Don't Be Fooled By Trump's Trick on LGBT Executive Orders

Perhaps it was the result of not wanting to ignite further street protests or an effort to be able to pretend that he wasn't targeting LGBT citizens, but for now Der Fuhrer has reversed course and indicated that he will not reverse President Obama's pro-LGBT executive orders.  While at first glance, many in the LGBT community are giving a shy of relief.  My advice: don't be fooled.  Trump has made it very clear that he intends on delivering on his promises to leading Christofascist groups and there is no conflict between leaving the executive orders in place for window dressing while forging ahead with broadened religious exemptions and/or the pending Firs Amendment Defense Act ("FADA") before Congress which Trump has promised to sign. Stated another way, Trump can leave the executive orders in place while indirectly wiping them with FADA that will give immense rights to discriminate against LGBT citizens.  A piece in LGBTQ Nation looks at this simple reality.  Here are excerpts: 

The White House said on Monday that they will keep in place former president Barack Obama‘s executive order banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination among federal contractors.

“President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, just as he was throughout the election,” the statement reads. “The president is proud to have been the first ever G.O.P. nominee to mention the L.G.B.T.Q. community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.”

The White House statement came in response to growing concerns after LGBTQ Nation reporting that sources close to the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, were declaring that an executive order allowing for discrimination against the LGBTQ community based on religious beliefs was coming soon, perhaps this week.

Yet there are still reasons to be concerned, as Trump could still sign an executive order carving out a religious exemption which would allow for discrimination, while still keeping Obama’s order in place.

There are also real fears over the First Amendment Defense Act, which would similarly allow for discrimination so long as those doing the discriminating cite a religious belief as the cause of their actions. It has been reported that it will soon be introduced to Congress and Trump has already pledged he would sign it if it were to pass. His pick for Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions also recently defended the proposed legislation.

Advocacy groups, aware of this possibility, and citing concern of the travel ban on seven Muslim majority countries, remain unimpressed.

“Today’s statement says only that President Trump does not intend to take the extreme step of abolishing existing anti-discrimination protections for federal employees and contractors, some of which have been in place for nearly twenty years,” said Kate Kendell, Executive Director at The National Center for Lesbian Rights. “That is not a step forward. We remain concerned by reports that the President intends to issue an order creating new religious exemptions that will permit discrimination against LGBT people and others. This is also a distraction from the imminent announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, which is the most important issue for our community. The Senate must reject any nominee who will turn back the clock on our nation’s commitment to the equality and freedom of LGBT people, including the fundamental right to marry and to be treated equally to other married couples.”

The American Civil Liberties Union mirrored these concerns.   “Actions speak louder than words. President Trump has surrounded himself with a vice president and cabinet members who have repeatedly sought to sanction discrimination against LGBT people in the name of religion, and nothing in the White House’s statement makes clear that these efforts are behind us.

“Donald Trump is no friend to the LGBTQ community — regardless of what he or the White House leakers may be suggesting in the media,” said Rea Carey, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund. “We need look no further than his extremist anti-LGBTQ Vice President Pence and Cabinet picks to see the real agenda at play.

There are rumors circulating that Vice President Mike Pence, who backed a religious freedom law in Indiana, has been pushing for the anti-LGBTQ executive order, while Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is said to be pushing back against it.  A recent report by Vanity Fair suggests that Kushner is losing influence in a White House dominated by far-right voices, and that he is aware and upset by the situation.

 With the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and his special rights for Christofascists mentality, fears of what is to come are all to justified.  

