George H.W. Bush: Failing on HIV/AIDS and Enabling the "Religious Right"

George H.W. Bush with Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Last week the media engaged in an orgy of overkill in the coverage of the funeral of George H.W. Bush which at times seemed more like a royal funeral than that of an American politician.  Yes, compared to the current occupant of the White House, Bush 41 looks almost saintly, but in their rush to gush over Bush, many in the media completely ignored Bush's failings and the lives harmed and the political damage done to the nation.  One huge failing was on Bush's policies during the HIV/AIDS crisis, first under Reagan and then later under his own administration.  The second major failing (which dovetails with the first) was his enabling the rise of the perversely labeled "Religious Right" and its ultimate takeover of the Republican Party.  Learning from history requires that both good and bad be remembered so that previous errors do not repeat themselves. This was utterly lacking in most of the funeral coverage.  First a piece in Huffington Post looks at Bush's failure to those with HIV/AIDS.  Here are excerpts:

It’s no surprise that after the death of former president George H.W. Bush we’re seeing media pundits, advocates and popular historians promote a rosy view of his tenure as president. In the era of Donald Trump, there’s a tendency to portray every Republican leader of the past in a nostalgic, sugar-coated way. I saw a tweet from Yahoo News with a quote from the well-known historian Jon Meacham, describing Bush as a man who “believed that he was not a Republican president — he was a president,” noting that “there’s something very old-fashioned about that.” Perhaps that was what Bush “believed,” but it was far from the truth. Bush was as captive to the evangelical right on social issues — and thus a decidedly Republican president — as was his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, who cultivated religious conservatives as a potent political force and bowed to their anti-LGBTQ agenda as the AIDS epidemic mushroomed in the 1980s.  Reagan’s history of callously ignoring the epidemic while thousands died is well-documented. Bush, at the outset of his term, promised a “kinder, gentler” presidency than the man he’d served under as vice president. He even gave a speech on the AIDS epidemic in 1990, which was long on compassion but short on strategy and commitment to funding. During the speech, in fact, Urvashi Vaid, an invited guest and then the executive director of the prominent National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, now the National LGBTQ Task Force, took the unprecedented and heroic act of standing up and holding a sign, “Talk Is Cheap. AIDS Funding Is Not.” 

Bush, in the end, bowed to the same extremists Reagan did when it came to AIDS and LGBTQ rights. As The Washington Post noted, Bush allowed evangelicals to mature as a movement within the GOP after Reagan brought them in, rather than pushing back.

[I]t took years of work by the indefatigable Democrats Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Henry Waxman, and was too little, too late. By that point, nearly 10 years into the epidemic, 150,000 cases of people with HIV had been reported in the U.S., and 100,000 people had died due to AIDS.

Infamously, Bush had said in a television interview that if he had a grandchild who was gay he would “love” the child but would tell the child he wasn’t normal. And like Reagan, he stocked his Cabinet with anti-gay zealots. Health Secretary Louis Sullivan, also protested by ACT UP for his terrible response to HIV, joined forces with evangelical leaders to cover up a government-funded study on teen suicide that found LGBTQ teens were at much higher risk.  

And after Buchanan, who Bush offered a prime slot at the Republican National Convention in Houston, gave his infamous “culture war” speech, declaring there is a “religious war” in this country, and attacking, among others, the “militant homosexual rights movement,” Bush refused to denounce the speech and instead publicly denounced same-sex marriage, which was nowhere near a reality at the time. 

If Bush had come into office with perhaps a vague ambition that he might move away from the harsh Reagan years, with its religious morality crusade, he left the presidency having paved the way for his own son’s even more anti-LGBTQ administration, firmly ensconcing religious conservative power within the Republican party.  And that, of course, is the same party that now proudly claims Donald Trump as its leader.

As this above quote notes, the Washington Post looked at Bush's role in cementing the rise of Christofascists within the GOP - the same GOP now dominated by hate-filled Christofascists and white supremacists.  Here are article excerpts:

Unlike his son George W. Bush, the elder Bush, a lifelong Episcopalian, was less known for his religious faith. He was certainly not thought of as a champion of the religious right, the powerful political movement most associated with his predecessor, Ronald Reagan.

Yet it was Bush, the moderate establishment Republican whose family helped found Planned Parenthood, who secured the religious right’s permanent place in American politics. While historians largely credit Reagan’s presidency with helping religious conservatives move from the shadows of American public life into its spotlight, it was the Bush presidency, particularly its disappointments and defeat, that entrenched the religious right as the center of the Republican Party and guaranteed its ongoing influence.

