Big News in the Empire State

This is a big week for New Yorkers. Yesterday three Democrats from the State Senate, Addobbo, Huntley and Kruger flipped their votes to Yes for marriage equality! That's every Democrat except for the homophobic senator from the Bronx, Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr.

Later in the early evening, the first Republican, James Alesi, broke from the ranks and joined the side of equality! He is now predicting up to six other Republicans will join him. What a turn around from two years ago!

Andrew Cuomo, New York's Governor, vowed to make marriage equality one of his main priorities, but with the legislative session ending June 20th, I didn't think he could make it happen. It looks like I was wrong! There have been tons of big names (and small ones too), that have made videos through the HRC's New Yorkers for Marriage Equality.  Thousands have joined Friendfactor.org, a new type of advocacy website, where you can show your support for your LGBT friends and call state and federal legislatures. (My friendfactor page is here). Everyone is doing some last minute lobbying, including Cynthia Nixon (Sex in the City) and Sean Avery (New York Rangers). After some major disappointments in Maryland and Rhode Island, I have my fingers crossed for this one.  Come on New York! Let's make it happen!

UPDATE: My Dream

One day after I posted about literally having a dream about the economic future of the United States, I read this headline on Americablog.com.

"Obama slams government hiring, says private industry should lead"

Obviously intrigued, since this line of thinking is more Republican than Democrat, I clicked on the cited article from Bloomberg. The first statement confirmed to my horror, the idea that government cannot be a main proponent in the creating of jobs.

"Government is not, and should not be, the main engine of job-creation in this country,” Obama said in his weekly address on the radio and Internet. “That’s the role of the private sector.”

In the rest of the article, Obama stated that the role of government was to make sure the working populace of the United States were trained to take the jobs created by the private sector. While I'm in agreement, (and wondering when the US government is going to pick up my full tab for medical school. wink wink, nudge nudge), I disagree that the United States government should not be a major source of stability for the fragile economy. It is common knowledge that we were brought out of the Great Depression by the entry of the United States into World War II. But specifically, it was the spending by the United States government that brought the country out of the Great Depression. Yet, in this same article, it is stated that Obama is in talks with business leaders on how to increase hiring without increasing government spending. The idea of decreasing payroll taxes, which fund social security, has also been kicked around. This is a Democrat who is looking at these solutions? No. I don't believe it. The last time an economic recession of this magnitude occurred, the actual Democrat elected to the presidency created these measures:

•federal assistance for people who had lost their jobs, houses, savings, and livelihoods
•job creation for the unemployed through massive public works projects
•agricultural assistance for troubled farmers
•manufacturing assistance for troubled industries
•stricter banking regulations to prevent bank failures
•creation of the FDIC to protect bank customers’ deposits
•investment in the banking system to free up credit (link)

Almost all of these policies, called the New Deal, have been under attack since Obama became President. While he has actually used all of them at the beginning of his presidency, Republicans have used scare tactics and sometimes outright lies to tried to hold them back, discredit their effectiveness, and keep the economy in its fragile state so they can regain the White House, the Senate and keep the House in the next election; voters almost always go with the other party when the economy is bad.

Obama has tried to be so bipartisan that he is actually starting to look and sound like a Republican in his messaging and policies (yet those on the right still accuse him of being a socialist/communist). I'm very disappointed. Something has got to be done. Any ideas?

Because I wanted to include some music in this post, I think this might be fitting. "Cold Shoulder", by Adele.