Log Cabin Republicans Beg Trump To Keep Obama’s LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order

For years I have equated being gay and a Republican - or, worse yet, a Log Cabin Republican ("LCR") - as being somewhat akin to be a Jew in 1930's Germany who supports Hitler and the Nazi Party.  All of the LCR's whining about changing the Republican Party from within has always been a pile of bullshit and, in my view, a symptom of lingering internalized homophobia.  Having been in the GOP myself and a City Committee member for 8 years, the GOP simply is simply NOT susceptible to change from within.  Only successive electoral defeats will bring change.  Now, with the election of Der Fuhrer, change from within is even more remote.  So now we see the LCR begging Trump to not rescind the pro-LGBT executive orders put in place by Barack Obama. Seriously, what did these cretins expect to happen if Trump was elected?  But for the harm that will be done to others in the LGBT community, the LCR members deserve whatever misfortune that may befall them under the Republicans they worked to elect.  Their beg letter to Trump is here.  Here's a brief summary of the contents:

At the present time, there is no federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. States have a pastiche of laws and gubernatorial executive orders—some prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and some only on the basis of sexual orientation, while 28 states have no statutes protecting members from the LGBT community from discrimination at all.

For FY2016, $1.8 trillion contract dollars were awarded in states that have no state-level non-discrimination protections for gender identity/expression, with $1.7 trillion of that total going to states that also have no protections for sexual orientation.

More than 61% of the 26 states that received $50 billion or more in federal contracts in 2016 have no employment non-discrimination laws explicitly covering sexual orientation, and 65% lack laws covering gender identity.

Of the 20 states with the most EEOC complaints, only five have nondiscrimination protections covering sexual orientation and gender identity.

The lack of formal, federal non-discrimination legislation allows the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order to address the plight of the nearly four in 10 (38%) LGBT employees who were “out” at work who reported harassment and discrimination in the past five years, compared to only 10% of LGBT employees who were “not out.”

At the present time, there is no federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Executive orders prohibiting discrimination against minority communities have a decades-long history with support from both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Federal prohibitions against gay discrimination have been a matter of United States policy via executive order since 1998,and were maintained in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush.

The amended executive order prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity has been a matter of realized policy for nearly two years. Maintaining the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order is not only right, but popular: 68% of Americans support workplace protections for LGBT individuals.

Maintaining the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order would send a strong signal that President Trump is the “real friend” to the LGBT community that he vowed to be while campaigning for the presidency.

I'm sorry, but the LCR's have been living in a frigging fantasy world.  Now, it seems they are about to receive a harsh wake up call. 

What LGBT Americans Need to Brace for Under Trump

Some in the news media have tried to depict Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer, as the most gay-friendly Republican president-elect in history. Nothing could be more untrue.  First, the comparison sets an extremely low bar.  Remeber Ronald Reagan who did nothing to assist long time friend Rock Hudson as he was dying of AIDS?  The there was "Chimperator" George W. Bush who used anti-gay animus to rally the Christofascists to return him to the White House in 2004.  More importantly, the ridiculous statement ignores two things: (i) Trump's pick of the hysterically anti-gay Mike Pence as his running mate, and (ii) Trump's pact with the Christofascists last June which he is fulfilling by nomination for the most part extreme homophobes to his cabinet.  "Friends" who voted for Trump/Pence conveniently ignore these points and feign shock that members of the LGBT community are fearful for the future.  A piece in Keen News Source lays out what LGBT Americans may face during Der Fuhrer's first 100 days.  Here are highlights:

No matter what Trump might do as president to signal his unique level of comfort with LGBT people compared to his Republican conservative base, the departure of President Obama, indisputably the most pro-gay president in history, will stand in stark contrast to what many LGBT people fear will become an inevitable string of disappointing inactions (at best) and hostile attacks (at worst).

And the hopes for a better tomorrow for LGBT people –hopes that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made abundantly clear she supported – are replaced now with the uneasy feeling that anti-LGBT legislation will breeze through a Republican-dominated Congress and be signed as part of some “deal” President Trump might feel compelled to make to demonstrate his solidarity with his rabid right base and a certain admired foreign leader.

So, what exactly should the LGBT community be braced to see? Here’s a look at the most likely events in Trump’s first 100 days:

The Executive Branch:Contractor discrimination: President Obama signed an executive order in July 2014 that prohibits contractors doing business with the federal government from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also added gender identity to a previously existing Executive Order 13087 that prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation. Trump could rescind both executive orders . . . .

Hospital Memorandum: President Obama issued a memorandum April 15, 2010, calling for an end to discrimination against LGBT people by hospital visitation policies that limit visitors to immediate family members. The directive applies to hospitals receiving federal funds through Medicare and Medicaid. Many same-sex couples now have the benefit of marriage to protect those visitation rights, but not all same-sex couples with close, long-term relationships do.

