The conservative American Family Association is calling on President Barack Obama to fire Amanda Simpson, Obama’s transgender appointee to the Commerce Department, because the appointment "puts the weight of the federal government behind the normalization of sexual deviancy."
"’Amanda’ is a biological male in every cell of his body, and no amount of surgical mutilation is ever going to change that," AFA President Tim Wildmon said in a press release circulated Thursday. "It’s a mistake for our president to appoint such a sexually confused individual to a position of public responsibility."
Wildmon went on to say that "gender is assigned by the Creator at the moment of conception, and no healthy society should ever regard sexual mutilation, even if it’s self-inflicted, as something that’s normal and merits approval."
He ended by saying the "appointment should be rescinded immediately."
Throughout the press release, Simpson is referred to as "he" and the name Amanda is put in quotation marks. That appears to be a tactic now employed by opponents of Simpson’s appointment. Media watchdog MediaMatters pointed out that the conservative WorldNetDaily did the same thing in an article [ideologue de-linked] about Simpson that stated she ("he") had spent $70,000 on sex-change operations since 2000.
The gay-issues Queerty blog warns that the rumblings in the right-wing media about Simpson’s appointment could be a prelude to a "slime" campaign a laKevin Jennings.
Her real worry should be with groups like MassResistance and Fox News, which have spearheaded efforts to slime other LGBT Obama appointees, including Kevin Jennings. These radical right-wing mouthpieces don’t care about the substance of your work nor your job qualifications, but about what makes you different. And we fully expect an assault on Simpson’s character, disguised as her "work ethic" or "prior missteps."…
Personally I only know a couple of transgender women, both through dealing with them through their jobs. Both served me professionally and efficiently, and I will be happy to deal with them again. I applaud Barack Obama for this appointment, not because she is transgender, but because he did not exclude a competent candidate on the basis of sexual identity.
Yesterday I stayed caught up, and would have visited all the blogs on my blogroll, but a small disaster struck. My TV set, just two weeks out of warranty, shorted out and fried its electronics. First, I decided not to recommend Toshiba TVs. Second, I scrambled to buy a new TV and get it delivered yesterday, because to be without a TV on a high holy day for the First Church of the Ellipsoid Orb is an unforgiveable sin. I bought a 32” Sony. It dominates my tiny room. The picture quality is so far superior to the Toshiba, that I’m almost glad it happened. Today, I’ll try to do some visiting, but I’ll be in deep religious meditation from midday on, contemplating Bengals, Jets, Cowboys and Eagles.
Today’s Jig Zone puzzle took me 4:51. To do it, Click Here. How did you do?
I won’t bother to link back to the many times I have called for Tim Geithner’s replacement, but the outrage I feel over this most recent revelation of his duplicity at our expense makes me proud to have done so.
In the weeks before Timothy Geithner’s confirmation as treasury secretary, his underlings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York directed American International Group (AIG) to delay publicly disclosing that tax dollars were used to pay in full $62 billion in insurance-like bets it owed to major U.S. and foreign banks. The New York Fed’s efforts to delay disclosure of its payment terms coincided with the nomination of Geithner, its president, and with his two-month campaign for Senate confirmation. It’s not clear, however, whether a desire to protect Geithner or other reasons related to the nation’s financial crisis, which was roiling at the time, drove the push for secrecy. However, the lack of disclosure spared Geithner from having to defend the Fed’s actions during confirmation hearings that already were clouded by his underpayment of federal income taxes. Emails between the Fed and AIG made public Thursday reveal a months-long disagreement over how much the public should be told about what ultimately became a back-door bailout of AIG by taxpayers. One series of emails describes how a lawyer for the Fed scratched out language from a regulatory filing prepared by AIG saying it had paid “100 percent of the par value” to satisfy the exotic bets, called credit-default swaps. The payments, including $13.9 billion to Wall Street behemoth Goldman Sachs [Bernanke’s company], have been a flashpoint for controversy. A special inspector general tracking the use of bailout money recently criticized the New York Fed for overriding AIG’s attempts to settle the swaps for lesser sums. The lack of disclosure came over the objections of lawyers and officials from AIG and from the Securities and Exchange Commission after the insurer made a sketchy regulatory filing. A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Meg Reilly, said that Geithner formally withdrew from participating in matters affecting AIG and major banks as soon as he was nominated on Nov. 24, 2009. “Secretary Geithner played no role in these decisions,” she said. The first email resisting disclosure by Brett Phillips, an attorney in the New York Fed’s general counsel’s office, was sent hours after President Barack Obama announced Geithner’s nomination to the cabinet post. California Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who obtained the emails, told McClatchy that the New York Fed’s insistence on secrecy about the payments suggests that Geithner “was