Shortly after Reagan’s win in 1980, the conservative activist and key architect of the religious right Paul Weyrich told the incoming vice president that he better become a stronger advocate against abortion and for school prayer once in office. “I am not intimidated by those who suggest I better hew the line,” Bush shot back. “Hell with them.” Political reality, however, soon curtailed Bush’s independent streak. . . . . [Bush] They also made clear to Bush his need to realign his positions with the conservative wing of the party, which was ascendant, in part because of the rise of cultural issues that were scrambling the party coalitions. At the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, 300 of the 2,200 delegates belonged to the Christian Coalition, and more than 40 percent of the delegates identified as evangelical Christians. With that presence, the GOP’s platform committee produced one of its most conservative platforms ever, with absolutist positions against abortion and homosexuality. While Bush never fully embraced the religious right, he did cater to it from time to time, understanding how essential members were to his political fortunes. His choice of the conservative evangelical Dan Quayle as his vice president and his nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court were both intended to appease religious conservatives. . . .  But Bush’s strategic courting of the religious right also laid the groundwork for its eventual takeover of the party.

When Bush lost his reelection bid in 1992, critics pointed to the tent revival feel of the Houston convention as the reason that moderate and independent voters had fled the GOP. But for the religious right, the defeat was a victory of sorts. . . . . And they ambitiously planned to recruit more conservative candidates for office and bury the moderate wing of the party by continuing to build their control of the GOP from within.

By 1994, a study found that the religious right had become “dominant” or “substantial” in 21 of the GOP’s state parties. Two years later at the Republican National Convention in San Diego, Christian Coalition members made up more than half of the convention’s delegates.

American Pharmaceutical Company Keeps HIV Risk High

One of the reasons for America's sky high health care costs is the daily gauging of consumers by large pharmaceutical companies.  Americans pay in some cases, thousands of times more for crucial drugs that cost a relative pittance in other countries.  A prime example is Truvada, the brand name for a type of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which is up to 99 percent effective at preventing HIV infection.  The cost in America?  Thanks to the monopoly of Gilead Sciences, over $20,000 per year, far outside the reach of even many affluent individuals even with insurance (assuming carriers do not deny coverage).  The cost elsewhere?  In other countries, a one-month supply of generic Truvada costs less than $6.00. If widely administered, PrEP could largely eliminate HIV/AIDS in America.  But just like the opioid manufacturers behind the crisis in many parts of America, money is Gilead Science's god.  Human lives mean little.  A piece in the New York Times looks at this shocking example of corporate greed.  Here are excerpts:

On July 3, 1981, this newspaper wrote about a “rare cancer” killing gay men in New York and California. . . . Today, after 37 years, we finally have a proven pathway to ending the AIDS epidemic in this country.

The only catch? Poor policy and pharmaceutical price-gouging have blocked the way, making critical drugs a luxury rather than an imperative.

The solution comes in a pill: Taken daily, Truvada, the brand name for a type of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is up to 99 percent effective at preventing H.I.V. infection; it also lowers the amount of H.I.V. circulating in infected patients' blood streams. Used as directed, it’s one of the most effective methods of preventing a viral infection ever discovered, as good as the polio vaccine, the miracle of modern medicine. When you combine that protection with the discovery that people with H.I.V. cannot transmit the virus to others once Truvada has suppressed it to undetectable levels, we could be on the verge of a swift end to the epidemic.

Truvada was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012. But over six years later, the United States is failing miserably in expanding its use. Less than 10 percent of the 1.2 million Americans who might benefit from PrEP are actually getting it. The major reason is quite clear: pricing. With a list price over $20,000 a year, Truvada, the only PrEP drug available in the United States, is simply too expensive to become the public health tool it should be. Gilead Sciences, the company that makes Truvada, maintains a monopoly on the drug domestically. In other countries, a one-month supply of generic Truvada costs less than $6, but Gilead charges Americans, on average, more than $1,600, a markup from the generic of 25,000 percent. Infuriatingly, American taxpayers and private charities — not Gilead — paid for almost all of the clinical research used to develop Truvada as PrEP. Yet the price stays out of reach for millions, and will for at least several more years.

The disparities in PrEP access are astounding: Its use in black and Hispanic populations is a small fraction of that among whites. In the South, where a majority of H.I.V. infections occur, use is half what it is in the Northeast. Women use PrEP at drastically lower rates than men . . .

The ability of PrEP to greatly reduce new H.I.V. infections is no longer in question. In New South Wales, Australia, a program providing free access to PrEP led to a drop in H.I.V. diagnoses in the most vulnerable communities by a third in just six months, one of the fastest declines recorded since the global AIDS crisis began.

So how can we import such progress into the United States? Faced with more than half a decade of inaction by the federal government, activists have developed their own national strategy to begin the end of the H.I.V. epidemic. At the International AIDS Conference later this month, our organization, the PrEP4All Collaboration, will release its plan for a national PrEP program to ensure all Americans who need PrEP can get it.

A critical component of this plan is insisting that federal agencies use their statutory authority to break Gilead’s undeserved monopoly. With low-price, generic Truvada, the cost to cover every American who needs PrEP — including both drug costs and clinical care — would be less than a tenth the amount that the federal government already spends on H.I.V. care. The billions saved could pay for vital services to ensure those who need PrEP the most can get it and those living with H.I.V. can keep the virus suppressed. If the patent on Truvada remains, the plan will cost over $20 billion. Science has delivered answers, but Gilead’s greed and the government’s inaction are keeping it from those who need it most. There’s a pill that stops H.I.V. We can make it possible for everyone who needs that pill to get it.

