I thought President Obama would wait at least until his third year in office to raise taxes.  Well, I was wrong.  He’s not even waiting until his third month in office to propose hiking those “fees” the government takes from us:

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

Raising taxes on business? That’s a great way to encourage them to expand and bring on more employees, you know something that might help during economic hard times.

Well, we currently have “the second-highest combined federal-state corporate tax rate among industrialized countries.” Maybe the president just wants America to be Number One.

UPDATE:  Via Glenn, a suggestion on how to get the economy moving again:

The economic forecasts are gloomy despite the hastily passed stimulus package; and we haven’t seen what new regulations are hidden in the stimulus package. I doubt that anyone has read the entire bill even yet.

The best way out of this mess is the German Economic Miracle way: suspend regulations. All regulations. Make it easy to start new companies. Let ingenuity work to allocate capital.

And if taxes on ingenuity aren’t so high, it could do its work better.

Researching a piece for Pajamas on Bill Moyers and came across this gem from that Democratic hack.  So delicious was it that I had to post it right away, especially given my most recent post on the Obama/MSNBC “machine”:

The press is also hobbled by the intimidation from ideological bullies in the propaganda wing of the Republican Party who hector, demonize, and lie about journalists who ask hard questions of this regime.

So, Bill, how do such actions “hobble” them?

And, um, what do you have to say about the Obama folks demonizing their political adversaries?  Guess it’s fair play when the Democrats do it, but hectoring and demonizing when the Republicans do it.

And given that “journalists” like you seem only to find problems on the right side of our ideological spectrum, what’s wrong with asking hard questions of the media? Or, do you believe, only the media should be allowed to ask tough questions? I mean, Bill, you earn your keep off the taxpayer’s dime. Don’t media watchdogs have the right to question you?

Moyers wrote this during the Bush Adminsitration which he calls a “regime.” An interesting betrayal of his extreme partisan bias.

Back in LA from San Francisco this week, I finally had time to watch the rest of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Maybe it’s because I had just read Jim Hoft’s post on how Obama groupie Chris Matthews followed the example of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in attacking Rick Santelli, the latest individual to gain popular acclaim for taking on the president’s policies, that I saw the similarity between the two situations.

In the celebrated Frank Capra cinema classic, as soon as Senator Smith (James Stewart) make clear he intends to oppose a project the Taylor Machine (from his unnamed home state) has had slipped into a spending bill, Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) cranks up his media machine to destroy the honest critic.

It seems that something similar happens every time someone rises to prominence by raising honest questions about Barack Obama’s policies.  First, Democratic hacks and the MSM went after Joe the Plumber when his questions of then-Democratic candidate led the future president to acknowledge his redistributionist tendencies, wanting to “spread the wealth.”

Now, after colorfully raising questions about the president’s foreclosure plan, Santelli began to feel the wrath of the Obama/MSNBC machine.

First, the White House Press Secretary tells him he should read the president’s foreclosure plan before criticizing it, leading Glenn to crack, “Which is rich, since that’s more than anyone in Congress did before voting last week . . ”

Noting the Obama Machine going after yet another critic, Dan Riehl offers:

. . . we’re seeing a WH that looks like it’s being run more like a Chicago Ward, than the house that most presidents lived in. This is about attacking everyone and everything that opposes you. In the end, it demeans the office and raises serious concerns as to whether these people can be trusted with the power they now have.

Kind of sounds like James Stewart’s experience when his Mr. Smith went to Washington.

UPDATE: Well, this is interesting. Just learned that Mr. Santelli’s favorite movie is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (at 4:42 below).

Thanks to Reader Leah for the link.

In a recent comment, bob, one of our most regular critics, chimes in with some good advice for conservatives:

rather than spending so much energy on criticizing your political opponents, perhaps you should begin developing more nuanced and thoughtful ideas on how to solve the nation’s problems. in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in quite the predicament these days.

if you want conservatives to remain relevant in our country’s discussion (i, as a liberal, want conservatives to remain relevant to our country’s discussion), you would be well advised to think about how to make things better instead of about how to find a way to put liberals down. i’m not saying you shouldn’t criticize the opposition; it’s just that the criticism should not overwhelm the discussion of ideas and your ideals.

Perhaps, I was particularly sensitive to this criticism because while I sketched out my plan for a needed economic stimulus, I have neglected to turn it into a post.

