officials at West Point, the Naval Academy and Air Force said they would be open to requests for support groups, and there are efforts underway at Coast Guard to launch a peer support group. But many gay students may not be prepared for such open recognition.

“The biggest group of resistance has been the gay and lesbian midshipmen,” the senior midshipman said. “We said we’re not ready to do this as a group yet. That’s almost across the board.“

Generally, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been without incident, with the staunchest military supporters of the policy embracing gay and lesbian service members .

Economy

Ohio GOP Candidate Josh Mandel Insists Ohio Anti-Labor Law ‘Is About Respecting Police And Firefighters’

By Tanya Somanader on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:25 pm

On Tuesday, Ohioans will vote on Issue 2, a referendum on Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s (R) anti-workers’ rights law Senate Bill 5 (SB5). The bill strips teachers, police, and firefighters of their rights to collective bargain for better wages and working conditions. The bill is deeply unpopular.

This, however, has not stopped right-wing groups from flushing the pro-SB5 campaign with money or conservatives from insisting that the law helps local governments by preventing layoffs.

But while most Republicans at least acknowledge that the law disadvantages public employees, one Republican thinks the opposite. This summer, Ohio Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel said he supported Senate Bill 5 because the law, in his mind, actually “respect[s] police, and firefighters, and teachers” by giving “fiscal conservatives” the tools to ignore collective bargaining rights, which somehow “insur[es]that there is a state and there are local governments” down the road:

MANDEL: Well I’ve been supportive of Senate Bill 5…In my mind, it’s not about going after police, and firefighters and teachers. It’s about respecting police, and firefighters, and teachers and insuring that there is a state and there are local governments long into the future so that we have communities here in the state. The current level of spending in our state and our country? Simply unacceptable. And I think we need to put the tools in the tool belts of local government leaders and also people who are fiscal conservatives to bring this state into a sense of fiscal health. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve been supportive.

Watch it:

In what must come as a surprise to Mandel, Ohio’s teachers, police, firefighters, and even veterans feel slighted — not respected — by this bill. SB5 strips unions of the right to negotiate wages, eliminates pay increases, and completely bans the right to strike. As public officials and unions both note, teachers and safety forces have already made substantial sacrifices — including zero pay raises and paying more for health insurance — to accommodate the tough economy.

Read more

NEWS FLASH

Microsoft Funds Koch’s Climate-Denying Tea Party Conference | Microsoft Corporation, which argues that climate pollution requires a “comprehensive and global response,” is sponsoring the Koch brothers’ Tea Party convention taking place in Washington, DC. Microsoft is a “gold sponsor” of the Americans For Prosperity Foundation’s fifth annual Defending The American Dream Summit, cheek and jowl with top climate denial front groups like the Heartland Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speakers at the conference include climate deniers Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Ken Cuccinelli, Ann McElhinney, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, and Carly Fiorina. Their prominent involvement was captured in a photograph by Slate.com reporter Dave Wiegel.

By Brad Johnson on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:17 pm

Justice

Gov. Jan Brewer Can’t Explain Her Partisan Political Tampering In Arizona’s Redistricting Process

By Marie Diamond on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:13 pm

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has been under fire recently for her dramatic political move to interfere with the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission. Annoyed that the commission did not redraw congressional districts to benefit Republicans, Brewer convinced the GOP-controlled state Senate to impeach the commission’s independent chairwoman, Colleen Mathis.

State officials are only supposed to be impeached for “neglect of duty and gross misconduct.” But during an interview this week on Alan Colmes’ radio show, Brewer became completely incoherent when trying to defend her actions. She could not explain what offenses Mathis had committed that could possibly justify her impeachment:

COLMES: What did Colleen do that was inappropriate, Colleen Mathis?

BREWER: Well she acted, uh, inappropriately. Well it was very, pretty much obvious that she in communications, and doing things, uh, not in the public, and the people of Arizona deserve that –

COLMES: You mean she was doing things secretly? Like what?

BREWER: They just simply need to operate in a lawful and open fashion…

COLMES: I’m trying to understand what she did. What are you accusing her of having done?

BREWER: Well she wasn’t operating in the proper manner.

Listen here:

The Huffington Post reported that Brewer moved to impeach Mathis after being lobbied by incumbent GOP congressmen who wanted to protect their seats. Democrats have been calling for Brewer herself to be ousted for such an egregious attempt to compromise the integrity of the democratic process to rig elections for the GOP.

Health

Mississippi Catholic Bishop, Religious Leaders Denounce Personhood Anti-Abortion Bill

By Tanya Somanader on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:10 pm

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization.

