GOProud’s chairman Chris Barron co-authored a piece on healthcare reform with US Senator Tom Coburn for The Advocate.  I want to open with this commenter at The Advocate, which is typical of the closeminded vitriol of most gay activists:

Seriously? Republicans concerned over GLBTs who have HIV/AIDS and who are scared? I’ve never heard of such a thing. In fact, the last things I remember are GWB slashing funding for HIV/AIDS care and that Nazi Reagan ignoring our community while we died. Republicans, bite me. I’ll never listen to you.

Few people know that Sen. Coburn was personally responsible for re-inserting HIV/AIDS funding into the Federal Budget when Bill Clinton zeroed-it out throughout his Presidency.  Inconvenient truths.

But back to the topic at hand:  the dangers of government run healthcare for those with HIV/AIDS.  Read the whole thing from Coburn & Barron, but here are few excerpts:

The federal government will spend $15 billion on AIDS treatment alone this year, yet due to the inefficiencies of the public-run program, thousands will not receive appropriate care. In recent years, two patients in West Virginia and five in Kentucky died while awaiting care on waiting lists for the RWCA AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Today there are 247 Americans on waiting lists for livesaving AIDS drugs in eight states. The number is expected to reach 500 by Christmas. Those on the ADAP waiting lists are disproportionately minorities and residents of rural areas.

Sadly, the waiting lists do not tell the whole story of how care is being rationed under this program. Many other ADAP patients, while receiving care, are being denied the best treatment. Fuzeon, the AIDS drug of last resort that has been successful in treating patients who no longer benefit from other drugs, for example, has been denied to ADAP patients in our nation’s capital.

With our neighbors in need, no one should question that we have an obligation to help those who lack access to quality, affordable medical care. But how?

The best solution is to prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against patients who are sick or who have preexisting conditions. These are some of the very reasons why we have insurance. Then we should give all Americans the same choices of health care coverage enjoyed by members of Congress, who can select from more than 10 different private health care plans. S. 1099, the Patients’ Choice Act, would guarantee that all Americans would be able to choose the health care coverage that best meets their individual needs with creating a new government program. The Patients’ Choice Act will put you, not insurance companies, bureaucrats, or politicians, in charge of your own health care decisions.

We can and should work to make sure that every man, woman, and child in this country has access to quality, affordable health care. No one should be denied access to health care that would improve or extend their life. The good news is that we can do this. We can do it without creating an inefficient and expensive government program and we can do it in such a way that empowers individuals to take control of their own health care.

RELATED STORY: D.C. officials to scrutinize spending by AIDS groups – Washington Post

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Glenn Reynolds reports:  “THE HILL: Blue Dogs getting spending fatigue; wary of new economic fixes.”   In a similar vein, Michael Barone reports Senate Democrats wary of health care deficit spending.

They seem finally to understand that Obama’s campaign promises notwithstanding, that under his leadership, that for “every domestic difficulty, great or small, [his party] favors increased government spending or regulation.”

With word that “Barack Obama’s White House has declared war on the largest lobbying organization in the country, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” we have yet another example of a White House determined to demonize those who dare criticize its policies (or to air said criticism on its news network).  He’s now added the Chamber to the Obama enemies’ list.  According to the Washington Examiner‘s Timothy P. Carney:

Chamber lobbyist Bruce Josten told me that White House is picking a high-profile fight with his group because, given Democratic supermajorities, Obama “needs an enemy” to blame for the difficulty he’s having in getting his policies approved.

But there’s another reason Obama is running low on enemies: He’s already bought off many of the most powerful industries and businesses.

Look at health care, where Obama has brought the name-brand drug makers on board to his reform with promises of subsidies and pledges not to attack the industry’s special favors. Look at cigarettes, where Obama signed a tobacco regulation bill with the firm backing of Philip Morris.

This White House does seem to have a need to make enemies.  Administration officials attack insurance companies, FoxNews and now the U.S. Chamber Commerce.  Who will be the next target of Obama’s animus?

This animus stands to distinct contrast to candidate Obama’s rhetoric about “disagreeing without being disagreeable,” and “moving beyond bitterness and pettiness and politics of division” (via Jim Geraghty).  Indeed, as Michael Barone notes, this contrasts with what the President said back in February:

I don’t always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that’s part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we’re not supposed to all be in lockstep here.

Instead of “moving beyond bitterness and pettiness,” the President, Barone asserts, responds to disagreement “with classic Chicago brass knuckles,” an assertion Charles Krauthammer echoes in this must-watch video:

Via GatewayPundit.

