Geez, it’s like Shark Week for Gays on the History Channel with all of the DADT developments.

My go-to guy on legal matters — the Law Dork himself — has the scoop at Metro Weekly.

Alex Nicholson also announced the stay at the ‘Beyond Repeal’ event a few minutes ago.

I’m thrilled to write this from a great event being hosted by Servicemembers United.. It is a fundraiser in Miami to support SU’s efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” through the legislative process.

Alex and Jarrod from SU have done more to push through Congressional repeal than probably any other group. They served our country once, and are now devoting their time to make sure many others can serve in the military if they so choose.

The added personal benefit of this event is that it’s being held at the former home of Howard Hughes in Coral Gables, FL. I’m a big Hughes history buff. Woot!

Please read more about Servicemembers United and consider contributing to the cause!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Over at Big Government, Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King are covering a story which, if it involved Republicans, would not only make the papers in the politicians’ district, but would likely generate national news as well.

You see, there is evidence that my Congressman and my (junior) Senator may have ”helped a group of radical antiwar activists cross the Iraqi-Jordanian border in order to deliver aid to families of enemy insurgents” in Fallujah at a time when said insurgents were fighting American troops:

In December 2004, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D) [as well as fellow Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Raul Grijalva of Arizona] each sent letters of diplomatic courtesy to the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, requesting assistance for members of the radical group Global Exchange and the antiwar group Palisadians for Peace.

The letters, according to a January 4, 2005 article written by Islam Online correspondent Adam Wild Aba, were needed in order to successfully deliver supplies to the Iraqi people. The Pentagon had previously denied the groups access to the embattled region, citing security concerns. Waxman’s letter to Consul General Daniel Goodspeed, dated December 14, 2004, requested assistance on behalf of Palisadians for Peace and Global Exchange as they sought to set up a “peace camp” to benefit Iraqi families. Now, with no clear record of who specifically was given the more than $600,000 in cash and goods that the groups brought into the warzone, concerned families of soldiers killed while fighting in the War on Terror are beginning to ask questions.

Waxman has released his letter, but as Taylor and King report, “Boxer’s Capitol Hill staff is stonewalling a request by military mother Beverly Perlson for a copy of a reported diplomatic letter provided by the California Democrat to the leftwing group Code Pink/Global Exchange in support of the delivery of $600,000 in cash and aid to the ‘other side’ in Fallujah, Iraq in late 2004.“

The 28-year Washington veteran should be grateful for a media which looks the other way when she misrepresents her record or ignores serious questions about her service.  Perlson has raised just such a question, one directly related to Mrs. Boxer’s official duties and the career politician gives her the runaround. (more…)

It’s about time.  A columnist at the Boston Globe (other than Jeff Jacoby) calls the unhappy Barney Frank to account for his boorish behavior:

For the last three decades, the political establishments in Boston and Washington have excused Frank’s consistently obnoxious behavior as Barney being Barney. Maybe they’ve done it because he was unique as an openly gay congressman. Maybe it was out of deference for the way he unapologetically and effectively carried the flag for the most liberal of causes. Maybe it was out of fear that he’d train his quick wit and substantial intellect against anyone who happened in his path.

The paper and either ignored or downplayed his abuses of the long-time incumbent’s congressional power:

Congressman Frank has never hesitated to use his power ruthlessly. On one occasion, he threatened bankers with summoning them before his committee and forcing them to reveal their home addresses — which would of course put their spouses and children at the mercy of any kooks that might come along.

Guess that what happens when you face an energetic challenger.  To keep the spotlight on Barney’s record in Washington, support the man who’s calling this career politician to account for his mean-spirited exercise of  authority.

Via JammieWearingFool via Instapundit.

As vote nears, Byron York finds, “Pelosi’s ratings fall to all-time low“:

A new Gallup poll finds that Nancy Pelosi’s favorable rating is 29 percent — the lowest it has been since Pelosi became Speaker of the House. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable view of Pelosi.

She trails among independents where just 21 percent have “a favorable impression of her, while 58 percent have an unfavorable impression”.  She’s even slipping among Democrats.

