Trump Curtailed FBI Investigation Will Not Legitimize Kavanaugh

With the White House directing the last minute FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, I guess it was a foregone conclusion that the investigation would be a joke and qualify as anything as legitimate.  The FBI's report was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee last night and there are reports that only one copy exists and Senators on the Committee will be given time slots to view it - an obvious effort to make sure copies aren't leaked which would convince the majority of Americans that the entire charade was rigged.   It is most obvious that Trump/McConnell/Grassley never wanted to find out the real truth. The entire scenario is like something out of Putin's Russia and sets a course where, if confirmed, Kavanaugh will be deemed forever illegitimate.  Worse yet, conservative 5-4 rulings will be seen as illegitimate and, in the minds of many, not binding or legitimate.  One can hope that some Republicans may vote "no" in light of the Trump manipulated investigation.  Failing that, it is imperative that Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives (and hopefully the Senate) and launch a proper investigation of Kavanaugh which will lead to either his resignation or his impeachment.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the farce that is the FBI report.  Here are excerpts:

The FBI background check of Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared to remain curtailed in its scope Wednesday even as agents neared the end of their work, opening up the possibility that the bureau would again face criticism over what some will view as a lackluster investigation.

Though complete details of the FBI’s findings had yet to be released Wednesday evening, the bureau’s inquiry seems to have focused mostly on an allegation by a California professor who claims Kavanaugh assaulted her decades ago at a party in Maryland, when both were high school students.

The Washington Post has been able to confirm interviews with only six witnesses, five of whom have a connection to the professor or her allegation.

The investigation was always unlikely to answer definitively whether Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual misconduct decades ago. But the probe’s limited scope — which was dictated by the White House, along with a Friday deadline — is likely to exacerbate the partisan tensions surrounding Kavanaugh’s nomination.

[S]everal people who claimed to have information that could be useful said they ended up mired in bureaucracy when they tried to get in touch with the FBI. Democrats also cried foul over what they saw as inappropriate parameters that the White House seemed to be imposing on the bureau. The White House and the FBI have treated each other warily throughout the process, people familiar with the matter said. Both sides were mindful that their written communications might one day be subject to subpoena, particularly if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in next month’s midterm elections, the people said.

President Trump has insisted publicly he was not curtailing the FBI probe. But privately, the White House restricted the FBI from delving deeply into Kavanaugh’s youthful drinking and exploring whether he had lied to Congress about his alcohol use, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The FBI, for example, interviewed Deborah Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh of exposing his penis to her at a gathering when both were college students at Yale, and Ramirez’s team provided agents with more than 20 people who might have information relevant to her claims. But as of Wednesday, Ramirez’s team had no indication that the bureau had interviewed any of them.

The FBI also did not interview Christine Blasey Ford, her legal team said. . . . . Instead, the bureau interviewed three people who Ford said attended the party: Mark Judge, Patrick Smyth and Leland Keyser. The FBI also talked to two other friends of Kavanaugh’s who were listed as attending a gathering during the same summer that Ford alleged she was assaulted: Chris Garrett, who went out with Ford for a time, and Tim Gaudette.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that agents also had apparently not talked to Kavanaugh himself.

“The White House confirmation that it will not allow the FBI to interview Dr. Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh or witnesses identified by Deborah Ramirez raises serious concerns that this is not a credible investigation,” she said in a statement.

The FBI similarly had not — at least as of Wednesday — interviewed Julie Swetnick, who said in a declaration that Kavanaugh was physically abusive toward girls in high school and was present at a house party in 1982 where she says she was the victim of a “gang” rape. But the bureau did ask Judge, who was named in the affidavit, about her claims.

Richard Oh, an emergency room physician who lived in Kavanaugh’s first-year residence hall, said he contacted the FBI office in Denver to describe overhearing someone tearfully telling another student about an incident when Kavanaugh was a student at Yale. The incident, which Oh described to the New Yorker, involved a fake penis and a male student exposing himself.

Oh said he was put on hold and waited so long that he eventually submitted information through the FBI website.  “So far I haven’t heard back,” Oh said Tuesday. Wednesday night, he said that was still the case.

Lawyer Alan M. Abramson said he represented a friend of Ramirez’s who was hoping to share an account of a conversation the two had in the early 1990s about an incident in her freshman year. The friend, Abramson said, was among those whose names Ramirez’s lawyer had passed to the FBI.

Abramson said that when the friend, whom he declined to identify, did not hear from the bureau, he called a supervisor, who referred him to a field office, which said it would pass his information on. “I have not heard from them yet, but I am hopeful that they will still contact me,” Abramson said in an email to The Post.

