Campaigns

A Mission Accomplished

We are pleased to report the DC TLGB Watch’s Transgender Day of Action in Washington, DC, was, and continues to be, a notable success by any standard.

Even a few days ago, when elected/appointed officials became a little nervous on rumors that street demonstrations and set of demands with deadlines were coming to their doorsteps, the Trans community leaders were offered some coordinated face-time with the Office of Mayor Vincent Gray together with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the US Attorney for Washington, DC (USAO), a fresh approach to replace their usual divide and conquer strategy to make these problems magically disappear. (Because we still do not have statehood in Washington, DC, our justice system is federally administered by the USAO, and this causes obstacles of its own that interfere with bringing justice and equality to the Trans community.)

So, even before the first boot hit the ground or the first demand leapt from our bullhorn, we saw a new willingness among these officials to start responding proactively on a level this crisis of anti-Trans violence and police bias warrants. But that was just the beginning.

After marching in front of the MPD with 40+ Trans victims, activists, and allies, with chants like “Hey, Hey, Ho Ho, Transphobia has got to go,” and delivering our demands in writing directly to MPD Police Chief Cathy Lanier, we read each demand out loud from the sidewalk as a media scrum pressed in to interview spokespeople in the Trans community. Minutes later, while headed over to the federal building a few blocks away that houses the USAO, to rally again and deliver our demands to the US Attorney, we were chased down in the street by a press aide from Police Chief Lanier’s office with a an official statement.

Lanier’s incredible “rebuttal” of our demands was an insult and misrepresentation of the countless hours and years community leaders have spent in meetings with her and her predecessor with little to show for it except for increasing anti-Trans violence and murder. With just a few sentences, she tried to blame the Trans community for its failure to send representatives to an unannounced, hastily organized MPD meet-and-greet last week, a sign, in her mind at least, that we were the ones not being serious about working in partnership with them to bring about change. This was at once ironic, ludicrous, and infuriating because this defensive statement was so obviously hastily prepared a few floors up simultaneous with our street demonstration, and at the same time, indisputably and so sadly demonstrates to everyone who can read how unserious and off the page she and her department have been.

We’re talking about a spike in anti-Trans murders, two in the last 4 months, rampant anti-trans violence, including attempted murders at the hands of police, and police bias and police profiling especially within DC’s highly questionable and indeed unconstitutional “Prostitution Free Zones.” What are they focused on? They want to argue with us about who came out for a coffee, a completely cynical deflection carried out in the most petty, amateurish, and self-disclosing way. The Chief cannot help but fail each time she approaches these important issues because she first must change her own very bad attitudes, and then be in a position to get serious about the gravity and urgency this shame in the nation’s capital deserves.

Today, the emails to our community are buzzing back and forth from Chief Lanier and her commanders. They are scrambling to reach out now that we have taken to direct action to bring this crisis to the attention of every American and established what their priorities must be. Maybe now they can begin to change the situation by changing themselves and understanding just how they discriminate against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and, especially, Trans people by offering public relations tricks in place of honest dialogue. At least now, they are on notice that they must turn that corner and rise to their responsibilities.

We have come together in coalition with a set of demands we all agree on and we have set dates for completion. Now it is up to the Trans community leaders to press them in high level meetings with our elected/appointed officials, telling these decision-makers that they can keep the street activists at bay only if and when real progress starts and continues. We are a strong coalition representing a dozen prominent organizations dedicated to improving life for DC Trans residents. Now, at a moment’s notice, we can put boots on the ground, again and again, until real, systemic, and sustainable change comes to Washington, DC. We will do this until the anti-Trans violence and police bias in DC comes to an end, including the harmful Prostitution Free Zones.

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: Take It Personally…Please

Thursday at 1:00 PM in Washington, DC, the Transgender Day of Action will confront the Metropolitan Police Department, the United States District Attorney for DC, the Mayor, and Members of the City Council about systemic bias against the trans community in our nation’s capital. Local activists, members of the LGBT community, and concerned area residents will be participating in this action to bring media and political attention to the serious ongoing problem of neglect and abuse of trans folks in DC. It is in honor of that action that we bring you today’s video, “Transgender People In The Workplace.”

