by Lisa Leff | Associated Press

A group of lawmakers wants to give gay servicemembers the ability to testify before Congress without fearing they’ll be discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

A bill that would grant immunity from the policy was introduced in the House on Wednesday. It would prohibit retaliatory personnel actions against those who reveal their sexual orientations during congressional hearings.

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NCLR has been on the front lines, fighting for an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for years. We’ve proudly worked side by side with civil rights organizations, grassroots activists, and committed individuals like you who have called Congress to put the pressure on to ensure workplace equality. We are so close to making ENDA law, but we must continue the fight to make it so. We must keep our momentum going and continue to demand results from our elected officials.

Call your elected officials at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to step up. No more delays! Our community can’t afford to wait on workplace equality. If you’ve already called, call again. Demand answers and demand action!

We all must push to pass ENDA. Please make sure your friends and family know that the unfair practice of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is still legal in most of the country. Let them know that they can help make sure that it stops. Urge them to call their representatives and senators.

It’s time that we all stand up for the rights we deserve and the equality we need. Please call today.

In Solidarity,

crossposted from the Bilerico Project

This is from Mara Keisling, Exec Director, National Center for Transgender Equality; Kate Kendell, Exec Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights; Jody Huckaby, Exec Director, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National; Michael Mitchell, Exec Director, Stonewall Democrats; Selisse Berry, Exec Director, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates; and Rea Carey, Exec Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Because the Employment Non Discrimination Act is desperately needed by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to combat employment discrimination and is also ripe legislatively, our organizations call on the members of the House Committee on Education and Labor and Congress to take immediate action and pass ENDA without further delay.

Passing a bill of far reaching impact such as ENDA requires considerable labor. Written in large part almost fifteen years ago, with even older roots, tens of thousands of people and organizations have formed and advocated for ENDA. Simply from the perspective of LGBT organizations, our lawyers have helped craft language, our field staff members have mobilized supporters, our communications teams have told our stories, and our lobbyists have logged countless thousands of hours on Capitol Hill and in coalition meetings.

Outside of Washington DC, state, local and some national organizations have worked hard to move ENDA and secure employment protections. They have passed state and local laws, developed relationships with their members of Congress, and leveraged those relationships to educate Congress and push for passage of ENDA. Many individual activists and allies have undertaken considerable time and effort to meet with members of Congress and press for their support.

So many people have worked so hard. All the while, though, people across our country wait, desperate to keep the jobs they have and to work in the jobs they seek. They are the ones who matter and they are the ones who cannot afford to wait if they are to overcome discrimination and have the jobs that they need to feed their families, pay the rent, and contribute to their communities. They need to know that they can get work and keep it without being fired for who they are. They cannot wait any longer nor should they have to.

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Due to years of hard work by the National Right to Life Committee, seniors eligible for Medicare are currently free to purchase alternative insurance plans that are less likely to deny life-saving treatments.  [These are policies offered under the Medicare Advantage program-- as distinct from the supplemental "Medigap" policies.]

But new provisions slipped in the House and Senate health care bills would allow HHS head Kathleen Sebelius to prohibit such private alternatives, while at the same time cutting $500 billion from Medicare that will clearly result in rationed care.

This is a one-two punch: under the new health reforms, Medicare could offer less life-saving treatments yet it will be illegal for individuals to use their own money to purchase protective private insurance!

The Washington Times’ recently editorialized that the President is engaging in “demagoguery and distortion”:

In his Sept. 9 address to Congress, Mr. Obama promised that if people liked their Medicare and Medicaid coverage, “nothing” will “change the coverage or the doctor you have” and “the only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud.”

The editorial then pointed out that the government agency in charge of Medicare and Medicaid won’t support the president’s claims that the $500 billion in cuts can be harmlessly offset by reductions in inefficiencies.

Thankfully, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts voiced opposition to these cuts during debate yesterday

ACTION ITEM: Please thank Sen. Roberts and ask him, and  Sen. Sam Brownback to remove Section 3209 from the Senate health reform bill, so that individuals can remain free to buy their own protective insurance.

