Enemy

Fags Ruin Everything!

2008-02-29T11:48:00-08:00

That last post, the one about The Silver Tongued Moor and the gayz, raises questions for The Enemy about Clinton and her recent (re)positioning on the UAFA. It would appear that Hillary has abandoned her *Gay Fraud* argument in favor of a less transparent dodge. Her strategy now is to roll/hide the UAFA in a larger Immigration Reform Package.

Rather than let the poor little thing stand and fight alone, Hillary's going to take the UAFA under her wing (they're not *wings* exactly...actually what does one call the flabby things hanging under her arms?)

What a nice Lady :)

“I’m supportive of it and the strategy was to do it as part of comprehensive immigration reform,” she said. “We still need to do comprehensive immigration reform … that is my preference.”

Note her use of the word "was", as if it had been her plan all along. Forget the noise about fraud and the fact she never actually signed on to the UAFA. No, Hillary has her own, much better P.O.A which she apparently forgot to share with the rest of us, even when asked about her position directly. Brilliant!

The Enemy has very mixed thoughts about Clinton's purported UAFA strategy (it is still very early in the a.m. as The Enemy types this –– before his first cup of coffee –– and subsequently his thoughts are mixed about many, many things.)

In a way the stratigy makes sense, in fact The Enemy had emailed I.E. at the height of the great Immigration Debate/Debacle of 2006 wanting to know why immigration equality wasn't being pushed more aggressively into the public discussion during this seemingly critical juncture? why it wasn't being quietly folded into one of the larger reform packages being proposed? or, alternatively, why wasn't the situation being exploited for all it's publicity/consciousness raising potential? Now was the hour and the iron was hot, why did we not strike?

The answer ultimately came not from I.E. but from the Bene Gesserit, DiFi, who angrily insisted that she could not –– would not –– support UAFA because there were too many other contentious immigration issues on the table. Remember, DiFi was very vocal in her claim that San Francisco's 2004 wedding party cost the Democrats the White House, it would appear that, for DiFi, fags ruin everything!

The point to all of this? Well, on the face of it it appears that DiFi and Clinton's UAFA positions are polls apart, but are they really? Are they not actually singing from the same hymnal, only Hillary's singing is intentionally quiet compared to the tone-deaf screech of her Democratic sister.

As Andoni over at Chris Crain recently wondered...

Could it be that we are being played? Once again she'll get credit for saying she supports UAFA, just as she did in the HRC questionnaire, but at that time she didn't co-sponsor because of her concerns about fraud. Those concerns have apparently been sufficiently countered since she didn't raise them again. Now she supports UAFA but as part of CIR, which she should know is resisted by the lobby that controls CIR. Is her stating that she prefers to put UAFA in CIR the new "fraud?" That is, is that going to be the excuse for why she doesn't co-sponsor?

From Obama With Love

2008-02-29T06:23:53-08:00

Open Letter from Barack Obama to the LGBT Community

"...and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system."

Hhhhmmmm, not to be a total shithead or anything, but what exactly is Obama referring to when he says he's "worked" to improve the UAFA? since when does wringing your hands and schvitzing about *Gay Fraud* constitute work?

Just asking. Full letter after the jump.

Open Letter from Barack Obama to the LGBT Community

I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.

Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.

We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia – that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention. I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached.

Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary.

Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Weird Old Coot

2008-02-15T12:47:02-08:00

The Paglia has turned into that person you occasionally run into at parties, alone in a corner with her third drink. You strike up a conversation to 'draw her out of her shell' only to discover she's alone for a reason.
The Enemy admits it, he was once enthralled by the Paglia. Not only by her writing, but by the apoplexy she induced in his friends and cohorts. However, after years of her fevered ramblings about Madonna, her tempestuous Italian roots and her heroic "60's Generation", The Enemy concluded that "the-bitch-be-crazy" (the Paglia wouldn't object to the use of the 'B' word here, if for no other reason than Gloria would.)

The Paglia has turned into that person you occasionally run into at parties, alone in a corner with her third drink. You strike up a conversation to 'draw her out of her shell' only to discover she's alone for a reason. She launches —— talking at you in florid declarations that she's obviously rehearsed for hours in front of a mirror. You're embarrassed for her and trapped until she takes a breath, you excuse yourself to use the bathroom. You hide in the pantry.

After the party, you imagine she goes home to her cats and breaksdown, sobbing into her curtains and beating her head with clenched fists like Annette Bening in American Beauty "stupid! stupid! stupid!". The cats hide in the pantry.

"I'm fine Mrs.Peterson" she sniffles a smile through the mail slot "It was the T.V., I'm sorry it woke you, I'll turn it down".

Sad. Still, even a stopped watch tells the correct time twice a day...
"John McCain's courage under torture during the Vietnam War deserves everyone's gratitude and respect. But as a national candidate, the stumpy, uptight McCain is a lemon. Oy, that weaselly voice and those dated locutions and stilted intonations. Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse in the White House? This isn't a smart game plan for the war on terror." - Camille Paglia

Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse indeed Camille.

