Fort Worth Gay Bar raided -- on 40th anniversary of Stonewall

We keep saying that in DC, it feels like the 90s again. Last night in Fort Worth, it was 1969. June 27, 1969. The bar wasn't Stonewall. It was the Rainbow Lounge.

Details are still coming in, but it looks like there was a raid on a new gay bar in Fort Worth last night. Initial details came via "Instant Tea," the blog of Dallas Voice:

I got a phone call at 3 this morning from Todd Camp, the founder of Q Cinema and former reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It was Camp’s birthday and the night of a special Q Cinema screening of two Stonewall documentaries… because it was ALSO the 40th anniverary of Stonewall, as anyone knows.

Except, apparently, the Fort Worth PD.

Or maybe worse, they DID know and wanted to make a point.

The horrific details after the jump.

According to Camp, the newly-opened Rainbow Lounge is “the only cool gay bar in town,” but the police raided it, arresting numerous patrons for no reason.

Instant Tea has had several more updates since that first post. Burnt Orange Report has more:

Early this morning a new LGBT club in Fort Worth was raided by Fort Worth police, to which reports indicate that one individual arrested suffered a fractured skull. Eyewitness reports say that anywhere between 10-20 were arrested. This activity occurs on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall protests in New York where gays and lesbians protested harassment by police and began the modern gay rights movement.

Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns issued the following statement:

I want all citizens of Texas and Fort Worth to know and be assured that the laws and ordinances of our great State and City will be applied fairly, equally and without malice or selective enforcement. I consider this to be part of "The Fort Worth Way" here. As an elected representative of the city of Fort Worth, I am calling for an immediate and thorough investigation of the actions of the City of Fort Worth Police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in relation to the incident at the Rainbow Lounge earlier this morning, June 28, 2009.

It is unfortunate that this incident occurred in Fort Worth and even more so to have occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall protests. Unlike 40 years ago, though, the people of this community have elective representation that will make sure our government is accountable and that the rights of all of its citizens are protected. I are working together with our Mayor, Police Chief, the City of Fort Worth Human Relations Commission, and our State Legislative colleagues to get a complete and accurate accounting of what occurred.

Rest assured that neither the people of Fort Worth, nor the city government of Fort Worth, will tolerate discrimination against any of its citizens. And know that the GLBT Community is an integral part of the economic and cultural life of Fort Worth.

Every Fort Worth citizen deserves to have questions around this incident answered and I am working aggressively toward that end.

Thanks to SD_Dave for reporting this news in the comments tonight -- and to superstition who had also posted this disturbing news. Read the rest of this post...

On the radio

UPDATE @ 9:45 PM: It's over. That was fun. Thanks to the hosts, George and George, who were very supportive. As we know here at AMERICAblog, an awful lot of straight people are paying attention to the way the Obama administration is handling LGBT issues, too.
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Doing a radio show tonight at 9:15 PM. The show is called "The Weekly Forum with George and George" and it's on 1340am in the Tampa Bay Area and online here. We'll be talking about the Obama administration and LGBT issues, something we've discussed a bit here on AMERICAblog over the last few weeks. Read the rest of this post...

Washington Post's Dana Milbank called Huffington's Nico Pitney a "dick"

Dana Milbank has presented himself as the defender of the Washington press corps. Last week, he wrote a bizarre column attacking Nico Pitney for asking a question at the Obama press conference. It really was a pathetic and ridiculous screed.

Today, Milbank and Nico Pitney were on CNN's Reliable Sources. I only caught the tail end of the segment. But, I did get to watch the video. Nico holds Milbank accountable for some of his buffoonish coverage in the past. That didn't go over well. Nico tells us that when the camera was off, Milbank called him "a dick":

The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a "dick" in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, "You're such a dick"). Howie Kurtz wrote on Twitter that he didn't hear it, which is understandable -- he was doing the lead-in for the next part of the segment on the ABC White House special. But it happened (I urge Howie to watch the video of the panel during the ABC intro) and it was frankly pretty odd.

Class act, that Dana Milbank.

Awhile back, the incomparable Digby coined the term "The Villagers" to describe the inside-the-beltway elite who demonstrate a group-think that is definitely not reality based. Milbank is in that club and they all live in their elite little bubble. There is enormous interaction between any administration and the elite media. Off-the-record conversations, dinners, drinks, backgrounders -- the elite have always had unparalleled access -- and still do. The White House press corps colluded with the Bush administration to bring us into the war with Iraq. The White House press corps colluded with the Bush administration to cover-up the leak of Valerie Plame's undercover status. Many, many reporters sitting in the press briefing knew the administration was lying about the Plame leak lie, but they played along.