Have you witnessed biased and prejudiced jokes or remarks about someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity? What was your reaction and action? Did you take it personally even if it wasn’t about you?

Let us know what you think. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.


Call to action this Thursday, November 17, Washington, DC

This urgent Call to Action for Thursday, November 17 starts at 1 PM in front of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD300 Indiana Avenue NW). Local activists have mobilized on behalf of Trans people in the District who have unfairly suffered police profiling, police bias, police harassment, undertrained police, and, indeed, violence at the hands of police. The disproportionate statistics in our nation’s capital reportedly tower over any other city or state.

WHAT: Transgender Day of Action

WHEN: Thursday, November 17, 2011, starting at 1 PM

WHERE: MPD Headquarters (300 Indiana Avenue NW) to the US Attorney’s Office (555 4th Street NW) and City Hall.

WHY: Because you don’t want to miss joining the trans community and its allies coming together to demand change.

HOW: Activists deliver a set of written goals and demands with date certain expectations and consequences.

WITH: Transgender Day of Remembrance, Sunday, November 20, 5 PM, at Metropolitan Community Church (474 Ridge Street NW)

MEDIA: Miguel, glaatuasmig@gmail.com, 571-218-7505; Alison, alison@venusplusx.org, 202-290-7077

The grim media reports trumpet the District’s rise in violent crime against Trans people, including two murders this summer, LaShai McClean, 23, on July 20, and Gaurav Gopalan, 35, on September 10, while experts content that crimes against Trans people are generally under reported or misrepresented by the police. And MPD’s clearance rate for assaults and murders involving trans victims is just a quarter of the average rate, 20% versus 80% of crimes solved, respectively, according to Police Chief Lanier.

The coalition called DC TLGB Police Watch organized this summer to support our community leaders who have tried for years to bring about systemic and sustainable change and instead have seen violent crimes and the Trans murder rate skyrocket. TLGB conveys our assertion of Trans issues when advocating on behalf of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) rights.

On November 17, working in concert with our community leaders and the upcoming DC Transgender Day of Remembrance (Sunday, November 20, DC’s Metropolitan Community Church474 Ridge Street NW), we will take to the sidewalks and street to expose publicly this national shame to every American, and in this way also participate in remembering and honoring the many trans folk who have laid down their lives in the struggle for dignity and equality. On their behalf, we will hand-deliver to our city and federal officials, including MPD, a set of specific, written demands with date certain expectations signaling unrelenting public pressure until they take the serious, emergency measures this urgent crisis warrants.

Help us end the culture of transphobia and homophobia that exists within the MPD, city government, and DC’s federally administered justice system.

Volunteer to participate at Facebook/Transgender Day of Action or TLGBpolicewatch.tumblr.com. Download the Poster for your homepage or blog, listen to TransFM’s Ethan St. Pierre’s interview with Ruby Corado and Alison Gardner, and catch up with last Wednesday’s recent Hearing on Hate Crimes before members of the DC City Council. (Media contact 202-290-7077.)

We are counting on your boots on the ground at the November 17 Transgender Day of Action, and your welcomed presence a few days later at the November 20 Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Work with us to demand systemic and sustainable change in Washington, DC.

DC TLGB Police Watch (to date): DC Trans Coalition (DCTC), Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), GetEQUAL DC,International Socialist Organization (ISO), Woodhull Sexual Freedom AllianceCedar Lane UU Church LGBT Task Force, Rainbow ResponseTransgender Health EmpowermentGender Rights Maryland, and VenusPlusX.

Nov 17 Transgender Day of Action Poster Available

We hope you will lift this poster and put it up on your website or blog, where you work, play, and live. The direct action planned for November 17 is in conjunction with the DC Transgender Day of Remembrance to follow on November 20. We are getting the word out and hope that anyone in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area will come to speak in unison with transgender activists and allies who want to stem the explosive rate of violence and unsolved murders in our nation’s capital.

