Kudos to the corporation for not giving into HRC’s politically correct extortion:

Target Corp., for now, has rejected demand from the Human Rights Campaign that the retailer donate to pro-gay rights candidates in order to balance its contribution to a group backing Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, an ardent opponent of gay marriage.

In a statement released Monday, HRC President Joe Solmonese said “all fair-minded Americans will now rightly question Target’s commitment to equality.”

Actually, Joe, all fair-minded Americans are impressed with Target’s commitment to courteous service and low prices while many gay Americans are pleased by the corporation’s commitment to treat gay employees fairly, with its non-discrimination policy and its benefits package for same-sex domestic partners.

From the Los Angeles Times:

A federal appeals court decided Monday to put same-sex marriage in California on hold indefinitely, interrupting the wedding plans of scores of gay couples who were preparing to exchange vows when a temporary hold was set to expire Wednesday.

The brief order by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals prevents an early showdown on the marriage question at the U.S. Supreme Court. Challengers of the marriage ban said they would not appeal Monday’s order.

UPDATE: Law professor William A. Jacobson thinks the granting the stay was the correct decision:

This unquestionably was the correct decision as to a stay. Contrary to the glib arguments that there is no likelihood of success on appeal, the District Court Order is the outlier; that doesn’t mean that the 9th Circuit will overturn it on the merits, but clearly there is a reasonable likelihood of the result being overturned.

Read the whole thing.

While there is no question whatsoever that those who are planning to build the Lower-Manhattan mosque are well within their Constitutional rights to do so, I can think of no more incendiary gesture to stoke the ire of a still-reeling Nation as it struggles with finding a middle-ground between focusing on our true enemies and embracing the moderates of Islam whom those attempting to construct on this site would have us believe they represent. Clearly, it would be an insult to our own values to use extralegal means by which to halt this construction. Nevertheless, I call on moderate Muslims and open-minded Americans to join me in respectfully asking this group to reconsider its choice of location for this new mosque.

In watching the vexing back-and-forth the president had this weekend (with himself) regarding the Ground Zero Mosque (as it would be called regardless of the monicker—Cordoba—Feisal Abdul Rauf chose for it), I wondered: Why couldn’t Barack Obama simply say something measured and purely commonsensical as the above statement?

The guy who called Cambridge police stupid, self-admittedly without knowing all the facts, took weeks to weigh in and in doing so was able to confuse the entire Nation with his lawyerly/professorially-worded statement on the controversy. So convoluted did his reasoning seem that it required two clarifications in the course of just a few hours. Why not just come out and say what even the hapless Senate Majority Leader was able to express. Hell, even Reid was able to voice a cogent stand on the issue, so tinged is it with racial and cultural implications, without gratuitously offending minorities. Now that’s an accomplishment for him!

Somehow, President Obama finds himself in the company of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in having no sense whatsoever of how to handle this prickly issue. Luckily in this day and age, though, we don’t elect leaders to handle prickly issues, now, do we?

So my question about Obama’s inability to say something sensical and logical about the issue isn’t totally rhetorical, and as I thought about it, I narrowed it down to two possibilities: One, he doesn’t believe it; or Two, he’s incapable of seeing past his own prejudices to speak what even he must understand.
(more…)

So, Obama is telling Democrats, “Don’t Give in to Fear.”  Funny, I thought that was their 2010 campaign strategy.

Via Mark Hemingway comes this gem “produced by the Republican Study Committee” wherein “Ronald Reagan takes on the problem of political elites imposing their will on the rest of the country.”

The issue, my friends, is freedom. And the bigger government gets, the less we have. The Founders understood it, the Framers understood it, but Washington’s political class doesn’t.

UPDATE:  Noting that this “comes from the Republican Study Committee, which is headed, if I have the information right, by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia,” Ace opines, “So now you can’t say the GOP isn’t doing anything to advance the message.”

Since ObamaCare passed, my health insurance carrier just raised my premium by over 25%.

That’s hope and change for ya!

It is official.  “Allegedly-disgraced” former House Republican Majority Leader did nothing wrong. (h/t – HotAir.com)

The Justice Department has informed former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) that the government has ended a six-year investigation of his ties to the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to DeLay’s lead counsel in the matter, Richard Cullen, chairman of McGuireWoods.