Pelosi’s ratings are approaching the lows reached by former Speaker Newt Gingrich in his most unpopular days. In April 1997, Gingrich had a 24 percent favorable rating and a 62 percent unfavorable rating. If present trends continue, Pelosi is headed in that direction.

Yeah, but, that trajectory might change with the election results in two weeks.  She just won’t garner as much media attention should Democrats lose the House — nor be an a position to push unpopular legislation.

RElATED:  Glenn Reynolds links this: “More than a dozen House Democrats now want Pelosi out as Speaker.”

A reader decided to compare and contrast Republican men to their Democratic counterparts:

Click on image for larger version.

Saturday, at a Democratic fundraiser in Boston, the president said:

People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. . . .  And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.

Um, Mr. President, don’t you remember the polls in 2008 just prior to the market meltdown?  Your opponent John McCain enjoyed a small, but  steady lead in the presidential contest.  And then AIG and Lehman Brothers went belly-up.  We heard warnings of domino effect, of more financial institutions collapsing with repercussions across the economy, leading to another Great Depression.

People panicked.  They were worried about their own financial future and, um, what’s the word, oh, yes, they were scared.  And you, the Democratic standard bearer, took it all in stride, appearing calm, a man who could keep a steady hand on the tiller of state.  The polls shifted in your favor.  Seems a little fear helped rally support for the ostensible outsider, the candidate of the party out of power.

People are a lot less scared now than they were then.  Indeed, Roger Simon says voter “aren’t scared.  They are angry“:

Mad as Hell, in fact.   They are angry at his policies and the way those policies have been rammed down their throats –and they have a right to be.  That’s why citizens — who have never done anything like that before — have organized all over the country and are on the brink of destroying his party at the ballot box.

Roger’s right.  This isn’t about fear, but about anger.  As one candidate put it, “They heard us, and yet they ignored us“.  The governing class just isn’t listening to the governed.

Take a look at this chart:

Via Willisms via Instapundit.

So, the second largest state (in terms of population) leads in private sector jobs created while the largest state lead in private sector jobs lost.  Seems California could learn something from Texas.

One thing we do know:  it’s time California try something new instead of turn to politicians who have been around the block a few times.  Please join me in helping out Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, newcomers to the political scene who know what it takes to keep a private enterprise up and running.

According to the (indispensable) Almanac of American Politics, the closest thing the unhappy Barney Frank has had to a private sector job was when, from 1978-1980, he served as a teaching fellow at the Harvard/JFK School of Government — while serving (simultaneously) in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.  After graduating from Harvard (and abandoning his doctoral work), Barney went to work for Boston’s very well-educated mayor Kevin White, then served as Administrative Assistance for U.S. Rep. Michael Harrington before entering the world of electoral politics himself when he ran from the Massachusetts House.

He has never held a job unrelated to government.

So, where, one blogger asks, “do all of these “public servants” get these vast amounts of personal wealth?“ Barney, you see, has recently “given his re-election campaign $200,000 as he faces his toughest race in years.”  Also noting that “Frank isn’t a tremendously wealthy guy“, Allahpundit asks, “What on earth are his internal polls showing him to make him cough up 200 grand?”

R.S. McCain doesn’t mince words when he speculates why the self-righteous career politician might be in trouble:

Hey, when a congressman and his heckler boyfriend fly to the Virgin Islands aboard the private jet of a hedge-fund billionaire in the midst of an economic apocalypse the congressman arguably helped cause . . .

Do you really need polls to tell you that might hurt his chances for re-election? Yeah, I know it’s Massachusetts, but the economy’s in a ditch, and Barney’s up there sippin’ on a Slurpee, so to to speak.

Thirty years in Congress, thirty-eight in elective office, over four decades working in government, you think maybe this guy has lost touch how to talk to the people in his district?

If he’s losing favor now, don’t think a cupla hundred grand of his own money will help much.

And you can help the man whose energetic campaign has got Barney on the ropes by clicking here.

This news broke earlier today. Chris Geidner has a nice wrap-up at Metro Weekly:

In a sign of the wide-reaching impact of U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips’s injunction halting enforcment of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith today wrote that “[r]ecruiters have been given guidance, and they will process applications for applicants who admit they are openly gay or lesbian.”

