WikiLeaks Outed Gay Men In Countries with Death Penalty for Gays

My opinion of Wilikleaks has been plummeting and news that the organization has callously "outed" gays in countries where gays face the death penalty as well as identified rape victims and victims of domestic violence in countries where the victims face potential violence.  One of the countries where such disclosures have been made is Saudi Arabia - America's false ally - where gays are routinely executed.  Apparently, the self-stroking of Julian Assnge's ego is more important that the lives of those his organization is endangering. Towleroad looks at these despicable and uncaring actions.  Here are highlights:

A new report out Tuesday has found that hacktivist group WikiLeaks has on more than one occasion outed gay men in Saudi Arabia, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.

WikiLeaks has increasingly shown little discretion when it comes to withholding private details about individuals named in documents it leaks online, even those of individuals who have nothing to do with the organization’s raison d’être: “We open governments.” Rather, it seems that WikiLeaks has no interest in taking the time to redact personal information that, if revealed, could endanger the lives of private citizens who have played no role in the Machiavellian machinations of statecraft it seeks to expose.

In the report, the AP found a staggering amount of “collateral damage to the privacy of hundreds of innocent people, including survivors of sexual abuse, sick children and the mentally ill” in WikiLeaks’ leaked documents. Among a trove of cables from Saudi Arabia, for instance, medical records and other personal information was revealed that effectively outs closeted gay men in that country. As the AP notes, “the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.”

The AP was able to get in touch with that man who said, “[WikiLeaks] published everything: my phone, address, name, details. If the family of my wife saw this … Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people.” That individual is also in the midst of a custody dispute with a former partner.

WikiLeaks has also published medical records of teenage rape victims, including a male teen:

Three Saudi cables published by the WikiLeaks identified domestic workers who’d been tortured or sexually abused by their employers, giving the women’s full names and passport numbers. One cable named a male teenager who was raped by a man while abroad; a second identified another male teenager who was so violently raped his legs were broken; a third outlined the details of a Saudi man detained for “sexual deviation” — a derogatory term for homosexuality.

Scott Long, an LGBT rights activist who has worked in the Middle East, said the names of rape victims were off-limits. And he worried that releasing the names of people persecuted for their sexuality only risked magnifying the harm caused by oppressive officials.

“You’re legitimizing their surveillance, not combating it,” Long said.

Apparently, in 2016, medical records are no longer a legitimate secret, even if you’re gay and/or a victim of rape. It is unclear at this point if WikiLeaks has outed gay individuals in other anti-LGBT countries besides Saudi Arabia.

I have come to believe that the best place for Assange may well be in prison where, with luck, he will suffer severely for the harm he has done to innocents.

Has Trump the Bully Hit a Wall?

I view both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz with revulsion.  Both would be an unmitigated disaster for America in the White House.  Trump is in many ways little more than a loud mouthed bully who excels at insults and nasty sound bites, but to date has offered zero in terms of any real substantive policies.  And when it comes to attacking his GOP rivals, he tends to prefer personal insults rather than debate and differences over policies and proposed initiatives.  Like a classic school yard bully, Trump has attracted those who like seeming confidence, especially when pandering to existing prejudices in his audience.  Ted Cruz, to my view, is equally despicable, but as a piece in Politico, Cruz just may be the one who can damage the Trump juggernaut.  Personally, I'd like to see both self-destruct.  Here are article excerpts:

Like all accomplished bullies, Trump understands that the real target is his opponent’s honor. Obeying the maxim that you haven’t gone far enough until you’ve gone too far, Trump slagged Bush’s wife last July, using Twitter to post a quotation from a tweet that said Bush “has to like Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” Trump deleted the tweet, which implied that Columba Bush was not in the country legally. Bush took personal umbrage over the tweet, which was deleted 24 hours after it was posted. “He’s doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention,” Bush sputtered in the manner of someone whose honor has been wounded. The point of Trump's tweet was to lure Bush into defending Columba, his Spanish-speaking wife and the mother of his three children, thereby boxing him in as conflicted over immigration. It was a brilliant bully move.

When discussing the art of the verbal bully, you really can’t spend too much time on honor. The bully undermines his foes by stripping them of whatever esteem, standing and face they may have acquired. When a man’s mother, wife or daughter is disparaged in most cultures, he must defend her honor or risk losing his manliness. This prompted only more Bush sputtering that Trump must apologize to Columba; Trump’s resopnse (“I won’t apologize, I didn’t do anything wrong”) sliced Bush’s cojones right out of his trousers. 

So how do you beat a verbal bully? We’re actually starting to see it happen. Stanley Elkin sketched a strategy in his 1964 short story, “A Poetics for Bullies.” In it, a young bully named Push torments and leads all the kids in the neighborhood until he is undone by a princely newcomer John Williams, whose accent can’t be mocked, whose skin has no blemish, whose intelligence is impervious to insult. 