In short is the difference between Rahm Emanuel’s tactics and candidate Obama’s campaign rhetoric which defines the hypocrisy at the heart of this Administration.

I’m assuming that’s a net loss, so it would factor in the 2,260 jobs gained due to the “stimulus.”

Yes, the Golden State’s junior Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer urged swift action, promising us 400,000 jobs created.  Nows, let’s just say (for argument’s sake) that she was promising us 400,000 jobs over a four-year period.  (Her release doessn’t provide a timeline.)  That means, 100,000 new jobs a year.  The “stimulus passed eight months ago or tw0-thirds of one year (twelve months).  Two-thirds of 100,000 is 66,667.

Since the “stimulus” passed, employers in the Golden State have shed 336,400 jobs.   That means, we’re approximately 400,000 jobs behind the number Mrs. Boxer anticipated (presuming her job creation estimate was for four years).  And she wants us to reelect her for another six years!

If the business world, if you make an error of this magnitude, they give you that proverbial pink piece of paper.   Time to give one of those to this self-righteous Democrat.

I agree with US Senator Lamar Alexander and have been saying so for quite sometime. 

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) accused the White House on Wednesday of “street-brawling” with opponents, and said the West Wing’s strategy of freezing out opponents amounts to a latter-day “enemies list,” a reference to an infamous practice of President Richard Nixon.

 ”An ‘enemies list’ only denigrates the Presidency and the Republic itself,” Alexander said on the Senate floor. “These are unusually difficult times, with plenty of forces encouraging us to disagree. Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list. Let’s push the street-brawling out of the White House and work together on the truly presidential issues: creating jobs, reducing health care costs, reducing the debt, creating clean energy.”

Alexander continued:

“In 1969 and during the first half of 1970, I was a wet-behind-the-ears, 29-year-old staff aide in the West Wing of the Nixon White House. I was working for the wisest man in that White House, Bryce Harlow, who was a friend of President Johnson, as well as the favorite staff member of President Eisenhower, and President Nixon’s first appointee.

 Based upon that experience and my forty years since then in and out of public life, I want to make what I hope will be taken as a friendly suggestion to President Obama and his White House: don’t create an enemies list.”

Obama has all of the worst qualities of Jimmy Carter & Richard Nixon and none of the good qualities of any recent President I can think of…

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Chiding Senate Republicans in February for trying to slow passage of the Democrats’ spendthrift “so-called stimulus” package, Ma’am Barbara Boxer said swift action was necessary because jobs “were being lost every minute“.

In a statement made after the Senate passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AKA the “stimulus”), legislation Mrs. Boxer’s office  claimed would “save or create millions of jobs and stabilize an economy in crisis,” the Golden State’s junior Senator repeated this mantra, “There is a very simple, urgent reason for this bill: We need to save jobs and we need to create jobs.”

In a followup statement highlighting a White House estimate “that the legislation will save or create approximately 400,000 jobs in California,” she assured us jobs would be created in the Golden State:

In the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Congress has acted today to save or create jobs in California and across the nation. With so many Californians anxious about the economy, this legislation offers help and hope. This bill will put Californians to work now building the highways, bridges, transit and rail systems, and renewable energy sources of the 21st century.

Eight months later and only 2,260 of those jobs have been created (or saved) in the Golden State, less than 1% of the number the White House promised (with Mrs. Boxer’s blessing).  And those 2,260 jobs created in the past eight months barely make a dent in the 39,300 jobs lost last month alone, “nearly six times the number of jobs the state now says were lost in August“.

Or seventeen times the number of jobs created in eight months by the “stimulus” for whose swift passage Mrs. Boxer agitated.

Since seeing in the Godfather‘s Sonny Corleone a characteristic which defined the early Achilles (of myth and not the recent cinematic misrepresentation), I have begun writing the second chapter of my dissertation which will likely slow my blogging output for the next week or so.

I will still blog, but apologize in advance for not weighing in on as many subjects as I have in recent weeks.

The first part of the scene below helped me realize what was missing from the first part of my dissertation.

In his post explaining why the Republican National Committee (RNC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) should withdraw their support for the Republican nominee in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, Jim Geraghty offers this:

There’s room in the party for pro-choice Republicans and pro-gay-marriage Republicans and maybe even the odd pro-card-check Republican.

Let’s hope Republicans take heed to this message, especially as to the second type of Republican listed above.

It is alternatively aggravating and amusing to watch the White House and their echo chambers in the left-wing media and among their allied activist organizations go after FoxNews.  Never before (at least not since Nixon) has an Administration so attempted to discredit and isolate a news organization.