Education discrimination: In May 2016, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice issued a “Dear Colleague” letter advising schools that discrimination against transgender students violates a federal law against sex discrimination. The Trump administration could issue a new letter with its own interpretation of the reach of Title IX. And Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was a leading supporter of a 2004 ballot campaign against marriage equality in Michigan, and her family has given millions to anti-LGBT causes and groups.

Health discrimination: In May last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations stating that the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination in health coverage and care includes a prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity. The Trump HHS could issue its own interpretation of the ACA’s sex discrimination. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of HHS, Tom Price, has a long history of hostility toward the LGBT community. Plus Trump has already made clear that he would like to repeal the ACA.

The Republican-led Congress:Nullifying executive orders: Even if President Trump chooses not to rescind any of President Obama’s executive orders or memoranda, Congress could pass legislation to nullify any or all of them, and one Trump ally, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, predicted last month that Trump would rescind 70 percent of President Obama’s executive orders. So a Trump veto on such action by Congress seems unlikely.

First Amendment Defense Act: This bill was introduced to Congress shortly before the Supreme Court’s ruling that said state bans on marriage for same-sex couples are unconstitutional. The FADA is part of the effort to circumvent laws that prohibit discrimination against same-sex couples. It would allow a person or business discriminating against LGBT people to defend themselves by claiming the discrimination is an exercise of the person or business’s religious beliefs.

Johnson Amendment repeal: The Johnson Amendment is a law that ensures taxpayer money is not used to subsidize partisan political activity. Trump has said he wants the Johnson Amendment repealed because it prevents clergy from speaking about politics from the pulpit. A bill to repeal the Johnson Amendment was introduced January 3.

In the courts:The Supreme Court nominee: The most long-standing influence Trump could have on the LGBT community is through his choice or choices to fill U.S. Supreme Court seats. He released lists of potential nominees last year, and they all look decidedly conservative and some have a history of hostility toward equal rights for LGBT people. He will almost certainly announce his first choice within the first 100 days, to fill the seat vacated by the death of right-wing Justice Antonin Scalia last February. Replacing one right-wing justice with another right-wing justice may not tip the court’s balance, but it will re-establishes a necessary four-vote bloc needed to accept conservative appeals for review. And a second Trump opportunity to nominate a justice will almost certainly bend the arc of the moral universe at the high court away from justice for the LGBT community.

The North Carolina challenge: Under the Obama administration, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law HB2. . . . If confirmed by the Senate, it seems likely Sessions, with the support of Trump, will withdraw the U.S.’s lawsuit against the North Carolina law. It also seems likely the Trump DOJ will weigh in on the side of North Carolina should the Supreme Court eventually review the constitutionality of HB2 as other lawsuits against it continue. And similar bills are now proceeding through the Texas and Virginia legislatures.

The Title IX showdown: In the spring, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case, Gloucester v. Grimm, to decide whether Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination in schools should be read to include a prohibition on gender identity discrimination. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Justice supported the transgender student’s claim . . . . Under the Trump administration, a DOJ led by Sessions will almost certainly take sides with the Gloucester school district.

The Trump/Pence regime will likely be a continuing nightmare for LGBT Americans.  As for my "friends" who voted for this, they should not be surprised that I no longer trust them and will never feel the same level of friendship or affection for them.  True friends do not vote for those who seek to ruin your life and open the door to discrimination against.  The "I did not know" excuse gets nowhere with me.  15 minutes on the Internet would have revealed all of this.  I will not forgive such "friends" for the abject laziness.  

20 Million Trump Voters’ Could Lose Ovetime Pay

St. Louis Trump supporters

The examples of Trump voters putting appeals to their racism and bigotry ahead of their own economic interest keep on rolling in.  The latest comes via a story at The Raw Story that looks at likely pay losses that will be suffered by Trump supporters if  Der Fuhrer Donald Trump and the Congressional Republicans keep their promise to repeal a number of executive orders signed by President Barack Obama.  I would be lying if I said I had a shred of sympathy for these people, but I do feel badly for others who will be negatively impacted if this reverse Robin Hood agenda is implemented.  Here are excerpts:

Millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump are expected to lose overtime pay rights soon after he is sworn in as president.

