Progress takes time, and occurs in different areas (administrative instead of legislative) at different rates.Gay activists, among Obama's strongest supporters, had hoped he would be the first to appoint an openly gay Cabinet secretary. While that hasn't happened — yet — Obama did appoint the highest-ranking gay official ever when he named John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the nation's 1.9 million federal workers.
Other prominent names include Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank. Obama also named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department. And David Huebner, ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, is the third openly gay ambassador in U.S. history.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye confirmed the record number, saying Obama has hired more gay officials than the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations combined. He said Obama "is proud that his appointments reflect the diversity of the American public."
"He is committed to appointing highly qualified individuals for each post," Inouye said. "We have made a record number of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) appointments and we are confident that this number will only continue to grow."
Sanford Bishop (D-AL)There are at least 5 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who voted for DOMA who are still in Congress. Let's hope that now that there are legally married same-sex couples in California, Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut and Vermont these elected officials will see the error of their ways and support Rep. Nadler's bill to correct their mistake from 13 years ago.
Rick Boucher (D-VA)
Corrine Brown (D-FL)
James Clyburn (D-SC)
Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Norman Dicks (D-WA)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
Chet Edwards (D-TX)
Bart Gordon (D-TN)
Gene Green (D-TX)
Tim Holden (D-PA)
Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Sander Levin (D-MI)
Daniel Lipinski (D-IL)
Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
John Murtha (D-PA)
Richard Neal (D-MA)
James Oberstar (D-MN)
David Obey (D-WI)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Collin Peterson (D-MN)
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
Nick Rahall (D-WV)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
Ike Skelton (D-MO)
John Spratt (D-SC)
Bart Stupak (D-MI)
John Tanner (D-TN)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Peter Visclosky (D-IN)
Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Joe Barton (R-TX)
Brian Bilbray (R-CA)
John Boehner (R-OH)
Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Dave Camp (R-MI)
Michael Castle (R-DE)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
David Dreier (R-CA)
John Duncan Jr. (R-TN)
Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
Elton Gallegly (R-CA)
Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Wally Herger (R-CA)
Pete Hoekstra (R-MI)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Bob Inglis (R-SC)
Sam Johnson (R-TX)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Pete King (R-NY)
Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Tom Latham (R-IA)
Steven LaTourette (R-OH)
Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
John Linder (R-GA)
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)
Frank Lucas (R-OK)
John McHugh (R-NY)
Buck McKeon (R-CA)
John Mica (R-FL)
Sue Myrick (R-NC)
Thomas Petri (R-WI)
George Radanovich (R-CA)
Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Ed Royce (R-CA)
James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Chris Smith (R-NJ)
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Mark Souder (R-IN)
Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Mac Thornberry (R-TX)
Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)
Fred Upton (R-MI)
Zach Wamp (R-TN)
Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Don Young (R-AK)
“Throughout my life I have opposed discrimination of any kind,” Clinton said, according to Nadler. “When the Defense of Marriage Act was passed, gay couples could not marry anywhere in the United States or the world for that matter. Thirteen years later, the fabric of our country has changed, and so should this policy."
Lane Hudson: Mr. President, will you call for a repeal of DOMA and “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” right now? Please...It was pretty electric to be in the room at the time. Interestingly,when we sat down I had tried to talk Matt and Andres into heckling Big Dog with "What About DOMA" but they talked me out of it. Apparently Lane asked people in the Netroots Nation LGBT caucus on Twitter right before standing up and doing it.
President Clinton: Hey, you know, you ought to go to one of those congressional health care meetings. You did really well there. I’ll be glad to talk about that. If you will… If you will sit down and let me talk, I’ll be glad to discuss it. But if you stand up and scream I won’t be able to talk. But the other guys would love to have ya. I wanna talk a little about that too.
But anyway, so, here we are in a different world. Now, it’s not like the 1990’s. You wanna talk about ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting some support in the congress. Now, that’s the truth.
Secondly – it’s true! – You know, you may have noticed that presidents aren’t dictators. They voted - they were about to vote for the old policy – by margins exceeding 80% in the House and exceeding 70% in the Senate. The gave test votes out there to send me a message that they were going to reverse any attempt I made by executive order to force them to accept gays into the military. And let me remind you that the public opinion is now more strongly in our favor than it was sixteen years ago and I have continued supporting it. That John Shalikashvili, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under me, was against “Don’t A..” – was against letting gays serve – is now in favor of it. This is a different world. That’s the point I’m trying to make.
