The answer is no. After all, Halliburton is, at a minimum, at least a hundred times more corrupt than ACORN ever could be yet the Reich never complains about Halliburton. Halliburton has misused tens of hundreds of millions of taxpayer's money, in fact, more taxpayer money than ACORN has ever received in all its years of operation, yet the Reich thinks that's just a minor matter.

The ONLY reason the Reich, and unfortunately, a few on the left, disparage ACORN is because it is an organization that largely employs and helps African-Americans. There is no other reasonable explanation.

Dressed casually in a vibrant blue cardigan and jeans and armed with a paintbrush, a passerby may assume the smiling volunteer was just another Habitat for Humanity worker. A double-take reveals, however, that standing alongside George Washington University students is none other than the First Lady, Michelle Obama.


(First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a United We Serve service volunteer event at
a Habitat for Humanity site in Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2009. She is joined by Julie
Bindleglass, a junior at George Washington University, and Shakir Cannon-Moye,
a senior, to kick off the First Lady's challenge to GW students to serve. Official White
House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

As part of the first National Day of Service, the First Lady visited a DC Habitat for Humanity site, her presence an exciting start to what is sure to be GW's most service-oriented year ever.

With a promise to speak at GWU's May 2010 Commencement on the line, students accepted the First Lady's challenge to complete a collective 100,000 hours of community service by the end of the school year. She told them, "What’s taking place at The George Washington University is what United We Serve is all about. My challenge to the GW community is to make service a daily part of their lives."


(First Lady Michelle Obama paints a wall at a Habitat for Humanity site in Washington, D.C., Sept. 11,
2009. She is joined by Julie Bindleglass, a junior at George Washington University, and Shakir
Cannon-Moye, a senior, to kick off the First Lady's challenge to GW students to serve.
Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

They had one other set of hands to help them out as well:


(President Obama paints a wall with volunteers at a Habitat for Humanity site in
Washington, Friday, Sept. 11, 2009. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/A-Challenge...

Is there anything more "socialist" than a fire truck?

After all, having a fire truck means these things:

(1) The government has decided that it, not the private sector, will be in charge of putting out fires.

(2) The government will tax the citizens for the fire truck regardless of their wishes.

(3) The citizens will have no choice in calling upon the government to put out their fires.

And yet, not many people are opposed to having a Fire Department, are they? We generally accept it as a legitimate government function.

<...>

A lot of folks are running around yelling about "socialism" lately. What they actually mean is, "The kind of socialism that we don't like, as opposed to the kind of socialism that we do like."

<...>

As in 1935 and 1965, people who are trying to protect their money, or to make political gain, are throwing around the S-word these days. Their chattering tools on TV have revived it as a household term.

Millions of Americans who themselves have benefited from the intervention of the government are repeating it. The president of the United States can't even tell schoolchildren to study hard and stay in school because, you know, he is promoting a "socialist agenda."

<...>

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/nati...

They didn't even bother to mention this part of the brief filed by the DOJ:



Furthermore, AP omits what the President had to say on the matter:

In a brief filed Monday morning in a lawsuit challenging the validity of DOMA, the Justice Department put on the record that the administration favors repeal of the statute — a position that was omitted from a controversial legal filing the department made in June. DOJ also explicitly rejected arguments put forward by conservative groups that the importance of marriage for child rearing is a legitimate justification for DOMA's ban on federal recognition of same-sex unions.

The brief states:



http://straighttalkonmarriage.blogspot.com...

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without scientists? Ask the Republican Party. It lives in such a world. Republicans have been so successful in driving out of their party anyone who endeavors in scientific inquiry that pretty soon there won't be anyone left who can distinguish a periodic table from a kitchen table.

It is no wonder the Republican throngs showing up to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are so gullible, willing to believe absurd claims like the coming of "death panels." Their party is nearly devoid of neuroscientists, astrophysicists, marine biologists or any other scientific professional who would insist on intellectual rigor, objective evidence and sound reasoning as the basis for public policy development. The people left don't have that kind of discipline and don't expect it from their leaders. They are willing to believe anything some right-wing demagogue with a cable show or pulpit tells them, no matter how outlandish.

Since the Sonia Sotomayor nomination we've been hearing about the GOP's Hispanic deficit. Only 26 percent of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. But that's a full house compared with scientists. Only 12 percent of scientists in a poll issued last month by the Pew Research Center say they are Republican or lean toward the GOP, while fully 81 percent of scientists say they are Democrats or lean Democratic.

We shouldn't be surprised that people who are open to evidence-based thinking have abandoned the Republican Party. The GOP has proudly adopted the mantle of the "Terri Schiavo, global warming shwarming" party with the Bush administration helping cement the image by persistently subverting science to serve a religious agenda or corporate greed.

But what worries me is not the shrunken relevancy of the GOP, a party in which 56 percent of its members oppose funding of embryonic stem cell research, 39 percent believe humans have always existed on Earth in their present form, and in which only 30 percent say human activity is warming the planet. It is that this nation's future depends upon people who don't think that way and the Republican Party is closing the door to them.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/wh...

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the straight Iraq war veteran helming the House bill to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” has told the Huffington Post he expects the legislation will be on President Obama’s desk “in a short matter of time”:

Murphy has 168 co-sponsors for legislation that would repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, as well as several commitments from party leadership that the bill will come to a vote.

He said that the considerable anger directed at President Obama for failing to address the subject sooner was understandable but ultimately misplaced.