The investigation lasted through two presidents and four attorneys general. Its demise provides a stark footnote to the lobbying scandals that helped Democrats regain the House majority they held for 40 years and lost in the Republican revolution of 1994, which eventually made the pugnacious DeLay one of Washington’s top power brokers.

So yeah, there’s a lesson to be had.  But it wasn’t that DeLay was a crook.  The Obama Justice Department settled that today.

Ed Morrissey has hit the nail on the head about what lessons the politicians in Washington must learn:

Nonetheless, the travails of DeLay and the GOP in 2006 should serve as a “stark” lesson for Republicans in the midterms.  DeLay authored the notorious “K Street Project” that attempted to build a permanent Republican majority by marrying the party to lobbyists.  That resulted in an explosion of pork and a curious predilection with so-called “big government conservatism” that exploded spending after George W. Bush took office.  That marriage of the federal government and special interests discredited the GOP as an alternative to Democrats, which combined with the scandal led to their downfall in 2006 and 2008.

No more K Street Projects, and no more big-government conservatism.  The next Republican majority had better focus on actual reductions in federal government and the end of pork-barrel spending to woo lobbyists.

Amen.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY (from Dan): You know the more I think about it, the bigger I think the issue is. First, I’m no fan of Tom DeLay, indeed, have dated the decline of the GOP to a few weeks after its 1994 moment of triumph when House Republicans elected DeLay over the principled Bob Walker to be House Majority Whip.

That said, DeLay may have been a zealous pol, eager to put partisan fundraising ahead of enacting reform, he wasn’t a crook. Democrats made much (and gained traction in legislative races) with the assistance of an eager-to-assist media of his supposedly illegal activity. Yet, indicted though he may have been in Texas (by a partisan prosecutor with an axe to grind), he has still not yet been brought to trial.

Just another piece of evidence of how with the support of a helpful media, Democrats use the legal system to bring down Republicans.  You don’t even need a trial, just an indictment and a few insinuations hither, thither and yon.

It’s always a delight when my dissertation research overlaps with issues in the news.  And this morning, as I finished up my research for the last entirely myth-based chapter in my paper, I read this in Carl Kerényi’s The Heroes of the Greeks:

We are told that [Kekrops] discovered, as it were, the double descent of human beings, that they come not only from a mother but also from a father.  He founded the institution of marriage between one man and one woman, which was to be under the protection of the goddess Athene.

Legend held Kekrops to be the first king of Attica (Athens).

Further evidence that marriage is an institution based on sex difference.  This is not to say that it always must remain so, but a reminder that sex difference, to borrow an expression, is at the “historical core” of the ancient (and honorable) institution.

If we seek to expand its definition so that it encompasses same-sex relationships, let’s not tinker with the cultural record by pretending that it has always been a mere union of loving individuals.  State recognition of same-sex marriage represents a real social change.  And that change should not be treated lightly nor dismissed casually as some judges have been wont to do.

In Scott Martelle’s piece on California Cities Struggling Under Wave of Corruption, he neglects to indicate something that he would surely mention if the elected officials in all those cities were Republicans: he doesn’t identify their partisan affiliation.

We have already learned that the folks in Bell scandal (that he references) were all Democrats.

So, what about those in Maywood?

Let’s click through the article to find the names of some of the city officials in that town. According to the Los Angeles Times, a civic group, “‘A Group for a Better Maywood,’ announced their intention to recall four of the council members: Felipe Aguirre, Edward Varela, Vice Mayor Veronica Guardado and Mayor Ana Rosa Rizo.”

So, we have the names Martelle left out.

Time to start start googling.  Former Mayor Aguiree is a registered Democrat who served on the LA County Democratic Party Central Committee.  I could find no information on the partisan affiliation of Mr. Varela.  Veronica Guardado did endorse Hector de La Torre, a Democratic candidate for Insurance Commissioner (as well as other Democrats).  Ms. Rizo’s Facebook page in her campaign to win election as Delegate for the 46th Assembly District identifies her as a member of the LA County Democratic Party.

So, there you have it, at least 3 of the 4 in question are Democrats.  As expected!

On a pretty regular basis, I get Facebook friend requests from people I assume are blog-readers given that our “Friends in Common” tend to lean right.  I tend not to pay them much heed as I’ve been trying to keep Facebook a non-political domain.  That said, I know that that is not easy to do and do occasionally comment on political posts that my Facebook friends have made.  Their links have occasionally inspired my posts.