But, I wonder, as does one of our defenders if the:

implication of bob’s comment is that conservatives – and classical liberals – and you/us on the GP blog – somehow haven’t been making a good case on how to improve things. We/they have. It’s just that bob, and Democrats generally, choose to stay in ignorance of it.

I do hope bob is aware that many Republicans have put forward alternatives to the “stimulus.” And conservatives have articulated how they would improve things if they were in charge.

That said, I particularly appreciated bob’s last sentence, acknowledging that criticism has it’s place so long as it doesn’t overwhelm the discussion of ideas.  But, as Camus wisely noted, sometimes opposition affirms a deeply held value or principle.

It’s important that we Republicans recall what we’re affirming when we oppose Obama’s initiatives, articulating those principles along with the opposition.  And that we put forward alternatives to the president’s plans as many Republicans did during the “stimulus” debate.

Welcome Instapundit and Corner Readers!

If it weren’t for his Power of Myth series where he introduced Joseph Campbell to a broader audience, Bill Moyers would have contributed little to our national discourse.  He has otherwise dedicated his career almost exclusively to destroying Republicans.

It’s too bad that despite his deep affection for Campbell and his work, Moyers all but ignored that great mythologist’s politics.  Campbell was a Republican and, as I understand, a pretty conservative one at that.

A true investigative reporter who regularly denounces conservatives might want to explore more deeply how his hero’s lifetime study of mythology did not shake his conservative political convictions.

In his White House days, working for then-Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, Moyers was more curious about the sexuality of some of his coworkers:

Bill Moyers, a White House aide now best known as a liberal television commentator, is described in the records as seeking information on the sexual preferences of White House staff members. Moyers said by e-mail yesterday that his memory is unclear after so many years but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover.

And he wasn’t just looking to find out if his coworkers were gay:

Only a few weeks before the 1964 election, a powerful presidential assistant, Walter Jenkins, was arrested in a men’s room in Washington. Evidently, the president was concerned that Barry Goldwater would use that against him in the election. Another assistant, Bill Moyers, was tasked to direct Hoover to do an investigation of Goldwater’s staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity. Mr. Moyers’ memo to the FBI was in one of the files.

Isn’t using the FBI to dig up dirt on political opponents kind of similar to what Nixon did in Watergate?  There’s even a memo in the FBI files.

Oh, and this story about Moyers’ snooping around for evidence of gay people in the Goldwater camp came out in July of 2005.  For three-and-one-half years, the leading gay organizations have been silent on the matter while this onetime practioner of outing prattles away on national TV.

I daresay they’d have reacted differently if Moyers were a former Nixon aide with a show on FoxNews.

(more…)

Let’s say when rustling around in the closet of some leading conservative pundit with a weekly television show, an investigator finds that when that conservative was working in government, he asked the FBI to find out if any of his political rivals were gay?  Let’s say this very pundit had investigated the sexuality of one of his peers.

How would the Human Right Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) react?  Other gay groups?  You can bet they’d be calling for his head, demanding he, at minimum issue an apology, quite possibly attend sensitivity training classes and maybe even demand the network to drop his show.  At minimum, they would issue a statement on this.

Since a leading liberal pundit did just that, I’m about to investigate how they reacted.  Now, as I type these words, I admit not having yet checked their websites nor done any manner of google searches into this matter, but I have reached a preliminary conclusion, that they haven’t mentioned it.

Time will tell how right I am.  And whether I need add “Liberal Hypocrisy” as a category for this post.

Keep an eye on this post.  Updates to come.

HRC UPDATE:  Here’s the only reference to Bill Moyers on the HRC web-site.

NGLTF UPDATE:  My search yielded no results.

I was right!  I was right.  Oh, how easy it is to predict how these groups will react to a Democrat’s questionable conduct on matters of sexuality.

I can’t even find this on the Washington Blade web-site, but at least they linked this Washington Post story.

Time to add a new category to this post.

More on this anon.

Not since Angela Bassett in What’s Love Got to Do With It have I seen an actor portary both the performer as person of an entertainer as well as did Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.  While I found the movie difficult to watch at times, I was absolutely blown away by his performance.  And impressed with that of Marisa Tomei.

