What is most important about this update, and what continues to amaze me is this: I received the names of 27 soldiers this week that wanted beanies or could use a care package or a letter from home. I put out a shout out with that fact on Facebook, and enough people stepped forward that there was a care package heading out to each of those names...in 2 hours' time. Cookies and letters were mailed that same day!
I have always told the soldiers on our mailing list that people here want to do something to help out, and that all we need is a little direction: A name, an address will usually do it. I will be proud to be able to send them yet another letter telling them about the great 2-hour accomplishment, and that "we mean it, now! Give us your name and tell us what you need!"
There are soldiers out there busting their asses in desert heat, missing their families, and checking empty mailboxes.
We can't have that.
I have names. I have addresses. I have suggestions.
An interesting live-blog of the protests thus far available here. Today's live blog only here.
Updated on Sunday, June 28, 2009 with a new link for the daily liveblogging on Iran. The one I used before tried to load way too much at once and seemed to be causing problems. The new link, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/iran-liveblogging, allows people to click on any specific day including today's post.
Really amazing look at some of the internet pathways the Iranians are using to get information out to the outside world amidst the government clampdown on information:
Here's a geographic visualization of the proxies, drawn in Google Earth. In the first one, we've drawn Iran in green, with some of their domestic network sketched in white, and their major international connections drawn in red. Each of the colored arcs represents a single open web proxy; they are "fountaining" out of a cable landing or Internet traffic exchange point that makes approximate sense for their Iranian Internet routing. For example, all of the web proxies in Europe are drawn from the Marseilles termination of the Sea-Me-We-4 cable. The web proxies in Turkey are drawn in light blue, radiating from Ankara, where the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline passes through on its way from Bazargan. Those unusual Iranian proxies emerge from Tehran, and so forth.
If we rotate the globe, you can see how the countries of Asia are doing their part to keep the bits flowing in Iran. India, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan are all visible sources of web proxy activity.
I'd like to be able to say that these maps are a measure of the strength of the democratic impulse and volunteer spirit in all the countries of the world. But that might be a stretch. You see, looked at another way, an open proxy is a security hole, something you might find in a machine that's been compromised, or at the very least, badly administered. Security purists think of them as the "unlocked gun cabinet" of the Internet — a resource for anyone who wants to abuse a website, commit fraud, cover their tracks.
They had a more global map that shows the large role US proxies are playing in getting around the censors:
Got the best kind of confirmation on the matter today as I was checking my bank balance and saw the latest direct deposit for the $250 Recovery Act/Stimulus payments for eligible veterans.
I had seen some comments on other threads from Saturday with folks stating they had just received theirs but not by anyone I could personally confirm with or personally knew.
If you haven't received your payment yet and you were notified that you were eligible by the VA, the deadline remains June 30th, but I'd stay on the look out for the direct deposit or check in the mail (depending on how you normally receive your VA checks) this week. As far as I know everyone who has called to inquire about the checks has been given the same routine as the letter and told that they need to wait until July 10th without receiving payment to inquire as to what went wrong. If you have that kind of patience, great, but be prepared to get brushed off until then if you do call.
Previous post with further information on the questions raised by vets on when exactly these payments were going out (many of whom are hitting hard financial times just as many Americans are lately) is available here: Veterans Checks by June 30th?
Both articles below are worth the full read, imo, especially for those who are still weighing their own views on the matter and debating what may result if the movement fails and we did too little, or if doing too much dooms it to failure.
The first is from BBC News and takes a more favorable view of Obama's caution:
Despite some debate within the administration and vocal criticism of President Obama by Republicans accusing him of being weak for failing to taking a strong moral stand, there is generally a sense the White House has chosen the right tone so far - one it has carefully developed based on close consultations with Iran experts, inside and outside the administration.
The challenge has been threefold:
keeping faith with the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have taken to the streets without undermining their credibility in a country where the US is routinely called the "great Satan"
condemning the violence used to quell the protesters without cutting off all chances of talks with Iran should the current leadership remain in power
maintaining a cautious tone in referring to the protesters without ending up on the wrong side of history should the opposition emerge on top at the end of the struggle
The measured approach and offer of talks, which was repeated this week, may have also been highly unnerving for Iran's hardliners, who are more used to hostility from the West and whose positions were solidified during the Bush administration, which included Iran in the "axis of evil".
