Jeff Halstead and his Ft Worth Brown Shirts Band

Among the most unfortunate incidents over the last week, the most disturbing discussion item is certainly not and should not be, whether Michael Jackson overdosed on morphine. Yet, every major news channel is airing all aspects of his death, including discussions over the price of his chess set. What a shame, when in fact, at least morally, a bigger story is brewing in the so-called Yellow Rose of Texas, although I am not shocked. And it is enough to make you vomit.

As a nation, we ought to be outraged and repulsed at the official acts of the Fort Worth Police Department, who, I posit, acted on premeditated purpose and personal hatred of gays, when they raided the Rainbow Lounge last Saturday, a gay bar that was only 14 days new. The “raid” caused, aside from violating common civil liberties, a 26 year old kid in intensive care with brain injuries.

Sober eye witnesses indicated that these police (“Brown Shirts”) and members of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Control abruptly entered the Lounge, went to various directions once inside, and started picking people at random, handcuffing and arresting patrons on alleged drunk-in-public and disorderly conduct charges. "They were hyped up. They were loaded….," said Todd Camp, a veteran journalist who was there celebrating his birthday with friends. "They were just randomly grabbing people, telling them they were drunk." In fact they tossed one patron right down to the ground who sustained brain injuries as a result.

To them, if they could lasso young Chad Gibson and tie him to a Chevy truck, that would have probably been a quicker and uplifting mode of punishment.

The only way you can view these acts is on the same plane as to the Nazi Brown Shirts, who went around parts of Germany intimidating Jews. I am serious. What is the difference? A 160 pound, 26 year old man is in intensive care because of the actions of these nefarious abusive cops. The only inference one can draw from this despicable episode is the fact that this was an unremarkable planned attack, stupidly planned and carried out by a government body itself, in violation of civil and human rights. Except for a little Madonna playing in the background, isn’t this a mini Kristallnacht?




Police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers' entered the bar during a scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately. Interestingly, who do you think Halstead identifies the guilty groper to be? Chad Gibson; a person unable to speak because he is laying indeterminably in Intensive Care. Isn’t that convenient?
That is an outrageous insinuation by Halstead in defending his Brown Shirts. Using the gay panic defense, Halstead suggests “You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that." Meanwhile, here are actual witnesses:

Club Manager Randy Norman said Gibson didn’t seem drunk and was walking from the men’s room, holding a bottle of water, when an officer pushed him against a wall and then pushed him to the ground. Some patrons said they heard Gibson ask the officer a question, but that he didn’t fight back. At least three officers were involved in handcuffing him.

Kayla Lane, a visitor from California, has a slightly different memory of where he was handcuffed, but she also reports seeing someone pulled to the ground who wasn’t drunk:

After this, we saw the policemen go into the men’s restroom, pull out at least two guys from handcuffs from there, and pull one onto the ground before forcefully removing him. What were they doing in there? Raucously disposing of their waste?! There was no reason for ANY of those arrests, at all. These people were NOT drunk, or even overly happy or silly.

We do know however that he was forcefully slammed against a wall:

“The first question I heard was, ‘How much have you had to drink?’” said Shane Wells, a dancer at the club. Gibson “said, ‘I don’t have to answer that question’ and they grabbed him and ran him against that little wall.’”

And then, according to Chuck Potter, Chad was very brutally thrown to the ground:

Chuck reported that Chad Gibson (who ended up in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter smith Hospital because of his treatment) was tapped on the shoulder and told he was under arrest. When he asked why he was slammed against the wall, his head was pulled back so far that Chuck was worried that his neck might break. When they released him for a second, Chad tried to catch his breath and staggered as he did so. The police then slammed him to the ground and 5 cops were on top of him. A friend who was at a higher vantage point in the bar saw one cop with his foot on Chad’s neck on the floor.

Justin McCarty was working security at the Rainbow Lounge that night and he also saw what happened:

McCarty said that he saw officers throw Chad Gibson to the floor, adding that, “There were people standing there watching it happen and crying. They were scared. It was just brutal.”

So did Alison Egert:

It was shortly after that conversation, Egert said, that she saw a patron in the bar “thrown against the wall” and then pushed to the floor. (That man was later identified as Chad Gibson.)

