LGBT equality

It takes more to earn a Blue America endorsement than just the likelihood of voting right. We like to get to know the candidates and try too get behind the rhetoric. We look at past behavior of course but we also try to figure out two intangibles: character and leadership.

It's not fair to just blame DCCC Chairman Steve Israel for Jennifer Garrison. The "Sarah Palin of Ohio" is also being heavily backed by Israel's patron, Steny Hoyer. Hoyer was in Columbus yesterday, headlining a fundraiser for the anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-labor conserva-Dem.

Yesterday we looked at the lead-up to last night's historic Senate vote for ENDA. The anti-gay filibuster was shut down 61-30, every Democrat plus 7 Republicans voting for equality.

Maybe it's because I'm in Italy so often-- or maybe because my all fresh vegetables tomato sauce is so amazing-- but everyone has been asking me what's going on with neo-fascist multi-billionaire Silvio Berlusconi. First the good news: Thursday, the court of last resort for the old crook said his conviction for tax fraud and sentence (four years, already reduced to one) will stand. He can't participate in electoral politics for the next six years.

Rightists through history-- always looking for easy scapegoats for a policy of divisiveness-- have been obsessed with homosexuality. This week we saw Florida's Tea Party junior senator, Marco Rubio, shrilly threatening to scuttle his own immigration bill if it includes protections for LGBT families.