Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

Last Thursday, Bruce reported that, in his celebrated address to the Muslim world in Cairo, President Obama ignored the plight of gays living under Islam.  Speculating that no national gay organizations would take the Democratic President to task for this failure, I offered to make a $25 contribution to any that did so by Monday (yesterday) morning.

Looks like I won’t have to contribute to any left-wing gay organization.  None did.

These groups are so predictable.  And this time, their apologists can’t say that this isn’t within the groups’ bailiwick as they (the apologists) do when we fault the gay groups for ignoring the plight of gays under Islam.  Those apologists tell us that this is an international issue, not within their purview as advocates for gay rights within our borders.  But, President Obama is an American leader.

The American President chose to address the Islamic world.  Gays are being persecuted an executed, on a regular basis in many Islamic countries.  The President ignored the plight.

They fail to praise a Republican former Vice President when he offers a more “progressive” view on gay marriage than does the Democrtic President of the United States.  They fail to criticize that Democrat President when he ignores the plight of our fellows persecuted in Islamic lands.

While some gay activists clearly are not lickspittles, ready and wiling to take on even a Democratic President, it appears the leadership of the major gay and lesbian organizations are slavish supporters of Demorats, constantly bowing and kowtowing to their elected leaders.  While that (R) after a politician’s name renders him immune from their praise, that (D) is like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, rendering him immune from criticism.

Sunday and Monday were days I used to dream about (and delight in) when I aspired to make it as a screenwriter.  It had been a while since I enjoyed the delight of playing with a story idea and seeing the characters come alive in my mind.

A few years ago, when I was developing a short film with a straight friend, he offered an alternative version of our story which lent itself more to humor that the script I had written for him.  His story had the same happy ending, the girl getting the girl, only they two lady lovers didn’t meet at a funeral.

Well, yesterday, shortly after seeing a friend on stage as part of the Young Playwrights’ Festival, I suddenly realized how to tell that alternative version–and to set up what could be a very funny story where love triumphs.  Of course, I always need help writing funny, but my director friend has a good sense of visual humor, so should be able to add some laughs once I have put the story on paper.

As soon I figured out how to “crack” his story idea, the characters just emerged, each with his own strengths and with certain defining weaknesses, each of which (the weaknesses, that is) figure into the humorous and romantic denouement.  It’s such a cool thing when you start playing with a character in your head and find it it necessary to turn off the radio or CD player in the car so you can listen to them speak.  And then there are times when you welcome a red light so you can scribble your ideas onto a scrap of paper so as to preserve them. (more…)

I’m not able to get much into this today as I’m getting ready for vacation (more on that later).

But I did want to get up a post so everyone can comment on today’s SCOTUS/DADT development.

Supreme Court Rejects DADT Challenge – Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.The court said it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.

In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.”

More to come….

UPDATE: Chris Geidner has this to say at Law Dork 2.0:

So, today’s action was not a decision on the merits of the case; the Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

What’s more, the decision, particularly coming right now, likely tells us little about what the members of the Court actually think about the constitutionality of the policy.  Why?  Because a justice, say Justice Ginsburg, might believe the policy is unconstitutional but could vote against cert because she was uncertain of the Court’s other members’ views and did not want to risk losing the argument.  Additionally, with the Court is in the midst of a personnel change, I’d think we’re unlikely to see many high-profile, likely 5-4 outcome case, cert grants before a new justice takes the bench.

<…>

In short, I don’t think that this is a case that anyone should want to be the Supreme Court challenge to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Chris also points out there was a weird legal path for this suit in its journey to SCOTUS.  But you will have to read Law Dork 2.0 to catch up on that!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

On Friday when Yahoo! linked the latest study designed to show conservatives in a bad light, I wondered if they had ever featured a study showing that liberals are angrier, less happy or less generous than conservatives.  And I wondered if the “journalists” reporting the “study” ever considered the politics of those who conducted the study.  (It does seem that the media give more prominence to studies critical of conservatives.)

Seeing this study made me wonder how determined so many on the left are to find some psychological factor that sets us apart politically.  They want to explain away our differences so they don’t have to consider our ideas.

Why can’t they just accept that we come to our political ideas sincerely?  Do they even bother to consider that we might have read widely and have thought long and hard about politics?  Why are so many so determined to dismiss us as suffering from some psychological disorder?