You both believe him when he’s in the arena as when he struggles with his relationship to his daughter and to a stripper for whom he’s fallen.  You see him confront his decline with a grace and pathos rarely portrayed so subtly on the silver screen.

What always impressed me about Bassett’s realization (incarnation?) of Tina Turner was not just that she portrayed the emotions of a talented artist, rising from obscurity to stardom while struggling with a husband who saw her more as a meal ticket than a loving companion, but how hard she worked to realize Turner the performer.  And Tina Turner is not just a great singer, but has an amazing stage (and screen) presence.  Bassett captured that.

Just as Rourke captured the presence of a professional wrestler who knows his profession is as much about entertainment as it about sport.  To quote Theodore Roosevelt, he is truly “in the arena.”

Before I had seen this film, I was rooting for Frank Langella to win the Oscar for Best Actor, largely because I see an Academy Award as honoring not just a particular performance, but also a lifetime achievement (as was its original purpose).   And Langella has a lifetime of great performances, most of them in small roles.

I tend to root for the oldest of the nominees when there are number of amazing performances.  And at least three actors richly deserve the honor (Sean Penn being the third).  I was rooting for Langella, but after seeing The Wrestler, I no longer have a favorite in this race.  But, I wonder if ten years hence, I again catch the flick, if I’ll feel as I do every time I watch What’s Love Got to Do With it, the lead wuz robbed.

Oh, and one more thing.  When I lived in Paris in the late 1980s, Mickey Rourke was to the French what Jerry Lewis had been a generation before.  Maybe they were onto something . . . .

Well, at the gym today, the only place I catch CNN, I caught a little more of the “news” network.  And it wasn’t just seeing Anderson Cooper working out.  (Nice arms, but he needs to do more leg work.)

For my cooldown, I did some cardio just as Rich Sanchez came out.  It seems that whenever I catch this guy, he’s always attacking one conservative or another.  I wondered if he ever goes after Democrats.  Today, Minnesota Congressman Michelle Bachmann was the subject of his “investigation.”  As he went about that Republican, he brought on Patricia Murphy, AKA Citizen Jane.

On her website, Ms. Murphy makes herself sound like a non-partisan blogress offering a woman’s perspective on politics.  She claims “nine years” experience on Capitol Hill.  What she doesn’t say is that all nine of those years were for Democrats.

Wonder if Rick Sanchez ever went after a Democratic politician with a generous assist from a Republican blogger . . . .

I mean, there are all these scandals swirling around Democratic politicians.  And Rick decides to pick on a Republican.  (Will update with examples of him inviting a conservative blogger on to go after a Democrat . . . if there are any.)

I have long been a fan of Ellen. She is both funny and self-deprecating. Even after she came out, now over a decade ago, she hasn’t politicized her identity as have many openly gay performers in the public eye. She just seems very comfortable in her own skin.

Her sexuality is, as it should be, incidental to her public persona.

Anyway, while working out today at the gym, I caught her on a commercial for Cover Girl makeup. I guess that makes her a lipstick lesbian now? I also thought of Ellen as a no-makeup kind of gal.

Whatever the case, Ellen’s becoming “the new face of Cover Girl” is just one more sign of how far as we’ve come as a society. (Following the link and note her reflections on lip liner. . . .) A celebrity can come out as or lesbian and still be featured in ads for a number of corporations.

(This was announced back in September and the campaign began last month.)

Kudos, Ellen!

As I was reading about the president’s address to Congress, a thought occurred.

First, about the address.  According to the Washington Post‘s Michael D. Shear:

President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24, an administration official said, giving the equivalent of a State of the Union speech that promises to continue his grim assessments of the nation’s struggling economy.

Obama aides had promised such a speech but had not yet announced a date. The decision to give the speech on Feb. 24 means that he will deliver it not long after Congress considers (sic) his economic stimulus plan about ten days earlier.

Emphasis added.  Delivering the speech on the economy after Congress considered the economic “stimulus”?

Maybe the strangeness of that succession is why Shear got his tenses wrong.   I mean, shouldn’t such a speech come before Congress votes on his economic recovery plan?

Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan who, unlike Obama, had campaigned on an economic recovery plan very similar to that he presented to Congress, addressed Congress before the legislature voted on that plan.

And the economic situation was considerably more dire back then than it is today.

How DARE some stupid Senator challenge President Obama’s surge into Afghanistan!