The U.S. Senate has reconvened to debate their huge health reform bill, a proposal that grants Obama’s  Health & Human Services head, Kathleen Sebelius, almost unfathomable power.

The Washington Examiner reports that Sebelius will be given the authority to create, determine or define 1,697 things in the bill, including: who can enroll in insurance plans and at what cost, how much abortion coverage the government will provide, and “best practices” and cost-saving cuts in Medicare and Medicaid to be made without Congressional approval.

Remember– not only is this power grab arguably unconstitutional, it is being handed over to former Kansas Governor Sebelius, who is known for her dishonesty.   Not only did she underpay her taxes, Sebelius:

• lied to Kansas Catholics, during both gubernatorial campaigns, that she was pro-life;
• lied to the public that the state had not paid for her April 2007 lavish dinner with the entire staff of the late George Tiller’s abortion clinic;
• lied to the U.S. Senate, during her HHS confirmation, about the true amount of abortionist campaign contributions.

“It’s a huge amount of power being shifted to HHS, and much of it is highly discretionary,” said Edmund Haislmaier, a Heritage Foundation expert in health care policy.   “HHS doesn’t have any experience with this,” Haislmaier said.  “I’m looking at the potential for this whole thing to just blow up.”

The health care reform legislation would rely on recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which last week drew sharp criticism for advising that mammograms should begin at age 50, a decade later than the current standard.

According to Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, the cap and trade legislation is dead. He believes the recent email scandal has ended the chances for cap and trade to pass in the Senate. He made this bold statement before even more bad news came for cap and trade proponents: the original data used in the global warming studies have been thrown away, so there is no longer a source to validate with.

Sen. Inhofe

While I would love to agree with Sen. Inhofe, I still think the legislation is very much a threat. The IPCC has already responded by saying there is ‘virtually no possibility’ of a few scientists biasing IPCC’s advice.

My gut instinct tells me that the global warming community will be extremely defensive of their work. As evident by the leaked emails, global warming scientists have no problem excluding conflicting data and manipulating data to show increases in temperature that do not exist. Since their plan to ignore scientists with differing views has been exposed, their next tactic is to try and publicly discredit them.

As no suprise, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, does not want an investigation into the contents of the leaked emails, as it “would achieve little”. Pachauri did, however, express his desire for a criminal investigation into how the emails were obtained.

Why Modify Data and Push for Climate Legislation?

There is no doubt that most of the scientists whom have contributed to the IPCC report are sincere and honest. The problem arises, however, that many of their contributions relied on data that Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia provided (which is now known to be biased, based on his leaked emails). The same university has also thrown away the raw data which Jones’ work was based on.

This is a mute point, however. While the scientists may be sincere, the politicians in control are not. Those with power couldn’t care less if the data is valid or not; it’s merely the perception of a crisis that matters. In times of crisis, governments expand and powers grow.

Who would stand to benefit from cap and trade legislation? First off, corporations already in the loop. GE would stand to make billions in profit from “green” initiatives. Not only are they the largest wind turbine generator maker, they are going to profit heavily from the cap and trade credits as possibly the sole “secondary market” trader of these credits. So naturally, their lobbyists are hard at work to pass cap and trade.

Secondly, and more importantly, the government stands to gain more power. And while some people may not view this as a bad thing, it truly is a scary thought. If you watch the video below, you’ll realize that cap and trade is the least effective way to counter global warming. So then why the push to pass it? Power.

Government officials, in their ever persistent struggle for more power, wish to enact legislation that allows them more control over their citizens. In the US, “cap and trade” is that legislation. On the global scale, the United Nations wishes to impose those sanctions and controls on a worldwide scale via the COP15. One way to increase a people’s dependence on government is to limit their production of goods and ability to work, which these measures would do.

So, unfortunately, while the scientific data may be under scrutiny since the emails were leaked, governments’ desire for more power is still strong. And since the driving force behind cap and trade from the beginning was government power and corporate profits, not science, this legislation is still very much a threat.

by Michael A. Lindenberger | TIME Magazine

Obama Administration lawyers are likely still scratching their heads over how to respond to an extraordinary ruling in San Francisco. Last week, the chief judge of one of America’s most prominent federal courts ordered an Executive Branch agency to stop interfering with a court employee’s efforts to secure health insurance coverage for her wife.

