Since then-Vice President Cheney accidently shot Harry Whittington five years ago, Whittington wants to move one but the Washington Post sees fit to run a lengthy exposé.

Guess it beats covering the unpopularity of the Obama agenda and is almost as interesting as the latest revelation about Christine O’Donnell.

Guess they’re trying to remind us just how nasty Republicans are to deflect attention from how arrogant the incumbent Democrats are.

Well at least they’re deflating the myth about the preponderance of racist signs at a tea party rally.

Recall how the unhappy Barney Frank, after leaving on a (bailout recipient’s) jet plane to the Virgin Islands, insisted that Republicans “need to do more to ‘differentiate themselves’ from the hateful speech spewed in the healthcare debate’s final hours“?  Seems this mean-spirited Massachusetts Democrat wants to tie his partisan adversaries to the fringe elements of the Tea Party (while they, in Barney’s fervid imagination, want to tie him to the train tracks).

Well, Barney, like most things you try, this, well, this strategy isn’t working:

Despite 18 months of the media calling tea partiers frothing rabble and angry extremists, a new poll shows precisely the opposite. More people perceive the Democratic Party to be dominated by the fringe. Of course anyone with functioning synapses has recognized this for the past few decades.

The Democratic polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland “found that 44 percent of likely voters say the Democratic Party is more dominated by its extreme elements; whereas 37 percent say it’s the Republican Party that is more dominated by extremists.”

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

Not just that, he’s content to keep Mexico in “perpetual third world status”, dooming its citizens to a difficult life.  Seems that’s more of an issue than Gloria Allred’s mock outrage at a successful Republican businesswoman.  This goes to what a potential Governor actually has said — what he believes.

The folks at Verum Serum unearthed this telling video of the guy all but singing the praises of a peasant society:

Here’s the transcript of the first half of the segment.  When you watch the video, make sure to catch the first word Brown says after the host compares him to the Unabomber (not in transcript):

Jerry Brown:  These people from Mexico, they’re pushed out of their own country, by this modernization process. Which American corporations push. Then they get here and take work that no American can take. The answer to that is not more crime, not more police, not more surveillance, not more elimination of American or anyone else’s liberty. But slow down the process of modernization in Mexico. Raise the wages here…

Host: Slow down the process of modernization!?…I feel like I’m talking to the Unabomber here, what is this?

Wonder why the media aren’t talking this guy to account for things he actually said as Verum Serum reminds us:

Some how Brown has made it almost to the end of this campaign without having to answer for any of the radical policy ideas and crazy conspiracy theories he ranted about on his Pacifica radio show in the 90′s. Sure this was a long time ago, but these were not some random musings of a private citizen. These were deeply held beliefs expressed by a man who had spent a lifetime in politics, and who was intent on continuing to make an impact on the political landscape here in California.

*Well, he doesn’t object when the comparison is made.

While everyone is talking about the race for the Senate seat in my (adopted) home state, no one is talking about the race in Bruce’s (adopted) home state. Well, maybe they should.  Even though all latest polls have incumbent Richard Burr’s margin in the double digits, if history is any guide, he won’t be returning to the Senate come January.

You see, not since Sam Ervin’s reelection in 1968 had an incumbent won election for that seat.  When Ervin retired, Robert Morgan succeeded him in 1974, only to be defeated by John East in 1980.  Republican Jim Broyhill tapped to replace East (when he took his own life) lost the seat in 1986 to Terry Sanford who, six years later, was ousted by Lauch Faircloth.  In 1998, John Edwards edged him out.  Six years later, Edwards chose to run for president rather than seek re-election.  Tapped as his party’s vice presidential nominee, Edwards lost the state as did his party’s Senate nominee, former (Bill) Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.  Richard Burr was the man who beat him.

Every election since the Democratic year of 1974, this Senate seat has switched parties.  Maybe the 2010 cycle will break that “curse.”

