Commenting on the sale of a script based on the life of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Hemingway quips, “his opponents sure are obsessed with Limbaugh’s alleged personal motivations. I guess that’s easier than engaging his actual arguments.”

Does to seem to be theme current in the critics of conservatives and conservatism.  Instead of engaging our ideas, they engage in armchair psychoanalysis, often with a prejudiced idea of their subject and a limited understanding of psychology.

I’m not quite sure when I first corresponded  with blogress Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend.  I believe I first became aware of her website when we were in competition for best LGBT blog in ’05.

Thanks to her blog (as well as those of Michael Petrelis and John Aravosis, among others), I have learned that not all outspoken gays on the left march in lock-step with the left-wing lickspittles leading the various gay organizations.  These bloggers (and blogresses) don’t define themselves as the gay adjuncts to the Democratic Party, but instead as advocates for gay people.

We may not always agree with them, but we do appreciate their integrity, understanding that Democrats don’t always have our interests at heart.

I believe I first e-mailed Pam to commend her for taking HRC’s Joe Solomonese to task for his obsequiousness toward Democrats.  Well, due in large part to our occasional correspondence that ensued over the years, I e-mailed her when I realized I would be passing through Raleigh on my way across country.  We met last Monday for coffee and so engaging was our conversation that I totally lost track of the time.

We didn’t agree on everything, but we did share a disdain for the gay organizations.  Not only have blogs provided a forum for gay conservatives, something we pretty much lacked before the dawn of the “internets,” but they have also provided a space for left-of-center gays disenchanted with the gay establishment.  As I noted above, until I discovered these websites, I was largely unaware of the extent of dissatisfaction among such gays, particularly among activists, with the leadership at HRC and other left-wing gay organizations, many of them often shills for the Democratic Party.

I believe that it is in large part because bloggers like Pam have refused to accept the gay leadership’s acquiescence to the dictates of the Democratic Party that we have seen forward motion on DADT repeal. (more…)

Helen Thomas has long been the crazy old granny of the White House press corps.  And she has long since outlived her welcome. Now she’s shown a level of, well, loopiness that should disqualify her from more than just having such a prominent place at presidential press conferences and White House news briefings.

The video speaks for itself:

Via Instapundit who linked a poll which asked “Should Helen Thomas be kicked off the White House Press Corps for her anti-semitic remarks?”

UPDATE:  Via Instapundit, Michelle Bachmann sums it up, “The White House needs to revoke her press credentials immediately.”

UP-UPDATE:  Media reports notwithstanding, Helen Thomas has not apologized.

As a sign of just how out of touch are our state legislators in Sacramento, let me relate to you some legislation they’re considering.  Now, first of all, some background.  The state is in an economic crisis.  One in eight California is out of work — and that just based on official unemployment statistics.  If you factor in the number who have given up the search, it could go as high as one in five.

Drive along any main thoroughfare in Los Angeles and you’ll find countless vacant storefronts, decorated only with the detritus of the past tenant with signs reading, “For Lease” or “Available” posted on a display window displaying nothing else.

So, via Sonicfrog, I get a link to something my drinking companions brought up last night (wonderful that serendipity, spared me a google search).  The California Assembly just voted to increase regulations on private enterprise:

California is poised to take the national and global lead on yet another key environmental issue:single-use paper and plastic bags handed out at grocery, convenience, and other stores.

The state Assembly approved AB 1998 Wednesday, which would require shoppers who don’t bring their own bags to the store to purchase paper bags made of at least 40 percent recycled material or buy reusable totes. The statewide ban, which would go further than plastic bag bans in at least five cities, including San Francisco, would be the nation’s first. It moves on to the Senate Thursday, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that he supports it – a rare revelation that could aid its passage, according to several observers.

(It passed the Assembly 41-27, with no Republican votes.)

Yeah, that’ll make it easier for entrepreneurs to establish new enterprises.  Don’t these legislators have better things to do with their time?  They’re more concerned with appeasing the left-wing environmental lobby in the state than actually standing up to the various special interests and for the citizens of California.