It seems that in their very determination to so dismiss us, they are the ones suffering under some kind of delusion, that they are projecting onto us.  Lest you miss my point, let me clarify.  Those liberals determined to find something psychological factor which defines conservatives are those who may well suffer the disorders they wish to ascribe to us.  Other liberals who believe that conservatives, like them, are sincer in their beliefs, do not so suffer.

I wonder how such liberals react to this raft of studies.

So, here’s an idea:  can it with the studies and start confronting our ideas — on the level of ideas.

For as long as I have observed and particpated in gay politics, I have noticed that, by and large, the diversity at gay confabs is one of appearance, not ideas.  Well, perhaps, I’m being a bit harsh, they do include a range of political opinion from socialist progressives (and communist sympathizers) to what some deem as conservatives, i.e., the Democratic apologists at HRC.

To be sure, there are exceptions, but when in the organized opposition to Prop 8 and now the nascent movement to repeal 8, Republicans are about as scarce as virgins at the Playboy Mansion.

While some of our critics fault me for pointing this out ad nauseum and doing nothing about it, I have been reaching out to the few people I know out here (in LA) in contact with the leadership of the gay organizations.  One person, either at my behest or on her own steam, has pointed out the absence of Republicans to some of those leaders.  I spoke with another individual who reported on efforts within one gay organization to include more Republicans.  And this before I raised the issue.

It seems that they have encountered some pretty strong resistance from those averse to dealing with Republicans all together.

In short, there are a number of liberal gay activists quietly working behind the scenes to promote political diversity in the gay leadership, but they face an entrenched intransigence among what, I would call, a hard-left gay establishment.

I can’t yet single out by name those whom I have contacted and who have responded sympathetically to my concerns.  But, I do want to commend them for taking on a cause not entirely their own, the inclusion of those with political beliefs at odds with their own in the gay leadership and at gay confabs.

Just as not all gay activists are lickspittles to the Democratic Party, not all gay activists are committed to the exclusion of Republicans.

I realize now that, even with some allies on the gay left, it is quite a daunting task to fight for the inclusion of Repubilcans in the efforts to overturn 8.  And I’m not quite sure this is my fight.  For now, let me point out that not all prominent gay activists suppot the exclusion of gay Repubicans.  Some actually are quietly working for our inclusion.  It’s just that they’re up against a determined cadre of intolerant zealots who see attacking Republicans as an article of faith–and perhaps their primary purpose.

“At some point, I will be the ex-President, and then you will find me in France, I’m sure, quite a bit, having fun.”

–President Barack Obama, June 6, 2009

We made the list of the top 100 political blogs!

The meanest people in American politics are on the left, bar none.  No conservative I know can hold a candle for sheer outright meanness, sometimes savagery.  And of course, that comes from believing that power is everything and winning is the only thing that matters, which we do not believe.

So sayeth Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

In his wonderful book, I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican: A Survival Guide for Conservatives Marooned Among the Angry, Smug, and Terminally Self-Righteous, former liberal Harry Stein sums it up:

. . . the sort of “diversity” where no one looks the same and no one ever thinks differently.

There is much to fault in Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s bill mandating that employers provide health insurance while increasing the role of the federal government in our national health care system.  But, the AP article on the expansive and intrusive legislation betrays its primary problem:  ”The draft doesn’t address how this would all be paid for.”

The same problem that plagues all policies in President Obama’s Brave New America, ever bigger government, ever greater federal mandates, ever less freedom.  And no means to pay for it.

If the Democrats had bothered to put a price tag for their policies in front of the American people, they would do what citizens of California did last month–vote them all down.  

Democrats are acting like a man showing his generosity by taking everyone out to eat, only after the meal does he bother to tell us that he doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay for it.

Fanny and Alexander it ain’t.

If you want to see a movie this weekend that will stimulate you intellectually and remind you of the pains and pleasures of childhood, don’t see Land of the Lost.  But, if you grew up in the 1970s and enjoyed the TV shows of Sid and Marty Krofft and want to re-experience their weirdness and wackiness of their imaginary worlds, then head on out to your local multiplex and catch this flick.  It is a lot of fun and is particularly enjoyable with a bucket of popcorn.