The statement provided by Smith in an email to Metro Weekly, and first reported by the Associated Press, comes on the heel of a report in The New York Times that Omar Lopez, who is an out gay man, was turned away at a recruiting station in Texas because of his sexual orientation despite the judge’s injunction resulting from the Log Cabin Republicans v. United States case.

Smith also wrote that “[r]ecruiters are reminded to set the applicants’ expectations by informing them that a reversal in the court’s decision of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law/policy may occur.”

GOProud’s Chris Barron has a great piece in the Daily Caller today which both echoes a point I made this morning on the Tea Parties and goes beyond it, reminding us of the real nature of this grassroots movement.

He warns that some “big-government conservatives like Tony Perkins” and Mike Huckabee are trying to “to co-opt the Tea Party’s movement and message. They have realized that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em“:

Nothing would make the left happier than to see the Tea Party taken over by big-government social conservatives. Liberals and their friends in the mainstream media know how politically poisonous big-government conservatism was to the conservative movement. Nothing would make them happier than to have the keys to the Tea Party turned over to the same folks who brought us embarrassing electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008 and who demoralized the conservative movement.

Big-government conservatives know too that their message is political poison — they have watched as the American people, and the conservative movement in particular, has turned away from seeking government as the solution to the social, economic and spiritual challenges facing our country.

Emphasis added. Exactly. Exactly. Nice to see the leader of a gay organization say that we should not turn to government for the solutions to our social “challenges” — or any challenge for that matter. It was just a simple pleasure to read Chris’s concluding flourish on freedom. I won’t steal his thunder. Just read the whole thing!

It’s so nice to have a gay organization not aping the equality rhetoric of the left-of-center gay organizations, but instead appealing to the defining idea of this nation — and the GOP.  And the Tea Parties.

Byron York thinks that if Democrats suffer major losses in two weeks, the president and his team in the White House will start pointing fingers:

Assume the polls are correct and Republicans win control of the House, and perhaps even the Senate, in next month’s elections. What lessons will the White House learn? Will Barack Obama interpret the vote as a repudiation of much of his agenda, or will he conclude that he made a few tactical errors but was still right on the big issues?

Bet on the latter. All indications coming out of the White House suggest that if Democrats suffer major losses, the president and his top aides will resolutely refuse to reconsider the policies — national health care, stimulus, runaway spending — that led to their defeat. Instead, they will point fingers in virtually every direction other than their own. Come November, it’s likely the D-for-Democrat that the president refers to so often will actually stand for “denial.”

While I normally agree with Byron York, I think he’s wrong here.  Obama’s not going to point fingers; it’s not his style.  Recall what he told Jay Leno at the dawn of his presidency:

And one of the things that I’m trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame. . . .   (more…)

You have a three-term sitting U.S. Senator who clings to a lead in most polls going on national television and making things up about her record on tax cuts.  Babbling and incoherent, she is confused about her own record and dishonest about her accomplishments.  The CNN anchor has to jump in to save her.  If a Republican talked like this, his fellow partisans would press him to retire.

The mainstream media barely notices Barbara Boxer’s babbling, instead dwelling on the alleged constitutional illiteracy of a candidate struggling to gain traction in the polls while ignoring her opponent’s inability to “name the five freedoms in the First Amendment.”  O’Donnell does seem to be an even match for that opponent, a man who graduated from a “college” founded under questionable circumstances.

Chrstine O’Donnell may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she’s no duller than Boxer or Washington State’s Patty Murray.  When do we hear of their gaffes, gaffes which are legion?

And heck, the Delaware Republican is right to ask “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” Guess what?  It’s just not there.*

It makes headlines when a Republican woman says something which appears dim-witted to those spinning reporting the news.  But, when a Democratic woman blathers on incoherently, the MSM just look the other way.  Guess they expect such bizarre misrepresentations from career politicians like Boxer.

Isn’t that what they call the soft bigotry of low expectations?

*UPDATE:  Law professor Ann Althouse agrees & defends O’Donnell:

Plainly, the Constitution does not say “separation of church and state,” so there’s nothing stupid there. It’s provocative, because many people like that gloss on the text. . . . Suffice it to say that it was not stupid for O’Donnell to say “That’s in the First Amendment?” — because it’s not. Coons was presenting a version of what’s in the cases interpreting the text, not the text itself.