“Here you had this gay man who looked like he weighed about 100 pounds thrown to the floor with six cops on top of him,” she said. “That’s when I started noticing that they were only arresting men, and they seemed to be targeting the smaller men.”

Another witness, Chris Hightower, told WFAA-TV that he saw Chad hit his head against the concrete step into the men’s room:

They spun him around this way and laid him out on the ground, and that’s when he hit his head on this step and got the head injury.

____________________

Not the dumbest of the dumb would ever grope an identified officer in his official capacity. To me, who has been in tens of different gay bars, it’s beyond comprehension seeing someone 'grope' a cop because I know how common homophobia manifests within the force so in fact, there is a fear factor when a gay man is approached by a police officer. It is all too common.

It’s o.k. if Halstead and his men want to privately consider us as moral degenerates, since he and they are certainly entitled to have that opinion, no matter how ill-advised, but please don’t insult anyone’s intelligence with this insane excuse in order to validate these dipshits to commence the physical punishment aside from the nonverbal bulldog intimidation.

Clearly, what his statement suggests is he was in on the illegal conduct of his officers or is covering up the damage. Either way, delusional at best to think people (outside the Sarah Palin fan club) could believe this side of the story.

Lastly, who goes into a bar to charge people with public intoxication? Isn’t that a given? Is there a Texas law that says you cannot be intoxicated inside a bar, a private establishment? I could see that in Utah, but Texas? Couldn't they have done that anywhere? Shouldn't they be more concerned about drunk drivers and road patrol?

Some in our community are outraged because this horrible event occurred on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. I say, who cares (unless it goes to the Police Department’s motive in choosing this bar). While at one time homosexual conduct was illegal, I still say despite pockets of extreme hatred, especially in Texas, we still have made tremendous progress. But at the same time, we cannot forget this sanctioned assault on human beings by a government entity. This is not Nazi Germany, and we have a duty to put our marriage signs down and expose these bastards for what and who they are!

The fight goes on.

Another Political Putz: Sarah Palin on the Holocaust Museum Shooting

In response to the horrible shooting last week at the Holocaust Museum, Sarah Palin said:

"Our hearts and prayers go out to the shooting victims at the National Holocaust Museum. The museum itself remembers and honors the lives lost in one of the world's most horrific genocides. To have an act of intolerance further spread hatred at this place of reflection, further adds to the grief. My heart goes out to all those impacted, especially the brave guards who acted so selflessly to prevent further injury. May God Bless the Jewish community"

In her quest for the 2012 Republican nomination, Sarah Palin desperately seeks to remain relevant in the news. While she consistently misinterprets the First Amendment (something a third-grader knows better), uses her own family members to exploit for political gain, she now seemingly does not understand what this tragic act was about, nor comprehends the meaning and spirit behind the Holocaust Museum. Actually, she seemed to flow rightly in her political statement, up until the last sentence which just stood out as another Palinism: 'May God Bless the Jewish community'

When this deranged Neo-Nazi, James Von Brunn started shooting, he did so haphazardly - his agenda was not simply to kill a Jew or two, but anyone in his path. He despised what the Holocaust Musuem stood for. Tragically, he killed a security guard - who happened to be black but this idiosyncratic act caused by this one deranged racist had problems with anyone not like him, jewish/gentile, gay/straight, black/ white. This was not a premediated event to target Jewish people exclusively. So then, why does Palin say "may god bless the Jewish community"?

My guess is that she thinks Von Brunn's act was initially targeted against Jews and that the Museum serves as a province for Jews only (something Rabbi's consistently remind us that it is not). If I am correct, why does she think the Holocaust Museum serves exclusively as a tribute to Jews rather than what it really stands for (as promulgated primarliy by jew and non-jew alike) as a memorial and reminder against human atrocities, regardless of race, religion or creed, everywhere or anywhere it repeats itself. Doesn't she know that aside from the six million jews killed during the Holocaust, that this Museum stands boldly against hate inflicted anywhere, whether politically sanctioned or not? So why Ms. Christiandom, just bless the Jewish Community?

This woman is a national embarrassment.