No Amnesty For Americans. Part 2

2008-02-15T07:55:00-08:00

Marie Justeen Mancha was home alone in Southeast Georgia when four federal agents stormed into her house, shouting "police! Illegals!"

Butch Queens Bedevil Bahrain

2008-02-14T20:43:58-08:00

In an article titled 'Gays To Face New Clamp' (yikes!) Mohammed Al A'Ali reports on Bahrain's proposed 'Homosexual Crackdown'. The proposal was put forward by MPs of the Al Menbar parliamentary block and seeks to address Bahrain's widespread gay problem.

"Crackdown and Widespread. I'm sure I've seen that movie. I believe it starred Rod Majors" exclaimed Shakesville skamp Melisa McEwan.
In an article titled 'Gays To Face New Clamp' (yikes!) Mohammed Al A'Ali reports on Bahrain's proposed 'Homosexual Crackdown'. The proposal was put forward by MPs of the Al Menbar parliamentary block and seeks to address Bahrain's widespread gay problem.

"Crackdown and Widespread. I'm sure I've seen that movie. I believe it starred Rod Majors" exclaimed Shakesville skamp Melisa McEwan

The fact is most, if not all of Bahrain's homos are presumed to be foreigners, but the proposal requires that a 'study' be carried out to verify said 'facts' anyway.

Even though Bahrain already bans suspected homos from entering the country, Alal Fairooz of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and National Security Committee, complains that wily shirt-lifters get through anyway.

(Fairooz) claimed the ministry said homosexuals pretend not to be gay by posing "manly" until they make it past immigration.

"They look manly as they come to the airport, but when they get in they return back to their unaccepted homosexual attitude," said Mr Fairooz.

"Perhaps they should install Gaydar at the Airport" Mellisa offered thoughtfully.

"Homosexuals are found in huge numbers at hairdressing salons and beauty and massage spas, which the ministry regularly inspects."

However, he said many homosexuals were slipping through the net because the ministry was having problems determining if they were gay or not.

Damn Those Metrosexuals!!

Jesus Teh Magical Negro

2008-02-14T15:18:06-08:00

Others observed the phenomena long before The Enemy ever noticed it, but after Obama's recent surge The Enemy thinks it worth mentioning again, if only because it is so very disquieting, creepy and downright funny.
"It's almost like the Messiah, you know?" said Young, a woman who said she originally backed Clinton but was drawn to Obama over the last year. "People really, really want change, and you feel it. You don't just hear it -- you feel something coming from him.
--Jan Young, 56, of Maple Grove

I asked a woman, “Who was that?” She’d been one of those who pushed herself up toward the SUV. She turned to me as if I were out of my mind, “It was HIM!” she yelled. “But,” I questioned, “how do you know? All the windows were darkened.” She replied, “I felt it.”
--An eye witness, Obama Rally, Feb 2008

"...This election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event"
--Chris Mathews, MSNBC, Feb 12 2008
YIKES! You know something's going on when stuff shoots up Chris Mathews leg

(Lifting a little from the Shakesville Article here.) While some conservatives don't dismiss the idea of the Messiah running for President out of hand, they're quick to point out that He certainly wouldn't be running as a Democrat. Privately, however, many GOP insiders concede that if Barack Obama is in fact the Son of God returned for the salvation of all mankind, he'll be very difficult to beat in the Fall. If it turns out that Obama is indeed "The King of Kings", Republican strategists will be fervently praying that the Clintons are victorious in their wicked machinations, because, come November 4th, the only chance the GOP will have at keeping the White House is if they're running against the "Opposite Obama", the Anti-Christ, and even then it'll be an uphill battle.

As The School Cafeteria Goes...

2008-02-10T09:12:58-08:00

...so goes the Nation.

Checkout these comments from people returning from the caucus in Washington State.

No Amnesty For Americans

2008-02-08T12:42:46-08:00

Truth Out recently posted this item about Thomas Warziniack, who was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.
The Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit organization, has identified 125 people in immigration detention centers across the nation they believe to be American citizens.
----------------------------------------
Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona. On Thursday, Warziniack was told he would be released.

Immigration authorities were finally able to verify his citizenship. The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack said in a phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped the ball."

The story of how immigration officials decided that a small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes deports American citizens.

U.S. citizens who are mistakenly jailed by immigration authorities can get caught up in a nightmarish bureaucratic tangle in which they're simply not believed.

An unpublished study by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit organization, in 2006 identified 125 people in immigration detention centers across the nation who immigration lawyers believed had valid U.S. citizenship claims. Vera initially focused on six facilities where most of the cases surfaced. The organization later broadened its analysis to 12 sites and plans to track the outcome of all cases involving citizens.

Nina Siulc, the lead researcher, said she thinks that many more American citizens probably are being erroneously detained or deported every year because her assessment looked at only a small number of those in custody. Each year, about 280,000 people are held on immigration violations at 15 federal detention centers and more than 400 state and local contract facilities nationwide.

Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves. Less affluent or resourceful U.S. citizens who are detained must try to maneuver on their own through a complicated system.