Perhaps, one of the greatest delights of the movie was how much it called back to the original, classic 1970s TV series,  They didn’t overdo the CGI effects.  Only the dinosaurs were CGI, the rest of the creatures were just those we saw in monster movies of the 1950s and ’60s and TV shows of the 1960s and ’70s, actors in rubber (or hairy) suits.  It added to the film’s campy nostalgia appeal.  Even the way the reptilian Sleestaks walked seemed reminiscent of old monster movies.  As I watched this movie last night, perhaps seeing a Sleestak on screen for the first time in three decades, I wondered if their strange shape, facial structure and green coloring inspired George Lucas to create the Rodian species, of whom Greedo (so ceremoniously dispatched by Han Solo in the cantina) is perhaps the most familiar representative.

In this re-imagined world of Sid and Marty, Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell), Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel) get sucked into a space-time vortex while trying out his tachyon beam emitter (or some such) with Will Stanton (Danny McBride) while that latter had been giving them a tour of his cheezy fake cave (basically a poor imitation of a Disneyland ride) in the middle of the desert.  Once, in this alternate universe, they face strange monkey men, befriending one of their number, Cha-ka (Jorma Taccone), get chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex (with a brain larger than a walnut), face down the reptilian Sleestak and meet a strange alien in a clear pylon.

There are many references to the original series.  And like many contemporary movies, it’s basically just a series of sketches grouped around a common theme, here, a self-important temporal (or whatever) paleontologist’s adventures in a strange land with a compassionate female scientist (who has the hots for him) and a dumb redneck along for comic relief.  But, each scene is fun enough that you kind of forget the absence of plot.  In short, it’s the kind of movie we enjoyed as kids.

And if you suspend disbelief for long enough, even if you’ve grown up, you’ll enjoy this one too.  It reminds you of your childhood pleasures, particularly those of us who grew up experiencing the zany imagination of the Krofft brothers on our parents’ television screens.

With the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that unemployment has increased to its highest level since the final aftershocks of the 1970s, it has become clear to all but the most dyed-in-the-wool Obama partisans and their media echo chamber (was that a redundancy?) that the “stimulus” has failed to created the new jobs promised when this was passed.

Remember when candidate Barack Obama invoked Dr. Martin Luther King to remind us of the “fierce urgency of now“?  Well, once elected, that rhetoric (like much of his campaign) rhetoric has fallen by the wayside, replaced with policies designed to help the special interests who elected him and help the Democrats whose votes he needs to enact his statist agenda.

If  Democrats really believed their “stimulus” would spur economic growth, they would have front-loaded it, that is, directed that the money go out immediately when it could most invigorate an ailing economy (as per the rhetoric surrounding the urgency of passage before even most elected representatives (or anyone else for that matter) had a chance to read it).  Perhaps, defenders of the “stimulus” will claim that this budget boondoggle has failed to create any new jobs because only 5% of the money has been spent so far.

And the very failure to spend suggests that the purpose of this legislation was not to respond to immediate economic distress, but to the Democrats’ more pressing concern–retaining their majority–for “the bulk of the cash flow will not happen until mid-2010.“  Just in time to rev up the economy before the mid-term elections.

(Even though the money has not gone out, at the time of its passage, the President warned us that without its passage, unemployment would increase.  Well, it did pass and unemployment has increased to the levels we were told it would have reached had it not passed–and beyond.)

If this bill were about providing immediate help to an ailing economy, we wouldn’t have to wait so long to see the bulk of the cash.

Apologies for taking so long to update you on the second leg of the Obama America-Bashing World Tour ’09. I’ve been preparing for some travel myself (alas, on my own dime…don’t have taxpayers to foot my bill), so haven’t had the time to see if he’s keeping it up.

Well, he IS!

From his Thursday speech in Cairo:

9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals.

That makes his new total SEVEN nations to which he has traveled in order to bash us since being inaugurated as president of this awful place. As a refresher, in chronological order, they are:

Canada
Great Britain
France
Saudi Arabia
Mexico
Trinidad and Tobago
And now, Egypt!

Next stop, Dresden!

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot) from HQ

UPDATE: More apologies…I really should have read the president’s press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel from today before posting:

They should have been processed and tried and convicted. If they weren’t convicted, then they should not have been languishing in a facility like that, that became a symbol for many around the world of us not sticking to our ideals and our traditions and rule of law.