Judge Sotomayor: Stereotyping Matters As It Should

I'll take a stereotypical white straight male, perhaps 58 years old, or maybe 36, a man who righteously prides himself on his gender, color, social class, and maybe even his religion. He is from Carlsbad or La Jolla or even Long Island. He owns property, pays property taxes - and is less considerate of non-property owners, although he may not often voice his disapproval.He is a Republican at heart and by his intellect, and he knows that because as long as he is white and educated, he will succeed as long as big government doesn't tax him to death first. He is conscious of the fact that he has no empathy for people who are not just like him, people of the wrong color, gender, religion, or social class, perhaps even someone who was born in the wrong geographical region of the country, and takes it as a source of pride. The only people who he feels comfortable with are straight white males of similar social status and political persuasion.

He honestly believes he is a self-made man, even though he may have been born wealthy, gone to the finest schools, and gotten every job in his life through family connections. And he honestly believes that everyone else had the same opportunity, and having chosen not to be like him, therefore are victims of the misery that they themselves caused, of life's unfortunate roll of the dice because something they did wrong.

As far as he's concerned, the fact that he is rich or comfortable is the way it is supposed to be, just as much as that he is white or male. The reason that Hispanics or blacks or women or poor people are not like him is because they aren't supposed to be. They don't matter, and they aren't supposed to. The only folks who matter are the older rich white guys. He may not be an overtly vocal racist, sexist, or homophobe - but certainly he is an expressive proud white male, who simply identifies with other "successful" white male lives - because they're in power, and they're in power because they are supposed to be in power.

Guys like this do not have empathy. They don't believe in having empathy. To do so is a weakness. To even want to learn about anyone else's life experience is a character flaw, which could taint them. It could embarass them, too, to admit that everything they believed in is wrong.

They believe that the elite/rich/suburban or urban male experience is the only one that matters. It is the default, and it is the natural order of things. To fail to accept this is, well, racist. Not to vote for a rich white male is racist, or "reverse racist". To presume that a woman, a black man, or even (God forbid!) a non-white woman or gay or lesbian could be the best, or even good enough for a top position is absurd to their thinking. To them it is obvious that women and minorities who have achieved success would never have done it without affirmative action, by playing the 'race card', or by cheating. Their qualifications are empty, meaningless. If there is only one elite white male who wants the job, even if he is not as qualified on paper, he believes he automatically should have it, because he will perform better at it, naturally.

A man like this has no idea what happens to a poor woman who gets pregnant and realizes she can't afford to raise another child, or to a disabled person or minority who is discriminated against. He cares superficially, but actually doesn't care internally. He thinks gay men should simply go back into the closet. For sure, while women and minorities are intellectually inferior, gays are morally inferior.

An educated Latina like Judge Sotomayor, on the other hand, knows all about the rich white male experience, because she has run into it all her life. She has had it hammered into her all her life as the default experience, the only way to be, which is a lot more than Newt Gingrich can understand what women or minorities or gays experience. He has no idea what it is like to be a Latina, whether poor and struggling in and around the Yankee Stadium ghettos; or, even the flip side - highly educated, successful nominee to the Supreme Court with a stellar judicial record. He doesn't understand the latter because a smart latina on the Supreme Court deviates from the natural order of man and god. While he understands John Roberts, he can't figure out Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But as long as women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Sandra Day O’Connor kept their mouths shut like good girls, they have been tolerated.

But what it comes down to is the need for people on the Supreme Court who care about Americans. Obama said that the “quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles” is “an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” In fact, the world actually does not evolve around the white straight male experience. Why do I, as a white male, think this way? It is because I was, at one time, that white straight male from Long Island.


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I would like to thank Angela Quattrano of the Daily Kos for allowing me to re-print this with my own edits and ideas, while providing me the framework and words written herein. As a result, this piece is a co-author between the two of us.

Iowa Supreme Court: Theocrats Need Not Apply

Suddenly, California’s outcry over Prop 8 seems like such a long time ago. Because where we least expected it, Iowa, a piece of the American heartland, has become the next state to grant equality to Gay and Lesbian Americans. Now three states require full marriage rights for gays, and Vermont is on the brink of becoming the first state where gay marriage would be made legal by lawmakers, rather than the courts — a significant milestone. The Vermont House passed a law allowing gay marriage on Friday, and the Senate is expected to follow suit on Monday. Gov. Jim Douglas has promised to veto it, but an override fight will quickly follow, probably by next week. Progress still.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday that gays can marry in the Hawkeye State, gay marriage became not just a coastal thing. Deep in the rural heartland, a straightforward opinion — written by a justice appointed by a conservative Republican governor — methodically eviscerates one argument after another that for decades has been used to keep marriage the sole preserve of straight couples. "This class of people asks a simple and direct question: How can a state premised on the constitutional principle of equal protection justify exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage?" Justice Mark S. Cady asked. The answer? It can't.