protecting his friends and protecting his nomination.” “If he has to answer the question, was he a good steward of the taxpayers’ dollars, this would say no,” Issa said. Geithner’s response to questions about the need to pay 100 cents, he said, “at minimum would have been open to disagreement by many of the members of the Senate who voted for his confirmation.” Geithner won Senate confirmation on Jan. 27, 2009 by a vote of 60-34. Treasury spokeswoman Reilly dismissed the email exchanges as insignificant, asserting that $25 billion in taxpayer funds used to buy securities underlying the AIG swap contracts are “on track to be paid back in full with interest.” She declined to elaborate on the remaining $37.1 billion paid to settle the swap contracts. AIG issued much of the protection to cover major U.S. and European banks in the event that a sharp downturn in the U.S. housing market depressed the value of securities sold offshore. When a rash of loan defaults by marginally qualified subprime borrowers started a downhill slide in housing prices, AIG was swamped with demands for partial payment on its deteriorating portfolio of swap contracts, leading to a $182 billion federal bailout. McClatchy Newspapers revealed in April 2009 that as part of the bailout, the New York Fed had opted to pay the full value of all of the mortgage-related swap contracts after European banks declined to accept discounted payments. Bloomberg News first reported the e-mails Thursday. The e-mails show that AIG officials considered the swap settlements to be major events under securities laws requiring public disclosures. On Nov. 25, 2008, AIG’s Kathleen Shannon advised the Fed and its outside counsel that AIG attorneys and its law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, “believe that the better practice and better disclosure in this complex area is to file the agreements currently rather than to delay.” The debate persisted until AIG officials relented. On Dec. 30, 2008, after AIG listed the $62 billion figure in an SEC filing but included no details, the SEC sent a letter to the insurer’s chairman and chief executive officer, Edward Liddy, requesting a revised disclosure. Even then, Fed officials persisted, arranging conference calls with SEC officials to argue for a disclosure delay. In March, 2009, AIG finally disclosed its payments, naming each bank and the amount of money each received. Asked whether its insistence on secrecy bore any connection to Geithner’s nomination, a spokesman for the New York Fed declined comment Thursday… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <McClatchy DC> If you had told me a week ago that I would actually be agreeing with Darrell Issa, I would have questioned your sanity, and asked if you’ve been teabagging. Ed Schultz covered this issue quite well:
There can only one conclusion, in my opinion. US banks were ready to negotiate a settlement with AIG and accept partial payment. Geithner ripped off US taxpayers to keep his bankster buddies from taking a haircut in collusion with his mentor, Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury under Bush. To keep Congress from finding out before he was confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury under Obama, Geithner had his bankster cronies at the New York Fed pressure AIG, who actually wanted to obey the law, into withholding the evidence. Obama’s only hope to restore any credibility whatsoever is to fire Geithner and instruct DOJ to conduct an investigation into whether or not Geithner broke the law. Furthermore, he needs to clean his administration from the bankster stain by firing Summers, and withdrawing Bernanke’s nomination. Do we agree?
Off topic, check out the video in today’s Open Thread. It’s hilarious.
It’s about time someone in that sadistic swamp may face accountability.
Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May. They have been identified as Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va. They have been charged with “crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The 13-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6 and unsealed today.
It alleges that on May 5, 2009, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Cannon and Drotleff shot and killed two Afghanistan nationals and wounded a third. In a press release, the Justice Department said:
The indictment alleges that at the time of the shootings, Cannon and Drotleff were Department of Defense contractors employed by Paravant LLC, which is a subsidiary of Xe (formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide). According to the indictment, as contractors, Cannon and Drotleff provided training to the Afghan National Army for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the use and maintenance of weapons and weapons systems.
In May, reports emerged that four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC were alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian. According to The Wall Street Journal’s August Cole, “At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren’t supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.”
The US military said the incident took place in Kabul on May 5. “While stopped for the vehicle accident, the contractors were approached by a vehicle in a manner the contractors felt threatening,” according to the military.
Now, there are many layers to this story, not the least of which is yet another allegation of Blackwater-affiliated personnel drinking and killing in a foreign war zone. (A drunken Blackwater operative was alleged to have killed a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president on Christmas Eve 2006 inside Baghdad’s Green Zone).