“The Office of Personnel Management shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal,” wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. He gave the Administration 30 days to permit Karen Golinski, a lawyer employed by the Ninth Circuit, to include the woman she married under California law last year on her family health-insurance plan. “Some branch must have the final say on a law’s meaning. At least as to laws governing judicial employees, that is entirely our duty and our province. We would not be a co-equal branch of government otherwise.

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by Joe Davidson | Washington Post

Two federal appellate court judges issued separate rulings last week that came to the same result: Uncle Sam must permit employee benefits for same-sex spouses of federal workers.

Though the decisions apply only to same-gender married employees of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and that’s a pretty small group even in California, the judges’ orders boost the arguments of those favoring legislation that Congress now is considering.

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Letter to the Editor by Ian Albright | Merced Sun Star

The United States was founded on the idea that all human beings are created equal and should be treated so in the eyes of the law. And although we as a nation have not always lived up to this magnificent ideal in practice, we have also made numerous great strides to rise above our past shortcomings in an attempt to better fulfill the promise of equality for all, a task with which we all have been entrusted. This task requires that we confront discrimination in all of its forms.

Currently, in 29 states it is still legal to fire someone solely because he or she is lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Additionally, in 38 states it is currently legal to fire someone solely for being transgender. Firing someone solely for his or her sexual orientation or gender identity is clearly discriminatory and must be confronted and ended.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that is currently being considered by Congress would do just that. In the same way that current laws protect individuals from being judged in the workplace based upon their gender, race, religious beliefs, etc., ENDA would ensure that individuals are judged based upon their performance and not on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

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"The Scream" by Edvard Munch, 1893

Bioethicist Wesley Smith analyzes this situation:

“A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time. Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them – but could make no sound.

I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to be aware of everything and not to be able to respond.  When I was instructing nursing students, I used to stress to them to always speak to patients  (like this man) as if they could fully hear and understand them, because we just don’t know what a person experiences.   But there are many voices these days getting louder with pressures to kill persons like this under the guise of “cost containment.”  Scary…

KFL Note: The Center for Practical Bio-ethics has been pushing for legislation, in Kansas and in “Obamacare” proposals, that will result in more pre-signed directives to withhold food and water for medical situations when individuals have limited consciousness.

Public support is rapidly sinking for an obscenely anti-life Senate health care bill supported by the Obama administration.  Lifenews.com reports today on a poll, from the reliable Rasmussen group, that 56 % of the public now oppose the bill– the lowest level of support in nearly two dozen tracking polls since June.

The measure passed a crucial procedural vote Saturday night with the support of self-professed pro-life Democrat Senators.

Kansas legislators from both parties (particularly in the Senate with their long 6-year tenure) have often played this game–  campaigning as pro-life, but after election, acting as if pro-life is just a preference, not a priority.  These pro-life pretenders fail to aggressively offer life-protecting measures, instead, focusing on personal ambition, upcoming committee appointments, and big donor interests.  When citizens beg these pretenders to take leadership and push a decisive measure to a vote, they swing like a weather vane, mumbling about “respecting the process” and “not being obstructionists.”

Such were the ramblings from certain U.S. Senators last week, lamented Concerned Women for America’s president Wendy Wright,  who were

“…under pressure to stop the health care procedural vote on a bill that will fund abortion, ration health care, prompt doctors to leave the profession and cause millions of Americans to lose their health coverage… [some ] tried to have it both ways, [saying] they opposed the bill yet at the most crucial time when only one Democrat senator could have changed or killed the bill, they supported it.”

The top priority for the pro-life movement  is now stopping the bill’s massive abortion funding through the public option and the affordability credits.

As has been the case for months, Democrats favor the plan.   The latest Rassmussen poll numbers show support from 73% of Democrats, with opposition by 83% of Republicans and 70% of unaffiliated voters.

