Two great ads have appeared in recent weeks pointing out the harm caused to our country and our fellow citizens by continuing to follow the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy and the failure of our government to yet provide hate-crimes protection to the GLBT community, respectively.
[Hotel Tango: Sam Smoot]

Are these guys working together?
The House Oversight Committee is demanding that Vice President Cheney explain himself. Is his office part of the executive branch? Part of the legislative branch? Or is Cheney suggesting that as far as federal rules are concerned, his office essentially doesn’t exist?
The issue at hand is Cheney’s insistence that his office […]

I can see Cheney now: For the first time in seven years, he lifts his head, his face brightens and takes on — who knew his face could do this? — a look of complete shock and awe. A look of total innocence.
“What?” he asks. “Us? Classified information? The law? Huh?”
House Democrats on Thursday denounced […]

Jordan Smith has a great column in the current issue of The Austin Chronicle regarding the shooting of Kevin Brown by APD Sgt. Michael Olsen after a pursuit by police officers.
The shooting especially concerns me as it happened mere blocks from my house on Austin’s East Side.
As Smith points out, fault lines between minority and […]

In a Wall Street Journal column (sub. req’d., of course) today, former Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr came out (no pun intended) in support of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the U.S. military. In fact, he writes that supporting “opening” the services to homosexuals is a conservative act.
As a conservative Republican member […]

On the heels of last week’s declaration by Russian President Putin that he is the world’s only “pure democrat” (which was followed by criticism of civil rights abuses in the West), Russian authorities attempted to stop an opposition (read: anti-Putin) protest by encircling the rally’s planned location with dung.
Opponents of President Vladimir Putin had hoped […]

War Is Boring reports that with the fall of the Taliban, who — surprise! — executed gays, in Afghanistan, the gay community has exploded (if not in numbers then at least in visibility). In fact, the Afghani equivalent of gay marriage is also occurring.
. . . [N]ow the Taliban are gone and the Afghan gays […]