The Day of Action is being organized by DC TLGB Police Watch, which (to date) includes VenusPlusX as well as DC Trans Coalition (DCTC), Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), GetEQUAL DCThe DC Center for the LGBT Community, Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), Woodhull Sexual Freedom AllianceCedar Lane UU Church LGBT Task ForceRainbow ResponseTransgender Health Empowerment, and Gender Rights Maryland.

Thanks for your interest and participation.

Running Out of Time (video)

We were really impressed with this video which brings into sharp relief some of the dissonance and hypocrisy of American politicians’ sweeping calls for democracy and equality abroad, through the UN, in the US Congress, and from the White House.

They take seriously the populist rebellions in repressive foreign nations, at least the ones that might be useful to the US, but our political leaders dismiss 0r only limply support the successful “Occupy” movement in our midst that is already altering the national conversation of government’s role. The effectiveness of this movement is scaring them because it flips the paradigm in favor of the people, the 99%, and makes those who advocate for the 1% an endangered species that will soon be extinct.

Another good example of this is last February’s remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directed at Ugandan lawmakers poised to enact their heinous “Anti-Homosexuality Bill.” She said, “Gay rights are human rights.” But our own country’s commitment and ability to protect the human rights of its own citizens, especially those of sexual minorities, falls so short.

Not long ago, I explained how sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms because the ability to experience sexual pleasure and orgasm it is the single, pluralistic, shared reality of everyone on earth that gives each of us a taste, a feeling, of what freedom feels like. It is our internal drive to cooperate with each other in seeking more and more freedoms. It is our collective bodily guarantee that promises mutual respect for individual autonomy, that makes full equality an inherited right. This is primal and precedes the laws of men, and no law can attempt to diminish personal sovereignty without losing credibility and honor.


 

What’s Hot Right Now (10-11-11)

Arse Electronic Wrap-up, Occupy Everything, New National Campaigns, plus 

We’re back from 2 weeks on the road, participating in and filing blogs on Atlanta’s Southern Comfort Conference and then from San Francisco for Arse Elektronika.

Arse Elektronika is a production by Monochrom, an Austrian collective of futurist artists describing themselves as “an art-technology-philosophy group” and “an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism.” They have been producing the European version of AE for many years and are now in their fifth year bringing this parallel one to the United States. This week’s list gives us a special chance to highlight some stuff that impressed us.

A converted church on Mission Street in San Francisco was one of the three venues over the four days of Arse Elektronika. It houses the Center for Sex and Culture run by the dynamic Carol Queen, a colleague of ours at Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance. Carol was in Berlin while we were there but her wonderful staff brought the important work of the Center to the attention of a crowd most eager for a  sex-positive future.

The last day of Arse Elektronika was held at one of the country’s biggest hackerspaces,  Noisebridge. If you are ever in San Francisco, it’s an experience not like any other. Here is Jack’s brief video walk-through to give you a taste.

Ned and Maggie Mayhem should be atop your list of things to Google. For one, their unveiling at Arse Elektronika of their PSIgasm (that’s Pounds per Square Inch, pronounced P-S-I-gasm, or sci-gasm for short) will not go unnoticed. It uses sensors on an engineered dildo to measure internal bodily reactions to orgasm, such as temperature, heart rate, and contractions. As one of the first legitimate, fully engineered entries into the nascent science of teledildonics, it deserved all the attention it received.

And, a shout out to author-rac0nteur Chicken John and his legendary warehouse for the opening night of Arse Elektronika. The same weekend, he launched his new book, (volume 1) Book of the IS, Essays by Chicken John on Engineered Disperfection. Congratulations, Chicken John.

Back home in DC this week we are participating in and have started writing about the new force of change — #occupy, #occupydc, #occupytogether, et al, and the long planned “October 2011” occupation of DC known as #stopthemachine and the October 15 International Mobilization trending #globaldemocracy. Working together we can reshape our world to serve all of humanity, not a few swindlers.