Gilead's greed is replicated across the medical spectrum and is a prime reason why Americans pay far, far more for healthcare than in any other nation in the world.  We need a single payer system with government negotiation of drug prices. 

Trump Fires Entire HIV/AIDS Council

Trump surrounded by anti-gay evangelicals.

As Newsweek is reporting, Der Trumpenführer has fired the entire White House HIV/AIDS Council notifying the members of the council via letters delivered via FedEx.  In my view, this, combined with other proposals made over the last eleven months is a continuation of Trump's war on the LGBT community.  Why the funding cut proposals and firings?  In the minds of Trump's evangelical base, HIV/AIDS is a gay disease that gays deserve to suffer. for their "sinfulness."  For those who do realize that it is a heterosexual disease rampant in the black community in America and large parts of Africa, sadly, the  racism that seems to motivate a majority of white evangelicals makes the consequences of drastic funding cut backs of no concern.  As for Trump, his history of anti-black racism makes it easy to understand why he cares nothing about the horrific consequences that funding cut backs would wreak on Africa and minority populations.  Here are highlights from the Newsweek piece:

President Donald Trump fired the remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) Wednesday, reportedly informing them without explanation with a letter delivered by FedEx.

The mass dismissal of the advisors marked another nadir in the administration’s dealing with the council. In June six members resigned from PACHA writing in an open letter, published in Newsweek, saying the Trump White House was pushing for legislation that would harm people living with HIV.

Scott A. Schoettes, a Chicago-based HIV/AIDS activist and one of the members of the advisory panel who resigned over the summer, tweeted yesterday that the remaining council members had been fired for calling President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence “dangerous.”

“Remaining #HIV/AIDS council members booted by @realDonaldTrump. No respect for their service,” Shoettes wrote on the social media site. “Dangerous that #Trump and Co. (Pence esp.) are eliminating few remaining people willing to push back against harmful policies, like abstinence-only sex ed,” he added.

Sources with knowledge of the terminations told the Washington Blade that council members had been fired despite having more time on on their appointments.

Gabriel Maldonado, CEO of the LGBT and HIV/AIDS group Truevolution and a remaining member of PACHA said the reasons for the firings remain unclear but may have been borne of a desire by the Trump administration to clear out appointments made by his predecessor Barack Obama.

HIV/AIDS activists have been deeply critical of the White House’s approach over the past year. In the 2018 fiscal year budget Trump has sought huge cuts to programs including $150 million on HIV/AIDS at the Centers of Disease Control. The administration has also sought more than than $1 billion in cuts from global programs like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria.

Just under a year into his first term, Trump is also yet to appoint an HIV/AIDS chief, the first time since Bill Clinton created the position in 1993 that a president has failed to do so.

George W. Bush: Keep HIV/AIDS Programs Fully Funded

Perhaps the largest beneficiary of the election of Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer,  to the White House is George W. Bush.  Loathed by many when he left the presidency, George W. looks better and batter with each and every passing day.  Had I been asked in say 2005 if I would ever have a softening of my views on George W. Bush, I would have said that Hell would need to freeze over first.  Yet, today in the Washington Post George W. Bush has an op-ed that argues against Der Trumpenführer's proposal to savagely slash funding to HIV/AIDS programs, especially in Africa. Despite his many, many failings, belatedly, George W. seems able to comprehend that others are equally human.  With the ego drive, malignant narcissist in the White House, I truly do not expect to ever see such an evolution and perhaps even sense of sadness over mistakes made. Trump, unfortunately, is foul through and through.  Here are excerpts from George W. Bush's op-ed (we can only hope that Congress listens and rejects Der Trumpenführer's proposed budget cuts:

Last week in Gaborone, Botswana, Laura and I sat in a small room in Tlokweng Main Clinic, a facility that recently started screening and treating women for cervical cancer. Seated with us was Leithailwe Wale, a 40-year-old woman who was diagnosed with the disease. Thanks to early detection and access to treatment, she told us, today she is alive, healthy and able to raise her son.

Good news like Leithailwe’s is becoming increasingly common in five African countries where Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon is operating. Since leaving the White House, Laura and I have been heartbroken to learn that because women with HIV are more likely to have cervical cancer, people who had been saved from AIDS were needlessly dying from another treatable, preventable disease. So at the Bush Institute, we formed this global public-private partnership to fight women’s cancers.

In the past six years, more than 370,000 women have been screened for cervical cancer and 24,000 for breast cancer through Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon. More than 119,000 girls have been vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical and other cancers. Nearly 1,000 health workers have been trained. With the proper resources and international commitment, we could end cervical cancer deaths on the continent in 30 years.

Critical to this effort is our Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon partner, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). My administration launched PEPFAR in 2003 to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic that threatened to wipe out an entire generation on the continent of Africa. Nearly 15 years later, the program has achieved remarkable results in the fight against disease. Today, because of the commitment of many foreign governments, investments by partners, the resilience of the African people and the generosity of the American people, nearly 12 million lives have been saved. And nearly 2 million babies have been born HIV-free to infected mothers.