Democracy is near death in America.  If Democrats do not prevail in the 2018 midterms, it may be time to consider leaving.  My only concern is how will I also get my children and their families out of the USA if it comes to that last ditch situation.

Witnessing the Collapse of the Rule of Law in America

As a history major I've often wondered what people living during times when dictators came to power and democratic norms must have felt.  Examples of such times include the the fall of the Roman Republic and, of course, the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Now, it seems, I know some of their distress and fear for the future as I watch a presidency out of control, normal political behavior throw in the trash, and the Republican controlled Congress acting much as the Roman Senate did as Augustus Caesar made himself the first Roman emperor.  The main difference is that Augustus was a man of intelligence who sought to stabilize the empire and outwardly followed the practices of the Republic.  With Trump, we are witnessing a man devoid of morality and driven only by self interest and the apparent need to cover up his own criminality.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the destruction of the rule of law taking place before our very eyes.  Here are excerpts:

On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, we are witnessing a collapse of the norms of governing, constant violations of our legitimate expectations of political leaders, and the mutation of the normal conflicts of democracy into a form of warfare that demands the opposition’s unconditional surrender.

Trump’s latest perverse miracle is that he has progressives — along with everyone else who cares about the rule of law — rooting for Sessions. The attorney general is as wrong as ever on voter suppression, civil rights enforcement and immigration. But Sessions did one very important thing: He obeyed the law.

When it was clear that he would have obvious conflicts of interest in the investigation of Russian meddling in our election and its possible links to the Trump campaign, Sessions recused himself, as he was required to do.

Trump’s attacks on Sessions for that recusal are thus a naked admission that he wants the nation’s top lawyer to act illegally if that’s what it takes to protect the president and his family. Equally inappropriate are Trump’s diktats from the Oval Office calling on Sessions to investigate Hillary Clinton and those terrible “leakers” who are more properly seen as whistleblowers against Trump’s abuses.

Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes. Trump’s ignorant, self-involved contempt for his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” ought to inspire patriots of every ideological disposition to a robust and fearless defiance.

But where are the leaders of the Republican Party in the face of the dangers Trump poses? They’re trying to sneak through a health-care bill by violating every reasonable standard citizens should impose on public servants dealing with legislation that affects more than one-sixth of our economy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan have little time for worrying about the Constitution because they are busy doing Trump’s bidding on health care.

Let it be said that two Republican senators will forever deserve . . . . In voting upfront to try to stop the process, Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski demonstrated a moral and political toughness that eluded other GOP colleagues who had expressed doubts about this charade but fell into line behind their leaders.

The most insidious aspect of McConnell’s strategy is that he is shooting to pass something, anything, that would continue to save Republicans from having a transparent give-and-take on measures that could ultimately strip health insurance from 20 million Americans or more. Passing even the most meager of health bills this week would move the covert coverage-demolition effort to a conference committee with the House.

The Senate’s unseemly marathon thus seems likely to end with a push for a “skinny repeal” bill that would eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s individual and employer mandates and its medical device tax. But no one should be deluded: A vote for skinny repeal is a vote for an emaciated democracy.

It was disappointing that Sen. John McCain’s passionate plea on Tuesday for a “return to regular order” did not match his votesin this week’s early roll calls.

But McCain could yet advance the vision of the Senate he outlined in his floor speech and rebuke “the bombastic loudmouths” he condemned by casting a “no” vote at the crucial moment. Here’s hoping this war hero will ultimately choose to strike a blow against everything he said is wrong with Congress.

And when it comes to the ongoing indifference to the law in the White House, Republicans can no longer dodge their responsibility to speak out against what Trump is doing. They should also examine their own behavior. The decline of our small-r republican institutions can be stopped only if the party brandishing that adjective starts living up to the obligations its name honors.

I for one am not optimistic about the future.  Once again I find myself wonder whether the husband and I should emigrate - like many Germans did in the 1930's under Hitler's growing menace - before the bottom falls out.  The main concern if we take that course is how to get my children and their families out while there is still time to do so.  I have no faith that Republicans will do their sworn duty and uphold the U.S. Constitution while there is still time to do so.  Be very afraid. 