In yesterday’s Political Diary, John Fund reported:

President Obama has been enamored of the theme that the country can’t afford to return to what he terms the discredited policies of the Bush years. “That’s the mantra that he wants to drill into voters’ heads between now and November,” ABC News reported last summer.

The only problem, according to [Democratic pollster Stan] Greenberg, is that it doesn’t work. “Though voters agree the economy was an ‘inherited’ problem, they do not like to hear politicians blaming Bush or looking backwards,” he concluded in his study. In an interview with Jane Hamsher of the blog Firedog Lake, Mr. Greenberg went on to say: “I’m really puzzled by Democratic leaders stuck in a message that demonstrably doesn’t work.” He puts it down to the president listening to economic advisers who want him to set a rhetorical tone that “will help confidence to come back.”

This blame game just isn’t seem very presidential.  Perhaps, Obama should take the advice of a guest on the “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” who said that the “key thing” should be “for everybody just to stay focused on doing the job instead of trying to figure out who you can pass blame on to.”

Good advice.  Maybe the president should take that guy’s words to heart.

. . .the Armed Liberal thinks “the gay community would be out for blood.”  He’s quoting cited a post from “the Petrelis Files” where White House senior advisor “Valerie Jarrett talking to gay journo Jonathan Capehart:”

Capeheart: One of the things you’ve put a spotlight on, and to veer sharply away from infrastructure, and that was on the rash of suicides of gay youth. You gave a speech to the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner, where you named the victims. You talked about the President’s commitment to making a more inclusive, tolerant, accepting country. Why did you feel it was important to deliver that message, and deliver it there?

Jarrett: Well, I think what we’ve seen over the last few months are some very tragic deaths of young people, our children. And avoidable deaths. They were driven to commit suicide because they were being harassed in school, and driven to do something that no child should ever be driven to do. And in many cases, the parents are doing a good job. Their families are supportive. Before I spoke at the HRC dinner, I met backstage with Tammy Aarberg, her son Andrew. These are good people. They were aware that their son was gay. They embraced him. They loved him. They supported his lifestyle choice.

[emphasis Petrelis]

Armed Liberal via Instapundit.  Lifestyle choice?  And I thought it was only the social conservatives who used the word, “lifestyle” to describe gays.  Petrelis finds it “doubly offensive that [gay journalist] Capehart makes no effort to point out how dangerous Jarrett’s thinking is.”

Maybe he was hoping to join Joe Solmonese on one of hid fancy fundraising jaunts for the DNC.

So, let’s say you’re sitting at home and you just can’t wait until November 2 so you can vote against the Democrats.  You want to do something to help defeat congressmen (and -women) who support ever larger federal government and consistently vote to limit our freedom.  Well, here’s a solution, dash on over to 40seats.com, 40 seats being the number of seats Republicans need to regain control of the House.

There, on their handy-dandy map, you can pick a congressional race near you — or just type in your zip code and they’ll help you take a seat.  In my case, it was a Democrat who, in a sure sign of desperation, has been making racial appeals to save her seat.  The site organizers provide details of the Democrat’s voting record, in Loretta’s case, votes for Obamacare, Cap and Trade and the “stimulus.”

Then, they give you a series of choices to solve the problem (i.e., of a Democrat representing you — or your neighbors).  You can choose to donate money, slap a bumper sticker on your car, put a sign in your yard, make calls, walk precincts or give money.  Can’t seem to find a link though to the Republican candidate’s web-site.  In this case, that fine conservative is Assemblyman Van Tran, an advocate of free market solutions to the Golden State’s economic woes.

Click here to support his campaign.

And go to 40seats.com to find a race near you!

Court Document Details [Democratic] Congressman’s Past Spousal Abuse.

Ohio Democrat Congressman Charlie Wilson was first elected to Congress in the Democrat wave year of 2006. Prior to that, he had been a long-time member of the Ohio state legislature, first elected to the Ohio House in 1996 and the Ohio Senate in 2004. (One of his four grown sons succeeded him in the legislature and is currently an Ohio State Senator.) He was also married for 27 years to his wife, Clara. The marriage ended in divorce in 1990.