"In offering negotiation and conciliation, [President Obama] has put the region's extremists on the defensive," wrote Senator John Kerry in the New York Times on Thursday.
The article went on to give Obama partial credit for the creation of a situation where the Iranian people had a stronger opportunity to unite against the regime:
Authoritarian regimes often use outside threats, real or perceived, to rally their people around and silence internal dissent.
President Ahmadinejad's core appeal as the man defending Iran and standing up to the West was suddenly undermined by Washington's repeated calls for dialogue and gestures such as President Obama's message for Iranian New Year and invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend 4 July celebrations held by US embassies around the world.
''Whereas the Bush administration united Iran's disparate political factions against a common threat, Obama's overtures have accentuated the deep divisions and incongruities among Iran's political elites,'' said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But how will the Khomeinist “war room” break up the uprising? What is their plan?
One would assume that after a thorough review of the real opposing forces on the ground, and after having secured what they believe is a solid allegiance by the Pasdaran and Bassij commanders along with assurances they may have obtained that Iran’s armed forces will remain distant from the crackdown, the regime will proceed in several directions:
- Put pressure on Musavi and the leading reformer figures such as Rafsanjani and Khatemi
-Deploying the militias and security forces across the capital and in other cities
- Taking back Tehran block after block while trying to avoid an international media backlash
- Arrest and neutralize student and civil society leaders; and at the same time, insure that Western Government, particularly the United States would remain distant from “meddling in Iran’s business.”
...
But is it true that a strong U.S. position in favor of the Iranian democracy movement would create a backlash against America? The reality is that those who are advancing this argument are in fact trying to shield the Iranian regime in the West. The Khomeinist propaganda machine is unleashing all doubts possible about international support to the demonstrators. In fact, the tipping point against the ayatollahs’s militias is precisely a world outcry in defense of the uprising. Presently there are no neutral Iranians who could be irritated by American or Western verbal support to democracy in Iran. The argument is inserted in the debate to confuse the public and mollify outside solidarity. What can shift the ground against the oppressive Pasdaran is precisely this, if a wide majority of Iranians feel the international community is, at least morally, on their side.
As for myself, I personally feel that both views have at least some validity but without a better understanding of the variables at hand (made nearly impossible with the media clamp down) it's difficult to say which is the most accurate gauge of the situation and thus recommends the wiser approach.
Amid the hundreds of images and videos of Saturday's brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran that flooded the Internet, it was the graphic video showing the death of a young woman that touched a nerve among those following the events in Tehran for more than a week.
Like most of the information coming out of Tehran, it is impossible to verify her name, Neda, or the circumstances of her apparent death, captured close-up on a bystander's camera.
CNN ran a pixilated version of the video, which was posted on YouTube. It shows a woman in jeans and white sneakers collapsed on the street, as the person with the camera -- most likely from a cell phone -- runs toward her and focuses on her face.
One blogger posted that Neda was protesting with her father in Tehran when pro-government Basiji militia opened fire and shot her in the heart.
I believe this youtube video is the one the CNN article is referring to. Warning shouldn't be necessary here, but this video appears to show the tragic death of a young woman shot through the heart. If you don't think you can stomach that, don't click it.
Though it may be impossible to confirm this story in the near future given the chaos and media restrictions right now, it appears that, at least for now, this young woman will have become a martyr for the dissident's cause regardless. Even small steps towards freedom, such as demanding more influence in one's own governance, is not without its casualties... especially against tyrannical regimes. It's never easy to bear though.
One of the big complaints by the GOP right now are deficits. Which has been matched with complaints right back from Democrats about their own deficit spending and hypocrisy:
Of course the tables have turned and now it's the Democrats doing even more annual deficit spending than they were complaining about in the years before. So to make a slightly more comprehensive political cartoon on the subject, I shamelessly photochopped the above one with another one:
I'm still not ready to comment either way on the Iranian election protests. I support the inalienable right of all people for self-government, but I'm still on the fence as to whether Obama is being reasonably cautious or overly cautious in keeping our official tone low key on the subject. I've been endlessly frustrated with the arguments that too strong of a showing of support will undermine the movement there and perhaps even result in a swift and brutal crushing by the regime. Not because those arguments aren't without merit, but because it's quite possible that they're right.
Regardless of the official US stance though I believe the American people should stand in solidarity with Iranians who want something closer to self-government, a concept that exists at the very foundation of our national heritage.