The American Dream Has Moved to Canada

Despite Donald Trump's vague speech last night that boasted about how he would "make America great again," the agenda that his party is pursuing will be a continuation of what has decimated the American middle class while shifting riches and benefits to the wealthiest citizens.  For the working class, the prospects are bleak especially since no details exist as to how manufacturing jobs will magically return.  And, if one is a member of a minority population, there are growing and well based fears of coming discriminatory policies that will favor Trump's white, heterosexual, right wing Christian base.  His base will not reap economic benefits, but their egos will be satiated by their ability to look down upon and brutalize those they deem "other."  The goal is to play up the base's sense of white privilege to delay their realization that they were conned.  Meanwhile, to the north of America, what used to be the so-called American Dream is thriving, in no small part because Canada has embraced policies that are anathema to today's GOP and Der Trumpenführer.  This article looks at this reality:

From the very moment of its creation, Americans have always imagined their country to be a beacon of opportunity for the world. Thomas Jefferson lit that torch when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

But where once America stood alone as the land of opportunity, there are now dozens of other countries that have surpassed the United States; chief among these is its unassuming northern neighbour, Canada. Where do you go now for “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Canadians live 2.5 years longer than Americans. They are six times less likely to be incarcerated. And the World Economic Forum ranks Canadians as the 6th happiest people in the world, while Americans lag behind at 13th.

Every aspect of the American dream is now more easily found in Canada. In the United States, 46 per cent of the population has been able to obtain a college degree—in Canada it’s 59 per cent. After graduation, Canadians are more likely to find work, with an employment rate four points better. You are more likely to afford a house with a white picket fence in Canada, where home ownership rates are five per cent higher. Canadians also have more time to enjoy their homes, as they work over 80 hours fewer per year—and they take an extra three days vacation.

Compared to Canada, America isn’t even the “land of the free”, anymore. The Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index considers Canadians to be the sixth freest people in the world, while Americans limp in at 23rd, behind Poland. The conservative Heritage Foundation, based in Washington, ranks Canada and the U.S. seventh and 17th respectively for economic freedom. Free speech? Reporters Without Borders scores Canada 18th for press freedom; in spite of its much vaunted First Amendment, America only manages 41st.

The American Dream promised equality, a level playing field where everyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but that too is more a Canadian thing. 

By virtually every measure, Canada has surpassed the United States as the shining city on the hill, where everyone is safe to reach their potential. And people around the world have begun to notice. From the United States, refugees and asylum seekers are now fleeing into Canada hoping for a fair immigration hearing and a better future. 

It is often noted that in the early 20th century, Canadian prime minister Sir Wilfred Laurier declared, “Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come.” Let’s make that line as famous and meaningful as this once was: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Admitting the truths set out in this article is heresy to Trump voters, especially militant Christian extremists who have worked to weave their toxic religiosity into American policies that are the opposite of the Gospel message and which have abetted America's decline.   Depending how bad the coming anti-LGBT jihad becomes, places like British Columbia look like a possible welcoming refuge. 

Trump/Pence: Vulgarians at the Gate

As one friend noted on Facebook, within an hour of the swearing in of Trump/Pence, both the White House and Department of Labor websites have been scrubbed clean of references to LGBT civil rights. The completely expected start to a uniformly anti-LGBT government is clearly underway even as "friends" who voted for these foul individuals chat "sore loser" or "give him a chance" to those of us who are rightly fearful of the future.  The rage I feel - and rage is the correct term - towards these individuals is hard to quantify.  The coming assault on LGBT rights means nothing to them as white, heterosexual Christians because it doesn't effect them directly.  Their rights and sense of safety - at least for now - remain intact, so why care.  Frighteningly, its the same mindset that held sway in 1930's Germany.  The worse part of it all, to me is the normalizing of the reprehensible and manner in which deviancy is being defined downward with the "godly Christian" crowd cheering it on. As I noted myself in a Facebook post, I am seriously beginning the process of checking out the steps involved in securing dual citizenship in my mother's birth country - "just in case."  Two pieces in Salon look at the disturbing happenings.  Here are  highlights of the first that looks at the vulgarity that is now acceptable:

You see grown men wearing t-shirts printed with dick jokes. You hear parents shouting obscenities at the television during a football game, while their children throw food at one another. The woman behind you on the commuter train discusses the intricacies of her sex life on her cell phone. Right-wing commentators freely use terms like “libtard” and “cuck” to ridicule their ideological opponents, and then complain about “political correctness.” You watch as the Republican presidential nominee brags about the length of his penis, and is then caught on tape boasting about “grabbing women by the pussy” without their consent. Similar to tax policy, the admission soon becomes subject to partisan debate, then quickly forgotten. 

These are but a few of the sights and sounds now normal in an increasingly coarse and crude culture. . . . . Once a culture permits the previously unthinkable, the next logical move is tolerance of something even worse. A leader should challenge the audience, seek to inspire ambition for improvement, and offer an aspirational model for emulation. Trump’s vulgarity, in the Latin sense and the more contemporary meaning of crudity, comforts people at their basest urges, biases and fears. As President Jimmy Carter, a decidedly sophisticated leader, especially by comparison, said of the new President, “He makes people feel good about their prejudices.” . . . “It is fine if you remain uninformed and uncultured,” he might as well be whispering into the ears of his devoted followers. 