Even some left-wing bloggers and liberal pundits have questioned the strategy, with one reliably liberal commentator calling the “administration’s war on Fox News is dumb on multiple levels“:

It makes the White House look childish and petty at best, and it has a distinct Nixonian — Agnewesque? — aroma at worst. It is a self-defeating trifecta: it distracts attention from the Obama administration’s substantive message; it serves to help Fox, not punish it, by driving up ratings; and it deprives the White House, to the extent it refuses to provide administration officials to appear on the cable network, of access to an audience that is, in fact, broader than hard-core Obama haters.

It certainly isn’t hurting FoxNews’ ratings.  And indeed, it may be that Fox continues to lead the cable news market that so frustrates the President (drawing an audience that regularly exceeds that of MSNBC and CNN combined, and even exceeds its competitors if Headline News is thrown in the mix).  The White House whining will only serve to increase those ratings, in part, because the hullabaloo will cause some people who might not otherwise check out the news network to do so.

And many, finding coverage more balanced than that on the other news networks, will continue to watch Fox.

Can’t they just accept that not all the news networks will fawn over the President as do the various anchors and reporters at MSNBC and CNN?  Why do they so bristle at critical coverage, coverage similar to (but less hostile than) that received by the presisdent’s immediate predecessor on the three broadcast networks and those two cable news networks?

Maybe because they fear the other networks will pick up on the stories that Fox covers (and they neglect). Ben Smith believes

Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein nail the real explanation in their story today: The White House is working to prevent stories born on Fox from crossing over into more widely-viewed media.

Rob on Say Anything concurs, saying they want us to believe that stories on FoxNews don’t count: (more…)

Today in the Wall Street Journal‘s online Political Diary (available by subscription), John Fund addresses a specific manifestation of an issue we have long addressed on this blog, the preference of some gay marriage advocates (many, it seems sometimes) to prefer the tactics of intimidation to persuasion.

At issue is their attempts to gain access to, in Fund’s words, “the names of 138,000 people who signed a petition to put forward a November ballot measure to protect traditional marriage”:

The gay groups want to put the names online, which could lead to signers being harassed along the lines of what happened to donors to Proposition 8 in California last year. Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the landmark decision overturning state anti-gay laws, nonetheless blocked a federal appeals court ruling that would have allowed release of the names.

Given how busy I am at present with various projects related to my dissertation, I don’t have much time to explore this issue in depth. So, I’ll conclude this post by building on the question posed in the title:  Why do some gay activists prefer the tactics of intimidation to those of persuasion?  Why are they so loath to make the case for gay marriage?

Why are they, like the President, so regularly so ready to demonize their adversaries?

Though not nearly as strongly as would her counterpart on Olympus.

That these pundits would use such a term indicates they’re not interesting in covering this grassroots movement fairly.  But, in seeking to discredit it, they discredit only themselves.  Peggy at least gets at the legitimacy of the concern of those who take to the streets to oppose Democrats’ big-spending initiatives.  I only wish she had been more forceful in objecting to the juvenile rhetoric of her male peers, much as the real Athena restrained Achilles from rash action.

Still, the comments of the others provide yet another example of media bias, even by Stephanopoulos who has, in recent days, shown some efforts to be balanced, occasionally asking tough questions of Democrats and their defenders (despite his background as an aide to highly partisan Democrats).  Via Jim Hoft who offers:   “They didn’t even bat an eye when as they used the offensive sexual term to describe fiscal conservatives.”

All but Peggy.

As Jim Hoft, who alerted me to the cover below put it:  You Know You’re the Punchline When They Start Reporting You’re No Joke

Maybe this cover is a joke.

Jennifer Rubin, who has a more honest evaluation of the Vice President (than the MSM who fawn over anything Obama, including his appointees), considered what might happen should the President and Secretary of Defense back the McChrystal approach to Afghanistan:

. . . it would be one more indication that perhaps the worst personnel decision Obama ever made was selecting Biden. Exactly what value has he added? Maybe he’ll make the president (if he rejects Biden’s counsel) look wise — and that’s a critical function for any vice president.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s the reason, the then-presumptive Democratic nominee chose the then-Delaware Senator.  Obama makes himself look wise by comparison to the man who had spent over half his life in Washington when the Illinoisan started serving with him (in 2005).

With Biden, the President would have a Vice President who had, when in the Senate, almost never taken a course independent of his party.  He likely assumed predicated that once ensconced at the Naval Observatory (Washington home to all Vice Presidents since Mondale), the gaffe-prone sexagenarian would easily to fall into line with all of the president’s initiatives.  And Biden ever eager to get along and go along, wouldn’t raise a ruckus, or let it be leaked, if things didn’t go his way, because well, things always seemed to go his way within the Democratic caucus ’cause he always went the way of the caucus.