What’s more, this represented the first public mention of the Blackwater/Xe subsidiary Paravant, but also the fact that its work was apparently buried in a subcontract with Raytheon, which in turn has a large US Army training contract in Afghanistan… [emphasis added]
As much as I complain about Obama’s policies, the memory that Bush and the GOP intended to use these thugs against the American people in the event of civil disturbance. Kent State would have seemed a picnic by comparison. Obama must put this company out of business, by refusing them contract for anything from school crossing guard up.
The new poll of Connecticut by Public Policy Polling (D) finds that independent Sen. Joe Lieberman’s approval rating is absolutely in the dumps after his actions in the health care debate, with him having antagonized every group imaginable by both weakening progressive efforts and then voting for the actual bill.
Lieberman’s overall approval rating is only 25%, with 67% disapproval. Democrats disapprove of him by 14%-81%, Republicans by 39%-48%, and independents by 32%-61%. Only 19% approve of his actions on the health care bill, with Democrats at 8%-80%, Republicans at 26%-55%, and independents at 30%-59%. Among those who support the bill, 84% disapprove of his handling of the issue, and in addition 52% of the people who don’t support the bill also disapprove of Lieberman’s actions…
He certainly can’t get the Democratic nomination. Independents don’t like him, and even the Repuglicans, to whom he sold his traitorous soul, know they can’t trust him. Therefore, I think he will retire. I may be acting too vindictive, and if so, so be it. For him to retire is not good enough. I want to see him humiliated, either by being trounced in an election or kicked out of the Democratic caucus and stripped of his Homeland Security Chair. Both would be better, My big regret here is that his in not up for reelection in 2010.
I spent almost the entire day at my computer replying to comments and visiting blogs. I did not catch up completely, but I put a big dent in my backlog. Today should be similar, before the weekend brings the playoffs. I’m laying off the GOP’s attempts to blame Obama and encourage terrorists today. I figure I can comment on it everywhere else.
Today’s Jig Zone Puzzle took me 4:16. To do it, Click Here. How did you do?
The boys at Red State Update were inspired by Brit Hume to get with Supply-side Jesus on behalf of Tiger woods. You’ll love this.
Yesterday I banned an individual from commenting here at Politics Plus. This is the first time I have found that necessary in this nor the previous incarnation of this blog. The reason was quite simple. The individual refused to abide by the rules here. I have long said that Politics Plus has only one rule. In truth, it has two. The second is Thou shalt not SPAM! I don’t really count that one, because that’s a universal rule, virtually everywhere.
The one rule is in our header, where everyone can see it. All points of view are welcome, but personal attacks against me or anyone who comments here are forbidden. Trading insults never changes anyone’s mind. This is not difficult. It simply means that we treat each other with respect. If you want to post an insult to a public figure, say Bush, that’s OK. I don’t like Bush either. If you want to insult Jeff Merkley, whom I fully support and worked to elect, that’s OK too. I defend your right to your opinion. But, even if Traitor Joe LIEberman ever posts a comment here (God forbid!), please treat him with respect in your replies.
The individual I banned insulted another commenter. Then he insulted the entire blog. I deleted his offending comments, and warned him. He protested that because the commenter and I had insulted public figures, he was being treated unfairly and insulted me . He ignored his warning, and I will delete all future comments from him. He then commented that he was being banned only because he disagrees with me. If he knew anything about this blog, he would know that these pages have multiple comments from people disagreeing with me from all sides of the political spectrum. Sometimes, they even inspire me to change my mind. The thread I linked is an excellent example, because it contains a disagreement that does violate the rule and one that does not.
So please don’t feed the trolls. They love drama, and if you get into an insult war with them, that’s exactly what they want. By all means, refute their arguments, but please don’t return their insults in kind. A few years back, a troll insulted another blogger, whom I considered a friend. He responded with insults back. The two had quite a little flame war. When I returned and found it, to be fair I had to delete the insulting comments from both and warn both. My friend deleted PP from his blogroll and had not been back since. He has also refused to reply to me on his and other blogs ever since.
I don’t want to lose any more friends. So please, demonstrate to trolls that you are better than they are by replying to them with respect. Leave the insults for me. I will deal with them. OK?
The conservative American Family Association is calling on President Barack Obama to fire Amanda Simpson, Obama’s transgender appointee to the Commerce Department, because the appointment "puts the weight of the federal government behind the normalization of sexual deviancy."