One definition of “vulgarian” is an “unrefined person with newly acquired power.” The surreal, science fiction image of Trump taking the oath of office with his hand on the Bible represents a triumph for the coarsest and crudest elements of American culture. . . . . The White House is now occupied by a narcissistic drama queen who fails to adhere to any standard of basic decency, whether they are admonitions against mocking disabled people or taboos against the objectification of women. . . . Trump will enforce the same degradation of public standards from the most powerful office in the country.

The second piece looks at the ugliness and bigotry of the base of support of Trump/Pence.  Here are excerpts:

Like many campaign slogans, MAGA [Make America Great Again] can mean a great many things. To a young white male who identifies with the alt-right and Richard Spencer, for example, it is code for making America white and “culturally pure” again; to an evangelical Christian, it stands for making America devout and dogmatic again; to a blue-collar worker in the Rust Belt, it means making America a manufacturing powerhouse again.

And then there’s someone like Christopher von Keyserling, a local Republican politician in Connecticut who was recently in the news after being arrested for pinching a woman in the genitals. According to reports, von Keyserling got into a political argument with the victim at an unnamed town facility in early December. After saying “I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct,” and calling the woman a “lazy, bloodsucking union employee,” he proceeded to reach from behind her, “place his hand between her legs and pinch her in the groin area.”

People were quick to note the disturbing parallels between von Keyserling’s behavior and President Donald Trump’s, as described to Billy Bush in 2005. In this Trumpian world, von Keyserling thought that he could be as vulgar, sexist and indecent as his party’s leader — who managed to win the election even after admitting to conduct that appeared to fit the definition of sexual assault.

“Make America Great Again” can mean many things, but it is ultimately a slogan that appeals to the politics of reaction. Whether it’s a white supremacist longing for the time when the white race dominated without shame or guilt; a bitter old man reminiscing about the days when all women were ladies; or a Christian fundamentalist who idealizes the period before Roe v. Wade, birth control and Charles Darwin, they are united in their reaction and collectively feel like victims of the modern age. Needless to say, women, people of color and LGBT people are much less inclined to romanticize the “good old days.”

The Trump campaign has accelerated the disintegration of public morality, and now the Trump administration threatens to shatter much of the progress that has been made over the past several decades, and return us to the bad old days.

Decent, moral people should be very, very afraid of what the future will hold if these forces are allowed to prevail. 

Frighteningly, LGBT Rights Are All Too Easily "Reversible"

Many "friends" who voted for Der Fuhrer and forever linked themselves to Hillary Clinton's aptly described "basket of deplorables" who made up Trump's core base continue to deliberately close their eyes to what they have done to their LGBT friends and family members.  Whether or not they can bring themselves to be honest about the consequences of their vote, LGBT rights are now very much at risk.  At least for a number of years until the aging angry white voters of the GOP base die off and are replaced by LGBT-friendly Millenials and the younger generations that follow them.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at why I and many others are fearful of the future and have even had thoughts of emigrating (the husband and I have not ruled this option out).  Here are article highlights:

On Wednesday, Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson asked President Obama a question that’s on many LGBT Americans’ minds: What’s going to happen to our rights under President Trump and his cabinet? . . . . In response, the outgoing president put a brave face on—but maybe too brave of a face.

“I don’t think it is something that will be reversible because American society has changed; the attitudes of young people, in particular, have changed,” Obama said.

He went on to predict that “there are still going to be some battles that need to take place,” particularly around transgender rights, but that pro-LGBT attitudes among “young people of Malia [and] Sasha’s generation” would ultimately carry the day.
 But how much has American society really “changed” during his tenure?  At the press conference, the president referred to a “transformation that’s taken place in our society” around LGBT rights. But was it an irreversible “transformation” after all? Not quite.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that anti-LGBT sentiment will be an enduring feature of the American cultural and political landscape. And there are no guarantees that the progress the Obama administration has made cannot be turned back.

According to Gallup, just under 30 percent of Americans still believe that same-sex sexual relationships—not even marriages, mind you—should be illegal. Over a third oppose same-sex marriage and 37 percent maintain that “gay or lesbian relations” are “morally wrong.”

Transgender bathroom rights nearly divide the country in half. Taken together, those statistics show a fairly stable cohort of homophobic and transphobic voters who will continue to shape electoral politics for decades to come, even with a rising generation of more tolerant young people entering public life.