The interest groups will applaud, but no new jobs will be created in the private sector.  And the cost of doing business will go up.

Kudos to state Republicans for opposing this nonsense.

Sir Paul McCartney, the billionaire smart enough to sell the publishing rights for the entire Beatles library to a kid-touching basketcase and marry a talentless one-legged model without signing a prenuptual agreement, feels he’s wise enough to take a cheap-shot at the intellect of the former President of the United States of America:

Oh those Brits…so classy.

And, note to Paul: W is a two-time Harvard grad, and married to a librarian. You dolt.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from an Undisclosed Secret Alternate HQ)

According to the AP:

Job creation by private companies grew at the slowest pace since the start of the year, as a wave of census hiring lifted payrolls by 431,000 in May. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent as people gave up searching for work. . . .

Virtually all the job creation in May came from the hiring of 411,000 census workers. Such hiring peaked in May and will begin tailing off in June.

That means only 20,000 net new non-Census jobs.  Not very stimulating numbers if you ask me.

But, I did see lots of signs advertising stimulus projects advertising projects that slowed traffic and surely increased the sales of orange cones and those orange plastic barrel things.

In my post yesterday afternoon, I indicated that the day was supposed to be a real quiet evening on a very busy journey:

Today, for the first time in two weeks, I find myself alone on my journey, not spending the night in a hotel with my family or in the homes of my friends (and family).

But, it was not to be.  When a reader commented, welcoming me to Nashville, I e-mailed him to say hey.  He then asked if I had dinner plans.  Since I had none, he invited me out to Indian food and later out for a cocktail with some of his friends.

In between, we stopped at the Parthenon to view it in its illuminated splendor.  Indeed, I can look out from my hotel room and see that wonderful shrine.  What a treat.  Alas, that I’m not yet a gifted enough photographer to capture the image and post it here (though I do have others to post).

As I showed Eric the replica of Phidias’ masterpiece, I explained the stories depicted on the pediments and the metopes underneath.  I could alas not identify all the characters on the Western Pediment, depicting the contest between the owl-eyed Olympian and her impulsive uncle (Poseidon) for the patronage of the City of Athens.  (I was, however, more familiar with their various myths and their famous rivalry, indeed, that very rivalry setting the stage for (and serving as the backdrop of) the first twelve books of the Odyssey.)

And the cocktail hour featured a delicious (and unique) beverage as well as an intense and spirited discussion with attractive, broad-minded and intelligent homosexuals.  That is the life!

So, to Eric, I say, thank you, thank you for a wonderful evening.  Had I not blogged about Athene, I would not have met such interesting men and had such a marvelous time.  

(Eric’s boyfriend is one lucky fellow.)

And this was not the only good time I had among our readers–who are a most remarkable sort.

UPDATE:  Pictures below the jump: (more…)

Today, for the first time in two weeks, I find myself alone on my journey, not spending the night in a hotel with my family or in the homes of my friends (and family).  After leaving Atlanta this morning where I had a wonderful dinner with some of our readers (including one non-conservative fan of the blog) last night, I am making a pilgrimage (of sorts) to the Western Hemisphere shrine to the goddess Athene, the owl-eyed Olympian, and subject of my dissertation.

Me being me, I actually brought a bound print-out of the first six chapters of the paper into the temple.  Now, I sit in Centennial Park, looking up at the reproduction of Phidias’ classic building, grateful for my wireless card which allows me to blog and confident that the battery on my laptop will last long enough to allow me to post this.

Accountability.

The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.

Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.

At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That’s almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.

“A $13 trillion debt is an alarm bell and a wake-up call combined, but Democrats are not even trying to pass a budget,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. “How out of touch can Washington Democrats get? Instead of continuing to pay lip service to this issue, President Obama should call on congressional Democrats to pass a budget that provides the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create jobs and grow our economy.”