But it was done. And that’s the past. And now we have to move forward.

I’ve updated the map to include Germany now as well. Tomorrow will bring no news as the president has already expressed his contempt for America there.

We’ll be having the first on what may become monthly dinners for blog readers in Los Angeles this coming Tuesday, June 9 at 7 PM. E-mail me for details.

For just like the guy at my gym, we know how wonderful it is to find others with similar views and speak openly about our politics without fear of personal recrimination or professional retribution.

So used are we gay denizens of Hollywood to finding that our friends and acquaintances harbor left-of-center political views (or just ape those of their peers for professional advantage), that when we learn a gay friend doesn’t drink the local Kool-Aid, it’s like, well, to borrow an image familiar to residents of this town, it’s like an actor getting a major part in a feature film.

Today at the gym, I experienced just that. After my workout, I had planned only a few minutes of cardio to cool down, but started talking with a friendly acquaintance with whom I haven’t spoken in months, having primarily exchanged pleasantries in the recent past. When the topic of screenwriting came up, I mentioned I’d been too busy with my dissertation and this blog to work on my scripts. Then, after hesitating a bit before divulging the nature of the blog, I mentioned that I’d been getting a lot of writing assignments from a website (i.e., Pajamas) due in large part to the niche we’ve found–as a gay conservative website.

So excited was he to find a “fellow traveler” that he moved to the treadmill nearest mine so he could tell me of his political journey. A Hillary supporter in the Democratic primaries, he registered as a Republican after she lost. He doesn’t trust the President and reports that many of his friends, surprised to learn last fall about his support of John McCain, are coming around to his point of view.

Given his profession (he’s in the entertainment industry), he gave me permission to blog on our encounter provided I keep his identity private.

He mentioned another Republican at the gym, then I identified two others to him. It’s like we’re members of a secret society.

Just the way he describes how it is to encounter another non-leftist in this town. We make eye contact, talk in hushed voices, then hurry to find a place where we can express ourselves freely and share “war stories.”

So engaged were we in such banter that we lost track of the time. I ended up doing over 45 minutes of cool-down cardio when I had intended to do ony 15. And it wasn’t as tedious as it normally is. Not nearly. So, now I know how to work off those remaining 5-7 pounds, just find a few more conservatives at the gym to share “war stories” while I’m on a cardio machine.

While technically, their favorables are statitiscally indistinguishable, i current trendlines continue, Nancy Pelosi’s favorables will slip below those of Geoge W. Bush at the nadir of his popularity.  They’ve been in constant decline since the beginning of the Obama Administration while the former Vice President’s have spiked upwards.

Current 34% of Americans view the Democratic House Speaker favorably while 37% view the Republican former Vice President favorably.

No wonder Jim Geraghty is reporting that House Republicans Concur Pelosi Should Hit the Campaign Trail.

UPDATE:  Greg Sargent explains:

The Gallup poll finds that two of the leading officials on either side of the torture argument — Cheney and Nancy Pelosi — have equally poor favorability ratings. But here’s the key point: They are at parity because Cheney’s ratings have gone up and Pelosi’s have dropped during the period that both were heavily identified with the torture issue. . . . 

Top Dems (Obama aside) have taken Cheney about as seriously as a circus sideshow, chortling about his low approval ratings while rarely rebutting his actual arguments. Result: His claims have continually gone largely unchallenged, and he’s largely framed the debate. My bet is that this helps explain why Cheney seems to be rising in the polls and Pelosi is sinking: Dems have given Cheney an opening, and Cheney took it.

Via Instapundit.

Perhaps it’s his ownership non-takeover of two of the Big Three auto manufacturers. Maybe it’s his consistent belittling of his own country while representing it overseas.

Whatever it is, it has taken Barack Hussein Obama 136 days in office to reach parity on Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Rasmussen takes a daily approval poll for the president and then subtracts the percentage of those who “Strongly Approve” of his performance from those who “Strongly Disapprove” to come up with what they call the Presidential Approval Index, which today for the first time stands at 0. As Rasmussen puts it, “That’s the highest level of strong disapproval and the lowest overall rating yet recorded.”