I don't know Dana Milbank. I do know Nico. If there's one person in the media (new or old) who isn't a dick, it's Nico Pitney. He is one of the most decent people I've ever met. Nico is a class act all the way -- and his coverage of the crisis in Iran far surpassed anything else out there. The Villagers would rather talk about Nico's question instead of doing real reporting. No wonder old journalism is tanking. Read the rest of this post...

NYT's Nagourney on the gay brouhaha

NYT

Yet if the culture is moving on, national politics is not, or at least not as rapidly. Mr. Obama has yet to fulfill a campaign promise to repeal the policy barring openly gay people from serving in the military. The prospects that Congress will ever send him a bill overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, appear dim. An effort to extend hate-crime legislation to include gay victims has produced a bitter backlash in some quarters....

The Obama White House in particular is reluctant to embrace gay rights issues now, officials there say, because they do not want to provide social conservatives a rallying cry while the president is trying to assemble legislative coalitions on health care and other initiatives.

This is, I think, the crux of the problem. Obama will do nothing that gives social conservatives an excuse to bitch and moan. He's never going to get fulfilling his major promises on gay rights, nor most of his other major "progressive" promises, provided he continues to live in mortal fear that someone on the right might get mad at him. Read the rest of this post...

Dem. Senators are cranky because they're being called out for screwing up health care reform

The gist of this Washington Post article is that it's bad, very bad, for Democratic activists to fulfill Democratic promises on health care reform. Democratic Senators don't like being asked to keep promises:

"We are getting to the point if people aren't going to respond to the patience and openness of Senator Baucus, we should begin to make a different plan," said Andrew Stern, president of the 2 million-member SEIU.

Stern said his organization issued a release chastising Feinstein last week, because she should "put her foot on the gas, not the brake" on health reform.

"The gas pedal to go where?" Feinstein replied, explaining she has questions about how a broad expansion of health coverage will be paid for.

"I do not think this is helpful. It doesn't move me one whit," she said. "They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive."

How dare any Democrat expect to influence Dianne Feinstein. She is a United States Senator, after all. I swear, so many of those Senators think they're in the House of Lords, forgetting they've actually been elected to solve problems. But, they're annoyed that people expect them to solve the problems upon which they and their colleagues (and their president) campaigned. It's lunacy.

Many Senators really do believe they're immune to public pressure. They'll listen to lobbyists, that's for sure. And, they fall for the allure of bipartisanship. Democratic Senators have a huge majority because the Republicans were total failures at solving the nation's problems. In 2006, there were 55 Republicans Senators. Today, there are 40. The political pendulum swang very quickly. Now, Democrats need to deliver.

And, I love this excerpt:

One Democratic strategist who is working full-time on health reform was apoplectic over what he called wasted time, energy and resources by the organizations.

The strategist, who asked for anonymity because he was criticizing colleagues, said: "These are friends of ours. I would much rather see a quiet call placed by [Obama chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel saying this isn't helpful. Instead, we try to decimate them?"

If they are siding with the insurance lobby, they're not our friends. And, why hasn't Rahm already placed "the quiet call"? If all it takes is a call from Rahm, then why do we need the Organizing for America health care campaign?

People in DC only want to play the inside game. But, in the Senate, it really feels like the inside game is controlled by the insurance industry. The city is a tangled web of competing and conflicting interests. It's all a game for the insiders. They really have no idea how what they're doing -- or not doing -- impacts the real world. That's why the "outside" game is so important. That's why the t.v. ads matter. That's why the health care rally on Thursday was so important. That's why the DNC is organizing a health care reform campaign. This can't be left to the insiders. They'll screw it up for sure. Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich: 40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans

From Frank:

No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness. The Justice Department brief defending DOMA has spoken louder for this president than any of his own words on the subject. Chrisler noted that he has given major speeches on race, on abortion and to the Muslim world. “People are waiting for that passionate speech from him on equal rights,” she said, “and the time is now.”

Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.

Who am I to contradict Chrisler, Obama's favorite new token gay, but we don't want any speeches. The last ones didn't get us very far. We know President Obama is very good at making promises. Now let's see if he can keep one. Read the rest of this post...

Iran detains members of UK Embassy staff

Definitely not a good sign in Iran. The extremists are looking for someone to blame and the UK is taking a lot of the blame for the problems. If the US had an embassy there, one can only imagine what would happen and how much blame they would receive. From the AP:

The semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday that eight local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran were detained. The eight were suspected of having played a "significant role" in the recent unrest, Fars said in a report also cited by Iran's English-language, state-run Press TV.

The arrests announced Sunday come after a senior Iranian cleric, Ahmed Khatami, on Friday lashed out at Britain in a nationally televised sermon. "In this unrest, Britons have behaved very mischievously and it is fair to add the slogan of 'down with England' to the slogan of 'down with USA,'" he said.