[P]olitical advances in LGBT equality don’t necessarily translate into social acceptance.  As The Daily Beast has previously reported, several key measures of anti-LGBT bullying in U.S. high schools only fell by about 2 percent per year between 2005 and 2015, per data from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

According to annual polling commissioned by GLAAD, nearly 37 percent of non-LGBT respondents said in 2015 that they would be uncomfortable with their child having an LGBT history lesson in school.

When a shockingly large percentage of Americans still can’t even handle a same-sex couple kissing on the cheek, it’s hard to buy into the notion that there’s been a radical “transformation” of our society since 2008. And although certain of Obama’s pro-LGBT changes would be easier to retract than others, none of them are written in stone.

Undoing marriage equality would be an ordeal—and it would be hugely unpopular—but it’s still possible if President Trump follows through on his Supreme Court picks and the right cases come along.

By contrast, pro-LGBT protections enacted through executive orders—like anti-discrimination protections for federal contractors—could be quickly and easily eliminated.

Correspondingly, attacks on LGBT rights—such as the ratification of the First Amendment Defense Act—could be easily initiated as The Daily Beast’s Tim Teeman and Jay Michaelson have reported.

Military milestones could crumble as well. Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pick General James Mattis notably did not send any signals that he would undo the Obama administration’s reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which banned lesbian, gay, and bisexual people from serving openly in the military.

But in response to a question about the recent advances in transgender military service, Mattis’ future Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump said last October that the military is getting “politically correct” and it’s “ridiculous.

With Mike Pence as Vice President, Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, and several more Supreme Court vacancies on the horizon, a Trump administration will only be limited by its own restraint when it comes to LGBT issues.

But even though LGBT advances are all too “reversible,” President Obama was spot-on about one thing: the vast majority of young people support full equality. Last April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Americans aged 18 to 29 support transgender rights by a two-to-one margin, with Americans over 60 opposing them by the same margin. And according to Pew, over 70 percent of millennials support same-sex marriage.

The only catch is that millenials aren’t voting where it counts and older voters are. . . . . that means that LGBT progress might only be inevitable because death is also inevitable. But unlike death, LGBT advances are definitely reversible.

Let's hope many of the anti-LGBT whites who voted for Trump and Republicans find themselves without healthcare coverage and they will have unwittingly hastened their own demise and indirectly assisted in protecting LGBT rights.  That would be ironic justice.  

Election Reaction - Fear and Depression

With bad election results flowing in, I am feeling depressed and, candidly, downright fearful - if not terror.  I can't stand to stay up and watch the results if they are pro-Trump and feel as if I am witnessing American democracy slipping beneath the surface of the sea like  the Titanic or some other lost liner of old.  

The depression part comes from the realization that there are so many truly hate-filled horrible people in America.  Perhaps I should not be surprised.  After all, this is the country that committed genocide against Native Americans, allowed segregation for generations, overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, and won its Caribbean possessions and Pacific possessions by conquest.   It also comes from supposed "friends" who are backing Trump.  This evening I unfriended a supposed Facebook "friend" who is celebrating over how well Trump is doing. Meanwhile this Fox News junkie doesn't realize that a Trump win means an anti-LGBT Supreme Court and right to discriminate laws for Christofascists. This is very, very scary. I feel like I am in 1930's Germany.

If Trump wins and the GOP controls Congress, our marriage could well be invalidated by a reversal of the 2015 same sex marriage ruling. A falsely named "religious freedom act" will be passed at the federal level and I will be a target for completely legal discrimination and bigotry. Thankfully, I can qualify to receive Social Security now if need be, but the husband has another 2 years. After that, we may have to move overseas. A very, very sad situation. Thank you to all of my Republican "friends."

In short, if Trump wins, my new task will be to begin researching where the husband and I can move to find an existence in a less hate-filled and bigoted country.  I am so afraid that America has opted to take the path of those who rejected Weimar Germany.  

Putin’s Self-Destructing Economy

Vladimir Putin has sought to distract the Russian populace from the economic misrule of his regime through the Sochi Olympics and various international adventures and, of course, scapegoating gays and pandering to the fossilized leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Meanwhile, the Russian economy has festered and the downturn in oil prices has dealt a further blow to the already struggling Russian economy.  Like so many times in the past, Russia's people are being betrayed by failed national leadership.  Putin likes to see himself as Russia's new Tsar, but seems to have learned nothing from the fall of those he seeks to emulate.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the dismal state of affairs.  Here are highlights:

A little more than a year after “Black Tuesday,” when the ruble lost a quarter of its value in a day, the state of the Russian economy is still uncertain. During the past 12 months, gross domestic product declined 3.9 percent, less than many analysts anticipated a year ago, and the government managed to get inflation below 13 percent. But early official forecasts promising a return to growth by the third quarter of 2015 went unrealized, and subsequent projections of growth resuming later this year also look unrealistic.