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops is going to solve the violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

“I think it is fair to say that the President has simply tried to gain another six months to continue on the same course that we’ve been on for several years now. It is a course that will not succeed. It is a course that is exacting an enormous toll on the American people and our troops.”

“We can send 15,000 more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.”

Oh…..wait…… that was then-Senator Obama talking about the futility of the surge in Iraq.  Gee, what great judgment the Great and Powerful O has!

*sigh*

I guess Obamaspeak has a whole new set of rules that I don’t understand yet.  I went to publik skool.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last night, while doing my cardio, I caught a bit of Larry King Live, only the eponymous host was off.  Joy Behar, the comedienne  was subbing for him.  While I’m no fan of Ann Coulter, I gotta give the gal credit for keeping her cool as Ms. Behar beat up on her.  No whiner she.  One of our readers didn’t think too highly of the hostess from The View:

Did anyone catch Joy Behar “trying” to attack Ann Coulter. Does she know how to professionally interview anyone? She was very rude! Has she ever read G. Washington’s Rules of Civility. Maybe this would help her?

As I watched the show, I had similar thoughts.  I also wondered if King ever had a conservative guest host. (Look, I don’t watch the show much, so I really don’t know. I’ll update if readers have evidence of such hosts.)

Funny I should have caught that liberal talker on Larry King last night. Earlier in the day, a friend e-mailed that he too only catches CNN when he’s at the gym:

I was watching CNN at the gym (because I had no choice) and there was a puff piece about our soldiers in Afghanistan called “Why they Fight.”   Did they ever do this about the troops when Bush was prez? NO!  Only now since St. Obama has sent the troops is it a noble cause.

Maybe I’ll have to broach this subject with Anderson Cooper should he show up at my gym for another workout as he did on Wednesday.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

Sixteen years ago, when a second-year at the University of Virginia School of Law, I was the leading candidate to become the next president of the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society, an organization of “conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.“  While “out” to my closest friends and a member of the Gay and Lesbian Law Students Association, most members of the Society didn’t know I was gay.

I feared that if I had ome out, I might not have won election to the post to which I aspired.  I  bought the notion, peddled then as it it today, that a group of conservative students would not choose a gay man as their leader.

Well, I became president and learned during my third year and after my graduation that it wouldn’t have mattered.  Only one member of the Society, on learning I was gay, had any problem with my sexuality.  And even after finding out, he continued to praise my leadership of and devotion to the organization.

As I recall that story, I need single out those liberal students, including the then-president of the Law Democrats, who knew I was gay, yet prevented a more radical student from “outing” me.  I try always to remember their example when unhappy left-wingers comment to this blog, trotting out their standard prejudiced clichés about conservatives in general and their dishonest refrain about gay conservatives in particular, “self-loathing.”

This experience reminds me how broad-minded are so many of our ideological adversaries.  And sensitive to the privacy concerns of their conservative friends.

What is it, I wonder today, as I’ve wondered longer than I’ve been blogging why some of their ideological allies, particularly their gay peers, must needs always define gay conservatives as “self-hating,” calling us the equivalent of Jewish Nazis or black Klansmen?

The comments to my post, Defining Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage as Hate Speech, offered quite a window into this particular left-wing worldview.  Amusing how, when accusing us of self-hatred, they use such vilifying language.  Maybe they assume we hate ourselves because they’re just so determined to hate us.  And since they only see the world from their point of view, they’ve rationalized that since they hate us, everyone must hate us, including ourselves.

Or, maybe it’s because to them, they define “hate speech” as speech they don’t like.

(more…)

I just got off the phone (as a constituent) with the Washington, DC office of freshman US Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC).

I asked a simple question:  “Given the fact that Sen. Hagan voted to confirm Attorney General Holder added to his comments yesterday calling America a “nation of cowards”, and given the fact that if I dare speak about race in the workplace, I’d be fired under current employment laws….. Does Senator Hagan think I — an ordinary American — am a coward?”

The poor dude who answered the phone sputtered, then said he “figured she would not agree with Holder’s statement”.  But then put me on hold and after about 3 minutes came back with:  “Let me take your address so we can send you a response to Holder’s nomination since Sen. Hagan still has to answer a lot of letters about the subject.”

I don’t know, it is a pretty simple question:  Senator Hagan — do you think I’m a coward?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Or maybe he’s just been playing to a new audience.