As for Obama? I certainly don't envy this part of his job.
While there's still no new news that I've seen on Recovery Act checks for veterans beyond the latest June 30th deadline, another interesting VA item popped up into the news recently. From VA Watchdog.org:
In January of 2003, to save money, then VA Secretary Anthony J. Principi ordered his agency to stop enrolling Priority Group 8 veterans. These are veterans with no service-connected disabilities and whose income / assets is above certain geographic thresholds. Official VA definition is:
Group 8: Veterans with income and/or net worth above the VA national income threshold and the geographic income threshold who agree to pay copays.
Today ( June 15, 2009 ) the rules change.
The income threshold will go up by 10% thus allowing over 250,000 more veterans into the VA health care system. A full explantion is on this VA page.
An example: If your threshold was $28,000, add $2,800 ( 10% ) and the new threshold is $30,800.
NOTE: If you are a Group 8 veteran who has been turned down, don't assume anything. Find out for sure if you qualify. The VA has an enrollment calculator you can use to find out for sure. Go to this VA page, enter all your info, and see if you now qualify.
If I'm running the numbers right through the VA calculator linked above, then this means veterans in our area making roughly less than $35,000 per year or so (not accounting for deductions or other income that may apply) can enroll in the VA system for fairly reasonable co-pays. I'm not sure what the threshold was previously but some quick math based on the increase and new cutoff puts it below $32,000 per year.
More handy information on this was in the above link from the Star-Telegram article on the subject:
The details
Beginning Monday, the VA will increase its income threshold by 10 percent, opening up VA care to an estimated 266,000 more veterans nationwide.
"This gives the veterans a little bit more flexibility in the amount of income they can have," said Chris Sandles, assistant chief of medical administrative services with the VA’s North Texas system.
For example, in the Fort Worth area, including Johnson and Parker counties, an unmarried veteran can now earn up to $39,820 a year and get medical care from the VA.
In Dallas and Denton counties, that same unmarried veteran can now earn up to $40,975 a year. In Hood County, the amount is $38,610. The income threshold goes up as the number of dependents rises.
Veterans who applied for treatment this year and were denied will be automatically enrolled, if they qualify. Veterans denied in past years will have to reapply with more recent income proof.VA officials can only estimate the number of veterans who will now qualify and will seek service this year, but the number they arrived at was 2,200, or about 2 percent growth.
The power to cut off Priority 8 veterans (those veterans without any service-connected disabilities with higher income) has always been a bit controversial since the VA health care system first expanded enrollment to pretty much all veterans back in the 90s. It became a burning topic when that power was employed in 2003 during war-time, as the Clinton era legislation was intended to ensure health care access for lower income vets and those with service connected injuries/ailments. In 2003 the issue went beyond just returning service members from current wars but also the same issue affecting health care programs in general these days: the wave of elderly with rapidly increasing health care needs booming into the rolls.
You'll have some folks argue that veterans have earned access to VA care regardless of income, and others who argue that during a resource crunch like we're facing today we should not jeopardize access for those who truly need it, depend on it, etc by making promises we can't keep so we can include those who can realistically afford their own private health care. One side sees it as a inherent obligation to all vets... the other envisions longer wait times for veterans missing limbs or financially desperate so that some accountant who served a short stint as a desk clerk back in the day can save some money on health insurance.
After the massive spending spree of both Bush and Obama to save the economy from the recession that made the VA budget look like chump change in comparison, many would probably now argue that if we can spend like there are no repercussions for long term gain, why not for veterans? Fully fund it already!
With Obama's promises of finally establishing universal access to health care and his continuance and expansion of the Bush spending sprees, this 10% move seems pretty meager and certainly hard to explain. He's essentially continuing the policy under Bush's VA to block enrollment of some vets that was criticized endlessly over the years, but with a slightly higher cutoff. If the policy was bad and unnecessary why continue it at all? In the context of pushing for universal health care it seems to make even less sense.
Veterans have been thrown a bone. Are they now being expected to roll over?
Previously I posted on the information available on the various government websites, including the one linked above that merely talked generally about June... sometime. Here's a snippet from that:
So far the only definitive information that has come out of all the speculation, rumors, and other comments is that a letter was sent out from the VA saying we should be receiving the checks in June... but the only time frame given beyond that is that if you don't receive anything by JULY 10th, then you should call and ask about it.
