by Sandi Behrns
Mel Distel, a volunteer for Equality California, a nonprofit working for legal protection of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered, arrived at the organization’s Orange County office Thursday evening to find a noose hanging from the door. That, in and of itself would be jarring enough, but Ms. Distel also had to deal with the Santa Ana police department.
Writing on EQCA’s Facebook page, Distel says the male officer said there was nothing the police could do without a suspect and that no crime had been committed. In fact, he said, “what it is, is a string on a door.” Distel, incredulous, asked if the officers did not see a correlation between the fact that this is a gay office and a noose was left on the door in the wake of a spate of teen suicides. The officer’s unbelievable response?
“Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim.”
He then went on to say that he has had his own car broken into before; as if there is equivalency between a car break-in and a noose sending a message that gays should just go ahead and kill themselves. As the Liberal OC reports, under California law, a case could be made that this indeed constitutes a hate crime.
This evening, the Executive Director of Equality California, Geoff Kors, released a statement demanding that the Santa Ana Police Department investigate both the possible hate crime and the officers’ inadequate response.
This is an outrageous, despicable attempt to intimidate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community just a few days before the election, but we will not be silenced. We will strengthen our fight to elect pro-equality candidates who champion full equality for our entire community and who shun anti-LGBT initiatives that foster discrimination and prejudice….
We urge all Orange County residents to join us in demanding that Santa Ana Chief of Police Paul Walters conduct a thorough investigation into what appears to be an atrocious hate crime, to investigate and discipline the officer in question and to ensure that all officers are properly trained on how to appropriately handle all bias-motivated crimes against LGBT community members moving forward.
The organization will be filing an official complaint with the police division. The story has received a good deal of attention state-wide, so here’s hoping Chief Walters swiftly takes action.
Conservatives attacked Nancy Pelosi for saying about the health care bill, “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Will they give Sharron Angle a pass for telling reporter Nathan Baca that she has to be elected before she’ll answer policy questions?
We’ve tried to go to her public events and ask, but she won’t answer. We’ve tried to call and email her campaign, but they won’t answer. Now, we’re finding her at the airport, still trying to get answers.
“I think when it comes to major policy…
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 6 Comments »
This is the question Andrew Malcolm is asking in the Los Angeles Times. Almost all Democrats are behind in statewide races…
……including governor (incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland vs Republican ex-Rep. John Kasich , who’s had numerous GOP heavyweights pitch in including Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour) and senator (the GOP’s ex-Rep. Rob Portman, who’s dominating Lieut. Gov. Lee Fisher for George Voinivich’s open seat). (As for Ohio’s import, Republicans have not won the presidency without the state in 102 years.)
A private poll commissioned by the conservative Weekly Standards has Kucinich ahead…
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 1 Comment »
This was created by the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Campaign Assistance Fund.
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 10 Comments »
by Sandi Behrns
For the last few weeks, there has been a right-wing whisper campaign in Arizona disseminating the false idea that illegal immigrants are being organized to steal the election for Democrats. This week, GOP candidate for AZ-8, Jesse Kelley, went so far as to publicly claim that:
They literally bus people across from Mexico to have them vote at the polls on Election Day, give them a meal and then bus them back.
This is, of course, an old urban legend with absolutely no basis in reality. Still, it serves the right-wing purpose of…
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Posted in Liberaland by Sandi Behrns
October 29, 2010 • 7 Comments »
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker’s campaign ad compares U. S. District Judge Virginia Phillips to Al-Qaeda. (via Think Progress).
Recently, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ordered a worldwide injunction to overturn the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals serving in the military. With a stroke of a pen, this Clinton appointed judge—who got her law degree at Berkeley—unilaterally made the biggest single change in military policy in American history. . . . Most people believe that Al-Qaeda is one of America’s biggest security threats, I think it’s time to add liberal activist judges like Judge…
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 1 Comment »
• Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who implied that gay marriage could lead to children being “raised in warehouses,” defends his controversial claim.
• Is there a “Liberal Gene“? UC San Diego Genetics Professor James H. Fowler explains the results of his fascinating new study.
• “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg tells Alan why he supports the biggest leak of classified information in US history: The WikiLeaks release of 400,000 Iraq war documents.
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Posted in Radio Show by Joel
October 29, 2010 • 11 Comments »
Speaking at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, former House Speaker and seeming presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich accused President Obama of having “a secular socialist philosophy profoundly in conflict with the heart of the American system.” But that was just a warm-up, compared to comparing us to communist Poland.
“The Soviet Polish dictatorship was repressive,” Gingrich said, according to prepared remarks given to us by Gingrich’s office. “Imagine a country where you could not pray in school — the government was constantly tearing down crosses — in classrooms and newsrooms it was easier to be an…
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 36 Comments »
By Sally Kohn
Sally is Founder and Chief Education Officer of the Movement Vision Lab, a grassroots popular education organization.
In case you were harboring any lingering doubts about extreme racist elements within the Tea Party, the Tea Party Express endorsement of Congressman Tom Tancredo, Constitution Party candidate for Governor of Colorado, might ease those doubts.
This is the same Tom Tancredo who, during a Tea Party convention speech, said “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.” Evoking…
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Posted in Liberaland by Alan
October 29, 2010 • 5 Comments »
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