This lifesaving work also has a practical purpose for Americans. Societies mired in disease breed hopelessness and despair, leaving people ripe for recruitment by extremists. When we confront suffering — when we save lives — we breathe hope into devastated populations, strengthen and stabilize society, and make our country and the world safer.

As the executive and legislative branches review the federal budget, they will have vigorous debates about how best to spend taxpayers’ money — and they should. . . . . But they should fully fund programs that have proven to be efficient, effective and results-oriented. Saving nearly 12 million lives is proof that PEPFAR works, and I urge our government to fully fund it. We are on the verge of an AIDS-free generation, but the people of Africa still need our help. The American people deserve credit for this tremendous success and should keep going until the job is done.  

Apparently, Hell is beginning to freeze over.  Kudos to George W. and Laura Bush.  Don't hold you breath for Trump or his spawn to do something like this.

Trump Moves to Increase Pollution and Disease and HIV/AIDS Deaths

Sitting on the shores of Hampton Roads harbor facing rising sea levels and worries of flooding during tropical storms/hurricanes, global warming and a polluted Chesapeake Bay hit very close to home.  Similarly, as a member of the LGBT community who also worries about the growing epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the black community, medical research to find a cure for HIV/AIDS - and other diseases - is a real concern.  Sadly, such is not the case for Der Trumpenführer who today reversed Obama administration regulations to protect water and air quality and address the very real issue of global warming.  While posturing with oil and gas and coal company executives and miners (the latter refuse to accept the reality that the coal industry is moribund no matter what Trump does) Der Trumpenführer basically gave every other American the middle finger and said "go f*ck yourselves."  Reuters looks at this travesty.  Here are highlights:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era climate change regulations, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry and calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming.

Flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, Trump proclaimed his "Energy Independence" executive order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The move drew swift backlash from a coalition of 23 states and local governments, as well as environmental groups, which called the decree a threat to public health and vowed to fight it in court.

The order's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a key factor in the United States' ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

Trump's decree also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions. Carbon dioxide and methane are two of the main greenhouse gases blamed by scientists for heating the earth.

Environmental groups heaped scorn on Trump's order, arguing it was dangerous and went against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies. A coalition of mostly Democrat-led states and local governments issued a statement saying they would oppose the order in court.

"We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change," the coalition, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said in a statement.

The coalition includes states such as California, Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado.

 Not content with trashing the environment and endangering the health of Americans, Der Trumpenführer has also proposed drastic cuts to HIV/AIDS and other medical research.  No doubt, his white evangelical Christian supporters (who are responsible for putting him in office) will cheer if these cuts are realized since I suspect a majority of them would love to see gays - and the HIV ravaged black community - simply die off.  Suffice it to say, I am beginning to understand that Trump is an evil person.  Bloomberg looks at Trump's proposals to slash medical research spending.  Here are excerpts:

    President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed cutting $1.23 billion this fiscal year from research funded by the National Institutes of Health, according to a White House document sent to congressional appropriators.

    The reduction is part of $18 billion in cuts that the administration wants in fiscal 2017, which ends in October. Most of the proposed reductions at NIH would come from research grants, with $50 million specifically taken from a program meant to support biomedical research in states that typically get less agency money. 

     A worldwide initiative to help people with HIV and AIDS, known as PEPFARand heavily focused on patient treatment in Africa, would be slashed by almost $300 million under the plan. The savings would be found by slowing the rate of new patients put on treatment and reducing support to “low-performing countries.” States also would face a $50 million cut that would target “less effective HIV research and prevention activities.”

     The Trump administration is requesting $65.1 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services in fiscal 2018, down from $84.6 billion in 2016.

     Other proposed health cuts for the current year include:·        $40 million from staffing funds at the Food and Drug Administration, achieved in part with “slower than anticipated hiring.”
·        $50 million from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which may delay missions and reduce grants.
·        $350 million from research grants at the National Science Foundation for biology, information science and engineering.
·        $372 million from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps people heat their homes.

If there is a god, many of Trump's working class white supporters will find themselves hard hit from the proposed cut backs.  Frankly, they deserve to suffer since they were stupid enough to vote for this foul, pathologically lying, amoral man. 

Quote of the Day: Sexual Repression Costs Lives

Having grown up Catholic and remained a member of the Catholic Church until a few years before I came out, I am all too aware of the Church hierarchy's total obsession with all things sexual and the manner in which anything other than procreative sex is evil.  Of course, homosexuality and/or same sex physical relations was about the fastest ticket to Hell outside of possibly murder, although their were some clergy who seeming equated the two as the same in heinousness.  Meanwhile, as well all know, priests, bishops and other clergy were sexually molesting children and youth with abandon, knowing that the hierarchy would cover up the crimes and rarely, if ever, report the criminal conduct to police authorities. Yet there remain Catholics who blindly parrot the Church's official condemnation of sexuality while ignoring the fact that from many Popes on down, a vile, worldwide criminal conspiracy was going on.  Candidly, I cannot understand this mindset other than to assume that such right wing Catholics cannot let go of the Church teachings that in many cases made their lives miserable.  To admit they were wrong apparently would be too painful of an admission.  A letter to the editor in the Bucks County Courier-Times has a wonderful come back to such bitter right wing Catholics.  Here are some excerpts:

Older people jaded by their loss of youth and turning that dissatisfaction outward on the world is nothing new. But I don't think I've ever seen it put on display so outlandishly that it makes "All in the Family" look like a documentary.

