Which Would Make it Mail Fraud, No?

From Yahoo News:

Ted Cruz’s campaign is under fire for a mailer it sent out in Iowa that is designed to look like an official government document.

The mailers tell the recipients they have a “voting violation” for failing to caucus in previous elections, and grades them on an A to F basis, Politico reports. The paper has the words “official public record at the top,” and also includes actual names of the recipients neighbors.

Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate slammed the campaign, saying the mailer “misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law.”

That may work in Calgary, Rafael, but in Iowa….

You Mean As Opposed to Selling Out Your Own Kind for Your Own Personal Financial Benefit?

You know…

…the only real m.o. of Log Cabin Republicans, the apparent concocters of this fake (as the non-endorsement at the end of the ad demonstrates) ad for Bernie Sanders?

Oh…

And just to prove how devious the concocters of this fake ad is:

On LGBT rights, Hillary Clinton has led from behind.

Right…

Log Cabin giving a flip about T rights?

No, I don’t trust HRC’s HRC but I do know two things: (1) She’s not going to allow anyone or anything to get in her way this time; and (2) no matter what, I’ll trust HRC’s HRC more than I will ever trust Jews for Hitler for Mice for Cats Log Cabin.

Tim Campbell, RIP

The following appeared in 1976 in Vol. 6, Issue No. 23 of Lee Brewster’s Drag magazine:

There was no byline.

For many years I presumed it had been authored by Brewster and/or one of the other folks directly involved with Drag.

A little over two years ago I ran across the original source of the text that appeared in that issue of Drag.  Under a slightly different headline (“Equal Rights for Transexuals, Transvestites”) it was an article that appeared in the February 5, 1976 issue of the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota’s newspaper.

And it had a byline.

The author was Tim Campbell.

He died in December at the age of 76.

There are several obituaries for him out in internet-land, but I’ll link only to the one in Lavender magazine.

And I link to it because Campbell wrote that one himself – not because of any particular trans aspect to it. He had his own priorities as to what he wanted people to think about when he died; he had that right (he wasn’t the host of a national primetime news program purporting to provide an objective view of history.) Having been a cohort of Jack Baker and Mike McConnell back in Minnesota in the 1970s, he not surprisingly saw last year’s gay marriage victory as a really big deal (the Baker-McConnell marriage being something he blogged about quite a bit.)

But there is one other thing I hope folks will remember even if he did not want to focus on it. He wasn’t just one of the early pro-marriage folks. And he wasn’t just the publisher, throughout the 1980s, of the GLC Voice newspaper. He also played a key role in bringing forth the trans-inclusive language that he wrote of in that Drag / Minnesota Daily piece.

Allan Spear, who Campbell did not think very highly of, did eventually begin introducing trans-inclusive legislation in Minnesota and was the Senate author of the bill that in 1993 became the first statewide trans-inclusive civil rights law.  But that wouldn’t have happened without the agitation at the state legislature in 1975 – which led to much in the way of hard feelings between the inclusionists and the incrementalists but also led to the trans-inclusion language being added to the then-gay-only Minneapolis Civil Rights Ordinance.

The fortieth anniversary of that occurred four days after Campbell’s death on Dec. 26.

That’s worth remembering.

Kill the Bill

It is 2016, there should be no such thing as a gay-only rights bill…

A bill that would provide some protections for lesbians, gays and bisexuals – but not for transgender Hoosiers – squeaked out of an Indiana Senate committee Wednesday night.

…and there damn sure should be no such thing as a gay-only rights bill that is not being actively opposed by each and every tentacle of Gay, Inc.

If it is a gay-only rights bill, it deserves to fail.

If it is a gay-only rights bill, it must be opposed.

If it is a gay-only rights bill and you are for it, then you are the enemy.

On the Bright Side, It Will be Replaced by an Award for “Most Financially Secure Trans Woman Academic Who Achieved Tenure Prior to Transitioning”

From POZ:

The Outstanding Blog category has been eliminated from the newly announced GLAAD Media Awards, and along with it the grassroots first-person voices of writers across the entire LGBT spectrum….

Additionally, the award for “Most Obnoxious, Clueless, Millionaire Media-Based Insta-Transitioner” will go on as planned.

Hoping That Trump Supporters OD on Dirty Pair and Urusei Yatsura Instead of Voting?

That would appear to be the establishment Republican strategy.

Seriously.

While explaining that he believes that Donald Trump’s success in the Republican party does not mean that establishment conservatism is dying, GOP strategist Rick Wilson dismissed the “childless single men” who support Trump’s presidential bid.

“The fact of the matter is, most of them are childless single men who masturbate to anime. They’re not real political players. These are not people who matter in the overall course of humanity,” Wilson said of Trump supporters on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.”

Fujiko Mine could not be reached for comment.

More seriously, though…

It wasn’t all that long ago that the phrase “childless single men” was a dogwhistle equating to “gay.”  So, I wonder if we haven’t seen anything yet from the establishment Republicans.

Okay, I Won’t

But I will say that HRC continues to be a fistula on the body of LGBT civil rights.

Happy?

h/t Paisley Currah

“We did everything fast in 1975”

That was how Glenn Frey, during the Eagles concert in Moline, Illinois, in 2009, concluded his recollection of the songwriting process behind “Lyin’ Eyes.”

Sadly, I didn’t try to sneak my good camera in – and this is the best that my Flintstones-era cell phone could manage during that concert.

Yes, objectively, David Bowie was more of a true musical and artistic force than Frey or the Eagles, but I have to confess: This one hits closer to home.  I wasn’t allowed to listen to radio stations that played Bowie’s music when I was a kid; I was well into college before I developed an appreciation for him (even now I like his cover of “Friday on My Mind” better than the Easybeats’ original.)

But “Lyin’ Eyes” was – and still is – one of my favorite songs.

And, yes, regarding a different song: I also have gone to the trouble of taking a selfie whilst standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona (though I did it 24 years ago – with an AE-1, film and a tripod – and I opted for standing across from the post office instead of the ready-made photo-op that is available elsewhere in Winslow.)

R.I.P.

I Wonder…

From what used to be The Advocate:

Sen. Ted Cruz, who has denounced the accomodations given to transgender students as “lunacy,” cemented his transphobic position with supporters in Iowa Wednesday, saying that allowing a trans student to use a faculty restroom amounts to “inflicting” the student on teachers.

But according to NBC News, he told prospective caucus voters that is a better alternative than “sticking him in the shower with the teenage girls.”

“Look, my 5-year-old daughter, Catherine, she knows the difference between boys and girls[.]”

So do trans people.

That’s how we come to the realization that our bodies don’t match who we really are.

But I have a serious question for Sen. Rafael “Ted” Cruz (R-Calgary): Does your daughter know the difference between a Canadian and an American?

Ouch!