I’ve already attended several of the general assemblies and will soon be reporting out specific objectives being moved forward by numerous action committees that have formed on Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, working hard to press their demands to the financial, governmental, and religious decision-makers to force a new inclusive way of conducting human affairs. One person articulating this movement especially well is highly acclaimed Sally Kohn through her her “Movement Vision Lab.”

This new movement started on Wall Street and appears to have to courage to do all it can to dispense with that which is old and bad/useless and join what is good to what is new and good to reshape the world. And, DC-based Code Pink is once again being saluted here for its masterful on-the-ground orchestration of this unfolding revolution; one that sooner or later will force American politicians to pay attention to the things important to the people, as the rest of the world looks to America to define liberty.

This represents a historic shift that taps into the long struggle for economic and social justice on the shoulders of all who have laid down their lives for universal freedom. Give thanks that we have now crested the first hill.

We’re tagging the Southern Poverty Law Center that sets the standard to identify and disclaim hate groups such as the Family Research Council and the Oath Keepers, two of hundreds across America. According to the Center, all hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. Because of this the Center is just as dedicated to teaching tolerance and other forward and positive programs. Please check out their website‘s resources, contact its local volunteers, and if you can contribute.

And we are so pleased today to see the joint announcement of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s partnership with one of our fave organizations, Truth Wins Out, coinciding with National Coming Out Day.

Finally, we have to give a big COLD thumb down to the Chicago Board of Trade, papered this week in big white sheets spelling out the words, We Are The 1%. That’s cold.

 

This Revolution Will Not Be Privatized

One of the best signs at the Occupy Wall Street‘s ongoing protest that is spreading like wildfire across the country right now said, “This revolution will not be privatized.” Well, what do we actually mean by that?

In the last 24 hours, Occupy Together has increased by almost 200 more cities, up from 749 to 928 cities, including Washington, DC. Wildfire. It’s about effin’ time. A movement like no other that has been 40 years in the making by my clock.

This week, Occupy Wall Street’s NYC General Assembly issued an official declaration. This is the American people standing up for the U.S. Constitution and the egalitarian principles it represents, here and abroad.

This is and always has been a public matter, of the people, by the people, and for the people, our joint struggle for universal pluralism, expressed by true democracy, not what passes for democracy today. It’s definitely not what the Values Voters Summit 2o11 speakers and politicians will be talking about tomorrow at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. They are billed as “upholding traditional values” and “protecting America” while they spout hate and homophobia and seek more and more draconian limitations on our constitutional rights. We’ll be outside there to call these bozos out, will you?

Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC came together in irresistible solidarity yesterday with Stop The Machine, a 4+ day, long-planned event focusing on ending the wars, the killing, the corruption, and corporate greed that is ruining human lives and the natural environment. The mood of the crowd was summed up by one speaker at the microphone last night (paraphrased), “The economic collapse is good news because it tells us that this system is finished. The CEOs and politicians responsible should be jailed. No election in 2012, we need to start from scratch and never again allow class and race determine who can survive. Our environment has been ignored and we have a chance to fix it but that is not possible under this system.” He went on to say, “Nothing short of revolution is acceptable, an end to biggest police state (America) ever created. Like past successful revolutions where the people were pit against enormous odds, we will end this system once and for all.”

Yes, the meek will inherit the earth.

Liberty? Justice? Equality? Love? Truth? Freedom? Who will keep them alive if not us?

If not us, who will put an end to the coercive systems we have allowed our government to wield against its own people and innocents abroad? When will we stop the state-sponsored murders and corruption America has spawned? And who if not us can replace them with the voluntary associations of autonomous individuals? We can do it. We can envision a better world and make it a reality. We have ideas and we have skills.

Asking for the end of repressive government systems, such as War (the only thing to justify massive spending budgets and expand economic slaves to fill body bags without end) will be replaced by something better. It’s not anarchy, but anarchism that oversees the progressive ecology that replaces bad policy and legislation, all repressive, coercive systems, with something better. That something better focuses on helping the most number of people, not just the elite. This is the essence of progressive improvement of civilization.