It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right to Life organization has refused to promote it. Even the Catholic Bishops have refused to endorse the amendment, noting that the bill is so extreme, it could jeopardize their more serious efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade:

In the letter [Jackson Bishop Joseph Latino] called Personhood Mississippi “a noble initiative.” However, he said, “I join with Catholic bishops in several other states in not endorsing personhood petitions to be circulated in our Catholic parishes. We have committed ourselves to working for a federal amendment and feel the push for a state amendment could ultimately harm our efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Numerous religious leaders, who joined Bishop Latino at a press conference to speak out against the bill, were more forthright in their denunciations. “It is a blunt instrument which, if passed, will harm Mississippi women and their families both physically and spiritually,” said Rabbi Debra Kassoff. “Because God has sanctified not only fetal life, but all life, we urge Mississippians to vote against Initiative 26.”

In fact, religious leaders are taking issue with the personhood movement’s foundational idea that such amendments comply with “divine law” as defined by biblical text. The Interfaith Center of New York’s Rev. Chloe Breyer and Rabbis for Human Rights’ Rabbi Jill Jacobs both insisted that the biblical text that “life at conception” activists often rely on is actually “invoked to support the rights of a woman to have an abortion” as it conveys the idea that “the fetus does not achieve personhood until emerging from the womb.”

Breyer also notes that Christian representatives have long argued against the idea that life beings at conception. Saint Augustine actually wrote on the question of “personhood” and “ascribed to the idea of delayed ‘ensoulment” in which the fetus did not “receive a human soul” until a certain number of days after conception. In 1994, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church expressed its “unequivocal opposition” to any action that would “abridge the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of her pregnancy, or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting upon her decision.”

NEWS FLASH

News Corp. Journalist Arrested As Hacking Scandal Widens | The News Corp. phone hacking scandal spread to another publication today as police in the U.K. arrested a reporter for the Sun newspaper, the country’s largest circulation daily, on charges of bribing police officers. This latest development is a major blow to News Corp., which has maintained that illegal activity was restricted to the now-defunct News of the World. Meanwhile, police announced today that they believe almost 5,800 people were targeted in the company’s phone hacking operations — 2,000 more than originally thought.

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:09 pm

Alyssa

‘Tower Heist’: A Scheming Movie For An Era Of Downward Mobility

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 4, 2011 at 4:07 pm

Brett Ratner is not exactly a producer of sophisticated entertainments or a sensitive societal compass, so I was prepared for Tower Heist to be a tiresome mess. It’s not a perfect movie, but he’s lucky enough to be working with a script that is acid — if not revolutionary — about the callousness of the 1 percent, and has action sequences that if not precisely believable, have some nicely scary bits. I’m not hugely fond of the movie’s main premise — that Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi schemers are responsible for the recession, rather than people doing risky but entirely legal things and taking advantage of people’s financial illteracy — but Tower Heist manages to be a nice movie about the pain of downward mobility.

It’s not easy to make me feel sorry for investment bankers who have fallen on hard times, but Matthew Broderick, as the depressed ex-Merrill Lynch trader who Josh Kovacs, the manager of the Tower, has to evict, actually succeeds. When Josh comes to tell him to get out, he asks if Mr. Fitzhugh knows anything about the markets. “I don’t know. I used to know. That’s why they hired me at Merrill Lynch,” Fitzhugh confesses mournfully. “I went to Yale 20 years ago. Now, I’m a squatter.” Later, when Josh comes and finds him in a miserable hotel, he explains in a perfect deadpan that “I’m thinking of becoming a male prostitute.” And he provides a bitter perspective on why Arthur Shaw took on the Tower employees’ pension fund even after his Ponzi scheme started collapsing, telling Josh that “At a certain point, it isn’t about securities fraud. It’s about catering.” Some folks on the right have used the idea that Occupy Wall Street has downwardly mobile participants as some sort of evidence that the movement is about preserving existing privileges rather than a just realignment of the system. But I tend to think that it’s more about a recalibration, a reminder that the American dream is about security and equal opportunity, rather than the promise of vast wealth.

There’s another nice reminder of that fact in the scene where Josh informs the staff that his decision to ask Shaw to manage their pension fund has left them broke. “I never asked anyone to triple my portfolio,” Odessa (a very funny Gabby Sidibe) tells him bitterly, exposing the ridiculousness of the promise Shaw used to haul Josh in. She just wanted a reasonable rate of return. Lester, the doorman whose planned retirement is ruined by Shaw’s fraud, just wanted to go on a cruise with his wife. It was Josh, who listens to a ludicrous lifestyle radio show about cheese so he can recommend food and wine pairings to Shaw, and mistakes their chess games and Shaw’s professions of familiarity for friendship, who let himself get sucked into an unsustainable dream.

A key question for a lot of folks about this movie is what it means for Eddie Murphy’s career. He gives a good performance in a deeply annoying trope, the black man hired by pasty white dudes to teach them how to commit crimes. But he’s not nearly as much fun as Gabby Sidibe, proving she can crush comedy as well as drama in her turn as Odessa, the Jamaican maid turned safecracker for the team. I can see how some folks might see her as a stereotypical sassy, curvy black woman. But she’s refreshingly and hilariously tough and pragmatic, entering the movie to inform Josh, “My work visa is about to expire. You must find me a husband!” and later, when her plan to drug an FBI agent with a piece of cake fails, explaining nonchalantly, “He’s allergic to chocolate. I had to beat him.” And honestly, it’s nice to see a movie where a woman can be a member of a team not because she’s a hot distraction, but because she has skills that are absolutely vital to the operation.