No one really expects the President to turn to Biden for advice.  And let’s hope he doesn’t when it comes time to make a decision on Afghanistan.

Yes, we are usually 6-8 months behind the times here.  Heh.  So it took me getting a Kindle to comprehend what the deal is with it!

As of today, GayPatriot is available on Kindle via THIS LINK.  We should be in the News, History, Politics category if you want to search on your Kindle for the blog.

Happy reading, Kindlettes!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

You know, if the president really wanted to look like he’s secure in his leadership and confident of the merits of his policies, instead of regularly dispatching his minions to trash FoxNews, he’d given them a talking point like this:

In this era of multiple sources of news, we’re pleased to see them out there.  They may give our critics greater voice, but, that just gives us a greater opportunity to expose the flaws in their arguments and so make a better case for our policies.

But, rather than address the various arguments made by pundits and advanced by politicians (and scholars) on FoxNews, White House senior adviser David Axelrod joined the Administration’s chorus in attacking the news network, telling George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week”:

Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money. The only argument [White House communications director] Anita [Dunn] was making is that they’re not really a news station if you watch even — it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming.

The Obama advisor said the programming of Fox is “not really news.”

As Glenn Reynolds put it:

“IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN I SHALL–” Oh, hell, you know the rest. New York Times declares Fox News winner in fight with Obama.

If the Old Gray Lady declares Fox the winner, how do you think the American people, far more to the center (and right) than the Times, are reacting?

Someone’s credibility is going to take a hit, but it won’t be that of FoxNews.

Two cheers today for the Obama Administration which announces that federal drug agents will cease harassment of medical marijuana users in states where it’s legal. That’s good news for liberty advocates in states such as my Colorado where dispensaries are beginning to pop up after medical MJ was legalized by referendum back in 1996.

No doubt hard-core folks on the right will criticize this, but “small l” libertarians like me cheer the loosening of any laws against victimless crimes. Laxing medical marijuana laws, I’ll say without caution, is a great first step in eliminating these senseless and liberty-draining measures across the board. And I’m all for it.

It’s a shame President Obama’s zest for individual liberty when it comes to medical choices cannot be extended further into his health care agenda. While I salute his decision here, I must wonder if he’s actually embracing liberty or simply playing to the usual libertine desires of his core, the pot-smoking Lefties who probably misheard him last year and thought he was calling for “Dope and Mange”.

Nevertheless, he deserves credit for this, and now Eric Holder can concentrate on more important things… Like pursuing charges against those who are trying to defend us against foreign terrorists.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

Look, it’s entirely fair to criticize the Bush Administration for not adapting our military strategy to meet changing circumstances in Afghanistan, but it’s unbecoming for the incumbent Administration to act as if they’re the first ones to ask critical questions while the previous one did not:

One of President Obama’s top advisers said Sunday the Bush administration failed to ask critical questions about the war in Afghanistan, leaving the Obama administration starting from scratch — and leaving the war “adrift.”

“The president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Emphasis added.  This response is almost narcissistic.  Questions that have “ never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side”? Oh come on, now.

Instead of trying to portray Mr. Obama is a bold and daring leader, doing what no president has done before, why not simply say, “the President has been asking a lot of tough questions to make sure we have a strategy that leads to a decisive victory and advances our long-term national security”?  Instead of attacking the previous Administration for not asking tough questions, why not simply focus on what you’re doing?

Why this persistent “need” for Administration officials to find an adversary to attack?

I mean, why did the President attack insurance companies on Saturday instead of making the case for his healthcare reform proposal?   Moe Lane calls it a “two-minute hate“*:

The President doesn’t handle opposition to his will all that well, does he? Even the New York Times is forced to admit that this was ‘unusually harsh;’ Instapundit was harsh himself, but mostly just accurate when he called this ‘desperate.

Via Instapundit.

The more they attack, the more people question the President’s commitment to that new kind of politics he touted so regularly in his campaign last fall.

Yahoo! led last night with an article which may have broader implications about the stability of the Iranian regime. Or maybe I’m just reading things into this.

The AP reports that Iran bombing kills 5 Revolutionary Guard leaders. That’s Iran with an “n” not Iraq with a “q”:

A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard and at least 37 others Sunday near the Pakistani border in the heartland of a potentially escalating Sunni insurgency.

Emphasis added.  That these insurgents could strike the most elite units of the Iranian military suggests that they’ve got some pretty good intelligence capabilities.  (Or it just could be dumb luck.)