Reproductive choice is a good example. Activists have worked and are working dutifully and passionately to extract this human decision from the grips of the state, religions, corporations, and even entrenched social customs. We know that it is private choice between a woman and her doctor, that’s it and that’s all it should ever be, a completely voluntary association.

To change our current system, to Stop the Machine that oppresses the 99% who wish to live in peace on a clean planet, we engage in envisioning, articulating, and advocating for better ways to do things, built to serve all of humanity, not a small global gang of greedy and bullying busybodies that stand in the way of all happiness. All of these movements, Rebuild the Dream, Occupy Together, and Stop the Machine are the spirit of Madison,Wisconsin, to the nth degree, and we applaud them. Power to the people. The truth will set us free.

At VenusPlusX, we have pointed out before that sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedom because it brings to every human’s heart and mind the physical, mental, and spiritual “feeling” of freedom that no one can assail or strip. It’s a bodily guarantee that we carry inside us. Each person experiencing sexual pleasure or orgasm, for the first time or throughout a lifetime, knows in both heart and head what freedom feels like. Everything we do, our search for our own happiness, tries in some way to recreate a bit of that dynamism inherent in sexual pleasure because we know what we are looking for, that feeling of at-one-ment, peace, joy, and satisfaction, the drive to move forward towards a better life.

Right now many movements are coming together in force to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat. We are doing this without uniformity (not needed) but with passion for a newfound unity of purpose, long overdue.

Wildfire.

Whitehouse.gov petitions: What the people really want


Earlier this month Whitehouse.gov (the official site of the White House) launched “We the People”:

“Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.”

Any petition created within the first 30 days, that reaches at least 5,000 signatures, will receive an “official response”. This has incredible potential. It gives the Internet hivemind a way to bring what they actually care about to discussion. Guess what the people want?

  1. 34,223+ “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol.
  2. 20,375+ “Abolish the TSA, and use its monstrous budget to fund more sophisticated, less intrusive counter-terrorism intelligence.
  3. 16,930+ “Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin
  4. 12,763+ “Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to remove the phrase “Under God”.
  5. 10,594+ “Allow Industrial Hemp to be Grown in the U.S. Once Again
  6. 10,381+ “Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents
  7. 10,178+ “Legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana.
  8. 9,586+ “Stop Interfering With State Marijuana Legalization Efforts
  9. 8,689+ “End the destructive, wasteful and counterproductive “War on Drugs
  10. 8,537 + “Remove “In God We Trust” from currency.
  11. 8,400+ “Restore democracy by ending corporate personhood.
  12. 7,998+ “Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

I don’t see any hate petitions, or faith petitions, nothing commercially motivated. These are generally issues that I care about and ones that don’t always receive the most coverage. Even if the corporate media shies away from an issue, tools like this bring them back up. If these petitions get the attention they genuinely deserve, then it could be a huge step forward for our country. In reality, our government isn’t ignorant to these things; someone has an agenda that involves marijuana being illegal and the TSA making travel inconvenient and degrading.

We don’t know what the “official response” will look like, but right now these petitions are educating people and creating a valuable sense of urgency.

Sign up, contribute, and spread the word.

Global Sexual Freedom Watch

The struggle for the civil rights for women, sexual minorities, and people who are HIV+ outside of the United States, in hundreds of countries, involves fierce protection against imprisonment, mutilation, violence, and death. The abuse of power is monumental, and first world countries mostly sit idly by while this miscarriage of humanity is put forward by governments, religions, commerce, and often vile social custom.

This alone should make every American care about this silent genocide, the systematic “disappearing” of people who are HIV+ or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and gender-nonconforming (LGBT) and severe restrictions on the rights of women.

But, there are still other reasons, all very troubling, that should lead every global citizen to be concerned with this tyranny which causes the unnecessary shattering of people’s lives on every continent.