The other that appeared definitive has since fizzled. The Treasury noted June 9th as the "planned completion date" for the Veterans payments. A quick glance at the calendar and we can see that the agency charged with actually printing and distributing the money is quickly looking to have missed the target date.
So have they moved the goal posts? Are they getting out on a technicality? Or was that treasury document just not as clear as it should have been? Who knows. Nobody in the media seems interested enough to ask.
So now we wait again to see if they meet the new, or at least finally stated, deadline. And if they don't wait until July 10th for them to prepare for complaints (I'm sure the VA's 800 number phone monkeys are getting their "call back on..." scripts readied for them). Hopefully everything goes as well as it can for this.
It still seems very odd and extremely irritating to have veterans put last in line of these checks and then being left in the dark until the last minute until when exactly they should expect them. Even more odd is the absolute silence on the matter in the news about it for so long.
I guess with everything else with the VA... we'll wait and see. Perhaps the checks become null and void if we're declared dead before they arrive? Lordy...
My last little road trip was a miniature one in comparison to the last couple of road trips I blogged about (those trips here: Southwest Road Trip Compilation and Road Trip of the Confederacy Compilation). But this time I stuck a little closer to home on a more meager budget to hit some of my favorite oddball spots just north of here: The House on the Rock in Southern Wisconsin and Matthiessen State Park in Northern Illinois.
The House on the Rock:
The House on the Rock is, to say the least, a strange place. Part historical oddity and part tourist trap. Wikipedia has the general rundown of the history behind the place, the people behind the place, and the dispute behind how far one should be able to bend the truth to create illusions that spark the imagination.
From a distance, the house appears to be little more than an odd overlook of some sort, pointing out over a valley (click any of the pictures to enlarge):
But after one drives down the winding driveway through a tunnel of trees and gigantic ornaments that appear to derive from some ancient culture of the orient, the place quickly seems to get a bit of an odd vibe.
The house itself is meshed with the rock foundation, with rock forming some of the walls and floors that might remind someone of a science fiction scene where someone teleports into the same space as another object. And it's certainly not friendly to tall people, so watch your head. The show stopper is the infinity room though which is the most visible aspect from the distance:
The idea of course is that the room is supposed to appear to go on forever:
The point of the room, shown below, is essentially an optical illusion using clever spacing:
A window in the floor allows folks to look down at the treetops below where the room extends over the valley:
And when you sneak up to the roof you can see that the view is pretty decent:
The house itself, and especially the rest of the complex, is full of automated music machines that range from individual music boxes (often with real instruments being mechanically played by various apparatuses) or entire rooms:
There are also various collections of "stuff"... usually unusual "stuff"... like old or strangely designed guns:
You can also find suits of armor, galleries of toys, oriental themed art, royal crowns, usually interspersed with some large examples or mockups of entire old shops, locomotives, circus parades, etc. One of the more intriguing collections is of seafaring... from massive models of ships of almost every era and related artifacts, news clippings, and so on... to whales.
This sign means what it says:
After going down a hallway of various depictions of various whales and seeing the beginnings of the seafaring collection, suddenly one finds themselves in a room with a larger than life whale in the middle of it... thrashing as it fights a giant octopus:
It's pretty much impossible for me to get a picture that truly shows how big this thing is since my camera doesn't have any wide angle lens (and it might not help that much even if it did). Some reference points might help though. These birds aren't teeny, and that metal to the left of the frame in this picture below is the walkway on the next story up. And yes, that's just the whale's tail there:
Here's a close up of the squid attacking the whale:
His tentacles can be seen here reaching over the whale's body and fin:
The whale appears annoyed:
But he might just have a french sailor... err... frog in his throat (yes that's a life size boat in his mouth):
And while going up the levels around the whale room, one can check out the various ship models, like this massive one of the titanic that I couldn't quite get all into the frame:
One of the other favorite rooms is the carousel room, which at this point of meandering through the various exhibits, one should probably assume is going to also be a very strange place. One would not be disappointed:
A carousel with no horses? Yup. Almost everything else though:
The thing is almost constantly in motion, with very unusual lighting, so out of my attempts, this was the best picture I got of the thing. The room itself, other than having a massive carousel of strange things spinning around also has angels dangling from the rafters, walls lined with unusual figures and carousel animals... and of course automated music machines, including these massive booming drums (the mannequins seen next to them are life size) :
Here's the Carousel in motion from a youtube someone posted... you can hear the automated drums booming away with the music partway through:
Like I said... strange place. From there if you aren't already feeling a bit disoriented, the next room will certainly help as you follow various paths that seem to cross, criss-cross, go every which way, and might have been inspired by some M.C. Escher concept:
But if you need to relax after that, or the massive carousels of dolls, or any of the other freaky things you encounter, you can have the orchestra play you a tune to relax... automated, of course:
Of course the oddities certainly don't end there either, so you might as well get used to some of your new friends:
It's not all bad. The Japanese Garden area is actually quite pleasant:
Here's a photo-chopped wider view of it:
If you're ever in the Madison, WI area... it's definitely an interesting place to visit.