Both the international financial institutions and Russia’s economic ministry now agree that the economy will not grow in 2016; . . . Nonetheless, the current consensus is that the economy will resume expanding in 2017. If that indeed happens, one may say that the whole thing was another ordinary economic downturn caused by falling oil prices and Western sanctions. But if growth doesn’t return, then what?

The Russian economy suffers from both the effects of diminishing oil revenue and growing bureaucratic pressure, not to mention the country’s paranoid foreign policy.

Assessing the Russian economy since the early 2000s, one can see two distinct periods. The first runs from 2000 to 2007, when the economy grew by about 7 percent a year, the RTS stock market shot up and average incomes more than tripled. Taxes were lowered and international cooperation increased. Russia rose.

But then came the second period, which now can be called a standstill. Between 2008 and 2015, average annual growth has been close to zero; capital flight has accelerated; foreign investors have been sidelined; the business climate has deteriorated; and dozens of taxes have been newly introduced or increased. Military expenditures doubled as President Vladi­mir Putin launched military operations in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, and he appears to have completely shifted his interest from economic matters to the geopolitical sphere.

[W]ith the Russian economy now totally subjugated to politics, and the latter becoming more illiberal, there is little hope for recovery, even if sanctions are lifted and oil prices return to more normal levels. Russia has weathered crises before, but neither in 1998 nor in 2008 did so many foreign companies abandon their investments. 

In the past year, more than 20 Western corporations, including Opel, Adobe Systems and Stockmann, have terminated their Russian businesses; around 30 production facilities owned by foreigners have been closed. Net emigration from Russia rose from 35,000 people a year from 2008 to 2010 to more than 400,000, by preliminary estimates, in 2015.

The main reason for this is that in the 1990s and early 2000s, Russia — however chaotic it might have seemed — was a country of hope, and investors were attracted to dynamic and improving domestic conditions. That changed after 2012. Now it is a territory of disillusionment.  

If growth does not resume, it could mean the country has entered a time of economic self-destruction that might mark the third phase of Putin’s reign.  

Gay Virginian Are Leaving Virginia

Not many years ago gay hater extraordinaire GOP Del. Bob Marshall admitted that his goal was to drive all gays from Virginia.  While things are changing for the better in Virginia, especially in terms of social acceptance - e.g., the boyfriend and I were at the yacht club tonight and the staff and  heterosexual friends were all happily listening as we described our wedding plans - the legal framework remains decidedly anti-gay.  As a result, Marshall is getting his wish as gays we know and others are moving to Washington, DC, and Maryland and taking their talents and assets with them.  The Commonwealth of Virginia ends up at a net loss.  All so bigots like Marshall and the Christofascist at The Family Foundation can smugly feel good about themselves.  Yes, it is sick, but such is the nature of fundamentalist Christianity in Virginia and elsewhere.  A piece in Slate looks at one Virginia gay couple that has decided to simply leave Virginia to escape the prevalent anti-gay legal reality.  But for family commitments and the boyfriend's salon, I'd leave Virginia without a moment's hesitation.  Here are highlights from the Slate piece:

In my heart, I’ll never be anything but a Virginian. I’ve spent my entire adult life here; I can recite arcane points of the state’s history; I once even helped draw the lines of our state senate districts. I’ve collected a ridiculous assortment of maps and cufflinks, rocks glasses and ties with our state seal emblazoned on them. I love this state so much that I even married a Virginia native.

But this month, I’ll be moving across the river to Washington, D.C., walking away from the state I grew up in. It’s not that I don’t still love the commonwealth. It’s that I finally realized that the commonwealth isn’t a whole lot in love with me.

I’ve lived through the banning of same-sex marriage in Virginia. I was in the fight against the marriage amendment that was added to our state’s constitution in 2006. I’ve heard delegates and state senators say that discrimination in hiring doesn’t exist and then watched them vote against a judge solely because he or she is gay. But these things didn’t really hit home until last year, when my husband and I decided to get married—and had to cross state lines just to get a valid marriage license.

The Virginia House of Delegates, meanwhile, just voted down a bill that would have allowed second-parent adoptions, because they don’t want gay couples to be able to legally adopt children. Gay couples like us. This isn’t to say that we haven’t seen steps toward progress. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine both support gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws, as do our newly elected governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. One of Attorney General Mark Herring’s first acts in his new office was to decline to defend the marriage amendment in court . . .