Read the whole thing.  Via Instapundit.

The 3-term Senator’s poll numbers have been stagnating even as she spends millions of dollars on TV ads.  And one poll has my gal Carly, in her first bid for elective office, leading the 28-year Washington veteran by 3 points.

But, we know from experience that when this career politician is down, she gets nasty.  Join me in helping Carly out so she can fight back against any mud that Boxer throws at her.

I’m not the only one touting this strong and confident woman.  Just read what the editors of the Long Beach Press Telegram have to say about her:

Fiorina, the famous former Hewlett-Packard CEO, is running against incumbent Barbara Boxer, a longtime pol who, in her almost 28 years in the Senate and Congress, has yet to distinguish herself or the state she represents.

It’s time for a change. It’s time to give the job to someone else – someone who’s shown in the past that she has the intelligence and the guts to take on a bloated organization, battle the old boys’ club, and make the hard decisions needed to turn the organization around. California and the country absolutely require this kind of change.

While Fiorina may be a novice to elective office, she certainly understands politics. Fiorina rose from receptionist to become one of the most powerful women in corporate America, and a legend in California’s high-tech boom.

No wonder California are starting to say, “No, Ma’am” and “Yes, Carly can!”

No, California’s problems are not that we’re undertaxed.  We cannot blame budget shortfalls on Prop 13.  In Los Angeles County, we’re paying 9.75% sales tax.

Maybe that’s one reason storefronts sit vacant across this city.  Even on Melrose where hip entrepreneurs are eager to open up trendy shops.

Just got back from taking my car into the shop and walked passed the building which once housed a party store that had been there for as long as I took my car to that particular dealership.  It now sits vacant.  In her 18 years representing the Golden State in the United States Senate, how often has Mrs. Boxer come down to Los Angeles to talk to local merchants about the challenges of running a small business in Southern California?

Is she aware of the burden of federal, state and local regulation (not to mention the myriad fees and taxes) on these enterprises, how their proprietors struggle to stay afloat and provide a service for their communities?   Does she know what it takes to keep a business running in tough economic times?

Instead of having to wait another 18 years for her answer, help out someone understands the challenges facing California businesses.

Just two years ago, Barack Obama thought he as at the vanguard of a new political movement set to transform America.  And based on the enthusiasm of his supporters and his success at the polls, he didn’t seem far off the mark.

Today, the political movement with the greatest energy is not a political campaign built around a charismatic man, but a diffuse one built around an idea:  freedom.  And it begin to coalescence not in conjunction with Obama’s movement, but in response to his policies as president — in response to his attempt to transform America.

No wonder Obama is angry and sniping at Republicans and warning of the Empire striking back.  He is no longer the defining force in American politics.  The energy is not with him, it’s against him.  From the sounds of his plaints, his internal polling look about as bad for Democrats as Gallup’s forecast if “40% of voters turned out — a rate typical in recent years“.

It’s not just that energy is with the Tea Party movement; majorities of Americans now warm to their ideas.

There is an idea animating America — the idea of liberty.

The only reason I bring up the name of the politician who tried to resurrect his long dead political career this year by running against John McCain in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat from Arizona is as a reminder that sometimes the alternative to an imperfect politician is worse than the flawed incumbent.  And on the issue driving American voters this fall, out-of-control federal spending, J.D. Hayworth was a johnny-come-lately if this johnny come at all.

And while Hayworth was wallowing in earmarks, McCain, as the senator told Terry Moran of ABC News’ “Nightline” in a recent interview, is “the one that fought against earmarks since it wasn’t popular to do so“.  And the Arizonan was always solid on national security.

To be sure, he did disappoint conservatives on a number of issues, often grandstanding in front of the cameras when he was at odds with his party.  And I wonder sometimes if he did this in order to curry favor with the media, assuming that he could so win, what no Republican has enjoyed perhaps since Eisenhower (if not before), favorable treatment when he ran for president.

He assumed media folk were honorable men and women, operating as do most decent individuals.