While the Court certainly addressed core constitutional principles and equal protection analysis through strict scrutiny, (the Iowa decision cited the California case eight times and borrowed its reasoning again and again) it did something the California court did not do. Iowa went the extra mile and set aside a rebuke in their opinion to the Christian fundamentalists directly:

“State government can have no religious views, either directly or indirectly, expressed through its legislation. This proposition is the essence of the separation of church and state. As a result, civil marriage must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrines or the religious views of individuals. This approach does not disrespect or denigrate the religious views of many Iowans who may strongly believe in marriage as a dual-gender union, but considers, as we must, only the constitutional rights of all people, as expressed by the promise of equal protection for all.” [page 66]

As the United States Supreme Court did in Lawrence v. Texas, its seminal 2003 ruling striking down sodomy laws, the Iowa court said that mere moral opprobrium or deeply held values are not enough to warrant legal sanctions or the denial of legal rights.

After Proposition 8 was passed, my brothers and sisters in California were despondent. This courageous and learned Iowa Court keeps us buoyant. Last year's ruling by the California Supreme Court issued a broad new justification for gay marriage — the Republican-dominated court declared forcefully that California may not discriminate against gays in any way, giving the ruling more legal force and sweep than any decision of its kind ever has. Thousands of couples flocked to clerk's offices to be wed. But months later, in November, however, that jubilation turned sour, when Californians voted to change the constitution to forbid gay marriage.

We here in California certainly know how Christian, and particularly, Mormon fundamentalists, can strategize and organize successfully – even if it is just on a singular issue, in their never-ending quest to make America a total theocratic Christendom while lying, cheating, and obfuscating any issue to get to that goal.

Remember in 2004, with a generous wink wink from the Rove Administration, many activists mocked the Judiciary in general, and the Massachusetts Supreme Court in particular, when Mass. ruled that the state had no legislative rationale to exclude gays from civil marriage. Denigration of local, state, and federal judges by Conservatives who didn’t toe their line were quickly called “activist judges” and it soon became the political trend. It was another shameful practice started by Bush bullies to demonize gays through the courts, in order to galvanize political support by among perhaps the dumbest segment of the electorate – “cultural conservatives,” and too many in the evangelical movement. All along, these judges who did not side with cultural conservatives because they judiciously analyzed constitutional or human fairness issues in deciding cases – were publicly stoned.

So it is refreshing that the Iowa court, in its intellectual affirmation for civility and fairness, said enough is enough.

But how do we stand in Iowa post April 4. Iowan gays and lesbians can breathe easier because unlike California, the process of a constitutional amendment process is a lengthy one — the constitution can't be amended by a simple vote of the people. Both houses of the legislature must approve it, and most legal experts agree that the process could be put before voters no sooner than 2012. But as it stands the political support in the legislature is weak, at least for now.

Unfortunately, we know too well how Christian zealots work. Bur at least Iowa jurists told them in no short order, theocrats need not apply.

AIG: How We Nationalized A Mess!

I would suggest that about 90% of the United States population really do not understand how we came to the latest brouhaha involving bonus payments, myself included. The facts are complex and honestly, uninteresting. But the genesis of the situation should be more alarming than the $130 Million in potential bonus payments. The whole process has been dysfunctional, and not only from the strict business minds of AIG executives, but from the President, the Congress, the Executive Branch, etc.

Since the first bailout package, the taxpayers have given AIG about $173 Billion, including an $85 Billion dollar Treasury credit line that since September was/is used to bailout NOT only AIG immediate liabilities , but also, a few entities such as: Goldman Sachs ($13 Bil), Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, Calyon, Barclays Plc, Rabobank, Danske, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lloyds Banking Group. Yes, American school teachers, paralegals and factory workers through their tax dollars, are now financing off-shore international financiers - apparently to cover AIG's negligent investments.