After the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, we changed our minds about where we wanted the marriage to be held. If we couldn’t get married in Hampton, where my husband was born and raised, or Richmond, where he went to college and I worked for years in the General Assembly, or Alexandria, the little city we decided was going to be our home, did it really matter where we had our ceremony?

If Virginia didn’t want anything to do with us, while D.C. could give us a federally recognized marriage certificate, why wouldn’t we cross the Potomac to get married there? For that matter, why couldn’t we live there?

I’d invested too much of my life to walk away. Yet walk away is exactly what I’m doing now. Virginia will inevitably join other states in allowing same sex marriages some day—but I’m no longer willing to wait for that day to come. I love my husband too much to let my state tell me he’s nothing more than a legal stranger.

I can’t, of course, completely abandon my home. I’ll continue to help out groups whose mission is to advance equality in Virginia, and I’ll support candidates who fight to pass LGBTQ-friendly legislation. We’ll keep visiting our families down in Southeastern Virginia.

I love my commonwealth, and I always will. I just don’t have to live there anymore.

I will admit that I identify with the author's feelings.  I have lived in Virginia longer than anywhere else in my lifetime.  But sooner or later being a third class citizen devoid of non-discrimination protections becomes burdensome.  Why live this way when there are viable alternatives?   And what makes it worse is knowing that this negative atmosphere exists solely so that nasty, horrible people like Bob Marshall, Victoria Cobb and others of that ilk can feel superior and justify their claimed piety by looking down on others.  I truly hope that history looks upon them with horror and that they join the ranks of those deemed to reprehensible like those who  supported the Jim Crow laws and massive resistance.  May their descendants be embarrassed to have them as ancestors.

 

Gay Flight: Should Anti-gay States Begin to Worry?

In its quest to prostitute itself the the Christofascists - e.g., here in Virginia the hate merchants at The Family Foundation - the Republican Party has time and time again shown itself only too willing to indulge in horrific gay bashing and a willingness to work to keep gays as a modern day equivalent of blacks under the Jim Crow laws.  However, as additional states and countries embrace LGBT rights and full gay marriage, LGBT citizens who are treated as lepers in their home states and countries have a growing number of options in terms of places where they can emigrate to where they will be granted equal rights with all other citizens.  If these LGBT individuals do choose to leave, their states will find that they will reap a negative consequence.  As I have noted many times before, if circumstances were different, I'd leave Virginia in a heartbeat and shake the dust off of my shoes as I crossed the border.  The Huffington Post looks at the phenomenon including at least one high profile LGBT individual who may be ready to move in order to be treated as an equal citizen.   Here are highlights:

If the Supreme Court decides to leave marriage equality up to the states to decide, will gay couples be concentrated in a few select states while the rest of the U.S. languishes behind in civil rights?   Suze Orman, the financial planning guru, TV host, and HuffPost blogger who lives with her lesbian partner in Fort Lauderdale, recently threatened to take her riches to another state where her relationship is recognized.

"Currently I am a resident of Florida … and I have substantial wealth and I pay substantial taxes," Orman said on MSNBC's "Now With Alex Wagner."  "I would be more than happy to move to New York or California if I could get married and be recognized on a federal level," she continued. "Because I want to live in a state that validates me, and I would validate them with my money."

"I am hoping, wishing and praying that DOMA is overturned," Orman said on her own show. "Obviously I have a lot at stake here. I have been gay my whole entire life. I've been in a relationship with KT for 12 years. And I want enjoy the same benefits as everybody else. I want to feel valid 100 percent of the time."

Florida might be a tad closer to making couples like Suze and KT feel at home.  The state's 2013 legislation session includes a bill finally granting civil rights protections against discrimination for reasons of sexual orientation and gender identity, and another that will create a statewide domestic partnership registry.

Gays are the harbinger of cities and states that will be attractive to the so-called "creative class."  If gays pack up and leave states like Florida (and Virginia) the message is clear:  Anyone deemed "other" is unwelcomed.  And other states and cities that accept diversity will be  only too happy to put down the welcome mat for refugees seeking to escape hate and bigotry.