He just didn’t account for the depth of their partisanship  – and their natural antipathy to a Republican nominee (as opposed to a Republican attacking another Republican).

When McCain saw how they treated him in the presidential campaign, when he saw how they treated his running mate behind whom he still stands*, he realized his attempts to secure favorable media treatment were futile (at best).  This guy’s not go to bend left as he did in the best.  He knows that it just won’t redound to his benefit.

* (more…)

Even in years when Republicans do well in congressional elections, they rarely lead the generic ballot matchup among likely voters.  In the latest Gallup survey, they enjoy a comfortable leader among registered voters — while blowing the Democrats out of the water among likely voters:

Gallup’s tracking of the generic ballot for Congress finds Republicans leading Democrats by 5 percentage points among registered voters, 48% to 43%, and by 11- and 17-point margins among likely voters, depending on turnout. This is the third consecutive week the Republicans have led on the measure among registered voters, after two weeks in September when the parties were about tied.

Oh and, look at that trend line since mid-September–when people really start paying attention to the elections.  All on the up and up for the GOP.

No wonder Obama’s been so angry of late.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, JammieWearingFool is most bullish:

I do expect a higher turnout this year, but not from depressed Democrats. Independents are moving overwhelming toward the GOP and for an off-year, expect what I like to call Broken Glass Republicans to come out in droves. That is, the folks who will crawl over broken glass to cast their vote against Obama, Reid and Pelosi.

Perhaps Democrats can’t help themselves.  They have to blame George W. Bush for our nation’s enduring economic woes because that’s what they were doing during his entire tenure in the White House — even before the economy went south.  Paul Krugman kept predicting recessions that finally, like a stopped clock, he got it right.  Megan McCardle once quipped that he “predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.”  So, I guess we could say that angry economist predicted nine of the last one recession under W?

With the president repeatedly reminding us how he inherited the recession from his predecessor, it seems he’s trying to get us all to believe, along with Krugman, that the entire Bush era was one of economic woe, that W was just another Herbert Hoover.

The problem with that narrative is that (Krugman notwithstanding), the economic downturn defined Hoover’s tenure, beginning barely seven months after he took office and lasting until he left the White House — more than three years later.  For Bush, it only began nearly a full year after his party lost Congress — and after he had served well over 80% of his 8-year tenure.

Oh, and, one more thing.  The main reason Hoover didn’t end the depression, as David Boaz reminds us, is that he didn’t follow Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s advice:

Hoover didn’t cut federal spending, he doubled it. He established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He propped up wages and prices. Indeed, he launched the New Deal.

Given that Obama’s adopted policies similar to those of Herbert Hoover, it’s no wonder we’re not seeing a robust recovery.

In his post on how Obamacare is threatening the careers of Democratic politicians, Michael Barone reminds us of a truth about polling which tells us a lot about the dire straits of Democrats this fall, “it’s highly unusual for an incumbent House member to trail a challenger in any poll or to run significantly below 50 percent.”

And we have many Democratic incumbents — not just in the House — polling well below 50.  Couple that with the enthusiasm factor.  Doug Powers alerts us to another poll which shows us just how dispirited Democrats are this fall:

Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power this fall. Just half of them say they definitely will show up Nov. 2, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released two weeks before Obama’s first midterm elections. . . . . McCain voters — to borrow Obama’s campaign rallying cry — are far more “fired up, ready to go.” Two-thirds say they are certain to vote next month.

(Though some McCain voters may be voting Democratic!)

But, how do you measure this enthusiasm gap?  Over at fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver, a master of statistics, has so tinkered with polls, surveys, fundraising totals, etc., etc., that he has this all down to a science, forecasting down to the nearest decimal just how many Republicans and Democrats will win election next month.

And while I admire his effort, you can’t really measure voter enthusiasm with a slide rule or computer algorithm.  And voter enthusiasm may be the key factor in determining who shows up to vote next month–and thus how many seats the GOP picks up.

Back in 2002, I learned last night, the last Field Poll in the California gubernatorial contest showed then-(soon-to-be-recalled) Governor Gray Davis with an 11-point leader over his Republican challenger Bill Simon.  His final margin come Election Day was less than half that–just under 5 points. (more…)