In a column last month, J.D. Mullane conjured up a whirlwind of excuses to not only defend the Catholic Church from accusations of being "sex-obsessed," but to turn around and blame, well, everyone and everything he possibly could, it seems. To him, our evolution into a much more sex-positive nation is a disaster, and if the once pure holy beacon of Catholic theology on sex is now tarnished, it's because of this rising tide of naughtiness.

Most offensively, he lists Disney's attempt at transgender inclusiveness as an example of what he perceives as the moral degradation of society that's truly to blame for making the Catholic Church seem out of touch. Never mind the shockingly high suicide rate of transgendered people who feel they lack an identity -- 41 percent have attempted it!

It's likely as high as the suicide rate of those who, as children, were sexually assaulted, though that statistic is harder to come by. And while it's generally estimated that child sex abuse rates among Catholic priests are actually comparable to that of the general population, the depravity of it comes from the years -- decades even! -- that it was kept secret, allowing it to happen over and over again to more and more children.

Perhaps if we as a society had been more open to and accepting of the spectrum of human sexuality, instead of hushed by an invisible Victorian code of sexual conduct, these crimes could have been caught years earlier, and thousands of lives could have been saved.

[L]ook to the parts of Africa where the Catholic Church dominates. Its insistence that the use of condoms is wrong is causing preventable deaths from HIV/AIDS to continue to flourish, year after year. From the relative safety of America and western Europe, they preach abstinence instead, implying that they'd rather see whole swaths of the impoverished die from AIDS than compromise on a rule that, as far as I can tell, Jesus wasn't concerned with.

In short, sex positivity is hardly a moral ill; rather, it is sexual repression that costs lives, even if it makes suburban columnists nostalgic for the good old days. The truth is, these good old days were a time before the HIV/AIDS crisis, when LGBT people were free to be beaten and exiled from their communities, when mothers living in poverty were forced to give birth, and when children were being raped by priests by the thousands but were too ashamed to say anything about it.

 As I have said before, the moral bankruptcy of the Catholic hierarchy - including Pope Francis - is complete. These bitter old men in dresses should be the last people anyone should consult or defer to in matters of sexuality or anything else. 

Trump's "Christian Liaison" Ought to Frighten LGBT Citizens

As he has worked to shore up his support among the Republican Party base, Donald Trump has embraced some pretty ugly personalities ranging from white supremacists to now religious extremists.  Naturally, the latter category of Trump allies ought to send shivers down the backs of LGBT voters.  One such example is Trump's :Christian liaison," Frank Amedia, who underscore the lie of claims that Trump would be an LGBT friendly president.  The Advocate has a profile that is scary.  Here are excerpts:

Donald Trump has appointed a “liaison for Christian policy” — a minister who has said AIDS is caused by “unnatural sex” and threatened to withhold relief from Haitian earthquake surviviors if they continued to practice voodoo.

Frank Amedia, pastor of Touch Heaven Ministries, arranged a meeting earlier this month between Trump and several other ministers, Time reports. They discussed the “erosion of religious liberty,” the magazine notes, along with Israel and immigration — the latter being a focus of Trump’s presidential campaign, with his call to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and his plan to deport all undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Catering to the religious right, on the other hand, has not been a priority for the presumptive Republican nominee, and he has made some missteps in his references to the Bible. But now with Amedia, he’s joined up with a representative of the conservative Christian fringe.

“Amedia, who was once implicated in a bribery scandal in which he attempted to help a car-dealer friend avoid prosecution, is now a self-proclaimed ‘apostle’ who says that he once single-handedly stopped a tsunami from hitting an island in Hawaii,” reports Right Wing Watch, which has made a thorough investigation of the minister.

Amedia, a former Jew who now calls himself an apostle for Jesus Christ, has broadcast many sermons online and on television. In an undated one (below) that was posted to YouTube last year, he discussed how to avoid AIDS: “We know that many of the diseases today are avoidable if only we practiced a wholesome life. AIDS is a disease that comes because of unnatural sex. We understand that many of the diseases that we receive is because of exposure that we have to things that we should not be exposed to, lifestyles that are unhealthy or things in our spirit that cause us to become bitter.”

Some other ministers who met with Trump have similarly extremist views. Rick Joyner of Morning Star Ministries has blamed gay people for Hurricane Katrina and likened Trump to Christ. Sid Roth has said homosexuality will cause a nation to “vomit out” its people. Mario Bramnick, pastor of New Wine Ministries Church in Florida and a representative of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, last year hosted a meeting that called for the “mobilization” of Christians in response to the “demonic shift” brought to the nation by the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling. 