"It becomes your word against the government's, even when you know and insist that you're a U.S. citizen," Siulc said. "Your word doesn't always count, and the government doesn't always investigate fully."

you can read the entire piece here

Obama, The Silver Tongued Moor

2008-01-30T19:13:25-08:00

It's happened. The Enemy has finally been seduced by the charming chap from Illinois.
"What happened?" you ask. Well, pull your chair closer, gentle reader, and The Enemy will tell you.
It all began the other night over dinner with friends (yes, The Enemy has friends.) We were talking (yelling) politics and presenting the merits and faults of each candidate when one of The Enemy's "friends" "graciously" reminded him that for much of the last 12 years The Enemy has been arguing for an Obama.

The Enemy had long argued that, beginning with Reagan's 'Morning in America', Republicans had learnt a language that bypassed the brain and went straight to the heart. A language that rendered Democrats effectively mute. It was a potent mix of sentimentality and triumph that could —— and did —— sweep folks up from their little lives and relocate them in the epic drama that is "This Great Nation", where everyone is a participant in the historical drama, without ever having to get off the couch. This was a narrative that approached (slouched toward?) the divine. Powerful enough to get decent working folks to put down the remote and cast a vote against their own personal interests, a vote in favor of something greater than themselves, a vote for something 'noble', a vote to embiggen.

Sweeping in scope, there was little room left for 'facts'. Indeed, the Religious Right would tell you that there —— camouflaged amongst the thicket of 'details'—— "you know who" was hiding.

It was, however, from that very same thicket of facts and figures that liberals insisted on launching their counter offensives. Armed with their grim graphs and cold calculations, Democrats continued to argue their well reasoned cases, and time after time —— from abortion to The Gays —— from immigration to the invasion of Iraq —— their PowerPoint presentations of 'facts' were drowned out by a Wagnerian version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' that swelled from stage Right. When reason and emotion collided, emotions invariably won.

The Enemy argued that Democrats needed to relearn this vocabulary of signs and symbols if there was to be any hope of restoration. He insisted on the word 'relearn', because it was a language the left had once been fluent in.

From Harriet Beecher Stowe to MLK, progressives in this country have found their most inspired moments in those voices that sing through the gritty actualities toward a greater 'truth', and these moments have set American hearts afire.

If Democrats are going to successfully reframe the great issues of the day, they will have to reconnect Americans with their forgotten stories. Reawaken in them the other, greater narrative that informs America's sense of self —— The Great Inclusion. It is time to shut down the orchestrations of the Right with that other interpretation of 'The Star Spangled Banner', only this time Obama will play Hendrix.

Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratories. The Enemy had pressed for a candidate that would cut loose the heavy 'facts' and soar toward heaven on his or her own hot air. Like it or not, the people want goose-bumps, not homework. What was needed was not the soft-shuffle of a John Kerry or the sensible shoes of The Al Gore. What was needed was a flashy pair of high stepping boots that could triumphantly lead the parade of history.

Obama, this "friend" pointed , is that candidate.

...oh.

As a very scary, very wise woman once said

"...the beat goes on, the beat goes on. La de da de de, la de da de da"

Of course, The Enemy's endorsement of Obama does not rest on the candidate's merits alone, there is also the growing discomfort with the Billary show, but that'll have to wait for a another post.

The next problem for The Enemy is informing the Husbandito of this change of heart, having whipped him into a wild-eyed, anti-Obama frenzy over the whole McClurkin flap (yikes).

Latinos Are All Racist!

2008-01-29T17:16:47-08:00

I think the truth behind the "Latinos are all racist" news blitz is a subconscious desire on the part of whites to deal with their own race issues by projecting them onto minorities who don't have (the) necessary media access it would require to issue a comprehensive rebuttal.
-- Jack and Jill Politics

The Enemy has been a little sad lately at all this talk about the great Latino/Black voting divide.

Can't we all just get along?

Then this article by Gregory Rodriguez popped up in TIME.
Nationwide, no fewer than eight black House members--including New York's Charles Rangel and Texas' Al Green--represent districts that are more than 25% Latino and must therefore depend heavily on Latino votes. And there are other examples. University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto has begun compiling a list of black big-city mayors who have received large-scale Latino support over the past several decades. In 1983, Harold Washington pulled 80% of the Latino vote in Chicago. David Dinkins won 73% in New York City's mayoral race in 1989. And Denver's Wellington Webb garnered more than 70% in 1991, as did Ron Kirk in Dallas in 1995 and again in 1997 and '99. If he had gone back further, Barreto could have added longtime Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, who won a majority of Latino votes in all four of his re-election campaigns between 1977 and 1989.
The Enemy can be a total dick and is ashamed at how easily he swallowed the Latino/Black voting divide meme. As Jack and Jill put it

I think the truth behind the "Latinos are all racist" news blitz is a subconscious desire on the part of whites to deal with their own race issues by projecting them onto minorities who don't have necessary access to media it would require to issue a comprehensive rebuttal.

There's also a great letter over at blabbeando from a potential Obama supporter of Latino descent and Gay persuasion, discussing his feelings about the Barrack/Queer/Latino triangulation and how it relates to the larger political landscape we all face.