Tom Bonier, CEO of the polling firm Targetsmart, pointed out on Monday that “almost 20,000,000 Trump voters would lose time and a half overtime” under a Republican plan to reverse regulations put in place by President Barack Obama.
 According to Politico, House Republicans are already plotting the most efficient way to dismantle Obama-era regulations. An overtime rule requiring companies to pay time-and-a-half to workers who make less than $47,000 a year is expected to be one of the first reversals.

“We have heard over the past year that it would have truly dramatically bad effects, not just on employers but on employees across the country,” Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) told Politico. “I can give you the names of a ton of private-sector businesses who will either have to eat that cost or pass that cost on to their customers.”

Exit polls taken during the Nov. 8 election showed that 41 percent of Trump’s 61 million votes were cast by people who make less than $50,000 a year.

I hope these bigots and "low information voters" enjoy losing overtime pay and having to work 70 hour weeks as "salaried" employees.  Oh, and when they lose their healthcare coverage, that will make for a much deserved double whammy.  

Why LGBT People Should Fear Donald Trump

As I write this post, subcommittees of the Republican Party Platform Committee are spewing out all kinds of anti-LGBT positions which range from support for a federal constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell to supporting bogus "ex-gay" conversion therapy, to support for license to discrimination laws that would place right wing Christians above the law in many respects.  Drawing perhaps less attention is Donald Trump's continued self-prostitution to Christofascists, including surrounding himself with a advisory board that ought to frighten the hell out of LGBT Americans.  A piece in Salon looks at why LGBT Americans out to be very fearful of Donald Trump.  Here are highlights:

For someone who claims to be a “friend to the gays,” Donald Trump sure does like to hang around with homophobes.

Since the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, which claimed the lives of 49 people, Trump has been repeatedly trying to sell himself as an ally to the LGBT community—or at least better than Hillary Clinton on gay rights.  But while publicly courting the votes of LGBT Republicans like Caitlyn Jenner, who recently had a “supportive” call with the billionaire CEO, he has aligned himself with extreme anti-gay factions of the right wing in private. The businessman has been referred to as a “moderate” on the subject of gay rights, with even the New York Times crediting his “more accepting views” on the LGBT community, but if a politician is to be judged by the company he keeps, a Trump presidency stands to be the most brutal assault on the dignity of queer people since Reagan’s.

Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump have a great deal in common. They are two men who don’t fit the traditional image of what a president looks like. Reagan was a well-known actor before he was a politician, while Trump—the son of a businessman—was born into the world of finance, the embodiment of 1980s Wall Street excess (he may as well be ripped out of “Bonfire of the Vanities”). Before their campaigns proved popular with a great number of Americans, these men’s political ambitions were considered a joke: After all, who would ever vote for a celebrity for president? But if his [Reagan's] opposition to gay rights was merely “for political purposes,” as the paper suggested, the end result was no different: Thousands of queer people died in the streets during the 1980s while the White House refused to acknowledge them. Ronald Reagan wouldn’t publicly say the word “AIDS” until 1985—four years after theNew York Times first reported the outbreak of a “rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals.” 

His [Trump's] 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” further hinted at the need for nondiscrimination protections in the workplace to protect LGBT employees. . . . . But since ramping up his ambitions for the presidency, Trump has repeatedly rolled back those views. Back in 2011, the CEO came out against same-sex unions in an interview with the Des Moines Register. “I’m not in favor of gay marriage,” he said. “They should not be able to marry. … I just don’t feel good about it.” He recently reiterated those views to Fox News’ Chris Wallace, promising that, if elected, he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the 2015 ruling on marriage equality. “I would be very strong on putting certain judges on the bench that maybe could change things,” he said.