One would hope, as was screamed at Bush for eight years, that Obama might take this to heart and attempt to better represent his constituency which is growing ever more tired of his far-Left extreme policies. One mustn’t hold his breath, though.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot) from HQ

UPDATE (from Dan): Interesting to note the steady, gradual decline of his strong approval and the quick uptick in his strong disapproval. May have more to say about this later.

While current vote totals in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes for the state’s Senate seat have Al Franken up by 312 votes over Norm Coleman, a recent “review of Minnesota’s statewide database of registered voters revealed at least 2,812 deceased individuals voted in last November’s general election, according to a new report by the “traditional values” advocacy group Minnesota Majority.”

Looking at this study, Jim Geraghty asks, “it would be useful to know the vote breakdown of these 2,800 or so votes.”

While we may not be able to determine how the dead voted, there is a standard that gives us a pretty accurate estimate.  It’s from the City of Chicago which has a long history of dead men people voting.  Overwhelmingly the dead in the Windy City prefer the party of Richard Daley, a pioneer in the electoral rights of the formerly living.  Going with the Chicago rule whereby the dead vote by a margin of approximately 7.48 to 1 for the Democrat, 2,437 of the dead voted for Franken, with 375 voting for Coleman.

Some may have voted for Third Party candidate, Dean Barkley–alas, the Chicago rule does not consider Third Party candidates.  Also to consider, Franken has a name that is likely to make a dead voter more amenable to his candidacy.

So, it seems Franken picked up 2,062 votes from dead voters (give or take a few hundred).  Remove those from his tally and the lead returns to Coleman (who was ahead on election night and remained ahead until the Franken campaign persuaded canvassers to include previously rejected absentee ballots, where Democratic counties had more liberal standards for including such ballots than did Republican counties).

It seems that the dead really did put Franken over the top.

These activists are “STARTING TO NOTICE that Obama is not about to do anything for them.”

So it seems that not all gay and lesbian activists are bowing and scraping to this Democratic President, some are speaking out about his inaction on issues near and dear to their hearts.  According to Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin at Politico:

Gay rights campaigners, most of them Democrats who supported Obama in November, have begun to voice their public frustration with Obama’s inaction, small jokes at their community’s expense and deafening silence on what they see as the signal civil rights issue of this era.

Simply put, the White House prefers political expediency to principle:

The White House has been reluctant to spend its political capital pushing Obama’s highest-profile pro-gay positions believing, White House allies say, that it could detract from priorities like health care. And it may be even less likely to do next year, with midterms approaching.

With Barack Obama, it’s all about getting and retaining power for himself and his partisans.

Some new kind of politics. Kudos to those gay activists who are calling him out and taking him to task for his failure to follow through on his campaign promises.

SPECIAL UPDATE from Dan:  I will offer a $25 contribution to the first non-Republican gay organization which criticizes the President for this omission.  If none do so by Monday morning, I will give that to GOProud.

I wish I could say that I picked up on this myself, but I must give full credit to New Zealand blogger Darren who writes at The Fairfacts Media Show and the No Minister blog and who emailed me earlier today.

Why did President Obama completely ignore the persecution and pogroms of gays where Islamic law is the rule of the land?  It is happening in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and even Egypt.  (The list goes on and on actually….)

Gays living under strict Islamic law (whether in a nation or a region) are subject to death.  Women(as a group) actually have better lives in the Muslim faith than do gays and lesbians.  Although gay men seem to be particular targets of the horrific state/mosque-sanctioned atrocities.

Has Obama not seen the photos of young gay men being hanged in Iran?

It is outrageous for President Obama to ignore this issue while he addressed so many others today.  He let a lot of people down today by taking a walk on this serious human rights threat to gays in many Muslim countries and communities.

UPDATE: GOProud becomes first American gay organization to challenge Obama on Islam and gays.

“President Obama’s silence today on the treatment of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries is shameful.  The penalty for simply being gay in Muslim countries like Iran is death.  Even in Egypt, the country where President Obama spoke today, gays have been subject to arrest and imprisonment.

It is intolerable for President Obama to turn a blind eye to the type of human rights abuses occurring at the hands of Islamic extremists throughout the world.  If the United States is to maintain its position of moral leadership in the world, then this administration must make it clear that basic human rights for all should be respected.”

I am really beginning to wonder why the American gay and lesbian activists were so hot for Obama to begin with.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)