Let me also say something that never got sufficient publicity at the time. When General Colin Powell came up with this ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ it was defined while he was Chairman much differently than it was implemented. He said that, if you will accept this, here is what we’ll do. We will not pursue anyone, any military members out of uniform will be free to march in gay rights parades, go to gay bars, go to political meetings, whatever mailings they get, whatever they do in their private lives, none of this will be a basis for dismissal. It all turned out to be a fraud because of the enormous reaction against it among the middle level officers and down after it was promulgated and Colin was gone. So nobody regrets how this was implemented even more… anymore than I do. But the congress also put that into law by a veto-proof majority and many of your friends voted for that, believing the explanation about how it would be eliminated. So, I hated what happened. I regret it. But I didn’t have, I didn’t think at the time, any choice if I wanted any progress to be made at all. Look, I think it’s ridiculous. Can you believe they spent – what did they spend? - 150,000 dollars to get rid of a valuable Arabic speaker recently?
And, you know, the thing that changed me forever on ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ was when I learned that 130 gay service people were allowed to serve and risk their lives in the 1st Gulf War and all their commanders knew they were gay, they let them go and risk their lives ‘cause they needed them, and then as soon as the 1st Gulf War was over, they kicked them out. That’s all I needed to know, that’s all anybody needs to know, to know that this policy should be changed.
Now, while we’re at it, let me say one thing about DOMA, since you… The reason I signed DOMA was, and I said when I signed it, that I thought the question of whether gays should marry should be left out to states and the religious organizations, and if any church or other religious body wanted to recognize gay marriage they ought to. We were attempting at the time, in a very reactionary congress, to head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states. And if you look at the Levin referendum much later in 2004, in the election, which the Republicans put on the ballot, to try to get the base vote for President Bush up, I think it’s obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican congress presenting that. The President doesn’t even get to veto that. It’s the Congress can refer constitutional amendments to the states. I didn’t like signing DOMA, and I certainly didn’t like the constraints it would put on benefits, and I’ve done everything I’ve could, and I am proud to say that the State Department was the first federal department to restore benefits to gay partners in the Obama administration, and I think we are going forward in the right direction now for federal employees, and I don’t like that eith… I don’t like the DOMA.
But actually all these things illustrate the point I was trying to make. America has rapidly moved to a different place to a lot of these issues and so what we have to decide is what we are going to do about it.
Notice that Big Dog can't actually say the words "same-sex marriage." It should also be interesting to see what happens when the media asks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whether her position on same-sex marriage has changed.
Asked if he would commit his support for same-sex marriage, Clinton responded, "I'm basically in support."
This spring, same-sex marriage was legalized in Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire. In his most recent remarks on the subject, Clinton said, "I think all these states that do it should do it." The former president, however, added that he does not believe that same-sex marriage is "a federal question."
Asked if he personally supported same-sex marriage, Clinton replied, "Yeah." "I personally support people doing what they want to do," Clinton said. "I think it's wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that [same-sex marriage]."
The former president joins a string of prominent Democrats who have recently switched their position on the issue, including former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, New York Senator Charles E. Schumer, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.
"Bill Clinton joins other important public figures in stepping solidly into the twenty-first century in support of same-sex marriage equality," said the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's executive director Rea Carey. "We certainly hope other elected officials, including President Obama, join him in clearly stating their support for equality in this country. Same-sex couples should not have to experience second-class citizenship."
Clinton's reversal is the highest-profile one to date. It may also have political implications for the future of the Defense of Marriage Act. President Obama has pledged to repeal the law, but in June, the Justice Department filed a brief in federal court defending the law's constitutionality.
A recent Gallup poll found that a majority of Democrats favor same-sex marriage.
In 1992, Democrats actually lost seats in Congress (though they gained one in the Senate), and although Bill Clinton won 370 electoral votes, as Seib noted, he didn't achieve a majority of the popular vote. (One can "blame" Perot for this, but remember that Reagan still managed a majority in 1980 despite a strong third-party bid.)
In 2008, on the other hand, Democrats have gained at least 19 seats in the House. In the Senate, they've gained at least six seats. And Barack Obama assembled the strongest Democratic presidential coalition in decades.
Roughly 28.3% of the voting age population voted for Obama, a number exceeded only by Reagan in 1984 and Nixon in 1972 in the ten elections since 18 year-olds were given the right to vote. (Bill Clinton won 23.7% of the voting age population in 1992.)
