A vote is about all he can expect from me.

High Tea Party Express???Honestly, when I read Pam posting that, I thought it was an odd slur – but no, that’s the name of the event.
I guess the organizers weren’t thinking of the political organizations with similar names – for example, Tea Party Express, which appears to be a conservative, Republican-supporting organization: http://www.teapartyexpress.org/

Is this real?It looks like something out of a gay Onion.
High Tea Party?  6 more years?

Elizabeth Birch???!!!Famous for commissioning the yellow equal sign on blue logo of HRC during her tenure.  

Did I miss passing ENDA?And actually repealling DADT.
They forgot to add the EVOLVING part re; “God is in the mix.”

a veritable cry for help from Elizabeth Birch!I’ve received similar solicitations from DC-based Obama diehards, but the fine print indicated that the first $10K-plus of donations would go to the DNC….really??!!  Lure us in with the glimmer of hope of being in the presence of BHO, only to direct our money to homo-hating obstructionist DINOs?!

Good catch greatwhiteb.The devil is in the details…

Is this the Lizzie Birch of the early ENDA “but no trans” fame?If so, those of us who are pro-inclusion might just be more than a bit turned off by this dusty throwback from the days when the Lesbian activist movement was being scrutinised by Purity Police.

When Obama makes promises – watch out! It can get very scary. In this video he’s promising to walk on picket lines with workers. In the real world he busted the UAW while ignoring the plight of the 25 million or so unemployed and underemployed workers he helped create and maintain.  
In this video he promised to end the Iraq war as soon as elected but he’s expanded the war to include six countries – Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thousands and thousands of civilians are dead and thousands of GI lives have been wasted fighting for big oil. Just today the NY Times reported that “U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes… to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.”
In this video he promised to make BP and Haliburton pay and to clean up the gulf. Shrimp anyone?. Which BP and Haliburton managers have been indicted for the murder of oil workers? A Washington Post headline from May 14th this year says that “Obama seeks to promote more oil drilling in Alaska, offshore”
Gulf Shrimp, anyone?.
It can be very dangerous for those who Obama makes promises too and for those who blunder and vote for him. It’d be better for us if he just ignored us, but the economy, because of his policies is circling the bottom of the drain and he needs our votes.
Disappoint him.

Open the GayTM only if the following occur first:1)  DADT repeal is fully implemented;
2)  Stop the current attempt, with the defense appropriation bill, to delay the implementation of the repeal (with his veto if congress does not drop that provision).
If those two conditions are met and DADT repeal is fully implemented THIS YEAR, then I will agree that significant change has been made.  Integration into the armed forces can be a powerful (ableit slow) means of gaining acceptance and changing society’s attitudes.  Although it will about a generation for the benefits to be fully realized, it is nonetheless a significant step toward equality.  (One example:  the racial integration of the armed forces in the late 1940s undoubtedly advanced the cause for racial equality)
This would be a change significant enough to be worth defending by opening wallets to support Obama in the White House and democrats in Congress.
That being said, if Obama allows the defense authorization bill to become law with the DADT delay provision intact, then he is no better than Clinton.  For those too young to remember, Congress enacted the DADT policy as an amendment to a defense authorization bill and Clinton signed it into law.  If current attempt makes it through the Senate with the DADT delay provision intact, then I would urge a boycott of the DNC and recommend that donations be targeted to specific individuals or, in come cases, to state-level democratic organizations.  If Obama signs such a thing into law, then boycott his campaign entirely.

March 1861 – January 1, 1863Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president in March 1861. During 1862 he announced his intention for an emancipation of slaves in the southern states.
January 1, 1863 he gives the Emancipation Proclamation to the people.
January 2009 Obama is sworn in as president. He affirms his belief for inequality. He tells Congress not to send him DADT repeal. He continues to prosecute those with less equality in his military forces. He starts another war and continues to discharge those who are less equal thereby affecting military strength.

To be fair about the Emancipation ProclamationIt applied only to the states in rebellion, and did absolutely nothing to end slavery in the north.

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

Notice what is and is not included. At that time, the excluded Louisiana parishes were under Union control; the proclamation did not apply there. The 48 counties that rejected secession and eventually would became West Virginia, and the seven counties and two cities in Virginia that were under Union control, all had very large slave populations; the proclamation did not apply there, either. Slavery remained legal in the Union states of  Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri; the proclamation did not apply.
The sole purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to incite slaves to rise up against the Confederation, not to free them. Freedom did not come until after the Civil War and ratification of the 13th Amendment almost three years later.

Have you considered starting a petition to that effect?I’d probably sign.

The Emancipation Proclamation is one of several partial measuresEven ignoring the actions of Butler and others refusing to return slaves as early as May 1861, there was Law Enacting an Additional Article of War in March 1862 which prevented such return. In April of the same year, compensation was offered to Northerners who freed their slaves, which happened in Washington D.C. less than a week after that action.
By late June, slavery was ended in the territories (this directly opposes part of Dred Scott).
Finally, in July of 1862, the Second Confiscation Act purported to do part of what was done later by the Emancipation Proclamation; free all slaves held by rebels.
Finally, the Emancipation Proclamation did free contraband slaves – apparently there were tens of thousands of people who were legally slaves that had been captured by the Union Army that were freed.
As to why it was done – I’ve always favored the international political reason – the U.S.A. was worried that Britain might side with the Confederacy – and making a bold (if partial) anti-slavery statement was one way to prevent that.
Another argument is enlistment – Black enlistment increased sharply after the Proclamation.
Probably the most important thing to note is that to get these achievements, and to strengthen them, the abolitionists were extremely active during this time period.