Security

Ex-Mossad Chief: Iran Is Not An Existential Threat

By Eli Clifton on Nov 4, 2011 at 3:56 pm

Tensions have been growing over recent days as reports emerged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak might be in the process of mobilizing support for an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites. But many pundits are viewing the reports with suspicion and suggest that the noise from Netanyahu’s cabinet might have more to do with mobilizing anti-Iran sentiment — and pushing for ever tougher sanctions — in anticipation of next week’s IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program.

The uptick in bomb-Iran chatter has led ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy to call for Netanyahu’s government to temper their hawkish rhetoric. Ynet.com reports:

“The State of Israel cannot be destroyed,” he told Ynet on Friday. “An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years.”

On Thursday, Halevy, speaking at an army boarding school reunion, pushed back at Netnayahu’s claims that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel, saying “[Iran is] far from posing an existential threat to Israel.” Halevi, as reported by Ynet, added that domestic radicalization “poses a bigger risk than Ahmadinejad.”

While Halevi’s outspoken comments about rightward tilts in Israel and his warnings against a unilateral attack on Iran have brought scorn from members of Netanyahu’s cabinet — indeed Political-Security Cabinet member and House and Construction Minister Ariel Atias characterized Halevy’s statements as “shocking and inciting and they divide the people of Israel at a time when it needs unity more than ever” — the former intelligence chief is not alone in his opposition to Netanyahu and Barak’s saber rattling.

In May, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan called an Israeli strike on Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

And twelve of the eighteen living former heads of the three Israeli security branches are actively opposing or have spoken out against Netanyahu’s aggressive gestures toward Iran.

Update

CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that the U.S. is increasingly concerned about the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. She reports:

The U.S. military and intelligence community in recent weeks have stepped up “watchfulness” of both Iran and Israel, according to the senior U.S. military official and a second military official familiar with the U.S. actions. Asked if the Pentagon was concerned about an attack, the senior military official replied “absolutely.” Both officials declined to be identified because of the extreme sensitivity of the matter.

NEWS FLASH

Former Anti-Gay Strategist Ken Mehlman Named To ‘Out 100′ | Out Magazine has named Ken Melhman as one of its “Out 100,” an “annual salute to the year’s most inspiring people.” Out credits Mehlman for his role lobbying politicians to pass marriage equality in New York and continuing to fight for marriage equality in other states. Mehlman still supports anti-gay politicians and has not taken steps to atone for the anti-gay campaigns he led as chair of the Republican National Committee during President Bush’s re-election bid in 2004.

Special Topic

VIDEO: Bishop Gene Robinson: It Is Actually Wall Street That Has Become Anti-Capitalist

By Jeff Spross on Nov 4, 2011 at 3:45 pm

On Monday, Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire gave an interview to ThinkProgress arguing that Occupy Wall Street’s critiques of the American economy track closely with the moral arguments against wealth and power put forward in the Christian and Hebrew scriptures. In that same interview, Robinson also discussed how Americans understand their country’s economic identity, and defended the 99 Percent Movement from the charge that it is anti-capitalist:

In an odd sort of way Wall Street has become anti-capitalist.

What we are talking about is a protest against those people who have actually preyed on the capitalist system, who have used the capitalist system in what I would call an immoral way to make vast sums of money while actually producing nothing.

So the Occupy Wall Street folks are not protesting good pay for good work, or even wealth for those who contribute to employment and to the production of important things or even services. They are protesting this almost heretofore unheard of manipulation of the financial system to benefit a very very few people at the expense of the many, and in particular the most vulnerable.

Watch it:

Robinson’s assessment that Wall Street has become a threat to the healthy functioning of America’s capitalist markets is backed up by the economic facts on the ground. The American financial industry now accounts for approximately one third of all corporate profits in the country, while providing only one tenth of the value added in the economy — an enormously skewed result. At the same time, the outsized pay packages offered by Wall Street entice a disproportionate amount of high-talent individuals, leaving fewer for other fields such as science, medicine, engineering, and so forth. Many of America’s most intelligent new workers are being used by Wall Street to essentially invent new ways to game the financial system without increasing productivity in the overall economy.

As Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has put it, the purpose of a financial sector in a capitalist economy is to allow economic actors:

…to borrow money to buy a home or start a business, but it is not an end in itself. While spending more on health and housing may make us better off, spending more on finance is evidence of an inefficient financial system. An efficient financial system is a small financial system.” [Emphasis added]

Instead, Wall Street has become bloated and wasteful — and as 2008 demonstrated, it has become so dysfunctional as to become a literal existential threat to the national and global economy.

Older

Newer

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up