AIG insured the mortgage-back securities that the aforementioned banks invested in. Instead of filing a Chapter 11, which would have caused devastation apparently to their policy holders and an adverse effect on the already depleted economy according to AIG; the only recovery conduit would be from the United States Treasury, again, as posited from AIG. Whether this claim holds any credence is debatable and debated haphazardly by Congress when the first Bush package was put together.
Additionally, forget the fact that U.S. regulators failed to neither recognize nor manage AIG's risk undertaken by the sub-prime market - how obviously negligent such a risk would be to the company and the economy should have been foreseeable.

What is potential worse if I may posit, is how the Feds continual hiding the ball how the bailout money should be managed and spent is simply appalling. "That we find ourselves in this situation at all is ... quite frankly, sickening," said Senator Christopher Dodd, the Democrat who chairs the committee. "The lack of transparency and accountability in this process has been rather stunning." So the Feds gave AIG, in the absence of Chapter 11, a carte blanche to spend as it wished. This is how we came to the current news of the day. You give a company a billion dollars and as soon as it is delivered, they forget where the money comes from and goes right into their continued negligent business practices - without any regard to public relations or whose money the new capital belongs to. Look how one piece of the bailout money went to Chrysler, and as soon as the check cleared, were buying a full page Wall Street Journal Ads thanking the taxpayers for the support.

Personally, I don't want a 'thank-you', I want better management of the money and the business plan. Same goes to AIG.

Because AIG executives do not think like mom and pop, with trying to do more with less, essentially their business bureacratic mind says honor thy contracts first, regardless who supplied the cash flow. These employment retention contracts which would offer bonuses to "talented" managers, no matter how egregious and potentially out of step the bonus offering was, remains a valid contract. Now Senator Arlen Specter says that these contracts would be illegal and asserted the common affirmative defense that enforcing such a contract would be illegal, against public policy. I am not too sure if he is correct, depending when these contracts were executed. Also, Senator Dodd/Schumer's legislation to put a 90% tax rate on the benefits of these contracts is potentially unconstitutional aside from the fact it is a silly response to an issue that has exposed the negligent role the Congress has played out in this whole debacle so the Democratic bailout buddies are running for cover, or are they?

And so, the latest point as of 2:08 pm is that the Washington crowd wants to focus on these bonuses because it aims the public anger at AIG or private interests, and not the political class. But you ought to know, the political class is what really started this mess with bailing out a company that should have, or perhaps could have, filed Chapter 11 (similar to Lehman Bros.) and by the way, if they had done so, there is not one Trustee or Bankruptcy Court which would have honored the $130 million in bonus contracts. The Feds giving out money without attachments and oversight is completely disturbing to me, a result nothing short of nationalizing a company almost worth junk bonds and throwing money off a balcony.

So there you have it. If I am incorrect in my assessment I would appreciate hearing from you.

Kill The Lawyers?

"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.

Well, kill the lawyers? Literally? You decide.

Nina Olsen
v.
Ritea; Kinko's FedEx; Dennys; McDonalds; Starbucks

Filed 3/3/2009 BC408750 Los Angeles Superior Court

This is a handwritten complaint and very difficult to read. It appears to be for property damage and/or attempted murder and asks for $200 billion. Pro per

Megan Hauserman
v.
Sharon Osbourne

Filed 3/2/2009 BC408730 Los Angeles Superior Court

Battery; negligence; infliction of emotional distress. Defendant allegedly "touched" plaintiff in an offensive manner while she was a guest on the VHI series "Rock of Love Charm School." Osbourne was the "headmistress" on the show for 14 women, teaching them etiquette and fashion. Defendant hit plaintiff, pulled her hair out of her head, and scratched her during a series reunion show that aired Jan 9.

Dave S. Perry
v.
VH Property Corp. dba Trump National Golf Club

Filed 3/5/2009 BC408999 Los Angeles Superior Court

Class action for Labor Code violations. The named plaintiff also claims he was fire for exercising his right under the Labor Code to take a meal period. "In short, Trump fired Perry because he went to lunch."

Here's Pepe Romero with Recurdos de la Alhambra