Political Aside:
While on the road I saw many road projects in action and typically introduced by a sign just like this:
Made me wonder a couple of things. If the typical resentment of having to wait for road construction delays will create a negative association to the ARRA plan and associated policies... and another on a more "bean counter" level: I've seen the full color Recovery.org logo on everything from forms to signs now. Typically such full color stuff costs extra but perhaps the technology is improving enough for it to be an insignificant issue? It's hard to imagine that even an otherwise insignificant cost wouldn't add up with form after form, sign after sign, department of redundancy dept. government we have though.
Also saw more trucks hauling gigantic fan blades down the interstate for windfarms like this one I spotted from a rest stop:
Wind energy seems to be picking up steam in Illlinois. A fairly sizeable windfarm has been going up down the interstate from me for a while and the semi-truck traffic carrying gigantic fan blades was interesting to see becoming a regular occurence.
I'd still like to see more nuclear power as well, but these kind of generators seem fairly reasonable too as part of the solution.
Speaking of nature and the environment... part two of the pictures...
Matthiessen State Park Dells Area:
This spot in Northern Illinois is one of my favorite local area "get away" places, yet I still manage to misspell it every time I try to talk about it. I've always pronounced it "Math'-uh-sun" though I've also heard it pronounced "Matt'-uh-sun" and "Math-eye'-uh-sun." Beats me, perhaps it's none of the above and my midwestern accent will never quite get it right.
It's very near the better known Starved Rock State Park but it's worth the look-see if you've never visited. The State of Illinois has information on how to get there and what you should know about it here: Matthiessen State Park Homepage. One absolute must that seems to be missing or at least under-emphasized though is BUG SPRAY. That should probably be a given for anyone used to dealing with areas around Illinois waters in the warmer months, but just in case, do not forget BUG SPRAY. Skeeters are vicious.
The park is essentially a free stairmaster as well, so make sure any steps you're going down are also ones you're sure you'll be able to make back up. The first steps... the happy view:
The lower dells trail takes you down into the dells that lead out to the Vermillion River one direction, and up the stream towards a really nifty cove the other:
The walls of the dells are covered with various plant life and thankfully a lot of birds who help pick off the bugs. You'll see them swooping here and there fairly regularly:
The cove itself has a little waterfall where the stream drops from the upper dells to the lower dells, a small lake, some little caves you can crawl around in, and on the other side is a massive stone overhang with trees growing right up to the edge way above your head:
This is yet another spot where it is hard to get the size depicted with pictures, though I was able to pull it off fairly well once in this older picture (that's me!):
The little caves are fun to crawl through too, and lead to a unique little spot to view the waterfall:
Various mineral deposits have formed over time, creating some amazing color patterns on the rocks. The "Devil's Paintbox" has several different examples all in the same place:
Not all the bugs are annoying fortunately. This little guy let me get close enough for a close up in spite of the massive amounts of bug spray I had on me:
After that the fumes must have gotten to him though, he became a flutterby.
The upper dells are between Matthiessen Lake and the lower dells with even more to explore. My favorite spot though is the little waterfall near the lake:
The water is extremely shallow and clear here and generally free from sediment, so you're essentially standing on very smooth rock. The mist from the falls is a nice way to cool down after hiking for a while. Sometimes you'll see kids toss their socks and shoes for a while to play under the waterfall. Adults sometimes do the same... or if nobody else is around, sneak a romantic smooch under it.