Just over five years ago, when running for Governor in the recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger had his finger on the pulse of the state.  He knew Californians were outraged by a spendthrift state government and opposed the myriad new tax and fee increases proposed by the then-Democratic Governor and state legislature.

But, now that he is Governor and facing a budget crisis even larger than that which led to the ouster of his predecessor, he seems to be playing to a different audience, no longer the overtaxed people of the Golden State.  Now he seems to be playing to the political class in Sacramento, unwilling to stand up to the public employee unions, hesitant to trim the fat from a bloated budget.

Just last week, negotiating with state legislative leaders, he agreed to a budget which would include numerous tax hikes:

Vehicle license fees would nearly double, going from the current rate of 0.65% to 1.15% of the value of a car or truck. The sales tax would increase by 1 cent, raising the rate in Los Angeles County to 9.75%. Gasoline taxes would increase by 12 cents a gallon. And Californians would pay a new surcharge on their personal income taxes, amounting to 2.5% of their total tax bills.

Republicans in the legislature balked at the tax increases which their (then-)leadership supported.  In the state Senate, they even “ousted their leader” because he backed said increases.

Well, legislators finally reached a compromise, getting one Republican Senator, Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, to sign on to a budget proposal so they could have the two-thirds vote necessary to pass the package.

Sonicfrog has more on some of the provisions in that compromise and speculates on what it might mean for politics in the Golden State.  His post is definitely worth your attention!

Um, when do we get to exercise our rights given to us in the very first clause under our Founding Document?

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Just askin’.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Oh wait, we have THREE brewing this week…. I forgot.

BREAKING:  Charges Against Stanford a Long Time Coming, Offshore Banking Experts Say – ABC News

Offshore banking experts say that the fraud charges this week against accused financial scammer R. Allen Stanford have been a long time coming.

“There’s no surprise at all,” said Washington lawyer and IRS consultant Jack Blum. “This man has been on law enforcement’s radar screen for the better part of 10 years.”

<….>

The federal investigation, however, did not stop Stanford from using corporate money to become a big man at last year’s Democratic convention in Denver.

A video posted on the firm’s web-site shows Stanford, now sought by U.S. Marshals, being hugged by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and praised by former President Bill Clinton for helping to finance a convention-related forum and party put on by the National Democratic Institute.

“I would like to thank the Stanford Financial Group for helping to underwrite this,” Clinton said to the crowd at the event.

Can we all just universally agree that Nancy Pelosi is a lying rhymes-with-witch at this point?  “Culture of corruption” my ass.   She’s the Queen Bee!  [UPDATE:  More on Stanford and Democrats’ drug money. – h/t Instapundit.)

Item number TWO:

There’s a potentially big story brewing on Capitol Hill…  Apparently 104 members of Congress of both parties — 42 Republicans and 62 Democrats — secured earmarks for a lobbying firm linked to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) in a single bill. The earmarks were inserted in a bill Murtha controlled as the defense appropriations subcommittee chairman.

The firm’s executives and clients are among Murtha’s biggest sources of campaign contributions.

Oh and who could forget Blago – The Illinois STD.  You know, the gift that keeps on giving.   Burris still hasn’t gotten his penicillin yet…

This is getting out of control.  Is this the HopeandChange that Chairman Obama promised?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

“NOW CHARLES SCHUMER IS wishing he’d read the ‘stimulus’ bill after all.”

As Americans start learning about of the provisions in this behemoth legislation, expect other Democrats who voted for the “stimulus” to say they wish they’d read it too.

Wonder how their constituents will react as their representatives acknowledge having voted for a multi-hundred billion dollar spending bill that they hadn’t read.

Shouldn’t that be now be the rallying cry for the Sixties wackos who have been protesting, sans bathing, for the past seven years?

Welcome to Obama’s War!

U.S. President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he is sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, marking the start of what many believe will be an escalation that will ultimately see the U.S. forces there double.

There are some 36,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan, and the additional 17,000 alone represent a nearly 50 percent increase.

No Blood For Opium!  No Blood For Opium!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

For now…. but only for now….

In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.‘s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.”

These and other signs suggest that the administration’s changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.

Pop, pop, pop.  Three more American Socialist Democrats’ heads exploded today.

So if Bush=Hitler, what does Obama equal now?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)