The U.S. and Europe have become increasingly vocal about their condemnation of Iran's harsh crackdown. Iran's leaders have pushed back with angry rhetoric, and the confrontation appears to be dashing any hopes for a new dialogue, as initially envisioned by President Barack Obama when he took office.

Read the rest of this post...

Happy 40th Stonewall Anniversary

(Photo credit, well, photoshop credit to Jason Cobb, who wants everyone to know he's "just a lawyer," so he hopes you don't hold him accountable for his photoshop skills :-) Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

So, basically, looks like health care and Iraq are the topics today.

The White House is sending out one of its big dogs, David Axelrod, to push the Obama message. He's on ABC and NBC. David Gregory at "Meet the Press" invited two GOPers, Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney, to counter Axelrod.

The GOP is represented by two of the remaining 2012 candidates, Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty. We probably won't be seeing much of Governor Mark Sanford or Senator John Ensign on the Sunday shows for awhile. Haley must be loving this. He's got aspirations -- and the field is clearing itself.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Gov. Haley Barbour, R-Miss.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Axelrod; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

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CNN's "State of the Union" — Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; T. Boone Pickens, chairman and CEO of the energy investment fund BP Capital.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Odierno.

Read the rest of this post...

Tracy Chapman

Joelle and I had such a wonderful time at Tracy Chapman's concert Friday night here in Paris thanks to AMERICAblog reader Joe Gore. There was so much emotion and love in the music and having the wonderful opportunity to meet everyone after the show confirmed what we felt during the show. We appreciated the invitation so we invited Joe and the band to join us for a home cooked meal last night. The weather gods were with us so we popped some of our friends' wine and dined on the terrace.

Joelle often tells me that food is love so we tried to share a bit of it with the band who gave us so much the night before. I lucked out and found some yummy early season figs and poached them in wine Karoo style, stuffed with Roquefort. (We had them at a restaurant in the Karoo called the Blue Fig so for us, that's "Karoo style.") The main course was a modified daube (Provencal stew) cooked for hours and hours. I love adding in red peppers and eggplant which aren't traditional, but the taste is hard to beat. (Again...any time you put tomatoes, peppers and eggplant together, it's going to be good.) Even better though was just talking around the table, nestled in our little garden. What a great bunch of people and a total pleasure to meet. The fact that they all liked cats, better still. Read the rest of this post...

Report: Mugabe takes over diamond fields

Never underestimate Robert Mugabe. He will never give up power so naturally he grabbed one of the last money-making ventures to fund his police state efforts. (Well, one of the last money making businesses that hasn't been given to China in exchange for military equipment.) NY Times.

Zimbabwe’s military, controlled by President Robert Mugabe’s political party, violently took over diamond fields in Zimbabwe last year and has used the illicit revenues to buy the loyalty of restive soldiers and enrich party leaders, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released Friday.

The party, ZANU-PF, has used the money from diamonds — smuggled out of the country or illegally sold through the Reserve Bank — to reinforce its hold over the security forces, which seemed to be slipping last year as the value of soldiers’ pay collapsed with soaring inflation, Human Rights Watch researchers said.

On Friday, Zimbabwe’s government roundly denied the charges in the report, which cited visits by its researcher to the diamond fields in February and interviews with soldiers, miners and other witnesses.

Read the rest of this post...

Madoff ordered to forfeit $171 billion, wife to keep $2.5 million

It's more symbolic because he doesn't have the $171 billion but it's still hard to swallow seeing his wife able to keep a few million. For her it's surely an insulting amount and life will change dramatically but think about the victims who lost everything. Last week at his sentence hearing, Madoff's attorney sought to limit his jail term to 10 years. That's what attorney's are paid to do but how ridiculous was that considering the lives ruined as a result of his actions? Even with all of this, it's not going to come close to repaying the losses.

Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin, who released a copy of the order Friday night, plans to seek a 150-year prison term at Madoff's sentencing Monday. Sorkin has argued in court papers for a 12-year term.

According to Friday's order, the government also settled claims against Madoff's wife. Under the arrangement, the government obtained Ruth Madoff's interest in all property, including more than $80 million-worth that she had claimed was hers, prosecutors said. The order left her $2.5 million in assets.

The agreements strip the Madoffs of all their interest in properties belonging to them, including homes in Manhattan, Montauk, N.Y., and Palm Beach, Fla., worth a total of nearly $22 million. The Madoff's must also forfeit all insured or salable personal property contained in the homes.

Other seized assets include accounts at Cohmad Securities Corp., valued at almost $50 million, and at Wachovia Bank, valued at just over $13 million, and tens of millions of dollars in loans extended by Madoff to family, employees and friends.

Read the rest of this post...