Obama's victory was marked by depth as well as breadth. If you add up the electoral votes in all the states in which he won by at least 10 points, you get 262 of the 270 EVs he would need to win re-election. (Keep in mind that the distribution of EVs will change slightly after the 2010 census.)
It would take only two additional states to get over the 270 threshold, Iowa (which he won by 9 points) and Colorado (which he won by just under 7 points).
Comparing Obama's victory to 1992, if you look at the states that Clinton won big -- by 10% or more -- he only takes in 188 EVs. Even if you just look at two-party vote (a dubious method of factoring out Ross Perot), Clinton only gets 230 EVs.
Obama's victory wasn't just impressive for its electoral geography. Obama did best among young voters, most of whom will still be able to vote in 2012. (Not to mention the influx of another four years worth of younger voters.)
At the same time, Obama did worst among the oldest voters. I hate to be this blunt, but not all of those voters will live long enough to cast ballots in 2012.
Looking at these factors, Obama has about as rock solid an electoral coalition as an incoming first-term president could have.
Combined with the returns on senatorial and congressional campaigns, the notion that Obama in 2008 is in the same political situation as Bill Clinton in 1992 is laughable on its face. Obama is in a much stronger position.
"This is Bill Clinton calling to ask you to vote NO on Proposition 8 on Tuesday, November 4th. Proposition 8 would use state law to single out one group of Californians to be treated differently -- discriminating against members of our family, our friends and our co-workers.That's pretty cool. In order to defeat Proposition 8, we will need Democratic voters to oppose it as vehemently as Republicans are passionately supporting it. "Big Dog's" robocall could make the difference.
"If I know one thing about California, I know that is not what you're about. That is not what America is about. Please vote NO on 8. It's unfair and it's wrong. Thank you."
The Clintons released their tax returns late Friday afternoon for the years 2000 through 2006 which reveal an income of atleast $109 million. Now the reason why Hillary Clinton did not hesitate to loan her campaign $5 million in February becomes clear.
It should be interesting to find out whether the fact that the Clintons are earinng at least $10 million a year in income will have any impact on her appeal to blue-collar and middle-class Americans who have previously been supporting her candidacy.
Barack Obama beat (Bill) Clinton at the Grammy Awards last night, winning the award for Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Story Telling) for The Audacity Of Hope audiobook. Bill Clinton was nominated for Giving: How Each Of Us Can Change The World.
I think Clinton's win was due to (in order of relative importance on her making up the deficit)Last time I checked the upcoming primary schedule Clinton was expected to do well in the Nevada caucuses (Jan 19), Obama should win South Carolina (Jan 26). Clinton should win the two states who have had their delgates stripped (Michigan Jan 15 and Florida Jan 26) and who knows what the heck will happen on "Tsunami Tuesday" February 5th. It is doubtful that Edwards will win everywhere, but he should have enough delegates to deny a majority to eith Clinton or Obama! One thing is clear, the race will very much still be alive by the time I get back to the United States on Friday January 18th.
3) Absentee ballots (some fraction of voters had voted for Clinton when he NH lead was huge prior to the Obama bounce from Iowa).
2) Lying white voters telling pollsters they would vote for Obama and then not being able to do it when they got to the polling booth. Heck, they even lied when they came out of the booth! (exit polls put the vote split at 39-39--Obama got 2 percentage points less--that's your lying deficit.)
1) Too Much (Polling) Info: all the polls saying that Clinton was going to lose big made NH voters (especially women and white voters) who would have voted for Obama decide that they could risk voting for Hillary. I think if we lived in a country (i.e. France) where publication of polling data within 72 hours of the election is illegal, Obama would have won.
Bill Clinton and Mad Professah reader Sean Wherley
So, despite recent good news like Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refusing to pay price-gouging amounts for anti-HIV meds from Merck and former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton and his charitable foundation's success at negotiating lower-cost meds for second-line anti-HIV treatment for patients in low- and middle-income countries to a mere US$339 per person per year, in the United States the pharmaceutical companies are running "buck wild."The Associated Press reports "In a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate killed a drive to allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from abroad at a significant savings from domestic prices." The legislation to allow imports of FDA-approved medicines from other industrialized nations (a practice used by other industrialized nations themselves) was sponsored by North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) and has long been supported by the vast majority of the American public in opinion polls.
Yet right there on the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday afternoon, 49 senators [including 16 Democrats] voted through a poison pill amendment, invalidating Dorgan's legislation and protecting drug industry profiteering. The sheer disregard for the truth and for consistency when it came to both the policy and politics of this vote was, in a word, stunning.
