80 To 90 Democratic House Seats In Play?

Won’t be able to blog much today.  Need to get laundry done and the machine is out in my building.  So, must find a laundromat.  Plus need to finish reading Lord of the Flies (which I haven’t read since Middle School) so I can incorporate it into the chapter I’m writing for my dissertation and then finish the chapter.

But, did learn that we rank 81 on the list of top political blogs, a slight uptick from our last rating!

The author of the legislation to repeal the ban “is a little-known Democratic congressman named Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran“.  Smart move having not only a veteran introduce repeal, but one who has recently served in the military, thus aware how lifting the ban would affect the morale of troops serving today:

Mr. Murphy is trying to build support for repealing the ban by couching his argument in financial and national-security terms. He says the Pentagon has spent more than $1.3 billion training service members who were later discharged under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provisions and prosecuting troops accused of violating the provisions.

He also argues that the military, already waging manpower-intensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, shouldn’t kick out troops who are otherwise willing and able to serve. More than 13,500 troops have been discharged under the law since 1994, including at least 428 in 2009, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group that opposes the ban.

Sounds like the right way to argue for repeal, by making it a national security issue.  We may well see repeal sometime this year.

This is one promise I hope the president keeps.  Now, to get him to act on that “net spending cut” he promised . .

On my pile of things to blog about has long sat a pamphlet by Robert Spencer, The Islamic Jihad Against Gays:  Why isn’t the Muslim Students Association speaking out? Published by the conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center, the pamphlet addresses an issue which most (but fortunately not all) liberal groups and gay organizations care to consider, the plight of our fellows in Islamofascist nations like Iran.

Now, another one of David’s media enterprises is addressing anti-gay attitudes among Islamic scholars, an issue to which many gay organizations seem blind.  On yesterday’s Front Page Magazine, straight blogger Eric Golub reported on a “lecture last week at the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES)” where Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, offered some theories which, if offered by a conservative would raise the hackles of gay organizations from coast to coast.

Golub calls the talk “anti-gay,” but from his report, it sounded just plain bizarre to me:

Massad . . . explained that “Queer is about resistance to Islam.” Similarly, he said that “There is no Arabic transliteration of queer. It is a judgmental notice of deviance.” In a particularly striking claim, Massad insisted that, for Muslims, concepts like “hate and sexuality are only translatable to English-speaking people.” Muslim honor killings, presumably, are only a figment of non-Muslims imagination.

Massad also used the occasion to present a novel – and decidedly homophobic – conspiracy theory. “Queer is an imperialist term,” he announced. “It is part of the Anglo-American gay agenda.” Indeed, according to Massad, “queer is an example of cultural imperialism.”

Now, I’m not particularly partial to the term “queer,” but wouldn’t even consider calling it an “imperialist” term.

It’s good to see mainstream conservative organizations addressing the plight of gays in Iran and confronting the prejudiced attitude certain Islamic scholars have toward people like us.  It would be nice if our home-grown gay organizations also took note of these prejudices.

While the junior Senator from Vermont may be “the only socialist in the U.S. Congress“, Bernie Sanders is not the biggest spender in the U.S. Senate.  According to David Boaz of the Cato Institute:

42 senators in 2008 voted to spend more tax dollars than socialist Bernie Sanders. They include his neighbor Pat Leahy; Californians Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, who just can’t understand why their home state is in fiscal trouble; and the Eastern Seaboard anti-taxpayer Murderers’ Row of Kerry, Dodd, Lieberman, Clinton, Schumer, Lautenberg, Menendez, Carper, Biden, Cardin, and Mikulski.

The American Conservative Union rated Mrs. Boxer as even more liberal than Mr. Sanders.  

Wonder what California voters are going to think when they learn that our junior Senator’s spending record matches that of our state’s profligate and unpopular legislature.  I’d say it’s something in the water out here, but Boxer just doesn’t spend enough time in her own state to drink enough of the water.

Ma’am, I think it’s time you look for another job, ’cause you’re just not looking out for California taxpayers.