The White House would not comment for the record, but an official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the administration is “committed to restoring fiscal responsibility.”

Spokesmen for the Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees didn’t return messages Wednesday.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In her letter to supporters yesterday, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to replace California’s failed Senator wrote:

While you and I are looking forward to June 8 and to the end of the primary, we will be afforded no time for celebration as the Barbara Boxer attack machine will immediately launch their negative campaign against me. 

Emphasis in original.  Carly’s right.  

With far more Californians disapproving of her record in office than approving and with her polling in the low 40s, well behind the Democratic president who remains popular in the (once-)Golden State, Barbara Boxer knows that the only way she can win is by doing what Gray Davis did in 2002 to Bill Simon–attack, attack, attack, and then attack some more.

This hyperpartisan Democrat has a record of going nasty and going negative.

I’m glad to see Carly’s campaign recognizes the challenges that lie ahead.  If she can successfully parry the attacks in the next weeks, she stands in good stead to succeed the sourpuss from San Francisco in the U.S. Senate.

Those who have actually read my various posts on Jack Abramoff know that I see my charismatic former College Republican colleague as a complex man.  I have never once defended his activities as a lobbyist, indeed, have criticized his behavior from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.  

But, just because a man engages in criminal activists does not mean that he himself is entirely lacking in good qualities.  Were that the case, world literature would be poorer and Francis Ford Coppola would not be considered one of the giants of filmmaking.  

Almost since the dawn of storytelling, our bards and playwrights have been exploring why good men go bad.  Indeed, it often seems that religious literature (including ancient myth) serves to remind us of human weakness in order to prevent us for falling prey to our darker passions.

With that in mind, I ask you to consider a comment from one of our critics in response to my post on my old drinking buddy Ralph Reed and our past association with the aforementioned Abramoff.  It offers an insight into the narrowness of certain narrow-minded liberals who blind themselves to the complexities of human conduct when it comes to conservatives caught in corrupt and criminal activities:

I mean this and the Abramoff piece from a couple of days ago. Coming out to the world as a friend and admirer of the absolute lowest corrupt scum in American politics.

You have zero credibility when it comes to criticizing anyone in politics, on just about anything. And judgement???? my gawd….

Yes, I once admired Jack and considered him a friend.  But that was long before he had engaged in corrupt and criminal activities.

I wrote about Jack both to share my experiences with a man who suddenly found himself in the spotlight and to join in the conversation of the ages in attempting to understand human weakness, why men with such great potential do bad things. (more…)

Lost in the media coverage of the media stunt organized under the aegis of the government of Turkey with the participation of various terrorist organizations to run the Israeli blockade of the terrorist-ruled enclave of Gaza is the fact that Israel is willing to deliver the humanitarian aid on the ships to that enclave’s beleaguered population.

Instead, the media, world governments and even our own Administration, have been buying into the propaganda of the enemies of Israel, that the Jewish State is somehow denying aide to the Palestinian people.  Well, you gotta give the folks who organized the flotilla credit.  They know how to play world governments and world media.

Wonder how they would have reacted had there been a similar attempt to provide relief to the Kurds who, unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, are not ruled by a government of their choosing, but instead suffer under Turkish tyranny.  It takes some cheek for Turkey to chastise Israel for refusing to provide aide to the Palestinians — when it’s actually the manner of the delivery, but not the aide that’s the problem.

Yet, while Vice President Joe Biden “said the United States also needed to ‘put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can’ to allow in aid shipments such as building materials“, it’s Hamas not Israel who is preventing the aide from entering Gaza:

As of right now, the State of Israel has loaded 20 trucks with various types of aid found onboard the flotilla. Expired medication, clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys were among the aid found on the ships.

Unfortunately, the Hamas terror organization is unwilling to accept the cargo and the trucks filled with humanitarian aid have not been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. It appears that Hamas is in fact stopping the transfer of the humanitarian aid.

Wonder why the media and world governments are all but ignoring that .  Guess that they don’t want the facts to interfere with their narrative.