Washington Post: Strike Down DOMA and Gay Marriage Bans

As noted yesterday, much to my surprise the local Daily Press main editorial on Sunday called on the United States Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and state bans on gay marriage.  Less surprisingly, the Washington Post had a similar main editorial yesterday, although it argues less broadly against all gay marriage bans than the Daily Press.  To me, how the Court rules in the marriage cases will be a real demonstration as to whether equality under the law and religious freedom for all citizens truly exist in America.  If DOMA and or gay marriage bans are upheld, then the Court will have given proof that the image America likes to hold up of itself is a lie and that real freedom and liberty do not exist.   For those of us who are gay, then the issue becomes whether we are content to be less than full citizens or leave.  Candidly, if my circumstances were different, I'd have left long ago - from my experience as a gay man with the courts, I have little faith in America.  But I digress.  Here are editorial highlights:

The justices have many options as they consider how to rule. But more important than the particulars of their eventual holdings is the general direction they choose to take: They must move the country forward, not back.

It is possible but unlikely that the court will hand down ringing decisions proclaiming marriage and all its benefits to be a constitutional guarantee, available to same-sex couples in every state. We believe in this outcome as a matter of moral and legal principle, and we expect it will prevail, eventually. But we also expect it will take more time for courts — and society at large — to embrace it fully.

It is also possible that the justices will uphold Proposition 8, DOMA’s noxious provisions or both. They must not choose this direction.  .  .  . denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry is unjustifiable discrimination, and denying federal benefits to duly married couples is even more obviously repugnant to the notion of equal protection.

The arguments of those defending discrimination against gay couples are beyond far-fetched. Proposition 8’s advocates, for example, contend that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples must be rational because for thousands of years people widely agreed that the institution involved only the union of a man and a woman. That reasoning stinks of the faulty logic used to justify the persistence of all sorts of discrimination.

Gay-rights advocates are winning the argument. American society is changing faster than anyone could have thought possible only a decade ago. Nine states and the District now allow same-sex marriage.   .  .  .  .  Among young Americans, who grew up in an era in which friends and relatives could more easily come out of the closet and be themselves, there is hardly a debate.  .  .  .  .  The Supreme Court must play a part in this civil rights triumph — and justices should not shrink from it.

Another Washington Post column also looks at what the Supreme Court justices may do and is less optimistic.  Here are highlights from that column:

Don’t take anything for granted. The conservative activists on the Supreme Court may not be able to halt the inexorable shift toward acceptance of gay marriage, but we probably should expect them to try.

The two big cases being argued before the court this week could turn out to be landmarks that confirm the nation’s progress toward marriage equality — or speed bumps that impede it. Either way, the destination is clear: Nearly 60 percent of Americans approve of gay marriage, according to a Post-ABC News poll, including 80 percent of adults under 30. That looks like less a question than a decision.

You’d think the justices would have these numbers in mind  .  .  .  .  But the conservative wing of the court has no great respect for public opinion.

Even a double defeat for the forces of fairness and inclusion is conceivable, although such a result would be so illogical that even this court, the most activist in decades, probably couldn’t manage it with a straight face.

Such intellectual contortion might not disturb the slumber of the unapologetic social engineers on the court — Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. But it might unsettle the other conservatives, Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts.

[O]n Proposition 8, the court could accept the opponents’ view that since gay marriage was legal in California when the initiative was approved, the measure unconstitutionally takes away rights from a targeted class while leaving those same rights intact for others — a violation of equal protection. This result, probably the best that can realistically be hoped for, would not end the battle over gay marriage, which is recognized in just nine states plus the District of Columbia. But it would allow the rapid progress toward marriage equality to continue, and it’s pretty clear where this freight train is heading.

There is, of course, the possibility that the court might choose to frame its rulings in both cases as narrowly as possible, effectively ducking the issue and leaving it to elected officials to work out. But if the justices wanted to take a pass, why did they agree to decide these cases in the first place?

The obvious issue that these two cases do not explicitly raise, but that will have to be addressed sooner or later, is mobility. This is a peripatetic society; we move from state to state. How can two men or two women be married in one state but not in another?

If today’s court were one that cared about being on the right side of history, it would use that precedent[Loving v. Virginia] to rule that if a couple is considered married in Massachusetts and Maryland, it must be considered married in Montana and Mississippi, too.  But this isn’t that kind of court, I’m afraid. More likely is an attempt to hold back the tide — or a grudging acknowledgement that marriage equality’s time has arrived. 

I will continue to hold my breath and hope for the best, but expect the worse.   Sadly, currently that's part of being gay in today's America, especially living in a state like Virginia.

A Message for Half-Wit Republicans Threatening to Emigrate to Australia

I've commented before on some of the cretins in the GOP who have threatened to leave America if Obama was reelected.  Most of the nations where they claim they'd go to - e.g., Canada, Costa Rica, Australia, etc. - have exactly the types of social policies the GOP says will ruin America.  Above is a reality check for those saying that they would go to Australia.  I guess Fox News doesn't provide much information on the real world.