Hillary Clinton stayed true to her word and met with HIV/AIDS activists and experts to outline what she hopes to accomplish if elected in November. Bernie Sanders had cancelled his proposed meeting with the groups and as yet has not rescheduled.  It goes without saying that either Sanders or Clinton would be vastly better than Donald Trump or any Republican on these issues.  Indeed, as a I suggest in my upcoming VEER Magazine column, the failed policies now in place, especially in states where Republicans control the state legislatures is disproportionately harming the black community - something that is akin to a slow form of genocide and which is likely perfectly acceptable to the GOP and its Christofascist puppet masters.  If you can disenfranchise all blacks, let them die off. Yes, it's a harsh assessment, but I am afraid it is all too close to the truth.  The Clinton campaign released a press release that outlines her agenda on the HIV/AIDS front.  Here are excerpts:

Today, Hillary Clinton met with HIV and AIDS experts and advocates representing a diverse coalition of more than 70 leaders and organizations in the community. The meeting took place at the Hillary for America headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, where they discussed Clinton’s continued commitment to tackling the epidemic in the U.S. and globally, fighting discrimination against PLHIV and AIDS, and working together with HIV and AIDS experts and advocates to achieve an AIDS-free generation.

Hillary Clinton has been a longtime advocate in the fight to treat and prevent HIV and AIDS.

As First Lady, Clinton traveled the world to raise awareness on combating HIV and AIDS and assembled government officials and world leaders to increase funding for prevention and research efforts.

As Senator, Clinton introduced legislation to improve and expand global HIV and AIDS research, assistance, and education. She also co-sponsored the Early Treatment for HIV Act to extend Medicaid coverage to low-income people living with HIV.

As Secretary of State, Clinton began an ambitious campaign to usher in an AIDS-free generation. She oversaw a more than 200 percent increase in the number of people on antiretroviral treatment directly supported by the United States to reach over 6.7 million men, women, and children around the world.

Clinton has also emphasized HIV and AIDS in her philanthropic work. Almost 10 million people with HIV or AIDS around the world have benefited from more affordable medicine because of the Clinton Foundation. And since 2002, the Clinton Health Access Initiative has reduced the cost of HIV and AIDS medications in many countries from over $10,000 per person per year to just $100 to $200 per person per year.

During this campaign, Clinton has released specific policies to tackle the HIV and AIDS epidemic. As President, she will:

Cap out-of-pocket pharmaceutical expenses for people with HIV and AIDS. Clinton has announced a plan to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable and to achieve lower drug costs for Americans, including for medications that help treat HIV and reduce the risk of contracting AIDS. Clinton will ensure that Americans can get the care their doctors prescribe by requiring health insurance plans to cap covered out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $250 per month. She also will allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and will stop direct-to-consumer advertising subsidies for drug companies—reinvesting those funds in research.

Expand the utilization of HIV prevention medications, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). While we work to diagnose and treat all Americans with HIV and AIDS, we also must work to prevent exposure. Decades of research are beginning to offer a promising path to prevention. Clinton will increase the CDC investment to ensure populations at greatest risk of infection have access to PrEP, and encourage states to follow suit.

Protect those with HIV and AIDS from discrimination. Clinton will work with Congress to review and reform outdated and stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws—and call on states to do the same. And she is committed to continuing to aggressively enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws to fight HIV-related discrimination.

Continue to increase HIV and AIDS research and invest in the promising innovations that research is producing. Researchers at the NIH and elsewhere are poised to make even more progress towards curing HIV, developing long-acting treatments that do not require daily pill taking, and better understanding the social and structural factors that can impact a person’s ability to access HIV prevention and care services. As President, Clinton will increase funding to ensure this progress to continue.

Bernie Sanders Releases Plan to Defeat AIDS

If nothing else, as noted in a previous post, Hillary Clinton's disastrous misstatement about Nancy Reagan and the HIV/AIDS crisis has prompted a new and much needed conversation about HIV/AIDS, a disease that continues to wreak havoc, especially in minority populations (it is a huge problem in the Hampton Roads black community).  Now, Bernie Sanders has released his proposed plan on who to defeat the disease, including by taking on “profiteering” pharmaceutical companies" that have keep prices prohibitively high and out of the reach of many in need of HIV/AIDS medications.   A piece in The Advocate looks at Sanders' proposal.  Here are highlights:

 Bernie Sanders has a plan to create an AIDS-free generation.

The Democratic candidate’s campaign released a statement on his website in order to address “the great moral issue of our day”— the affordability of HIV medication

The statement took “profiteering” pharmaceutical companies to task for raising the prices of these treatments, thereby forcing those who live with HIV to pay thousands of dollars each year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 1.2 million people are living with HIV in the United States. In 2012, over 13,000 people died of an AIDS-related illness. LGBT people and people of color are particularly at risk. A recent CDC report noted that half of black gay men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.

“In the richest nation in the world, we must not tolerate a health care system that offers the best care to the rich, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves,” said the Sanders statement. “We must do everything possible to end the greed of the pharmaceutical companies and get people the medicine they need at a price they can afford.”

To this end, the Sanders team proposed creating a “Prize Fund” of more than $3 billion annually that would “incentivize drug development” and “provide virtually universal access to lower-cost life-saving medicines” as they become available.