Nobody would ever mistake Ted Cruz for John Williams. No Adonis, he looks like a broken-nosed character actor in a film noir. He even whines when he talks. But inside his own head, Cruz is John Williams. He has been polishing the Cruz act for his entire life, making himself a perfectly smooth, unchanging object upon which no New York bully can get a grip. Although Trump may have bested Cruz on several topics in last night’s presidential debate as they fought toe-to-toe for the first time, the mogul seems unable to get under Cruz’s skin the way he has with Bush, Carson, Rand Paul (ridiculing him for being short, just 5’8”!), and the other candidates.

Like Trump, Cruz commands an alpha male’s ego. When towel-snapped, he does not shriek. When denigrated or teased, he does not frown or wince. He does not have to be perfect because he already thinks he’s perfect, which is just one of the reasons why the rest of Congress despises him.

The best way to beat a trash-talking bully is to convincingly pretend you cannot hear him. Donald Trump, you have met your John Williams.

   

Trump Supports Anti-Gay 'Religious Liberty' Bill

There are many reasons to view Donald Trump as a horrible person and frightening candidate. Now, there is yet another reason for LGBT Americans to view the man with revulsion.  Apparently rattled by Ted Cruz's rise in the polls - due largely from the endorsement of virtually every anti-gay hate group in Iowa - Trump has decided to join Marco Rubio in shamelessly prostituting himself to the Christofascist who demand special rights and want to be exempt from the laws that apply to the rest of the citizenry.  Tawdry whore have more integrity - and class - than Mr. Trump.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at Trump's promise to work for enactment of a federal anti-gay "religious freedom" law.  Here are highlights:

In June, one week before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage for same-sex couples, Republicans in the House and Senate introduced the First Amendment Defense Act to "protect" individuals and businesses who oppose same-sex marriage. The bill would allow them to continue discriminatory anti-gay practices under the guise of "religious liberty," without fear of the government stepping in to stop or penalize them.

Recently, six GOP presidential candidates signed a pledge to support the bill and, as president, sign it into law: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee.  Now, Donald Trump has offered support for the bill.

“If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment,” Trump wrote in a letter published by a conservative website, as the Washington Blade reports.

Former National Organization For Marriage chair Maggie Gallagher, now a senior fellow at the right wing American Principles Project Foundation, confirmed Trump's initial support.

Despite attacking and marginalizing minority groups and women throughout his presidential campaign, Trump for the most part has not targeted the LGBT community. This move may signal that's about to change.

Walker Quits 2016 Presidential Race

Candidly, at times it is hard for me to decide which of the Republican Presidential nominee candidates is the most despicable.  There are so many contenders, almost all of whom spew coded messages of racism, anti-Hispanic bigotry, homophobia and a contempt for women, not to mention an agenda that makes war on the poor and less fortunate.  But certainly, Scott Walker has been among those at the top of my list.  In his war against unions in Wisconsin he has shown himself to be against average Americans and their families, and his ridiculous anti-Muslim and anti-climate change harangues have shown that he's either an idiot or a knowing liar.  Thus, I was most delighted to hear that Walker has suspended his presidential campaign.  Indeed, the most decent thing I have heard him say were the words of his brief statement announcing the suspension of his campaign.  Here are highlights on this welcome development from the New York Times:

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, whose early glow as a Republican presidential contender was snuffed out with the rise of anti-establishment rivals, announced on Monday that he was quitting the race and urged some of his 15 rivals to do the same so the party could unite against the leading candidate, Donald J. Trump. 

Mr. Walker’s pointed rebuke of Mr. Trump gave powerful voice to the private fears of many Republicans that the party risked alienating wide swaths of the American electorate – Hispanics, women, immigrants, veterans, and most recently Muslims – if Mr. Trump continued vilifying or mocking those groups as part of his overtures to angry and disaffected voters.

Still, Mr. Walker’s exit was not selfless: He was running low on campaign cash, sliding sharply in opinion polls, losing potential donors to rivals and unnerving supporters with a steady stream of gaffes, like saying he would consider building a barrier wall along the Canadian border.

Appearing ashen and drained at a brief news conference late Monday in Madison, Mr. Walker said the Republican presidential field was too focused on “how bad things are” rather than on “how we can make them better for everyone.” Without naming Mr. Trump, Mr. Walker issued a plea to fellow candidates to coalesce around a different Republican who could offer a more “optimistic” vision and guide the party to a victory next year that, he admitted with sadness in his voice, he could not achieve himself.

Mr. Walker’s departure is likely to have little impact given the sprawling field. He was competing most aggressively in Iowa, which he deemed a must-win state, but he had fallen from first to 10th place in a recent poll there. He also drew support from less than one-half of 1 percent of Republican primary voters in a recent CNN national poll.

If the demise of Mr. Walker’s campaign underscores anything, it is the increasingly intense pressure that candidates are under to raise enormous sums of money not only for their political operations but also for their “super PACs.”