“President Obama has clearly said he wants to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Murphy said. “He has instructed as Commander in Chief his Secretary of Defense and chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff to be prepare to implement the policy but he has respect for the legislative branch, a co-equal branch, and said, ‘Guys, I want a bill on my desk. And when it comes on my desk I’m going to sign it to repeal this.’”

http://www.gaypolitics.com/2009/08/14/murp... /

Today, President Obama awarded the late Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He said Milk's "message of hope, hope unashamed, hope unafraid, could not ever be silenced."

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvKOv8HA76o

Here are his full remarks:

As Josh Marshall says, we've reached a point in the health-care reform discussion where logic has fallen apart. Consider, for instance, Danielle Allen's op-ed this morning. Discussing the insistence of some that health-care reform will result in rationing and death panels, Allen chides those who respond with an accurate description of the legislation. "One can't answer them by saying: 'These policies won't ration; there will be no death panels,'" she writes. Instead, reformers must detail the "institutional checks that will prevent the emergence" of death panels and rationing.

In other words, the questions reformers have to answer is not "when did you stop beating your wife?" It's "what will prevent you from beating your wife?" Given that there is no such thing as a "death panel," nor any policy provision that would establish such a thing, it is hard to explain the institutional checks that would prevent a "death panel" from coming into being. When you have to explain why your bill won't create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn't, you've pretty much lost the argument.

The fact that an idea as loony as death panels has found even the slightest purchase in the public consciousness shows how distant the minority feels from our democracy. Members of Congress are terrified of voter backlash and industry opposition.

<....>

What we're seeing here is not merely distrust in the House health-care reform bill. It's distrust in the political system. A healthy relationship does not require an explicit detailing of the "institutional checks" that will prevent one partner from beating or killing the other. In a healthy relationship, such madness is simply unthinkable. If it was not unthinkable, then no number of institutional checks could repair that relationship. Similarly, the relationship between the protesters and the government is not healthy. The protesters believe the government capable of madness. There is no evidence for that claim, which means that there is no answer for it, either. That claim is not about what is in this bill, or what government has done in Medicare and Medicaid and the VA. It is about what a certain slice of Americans think their government -- and by extension, their fellow citizens -- capable of.


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klei...

The Department of Labor launches Disability.gov, which aims to connect the disability community to information and opportunities.

http://www.disability.gov/

A bill that would give the domestic partners of federal employees the same benefits as the spouses of federal employees has been passed in a key House sub-committee.

The Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act, introduced by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), mandates that same-sex partners of federal employees would be eligible for health benefits, long-term care, family and medical leave, and federal retirement benefits, among others. The bill also stipulates that partners of federal employees would be subject to the same responsibilites that apply to the spouses of federal employees, such as anti-nepotism rules and financial disclosure requirements.

Baldwin released a statement shortly after the 5-3 vote passage of the bill announcing she was “delighted” by the subcommittee’s action and for Chairman Lynch’s support of the issue.

“Extending benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees is more than a matter of fairness,” said Baldwin. “As a majority of Fortune 500 companies have already demonstrated, equality and diversity in the workplace boost productivity and help attract and keep the most qualified employees,” Baldwin said.

The bill, if passed by Congress, would also formalize President Obama’s memorandum calling for federal agencies to extend certain benefits to same-sex couples. At a White House ceremony in June, the President announced his support of the measure.

http://www.gaypolitics.com/2009/07/30/bald...

The Victory Fund has learned President Barack Obama plans to award America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Harvey Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials. The award will be accepted at a White House ceremony August 12 by Stuart Milk, the nephew of the late San Francisco Supervisor and civil rights activist.

“We are thrilled President Obama is honoring Harvey Milk with the Medal of Freedom. He’s an American hero and trailblazer whose election more than 30 years ago triggered a political awakening that inspires us still today. This recognition sends an important message about how critical political leadership will be in making all Americans equal in the eyes of the law,” said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund.

Stuart Milk echoed Wolfe’s praise, saying, “The President’s action today touches the core of our very human hearts and my uncle would be so proud of this high honor. His election was, for him, a beginning–a chance to make real change. That change is happening, but we still have so far to go. I hope this recognition inspires LGBT Americans everywhere to heed Harvey’s call to run for office, to serve openly, to live proudly with authenticity and to demand the equality that we all deserve.”

American tennis great Billy Jean King, who is openly lesbian, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who has championed LGBT equality throughout his political career, also will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the August 12 ceremony. Kennedy was honored by the Victory Fund in 2004 with its Oates-Shrum Leadership Award in recognition of his tireless work on behalf of LGBT Americans.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award created to honor especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, or world peace, or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.



http://www.gaypolitics.com/2009/07/30/harv... /

(cross-posted from the GLBT Forum with moderators permission)

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce Monday that his department is temporarily barring the filing of new uranium mining claims on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon, an Obama administration official said.

The land is being "segregated" for two years so that the department can study whether it should be permanently withdrawn from mining activity, said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The announcement comes ahead of Tuesday's congressional hearing on a bill to set aside more than 1 million acres of federal lands north and south of the canyon. The bill's sponsor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and environmental groups had been looking to Salazar for temporary protections at the Grand Canyon while the legislation is pending.

The Interior Department under President George W. Bush was unresponsive to efforts to ban new uranium mining claims. The House Natural Resources Committee invoked a little-used rule to stop any new claims for up to three years, but Interior officials refused to recognize the action and continued to authorize additional mining claims.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/g...