American foreign aid supplies all or a portion of the budgets of many foreign governments but we fail to do enough, anything, to interrupt the associated civil corruption which swallows sometimes half and mismanages what is supposed to be benefiting their populations. This has the most severe impact on women, sexual minorities, and people with HIV+. When will the United States live up to its own principles and condemn these practices and add more safeguards for our US tax dollars? Quiet and overt diplomacy and more public statements from President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton must be forthcoming, not just occasionally reactive or opportunistic sound-bites.

The US has a great opportunity to save a whole class of people in other countries, but looks away. Are we to look back on this period and say we stood quiet instead of interceding to prevent the mass murder of thousands and thousands we could have saved?.

To stand by not only misses that opportunity, America sends the wrong message, attitude, and philosophy out to the rest of the world, whose eyes are fixed on what we are or are not doing to make the world a better place. Will the US just perpetuate the global culture of sexual violence or do something about it?

Worse, and complicating this terrible worldwide problem, is the direct manipulation of dishonest, hypocritical, and greedy past and current US elected and appointed officials. These men very unofficially and unlawfully earn millions for themselves and their cronies on the backs of foreign populations. They are connected and primarily loyal to secretive christianist corporations/organizations, such as “The Family” (aka “The Fellowship”), the Family Research Council,  and to religious leaders whose congregations comprise primarily of honest people who may be blissfully unaware that their financial and moral support of their church is being funneled into the pockets of these commercial adventurers.

Like past charades and crusades, these zealots come in the disguise of acting “in the name of Jesus” and today use fear of women’s rights, fear of people who are HIV+, and fear of anyone who is LGBT to terrorize entire populations. This is a ruse to distract because they are chiefly concerned with who gets the contracts, for roads, schools, hospitals, and especially the extraction of national resources, and most important, “What is the margin? Their profit, how much can they get their hands on?

They lobby at home to unadvisedly turn out more foreign aid, even to countries under dictatorships, to keep the revenue stream pregnant with multiple opportunities to make even more money. One U.S. Senator has boasted of hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel and security he received as senator to fund his “Jesus work” in Uganda.

More in the weeks and months to come exposing the voting and lobbying histories of these current elected and appointed US officials (virtually all Republican, white, and male) which will disclose this egregious mishandling of US tax dollars for spreading homophobia and hate abroad, lining the opposition’s own pockets, and working to blur all lines separating church in state everywhere.

How about a round up and forced resignations of a few dozen members of the US Congress?

We will delve deeply into the cause which motivates these christianist corporations/organizations which advocate adherence to a duty they place higher than any civil duty whatsoever, including government service. Their shared cause is to bring about a world where the rule of law is replaced by the rule of [their] God. And their rule of God includes putting women in their place, and erasing sexual minorities that make them uncomfortable or scare them (itchy about one’s own sexuality, really) and any evidence of HIV+.

This goal to erase the rule of law is foundational to their political and private lives, as Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachman are showing us right now (don’t they know we can see them??). To me, this parallels the oft-disdained mission of jihadists. As for our the members of the US government involved in this cause, ahead of their oath to the US Constitution, this is a vile form of organized crime secretly draining our treasury and ought to be considered sedition.

Are we going to just sit by and let them do that? Their mayhem here and abroad must come to an abrupt end.

If we fail to get involved and act, these self-styled American Fundamentalists, these abusers of powers, will continue their mission of eradication of what they find unacceptable, bringing their theocracy to Main Street USA and every continent on the globe.

These forces are engaged in a worldwide, well-organized attack on all countries’ governments and their populations to extend their exclusionary religious beliefs and unreckoned homophobia and hate, all in the name of their religious cause.

We are broadening out contacts with foreign groups representing women, people with HIV+, and LGBT rights, and will be regularly reporting here, organizing grassroots activism in Washington, DC, and working with watchdog groups to expose the secretive disloyalty of US elected officials. We welcome new contributors.

Let us know what you think? What are you doing to right this terrible and shame wrong being perpetuated by our hard-earned tax dollars?

Where is the outrage?