Could be that they have allies on the inside of the Revolutionary Guard.  With divisions appearing among the mullahocracy in the wake of the fraudulent elections in June, this could be a harbinger of great unrest among the Iranian elites.

And let’s not forget the recent crash of Iran’s sole AWACS aircraft last month.  Something’s happening in Iran.  Maybe a civil war is in the offing?

This may well be the first suicide bomber since 9/11 to target the bad guys.

What is it with normally sensible, highly educated liberal pundits? Why do they get so hot and bothered about FoxNews?

Michelle Malkin calls it Fox News Derangement Syndrome.  It’s one thing to criticize their coverage and their surfeit of “platinum pundettes,” but to call them “un-American” as does the once*-sensible Jacob Weisberg, now that really takes the cake.

Perhaps, he should actually watch their evening coverage.  I’ll grant that Glenn Beck (at least the few times I’ve watched him) is quite over-the-top, but on Special Report with Bret Bair (my favorite program on the network), they regularly have guests representing both sides on any given issue, often with a quite intelligent and eloquent liberals defending Democratic policies, officials and candidates.

A far greater balance that I’ve ever seen on MSNBC when they play it on the TV monitors at my gym.  If Fox is “un-American, then MSNBC even more so.

What is it that makes so many on the left (particularly those in the Administration) hate FoxNews so?  Is it its success? Or is it something else?  Perhaps the greater prominence it gives for Administration criticism in particular and conservative views in general?

(H/t:  Jim Hoft)

—————

*I would call him “normally” sensible, but this latest piece is just beyond silly. (more…)

So clearly I intended to write this posting a LONGGGG time ago. I’ve been saving it because both of these books are two of the best I’ve read in a long time. I strongly suggest them as immediate reading. (And in case the FTC is monitoring blogs now, I did not receive any compensation to make these recommendations!)

The first is a work of fiction (I hope) and the second is non-fiction/history.  Both are related to a potential catastrophe facing the United States of America and how its citizens do (or might) respond.

“One Second After” by William R. Forstchen tells the tale of a North Carolina mountain town that struggles to survive after a massive EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack on the USA.  The science behind the fiction is as fascinating and disturbing as the storyline.  In brief, if you explode a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere (as opposed to at ground level), the EMP will fry every type of electronic/transistor in every piece of modern machinery. I don’t want to give away much of the plot — but involves a complete breakdown of civilized society because we are so wed to modern electronics to get through each day.

How serious is the EMP threat you might ask? Chillingly real.  There has been at least one Congressional hearing on the subject each of the past several years.  Here is a link to an account of the most recent (July 2009).

If you want a great “future is now” thriller that will keep you turning pages and crapping your pants wondering when this might happen for real — definitely buy “One Second After“.

My second recommendation is a relatively “old” book (1997) that just came to my attention recently.  It is called “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe.   Here’s the Amazon.com review which sums it up nicely:

The Fourth Turning continues the project of mapping out the place of generations in history, a project begun in the authors’ earlier books Generations and 13th Gen. If millennial fever takes hold, The Fourth Turning may be only the first of an impending wave of pseudo-scholarly tracts prognosticating future (but imminent!) doom as we collectively close the books on this millennium. Those expecting a serious or dry tome might be put off by the authors’ taste for bulleted text and catchy phrasings, but can you blame these guys for wanting to make impending peril as exciting as possible? After all, they think we are headed toward “events on par with the Revolution, the Civil War, or World War II” in the next 20 years. Mixing solid understanding of present generational divisions, with some fairly broad generalizations, Strauss and Howe promise to move from history to prophecy.

Their other two books are now on my list as I’ve become fascinated with the different dynamics of generations, especially as it impacts American history and its future.  Many of their predictions from1997 are today’s headlines, so perhaps it is more impactful to read it now than when it was first published.

So there you go.  Two long overdue book recommendations from me — he who rarely has time to read a magazine!!  I read both of these quickly earlier this summer.  They are both engaging and terrifying at the same time.

My reading habits will hopefully improve since PatriotPartner got me an Amazon Kindle for my 41st birthday last week.  Yay!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I somehow missed the videos from “Thomas Paine” that went viral a few months ago. I rather like these and I find it hilarious that the guy portraying Paine is a former actor from the 70s Hawaii Five-O TV show!

While this video is addressed to President Obama, what I find interesting about it is that it could be directed at just about every president and congresscritter that have been in office during my lifetime. Basso’s choice of Thomas Paine to portray in these videos is probably quite appropriate as the real Paine if he were around today would be taking all of our politicians to the proverbial woodshed.

– John (Average Gay Joe)