UPDATE:  Barbara Hollingsworth reminds us just who’s behind this flotilla and concludes:

And if there’s any doubt that this was a political set-up instead of a  humanitarian mission, the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised to join a future convoy should dispel any doubts.

UP-UPDATE:  Wonder if the international community will show any outrage over Hamas’ raid of international NGO’s in Gaza.  And they just didn’t raid the offices:

After conducting a thorough search of the offices of the organizations, the Hamas security agents confiscated files, documents, computers, fax machines and other equipment.

Now that I’m about to dine with some Atlanta readers, I wanted to remind y’all of our next dinner on my journey, a week from today, Wednesday, June 9 in Boston. 

I intend to arrive in Boston on June 8 so I can do something I’ve never done before in Beantown (though have long wanted to do it) — take a walk along the Freedom Trail.  If any of you are free during the day on June 9, it would be great to trace the path of the original American patriots with some GayPatriot fans.

And don’t forget Brattleboro, Vermont on Sunday, June 13.

E-mail me to RSVP for either or both of those dinners (as well as the walk along Freedom Trail).

GOProud joins this blog in endorsing Carly Fiorina for the United States Senate.  While we have not yet made it official (well, my enthusiasm should have made it obvious), I have long since convinced Bruce that we should back my gal.  

Bruce agreed with me that Carly was the best candidate on the key issues facing our country at this time, notably out-of-control federal spending.  Like Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Senator who has also endorsed the former Silicon Valley executive, Fiorina wants to hold the line on federal spending and reduce regulation which chokes private industry.

Echoing those views, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud said that unlike her leading rival for the GOP nomination,  ”Fiorina has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge; supports a strong, confident foreign policy; and will defend our 2^nd Amendment rights.”

 Earlier this spring, GOP proud ran an ad questioning that rival’s commitment to fiscal conservatism:

LaSalvia concluded, “GOProud enthusiastically endorses Carly Fiorina for US Senate and urges our members and allies to support her conservative campaign”.

After a very pleasant lunch with an old friend from College Republicans, I’m taking a brief break to do some blogging in a Borders in downtown Atlanta.  Given my bibliophilia, I’m amazed that I have gone this long without spending more than a few minutes on this journey in a bookstore (and then only in a small speciality shop at the Jung Institute in New York).

That old friend was none another that Ralph Reed, former leader of the Christian Coalition.  I’ve always liked Ralph.  When I was a College Republican (CR) state chairman, he was a most able executive director, keeping the lines of communication open between the national office and various state federations.

If ever we needed something done in Washington, we just needed to call Ralph and it would get done.  He was a superior organizer, getting information out to the states and offering good counsel to CR officers.  And he was a fun person to be around — even when he was sober.

Well, today, we had a wide-ranging conversation, sharing war stories and discussing Republican prospects for the current electoral cycle (among other things).  Oh, and, I came out to Ralph.  I say this almost as an afterthought because it didn’t change his regard for me — or affect the tenor of our conversation.

Ralph remains opposed to state recognition of same-sex marriage, but not to the participation of gay people in the GOP.  Still, he’s a nice guy, a great storyteller with a puckish sense of humor (even if he has long since given up drinking).

Another illustration of the greater facility we gay conservatives have coming out to our conservative colleagues, even the social conservative ones (than we do coming out as conservative to our gay peers).  And a reminder that many opponents of gay marriage base their opposition not on animosity to gay people, but on their religious principles.

Perhaps if not for then-Vice President’s little piece of political theater at the Democratic National Convention in 2000, he would not have leapt ahead in polls for the presidential contest that fall, setting the stage for the long recount in November and December.

To those who have forgotten the stunt, that little piece of theater designed to showcase a more passionate candidate was a very public smooch of his soon-to-be former wife Tipper just prior to his acceptance speech.  That he so used his wife as a prop in his presidential campaign, it takes some nerve for him to “ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family“.