BigGovernment has obtained a trial brief filed by Mrs. Clara Wilson prior to the formal divorce proceedings. The brief was filed November 9th, 1990. The brief is part of the public record and was obtained at Belmont County Court House in Ohio. (Other documents related to the divorce are sealed.) The brief, which is posted below, is shocking and details very serious allegations of spousal abuse. It states that the grounds of divorce are “extreme cruelty.”

This may have happened 20 years ago, yet Jim Geraghty quips, “There is no statute of limitations on public opinion.”  RealClearPolitics rate this one a toss-up,   McCain edged Obama in the district by 8,000 votes.

You can support the man trying to edge Charlie out here.

On the campaign trail, outgoing California Senator Barbara Boxer zealously defends the “stimulus,” legislation she enthusiastically supported, approvingly citing the White House claim that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in her jurisdiction.

Yet, nineteen months after it passed, unemployment in the Golden State has surged.  And now, according to the New York Times, we’ve got a reflective Obama “admitting that he let himself look too much like ‘the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,’” and realizing “too late that there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects’“.

No such thing as a shovel-ready project? Um, Ma’am, ma’am, what about the “stimulus” offering “help and hope”, putting “Californians to work now building the highways, bridges, transit and rail systems, and renewable energy sources of the 21st century.”

The words in the paragraph above are those of the 28-year Washington veteran.  In her release, she emphasized them all.  I highlighted just one.

And she’s not only been mum about the president’s recent admission, she’s also not talking about the tribal legislation she moved benefiting her son.   (more…)

Politics was only one factor behind NOW’s endorsement of a Democratic candidate who waits to apologize after a staffer called his female opponent a “whore” until it threatens to damage his campaign to return to the Governor’s office.  Anothe was that Whitman represents a threat to their narrative.  Recall what Ed Morrissey wrote this weekend:

Whitman showed that women can succeed at the highest levels of the private sector with her incredible leadership at eBay, and that women can turn that success into political force.  That flies in the face of their need to hype victimization over self-determination, and demand the expansion of government interventions to dictate outcomes rather than create an equitable environment in which all can compete equally and win or lose based on their talent, drive, and fortunes.

Meg’s not the only one to bear the brunt of their bile.  Lori Ziganto reports that radical feminists open spew “sexist and outright misogynistic garbage at conservative women.”  She and other women who don’t toe the left-wing line have been

. . . called “gender traitors” or not real women. I’ve been called a dumb tart, just a rack, and told “I have better meat for her mouth.” I’ve been accused of being a wholly owned subsidiary of male dominated culture, whatever that means. We dumb tarts can’t seem to figure out things like that.

Lori, I can relate.   Left-wing gays mete out similar treatment to us.  Unable to understand the arguments of gay conservatives, they choose instead to call us “self-hating” or dub us the equivalent of “Jewish Nazis.”  They have as much evidence for their allegation as the Democrats do for their contention that the Chamber of Commerce uses foreign money to pay for its campaign ads.

As the 2010 campaign enters the final three weeks, Carly Fiorina is bracing for “a fusillade of vilification from” her hyper-parisan rival, 28-year Washington veteran, Barbara Boxer.  Even one of the most liberal newspapers in the state finds that the incumbent has distinguished herself only in “delivering partisan shots“.

Help this accomplished and poised problem solver withstand the nastiness that’s sure to come her way.  Such nastiness is Boxer’s stock-in-trade, what we’ve come to expect from a party out of touch with the American people. To better take on the well-funded Democrat, Carly’s campaign has launched a “Retire Boxer Money Bomb.”  Join me in helping this strong woman over the finish line!

Compare and contrast the numbers on federal spending and a poll on the national mood.  First, the federal spending:

The 21.4% federal spending increase in two years ought to put to rest any debate about the nature of America’s fiscal problem. The Pelosi Congress has used the recession as an excuse to send spending to record heights, and its economic policies have contributed to a lousy recovery. The solution is to stop the spending and change the policies. Polls open on November 2.