The need to raise money has had the effect of turning the traditional state-by-state nomination fights into national contests, in which candidates need to prove themselves to donors across the country – rather than merely win over voters in the handful of states that hold the earliest caucuses and primaries. Mr. Walker increasingly tailored his message for Iowans, taking some sharply conservative stands on issues like immigration and same-sex marriage that could pose problems with moderates.

 My analysis is simple: good riddance! 

Scott Walker Stumbles with Anti-Union Agenda

With his campaign in crash and burn mode, in obvious desperation, Scott Walker has stated that he wants to take his anti-union campaign nationwide.  In one report, Walker said he wanted to end all federal employee unions.  This message is supposed to electrify working class voters who ironically have seen their wages stagnate for 40 years largely because of the decline in labor unions.  Walker's message may play well with plutocrats, but average Americans need to run screaming from Walker.  I make no secret of the fact that I find Walker to be a thoroughly despicable individual.  Let's hope that this is the beginning of the end of Walker's presidential campaign.  Here are highlights from Politico:

Scott Walker is doubling down on his anti-union message. But GOP voters don't seem to be listening.  Walker traveled to union-friendly Las Vegas Monday to inveigh against "big-government union bosses."

He pledged elimination of the National Labor Relations Board. He promised a national “right to work” law freeing workers from mandatory payments to unions that bargain collectively on their behalf. And he said he’d block President Barack Obama’s proposal to expand overtime eligibility to 5 million new workers.

For Walker it may be a last stand as his support tumbles from double digits as recently as July to a dismal 2 percent, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday. 

Walker’s presidential campaign is premised in a large part on the idea that GOP primary voters will flock to a candidate willing to confront and diminish the power of organized labor. Walker aides say his anti-union platform is designed to portray the Wisconsin governor as a politician who can easily translate his statewide successes to the federal government. 

But one of 2016’s biggest surprises is that the anti-union message isn’t selling, either for Walker or for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another GOP candidate who’s built much of his campaign around his willingness to face down union bosses. Unions don't seem to loom especially large as a problem to rank-and-file Republican voters.

Also working against Walker and Christie is the Donald Trump factor. The billionaire mogul has excited a wave of populist-minded, lower-income voters who, when it comes to unions, are hardly conservatives at all. Trump himself is mildly pro-union, an occupational necessity for any real estate magnate operating in the Northeast. "Unions still have a place in American society," Trump wrote in 2000.

Harold Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said, “Mr. Trump, who I don’t believe has very much in common with our goals and our agenda, even he calls out recently the gross CEO pay and the disparity between the CEO class, if you will, and the workers that actually help make their companies successfully." Roughly half of Schaitberger's rank and file is Republican.

Perhaps some of the moronic racists and anti-immigrant bigots are finally figuring out the reality that the GOP's anti-union agenda only aids huge corporations and the wealthy and only serves to speed the movement of the nation to a new Gilded Age where the 1% have all the wealth and the rest of us scramble for the crumbs they drop.

United Airlines Chief Resigns Over Corruption Investigation

During the early stages of the saga of my Norfolk friends who had their luggage sabotaged by United/Continental Airlines personnel, I had occasion to write a letter to Jeff Smisek, the CEO of United/Continental Airlines.  To say that the response I received from Mr. Smisek's minions was haughty and, in my opinion, full of BS, would be an understatement.  Well, Karma can really be a bitch.  Today, Smisek resigned in the fallout from a corruption investigation surrounding the New York Port Authority Chris Christie BridgeGate scandal.  The New York Times looks at Smisek's resignation and the growing corruption scandal.  Here are excepts:

United Airlines said on Tuesday that its chief executive, Jeff Smisek, and two other senior officials had stepped down amid a federal corruption investigation.

The airline is under investigation by the United States attorney in New Jersey over whether it had improperly sought to influence senior officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“The departures announced today are in connection with the company’s previously disclosed internal investigation related to the federal investigation associated with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,” the company said in a statement. “The investigations are ongoing and the company continues to cooperate with the government.”

United’s executive vice president for communications and government affairs, Nene Foxhall, and the senior vice president for corporate and government affairs, Mark R. Anderson, also resigned, the company said.

In February, federal prosecutors issued subpoenas focused on whether the former chairman of the Port Authority, David Samson, had pushed United to reinstate flights that he used to travel to and from his weekend home in South Carolina.

Ms. Foxhall and Mr. Anderson were among the United officials whose communications with the Port Authority had been subpoenaed.

The resignations also complicate the fortunes of Mr. Christie as he tries to resurrect his once-promising presidential bid, by underscoring the accusations of cronyism that have dogged his administration since the bridge scandal broke in early 2014. The governor has distanced himself from other figures implicated in the scandal, saying that they deceived him. But Mr. Samson, despite his resignation, has remained one of the governor’s closest advisers.

 Good riddance!!!