The plan also seeks to reform patent laws that privilege pharmaceutical companies. Moreover, as president, Sanders would have the secretary of Health and Human Services “negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and reduce barriers to the importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries.”

“The United States is the only major country on earth that does not regulate prescription drug prices in some manner,” the plan pointed out, “and the results have been an unmitigated disaster for patients and their families.”

The Sanders plan called for universal health care and the expansion of health services currently in place, including access to mental health care, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS.

Sanders also stressed the need for civil rights protections for LGBT and HIV-positive people, including safeguards against employment and housing discrimination.

“We all must work together so we can finally realize the goal of an AIDS-free generation,” the statement concluded.

It goes without saying that Sanders' proposals would be vigorously opposed by Republicans and their Christofascist base,

Nancy Reagan Finally Started a Conversation About AIDS -- 35 Years Too Late

With her death Nancy Reagan belatedly began a serious conversation about HIV/AIDS.  Sadly, the conversation has begun 35 years too late to help the tens of thousands who dies of AIDS during her husband's presidency, a presidency that marked the beginning of the Republican Party's selling of its soul to the Christofascists who have played a major role years later in the rise of Donald Trump and what I can only hope will be a catastrophic loss for the GOP in November.  True, Hillary Clinton unwittingly provoked even more conversation with her totally false initial remarks about the Reagan's foul legacy of turning a blind eye and cozying up to hate-filled modern day Pharisees (Clinton has twice apologized for her untrue remarks).  The good news is that at least in some circles, the much needed conversation about HIV/AIDS has been reignited.  Michelangelo Signorile has a piece in Huffington Post looks at the positive aspects of the aftermath of Nancy Reagan's death and Hillary's major case of foot in mouth.  Here are highlights:

Suddenly, Bernie Sanders has an AIDS/HIV policy paper.  It went up on his campaign website over the weekend, shortly after he attacked Hillary Clinton for her bewildering comments on Friday about Nancy Reagan in which Clinton claimed the now-deceased former first lady was a "low-key advocate" for people with AIDS during the Reagan administration, who, along with her husband, "started a national conversation" about AIDS.

Sanders now calls for establishing "a multibillion-dollar Prize Fund to incentivize drug development" that would "provide virtually universal access to lower-cost life-saving medicines for HIV/AIDS as soon as they are approved for sale." He doesn't address expanding access to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), the drug combination approved to prevent HIV infection among HIV-negative people at risk, nor many other issues, but his "Prize Fund" is a start.

On CNN on Sunday morning, Sanders said, "I just don't know what she was talking about," regarding Clinton, though he was "glad she apologized." Clinton in fact apologized twice. The Clinton campaign had tweeted a statement from Clinton, a terse apology --"I misspoke...I'm sorry" -- sent on her feed on the day of Reagan's funeral, within hours of Clinton's comments, after a quick backlash had ensued.

Then on Saturday Clinton posted a fuller response online that lauded AIDS activists as those who truly started the conversation, talked about what she'd done as first lady on AIDS (and it should be noted that it was Bill Clinton's administration that turned things around after the horrific Reagan/Bush years), as a U.S. senator and as secretary of state. In her online post, Clinton took on the harsh HIV criminalization laws that stigmatize and criminalize people with HIV, and she discussed some plans if elected president, including making sure there's access to drug treatments, including PrEP for HIV negative people at risk.

It was a terrific statement, got a lot of media attention, and had the Sunday talk shows discussing the terrible, callous record of the Reagan administration on AIDS, when, during a period of years, thousands died as the president stayed silent, bowing to religious zealots while Nancy wouldn't even help her dying friend Rock Hudson when he reached out.

All of this, honestly, is a great thing to see. But there needs to be much more. Whatever caused Clinton to make such a strange gaffe, is, at this point, less important than the discussion itself: It got her to put out some details reminding us of her commitment in the past and offering some ideas moving forward, and it moved Sanders to rush out a policy statement with ideas as well.

But statements aren't enough. We want to hear from the candidates directly and in more detail. Clinton spoke in a live broadcast (on MSNBC) about Nancy Reagan when she made the regrettable comments. Judging from social media, many believe she should now speak directly about her plans and engage in dialogue. I've invited her to come on my radio program on SiriusXM Progress to discuss the issue, and to talk about many other issues affecting LGBT people, and I've invited Senator Sanders on as well. And I'll continue to do so.

We've seen no discussion of LGBT issues in the Democratic debates at a time when a furious backlash against LGBT equality has erupted across the country, as states push forward with "religious freedom" bills meant to enshrine discrimination in law after last year's marriage equality ruling from the Supreme Court. Both candidates have tweeted condemnation of these laws, but there's been little to no discussion among them in the media.

While that ignorance during the debates could be laid at the feet of the media and moderators, it's also true that neither candidate has spoken with a gay journalist or interviewer specifically about issues LGBT voters care about. 

This election cycle, it took Nancy Reagan 's death, ironically, to get a discussion going among the candidates about an issue important to LGBT people. But there's more to talk about on that issue -- actually talk, beyond the position papers -- and there are more issues affecting LGBT people to have a dialogue about.