To Republicans unconvinced by his change of his heart, Donald Trump offered the following words during a February sitdown with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network: “Trust me.” Reports suggest that Trump is close to tapping Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, with one-time Trump adviser Michael Caputo telling the Indianapolis Star last week that the choice is all but a done deal. . . . If Pence’s name sounds the alarm for LGBT people, it’s because Pence was behind the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the 2015 religious liberty laws that allowed businesses to discriminate against customers based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

Given a national platform, Pence could do immeasurable harm to queer and transgender people, but he is only one of many destructive forces with whom Trump has threatened to align himself.

In June, Trump announced the formation of his religious advisory board, which amounted to a Justice League of anti-gay hate. Appointees included Michelle Bachmann, James Dobson, Richard Land, Harry Jackson, Ronnie Floyd, James Robison, and Robert Jeffress. Bachmann, who ran for president in 2012, operates a clinic with her husband that practices gay conversion therapy, while Dobson is the head of Focus on the Family, the longtime anti-gay lobby group.

For Mr. Trump, who also has been holding behind closed doors meetings with noted anti-gay figures like Pat Robertson, E.W. Jackson and Tony Perkins, kowtowing to the interests of homophobic extremists is not merely lip service. The CEO’s policies on the gay community have notably shifted to the far right in recent months. After initially wagging his finger at HB 2, he now claims he supports the bill. Trump is also in favor of the “First Amendment Defense Act,” a bill that, according to the Human Rights Campaign, would “enable Kim Davis-style discrimination against LGBT people nationwide.”

Most powerfully, he pointed out on a “Face the Nation” appearance earlier in the year how easily an incoming president could reverse every single executive order made by the previous administration on the first day in office. For Trump, that could mean “un-signing,” as he says, an Obama executive order preventing the federal government from hiring contractors that discriminate against workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

If voters back Trump in November, LGBT people won’t get the America we deserve, as Trump effusively promised in his 2000 manifesto. We will get the America of 35 years ago.

Trump must be defeated at all cost.

The GOP on the Brink - Can Crisis Be Avoided

As noted in a post yesterday, as the GOP takes control of both houses of Congress, a number of looming "cliffs" exist and it is questionable whether or not Messrs. McConnell and Boehner can keep the lunatic, reality denying elements of the Republican Party reined in sufficiently to avoid a crisis on one or more issues.  A piece in Slate looks at the likelihood of a crisis soon ensuing.  Here are highlights:

For the first time since 2006, Republicans have control of the Senate. And what’s their goal for the next two years, ahead of the presidential election? To govern like a sensible party. “I don’t want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president to a Republican Congress, that’s going to be a scary outcome,” said new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a pre-holiday interview with the Washington Post. “I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority.”

That may be a tall order. The last time Republicans had political momentum, after the 2010 elections, they plunged the United States into a year of crisis governance, including a threat to default on the debt if they didn’t get concessions on spending cuts. The hit to the GOP’s popularity was enormous, and it played a part in the 2012 presidential election, where President Obama ran against the Republican-controlled House and its dysfunction.

House Speaker John Boehner’s caucus was, and remains, an unwieldy beast of deal-making Republicans and conservative true believers. Yes, McConnell’s Senate has its share of the latter, but he doesn’t seem to face the same internal dissent as Boehner . .

{T]he present Senate has a healthy number of Republicans who represent Democratic states, who—ahead of an election year—have a vested interest in working with the opposition. Boehner risks rebellion when he defies the majority of his majority. McConnell doesn’t, at least not to the same extent.

For McConnell, this calculation is complicated by the composition of his majority. The 114^th Congress brings a gaggle of new conservative senators on top of the existing bunch. In addition to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who played Pied Piper to House Republicans during the 2013 shutdown drama, there’s now Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, all of whom fall on the right wing of the Republican Party. You could also add Sens. Cory Garnder of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina to that list, given their previous careers as right-wing congressman and right-wing state house speaker, respectively.

[T]he White House has promised a whole host of executive actions for 2015. Will conservatives react with calm? Or will they forgo a tactical approach for, as Sargent says, “maximum confrontation?”
A constructive Republican Congress might be good for our democracy, but an obstructionist one—that rallies the base and builds enthusiasm—might be better politics.