Gender Identity

Joe Biden Starts Off Aggressively, With 30 Executive Orders In Three Days

Ronald 3 Comments

President Biden is starting off his administration with a series of quick actions through 30 executive orders in three days in office, and more to come!

These include:

14 on the Corona Virus

4 on the Economy

2 on the Environment

5 on Immigration

2 on Equity

1 on Ethics

1 on Regulation

1 on the Census Bureau

These include in detail:

Reinstating ties with the World Health Organization; Enforcing a mask mandate on federal properties and public transportation; Coordinating the national response to the COVID 19 Pandemic.

Halting construction of the Mexico Border Wall; Ending the Muslim Ban; Including non citizens in the Census Count; Protecting DACA immigrants from deportation; Stopping aggressive actions to find and deport undocumented immigrants.

Re-entering the Paris Climate Accords; Revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline; Revoking rollbacks to Vehicle Emission Standards; Undoing decisions to slash the size of several National Monuments; Enforcing a moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; Reestablishing a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gases.

Ending the 1776 Commission which distorted the role of slavery in American history; Rooting out systematic racism, and working to prevent discrimination based upon gender, sexual orientation or gender identity and promote equity and diversity in all government programs and agencies.

Extend a federal moratorium on evictions, and foreclosures on mortgages; A pause on federal student loan interest and principal payments.

The Ten Senate Republicans Who Supported The Employment NonDiscrimination Act

Ronald 2 Comments

The Employment NonDiscrimination Act was approved by the US Senate this week by a vote of 64-32, including 54 Democrats and 10 Republicans, who agreed that to allow discrimination against workers based on sexual orientation or gender identity was immoral, unethical, simply wrong in America in 2013.

At the same time, 32 Republican Senators continued to show no concern about such discrimination, and in so doing, condemned themselves in history, as much as those opposed to the Civil Rights laws passed over time to ban discrimination against Americans, based upon race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, and disability.

The House of Representatives majority would back such legislation, but it is clear that Speaker of the House John Boehner, personally opposed to the bill, will not call for a vote, because he knows a large percentage of his own party would vote against it, so it will likely languish until the Democrats can win a majority of the House in future years.

The honor roll of those Republicans who showed a conscience and principle include:

John McCain of Arizona
Susan Collins of Maine
Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire
Jeff Flake of Arizona
Rob Portman of Ohio
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
Mark Kirk of Illinois
Orrin Hatch of Utah
Dean Heller of Nevada

Notice that not even one Senator from the South supported ENDA. One would have thought that, possibly, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, sometimes open minded on some issues, would have done so, but the power of the Tea Party, religious groups that promote prejudice and hate in the name of their brand of Christianity, and the reality of reelection contests for Alexander and Graham in particular, make that impossible.

After all, being reelected is more important than doing the right thing for the long run of history, right?