The campaigns surely know that the LGBT electorate plays an outsized role in elections, raising money, working in the campaigns, getting the vote out, inspiring younger voters around issues of equality. In the past few days, gay voters -- and their allies -- were jarred by Clinton's Reagan comments, which have them asking questions and wanting to hear more from her on issues concerning them, even after her sincere apology. And they want to hear from Sanders, too, on the whole range of issues, not just a mention of "gay rights" from a podium or a position paper on a website.

With the brutal campaign of Donald Trump unleashed and barreling forward, it's important to get every group, every Democratic voter, energized. We've seen an entire Democratic debate rightly focused on concerns of Latino voters, and an important one which took place in racially-polarized Flint, Michigan. Both debates were meant to discuss issues vital to constituencies in the party's base. But again, there's been no focus in the campaigns on issues important to LGBT voters.

Given the reality that some studies indicate that the LGBT vote is what flipped Ohio and Virginia to Barack Obama in 2012.  Any sane candidate on the Democrat side of the aisle ought to be courting the LGBT vote even as the GOP seems to be doing all that it can to totally alienate LGBT voters.  

Hillary Clinton "Steps in It" With Nancy Reagan Remarks

In the wake of Nancy Reagan's death, I previously posted a piece on her heartless refusal to help her supposed friend, Rock Hudson, as he desperately sought medical help as he died of AIDS.  Her apparent concerns?  Appearances and not upsetting the Christian Taliban that was almost jubilant over the "gay plague" that was said to be God's punishment for homosexuals.  Contrast Nancy Reagan's behavior with that of Elizabeth Taylor who did the right thing and had the view that her critics could be damned. In this atmosphere, Hillary Clinton committed a major blunder - for which she has quickly apologized - by making the false statements that Nancy Reagan had helped ignite a needed conversation about HIV/AIDS.  Clinton's motivation, no doubt, was a desire to say something nice about a fellow former First Lady.  Yet, sadly whitewashing the failings of the departed does no good for anyone.  A opened eyed view of accurate history should always be the goal, not creating false fairy tales.  The Nation looks at Hillary's blunder and quick apology.  Here are highlights: 

Many gay men of a certain age—let’s say in their late 30s and up—love Hillary Clinton. I have no evidence to prove this, but just trust me that it is true. . . . . I think the root of this adoration lies in her earned status as a survivor. In a remarkably long and tumultuous public life, Hillary Clinton has been denigrated, lied about, mansplained to, and grossly caricatured. She was publicly betrayed by her husband in a humiliating fashion, and her greatest ambition was thwarted in a protracted and ugly primary battle. Throughout it all, she has endured—and come November, she could quite possibly triumph. She grew strong, and she learned how to get along. For better or worse, I think gay men of my generation and older see in Hillary a kindred spirit—one tough woman who has taken more than her fair share of knocks and come out the better for it. We see her pain, and her resilience, and we identify with it. The question after today is—does she see ours?

In an interview with MSNBC at Nancy Reagan’s funeral, Clinton praised both Ronald Reagan and his wife for their work on AIDS. “It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s,” Clinton said, but “because of both president and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a national conversation when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that, too, is something that I really appreciate.”

This is a bizarre and historically inaccurate statement, to say the least. It’s the equivalent of lauding George Wallace for starting a national conversation on segregation. Reagan gave his first speech devoted to AIDS in 1987, years after the epidemic first struck. In that speech, he emphasized HIV testing before issuing marriage licenses, for which exactly zero gay men could apply. By the end of that year, over 40,000 Americans, mostly gay men and IV drug users, had died of AIDS. Many, many thousands more died later, deaths that could have been prevented had the Reagan administration simply followed the advice of the medical establishment and thrown more resources into prevention and treatment. In a nutshell, the Reagan administration chose to ignore AIDS, until it couldn’t, at which point its strategy was to protect straight America from the disease while throwing vulnerable populations to the wolves.

During this period, Hillary Clinton was an adult person—10 years plus out of Yale Law School and the first lady of Arkansas. Since then, she has spent 30 years in public service, helping run a foundation that is significantly devoted to addressing HIV/AIDS and serving as Secretary of State during the peak of the global AIDS epidemic. Given this record, her statement today is baffling, infuriating, and hurtful.

Clinton has since apologized for her remarks, saying that she misspoke. The swiftness of her apology is appreciated, and to be clear, I don’t think her statement today was calculated to pander to the right. I also don’t think it signals some grand reversal of her position on gay rights or HIV/AIDS. Like most Democrats, including President Obama, Clinton was lousy on gay rights until very recently (notable exception: Bernie Sanders), and there’s every reason to expect she’d support pro-gay legislation like ENDA

That said, her statement today revealed a disturbing lack of empathy to and awareness about HIV positive people and the gay community. And her apology, which doesn’t acknowledge the righteous pain caused by her remarks, indicates a social distance that gay men might want to take a closer look at. My hope is that she issues a new statement, one that really understands the gay community’s struggle with HIV/AIDS