Do wish we had a place where we could refrain from divisive political discussion and just keep the conversation on other matters.

Just a thought.

These weekend, seemed at first like emotional rollercoaster ride, ended up becoming a truly enjoyable (and very productive) one.  I listened to my rabbi offer a left-wing sermon on justice, only to have her lead an amazing Bible study the following day on the Book of Micah.  Her politics may vex me, but her ability to communicate her love of Scripture never ceases to amaze or impress me.

Then, I had a great lunch with some LA bloggers and politicos to welcome the other McCain to town (and yes, lefties, I was totally out as a gay man, even talking about gay politics and these right-wingers continued to listen to my points, engage my arguments and otherwise make me feel welcome).

Sunday, I nearly completed the research for the last entirely myth-based chapter in my dissertation, discovering (as I did the day before) much information useful to my project.  I had a wonderful evening, catching the movie, Despicable Me, (loved it) with the nice young man I’ve just started dating, then welcomed two older friends (a gay Republican couple who have been together over thirty years) to Los Angeles and took them to the Getty Villa — one of my favorite spots in Los Angeles.

As I was driving them there, I recounted the myth of Perseus, noting how much it differed from the recent bastardization of both the myth (as well as the wonderfully cheesy movie) it attempted to remake.  (Of course I got in a dig at the filmmakers for getting Athene’s role wrong in the transformation of Medusa into her hideous form.)  As I related the tale of this son of Zeus, I couldn’t recall the name of the island where the hero grew up nor of the King who ruled there when the fisherman Dictys rescued them from the sea.  And I had been reading the myth just that morning.

When I returned here, I reviewed my notes and found that Polydectes ruled Seriphos when Perseus alighted on that rocky isle.  And I wondered if because we can so readily track down such names and otherwise access information via google, our memories suffer.  In the days before the printing press, bards having memorized several thousand lands of poetry, earned their living traveling from town to town reciting poetry.  Will each level of progress in communicate make it that much more difficult for us to remember things.

Just a thought.  And a query.

This weekend, while doing cardio, I watched a brief report on the local news (sorry, wasn’t paying attention to the network) about the gubernatorial race.  They were telling us that the Republican nominee, former eBay CEO Meg Whiiman, had already spent a record amount in her bid to succeed the Governator.  Interestingly, while it seemed they were trying to spin the report against that good woman, the visuals helped her more than her rival, former two-term California Governor Jerry Brown.

She looked energetic and upbeat; he looked dour and downbeat.  She was speaking to a racially mixed crowd of women.  He was walking through an empty office devoid of workers (a symbol for the state’s economy?).

That said, I was waiting to hear news about the secrecy surrounding Jerry Brown’s pension — something that they would surely cover if the candidate had an (R) after his name.  As Roger Simon puts it:

What’s troubling in all this is not that Brown makes a good pension — or even than there may be some discrepancy about how much he makes versus how much he deserves. It is that the whole thing is SECRET! (rare use of caps and exclam very deliberate).

Now, you can bet that Whitman’s people are doing the work the California media (outside Orange County) won’t do and are looking into this.  And since local TV will likely not touch it, guess it’s a good thing Brown’s challenger is spending a record amount on her campaign.

It has been interesting to note that all of the ads (that I’ve seen) promoting Brown (funded, in part, through California taxpayers) attack Whitman while half of hers attack the career politician (noting how public employee unions, among other liberal special interests, fund the attacks) while the remainder outline her vision for the (once and future) Golden State.

Looks like Democrats in 2010 are pulling a page out of Harry Reid and Gray Davis’s playbook:  campaign on the theme that Republicans are meanies.

Instead of running on their record, they’re running against the supposedly impotent opposition party (always accusing it of obstructionism).  With such whining as their mantra, William Krisol wonders whether or not the left has collapsed:

The “f*ck tea” movement—that’s what the left has come to. They can’t defend the results of Obama’s policies or the validity of Krugman’s arguments. They know it’s hard to sustain an antidemocratic ethos in a democracy. They realize they’ve degenerated into pro-am levels of whining and squabbling. So they curse their opponents.

Read the whole thing.  Via Glenn Reynolds who, recalling one of the great moments in cinema, warns Republicans not to get cocky.  Even the Washington Post has taken notice, headlining an article yesterday, Desperate Democrats pin their hopes on scary Republicans.