Now, I do believe the media should leave Gore and his wife Tipper alone at what must be a very difficult time for their family.  For my part, save for this post, I will refrain from commenting.

All that said, as Sonicfrog reminds us, it’s fascinating to watch the media turn to their all-purpose bogeyman to explain the divorce.  It’s all because of George W. Bush that the Gores are splitting!  

Give me a break.

If anyone is making an issue of this divorce, it’s the MSM.  They would have done better to announce the divorce and then move on, without casting aspersion on the Gores or that Democrat’s 2000 presidential rival.

One sign of the biased media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign was that one major outlets took the Democratic nominee’s claims of being a new kind of post-partisan at face value while failing to wonder how someone could be such a reform-minded politician having cut his political teeth in one of the greatest political cesspools in the United States today, the Chicago Democratic machine.

Over at the Washington Examiner, the ever-insightful Michael Barone looks into the Chicago roots of Barack Obama:

An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago — even though he didn’t grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there.

It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. Family ties and personal connections are hugely important. Professionals who have lived and worked there for a quarter-century are brusquely reminded, “You’re not from here.”

It’s Barone.  Read the whole thing.

The last American investigative journalist, James O’Keefe, didn’t let moss grow under his feet after the Feds’ case against him collapsed last week.  O’Keefe went from busting up one criminal enterprise (ACORN) to looking into another (US Census bureaucracy).

On April 27, 2010, I got a job with the United States Census Bureau in New Jersey. With a hidden camera, I caught four Census supervisors encouraging enumerators to falsify information on their time sheets. Over the course of two days of training, I was paid for four hours of work I never did. I was told to take a 70 minute lunch break, was given an hour of travel time to drive 10 minutes, and was told to leave work at 3:30pm. I resigned prior to doing any data collection but confronted Census supervisors who assured me, “no one is going to be auditing that that level,” and “nobody is going to be questioning it except for you.” Another Census supervisor only said he’d adjust my pay after I gave him a letter recanting my hours.

Exposing corruption requires standing up to power, because power hates sunlight. We should have known they would try and ruin the reputations of those who try and expose them. But in response, we are going to build an army of citizen investigators. There’s hundreds more where I came from.  You have awakened a sleeping giant. And you can’t ruin us all. In fact, in the coming months you will see this army expanding into every state, every statehouse, every city council, every school board, and everywhere people are conspiring to keep themselves in power, practice favoritism, or line their pockets with tax dollars.

James O’Keefe is doing the work that Thomas Paine & Edward R. Murrow would be proud of. Meantime, Katie Couric blames the Gores’ marital problems on…. wait for it…. George W. Bush. Priceless.

RELATED STORY:  US Employment Numbers To Artificially Spike Due to Census “Hiring” – The Hill.com

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s.com projects the economy will add 575,000 jobs in May, while the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) rough projection is for 560,000 jobs.

Either figure would represent the largest number of jobs created in any month since the dot-com crash of 2000.

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser on Tuesday, touted what he said would be a positive report for Democrats, who are hoping a revitalized economy will help them in this fall’s elections. He said the May report would be “well beyond” the 290,000 jobs created in April, according to Reuters.

The numbers pose a problem for the administration, however, in terms of their reflection of economic growth.

Zandi expects that only 150,000 of the jobs created in May will come from the private sector, while 425,000 new jobs are sparked by the once-a-decade census.

Those jobs are temporary ones that will disappear as the Census completes the process of collecting data from people who did not mail in their forms.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Please join on Wednesday June 2 for a dinner in Atlanta.  E-mail me to RSVP.

Other upcoming dinners include Boston one week later on Wednesday June 9 or Brattleboro, Vermont on Sunday, June 13.

I will also be passing through Cincinnati over the first weekend of June and would be delighted to get together with any readers who live in or near the town of my birth.  And will be in St. Louis on or about June 16.

NB: Bumped

Today is the 500th Day of the Obama Presidency. 

He owns it all, but chooses to golf.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)