Hiking back does have its definite downside, though... here are those same steps from the begginning... but from the unhappy view:
After going down into and up out of the dells a few times and the hiking in between, this part can get a wee bit ugly. But at least there are some spots to sit... or at least die comfortably:
I piled the bug spray on thick this time out and am happy to report zero mosquito bites or any other successful bug attack during the venture. Being that it's one of my favorite places near home, it was certainly a happy (though exhausting) birthday activity.
I was going to get this blog done last night, but in between the dishwasher calamity and sheer exhaustion, I was zonked even before the 10 o'clock news. Although I did get in a least a couple sips of my Old Forrester Birthday Bourbon before then.
So apparently not all dish soap is created equal... some is for a dishwasher machine... and some is for washing dishes by hand, but not for the machine:
I thought this kind of crap only happened in the movies. Apparently not. My box of dishwasher soap ran dry and left my soap slots half full... so naturally I grabbed DISH SOAP and figured topping it off would be just dandy, even if perhaps less effective.
I still love having a dishwasher, but I may not be just turning gray... I may be turning into a blonde.
Again this post is from before the latest information. For the latest information see the most updated post here: Veterans Checks by June 30th?.
Here is the original post:
This subject came up on a local thread this week, but part of the Recovery Act was $250 checks to disabled folks on SSDI and Veterans disability and a few other categories. So far it appears the Social Security related checks have more or less gone out last month with a few hitches here and there. Meanwhile Veterans appear to have been last in line:
Seems Vets are last on the list again. The $250.00 Stimulus Package promised Vets that are receiving V.A. Compensation or Pension that they would get a $250.00 check "sometime in June". WTF is that all about? Everyone else getting the money, *Social Security, Retired Railroad Workers*, got theirs in May, and now Vets have to wait...and wait...and wait....to see if they're even going to be acknowledged. Figures...they just release a press release, 2 months ago and then it's forgotten...
So far the only definitive information that has come out of all the speculation, rumors, and other comments is that a letter was sent out from the VA saying we should be receiving the checks in June... but the only time frame given beyond that is that if you don't receive anything by JULY 10th, then you should call and ask about it.
The other that appeared definitive has since fizzled. The Treasury noted June 9th as the "planned completion date" for the Veterans payments. A quick glance at the calendar and we can see that the agency charged with actually printing and distributing the money is quickly looking to have missed the target date.
Was the VA late in getting them the information they needed to make the payments? Did the treasury drop the ball? Is there any media coverage out there on what Veterans should be expecting or putting some pressure on the bean counters to get the job done? Nobody seems to know. Meanwhile cable news outlets were covering the big issues when I checked them this morning... Obama's teleprompter and "sex with ducks" jokes on CNN... Fox for its part was laughing at the Daily Show laughing at them...
Very informative.
It seems very likely that we won't know until the checks are about to, or already, have landed in our laps. Maybe tomorrow... maybe the end of the month... maybe in early July... maybe later if they miss any more planned dates. A lot of veterans are living check to check with their disabilities... and it doesn't seem like too much to ask for a candid and clear answer to their questions on this.
Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America was born. During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.
LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional fields, including the arts and business communities. LGBT Americans also mobilized the Nation to respond to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic and have played a vital role in broadening this country's response to the HIV pandemic.
Due in no small part to the determination and dedication of the LGBT rights movement, more LGBT Americans are living their lives openly today than ever before. I am proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration. These individuals embody the best qualities we seek in public servants, and across my Administration -- in both the White House and the Federal agencies -- openly LGBT employees are doing their jobs with distinction and professionalism.
The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress, but there is more work to be done. LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect.
My Administration has partnered with the LGBT community to advance a wide range of initiatives. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions and Federal rights for LGBT couples, outlawing discrimination in the workplace, ensuring adoption rights, and ending the existing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in a way that strengthens our Armed Forces and our national security. We must also commit ourselves to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic by both reducing the number of HIV infections and providing care and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS across the United States.
These issues affect not only the LGBT community, but also our entire Nation. As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.
Political opinions and observations by a liberal Constitutionalist. Not affiliated with any political party.
Guest Author: Yaakov
Yaakov is a husband, and father of six who fancies himself an amateur philosopher. He endeavors to write his down ideas without concern for their originality but with great care not to be derivative. He is an unrepentant pragmatist with strong ideals focused on the ethical treatment of people and other creatures. His own blog is at http://kovaya.com/miscellany/