The Senate bill passed on a strict party line vote, with the minimum 60 votes  coming from the Democrats, including eight Democrats who supported a recent pro-life  amendment to stop abortion funding through the Indian Health Care Improvement Act: Evan Bayh (IN), Robert Byrd (WV), Robert Casey (PA), Tim Johnson (SD), Mary Landrieu (LA), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR) and Harry Reid (NV).”

by Roxana Tiron | The Hill

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) signaled that the much-anticipated hearings examining the possible repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will likely happen next year.

Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has always opposed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and had hoped to hold a hearing in November, but this month appears out of question and December appears unlikely.

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Senator John Kerry recently introduced “The Small Business Health Information Technology Financing Act of 2009″, a piece of legislation aimed at aiding family doctors switch to electronic medical records. The Act would make family doctors and other small medical practices eligible for Small Business Administration loans that would cover the costly transition from paper to digital health records. As a senior member of the Finance Committee and former Chairman of the Small Business Committee, Kerry is committed to helping President Obama achieve his goal of digitizing all  American health records  by 2014.

“Electronic medical records and prescriptions are the common sense solution to restricting costs, reducing errors, and reforming a broken system,  Kerry said. “Doctors don’t need convincing — they’ve seen the results.  This legislation helps small practices acquire the technology that will allow them to be more efficient and to focus on patient care.”

Kerry is not a newcomer  to healthcare technology legislation; in 2007 he introduced the Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection  Act of 2007, which required physicians to employ electronic prescription technology.

Yesterday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a committee vote on the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act (DPBO), legislation that would provide equal benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. The committee passed DPBO at 23-12, an important step in securing federal protections for the LGBT community. We must secure this victory and work to pass other crucial pieces of legislation pending in Congress.

DPBO moves to the House floor for consideration, and it’s up to us to make sure that it passes and protects the thousands of devoted, hard-working LGBT government employees.

Equal work demands equal compensation. We must speak up and remind Congress about this basic principle of fairness, to ensure that the domestic partners of government employees are able to receive their partners’ benefits, including health insurance and access to pensions.

Please take a minute and call your representative at (202) 224-3121. We must make sure that a House vote on DPBO will happen soon and that our representatives support DPBO. We need to stand together as a community and urge our representatives to fight for the rights of the domestic partners of federal employees.

President Obama is ready to sign DPBO into law but we need to make sure that it passes in Congress. Call your representative today and ask them to vote for equality and fairness. Ask them to pass the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act.

In Solidarity,

By Joe Davidson | Washington Post

The effort to expand domestic benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees took another step forward Wednesday when a House committee advanced legislation to do just that.

After sometimes heated debate, the 23 to 12 vote in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee broke down along party lines, with the victorious Democrats arguing that the measure is a matter of fairness and equality. Republicans opposed it because, among other things, they said it would undermine the concept that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

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read President Obama’s statement on the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act

by Kerry Eleveld | The Advocate

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday voted 23-12 to pass the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, which would extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal government workers.

The bill is now likely to move to a full House floor vote, which many anticipate could take place before the end of the year.

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We move closer to a House vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and Congressmembers still need to hear from their constituents—they need to to get those critical calls and emails from people back home.

Today is the day we need to flood Capitol Hill with our calls and our emails. Let’s make this the day when thousands tell Congress: no more delays, we need ENDA now!

Join the National Call-In Day for Equality and make a statement. Email Congress right now and then give them a call at (202) 224-3121.

Make sure your friends and family members who support equality call too! Congress needs to hear from all of us. They need to know how urgent the need is for ENDA and how important it is to LGBT people and all those who care about equality.

Today we speak with one loud voice, demanding an end to employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and standing up for jobs and the right to provide for ourselves and our families. Today we put the pressure on, and let Congress know that we are a force to be reckoned with!

Burn up the phone lines to Congress, tell them ENDA is next, ENDA is NOW!

In Solidarity,

from Think Progress

Last week, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) revealed the legislative timeline for a repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. “Military issues are always done as part of the overall authorization bill,” Frank told the Advocate. “’Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was always going to be part of the military authorization.”

Now, the movement to repeal the ban on gay men and women from serving openly in the military has gained even more momentum. Three former military chaplains are announcing today that they support a full repeal of the DADT.

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