With that level of increase, it’s no wonder Gallup finds that most Americans think government has too much power:

Record- or near-record-high percentages of Americans are critical of the size and scope of government, as measured by four Gallup trend questions updated in September. This sentiment stretches to 59% of Americans now believing the federal government has too much power, up eight percentage points from a year ago.

(Gallup poll via Kicking Over My Traces.)

I wonder if these numbers help explain why the Democrats have been campaigning in the gutter this fall, misrepresenting a Republican Senatorial candidate’s prosecutorial record and blaming various Republicans and groups supporting them for all and sundry.

Anything to avoid campaigning on the issues.

Aside from the San Francisco Chronicle editors’ highlighting the ineffectiveness of Barbara Boxer during her 18-year tenure in the United States Senate, the most telling aspect of their “non-endorsement” in the U.S. Senate race was the praise they offered a candidate who was too conservative for their left-of-center taste.

They call Carly Fiorina “a potentially strong advocate for positions we oppose“, noting that this good woman “has campaigned with a vigor and directness that suggests she could be effective in Washington”.  Even these liberal editors recognize her qualities of character.  Unlike her Democratic rival, this woman could be effective in Washington.

While they didn’t like her politics (which makes sense given their liberal leanings), they were very impressed by the woman.

Given its myriad problems, the Golden State sorely needs just such a woman representing us in the United State Senate.  Endorsing Carly, the editors of the Fresno Bee cited her ability to get things done:

If Republican Carly Fiorina is elected to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 2, one of her first acts would be to walk to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office and offer to work with her to solve California’s water crisis. . . .

Boxer has gone so far left that moderates can’t see her in the distance. She seems to be caught up in Washington’s gotcha politics, more interested in beating Republicans than focusing on what’s best for California and the nation.

Boxer’s partisanship is getting in the way of her representation of California in the Senate. It’s time for a change, and Fiorina offers a new direction for the state.

We need bridge builders in this extraordinarily challenging time. Fiorina has a chance to be part of a new coalition of problem-solvers. . . . Fiorina has a composure and a bearing that enable her to get her points across in a calm manner.

That composure, that bearing, has long impressed me about Carly.  She’s not interested in the kind of gotcha politics her opponent plays.  She is instead a problem-solver.

With government policies all but drying up some of the nation’s best farmland, with federal and state regulations increasing the cost of doing business, California needs an advocate in Washington who will work aggressively on behalf of the state.  Boxer has proven herself incapable of just such a task.

Carly Fiorina, however, knows how to solve problems. She knows, for example, how to keep a business afloat during difficult economic times.   (more…)

Lately, I’ve been wondering if White House senior advisor David Axelrod (much like his fellow Democrat James Carville) is just a one-trick pony, having like filmmaker Michael Cimino (or the Wachowski brothers) having one great idea and being able to present it in the right package at the right time.  But, never able to repeat that success.

Michael Cimino, as you may know, directed the 1978 film The Deer Hunter, one of the great movies of the 1970s, a flick which took home five Oscars.  Two years later, he would be responsible for Heaven’s Gate, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated flops.

Will David Axelrod have a similar record?

He scripted (and helped direct) a brilliant campaign two years ago, presenting his candidate as healer who would rise about partisan differences and end the polarized politics that had defined the nation for the preceding twenty years.  People wanted change and Axelrod’s man promised it.

Yet, now when that man hasn’t lived up to the hype, Axelrod, the Washington Examiner‘s editors write, has been “charged with finding a strategy to change the focus of the 2010 election to something, anything, other than the chief executive’s failed record on taxes, spending and the economy.”  And he hasn’t been succeeding.

This time ’round, he can’t seem to articulate a coherent campaign message that resonates this year as “Hope” and “Change” did two years ago.  His story lacks a theme and he’s looking for a demon to vilify.

Via Chris Geidner at MetroWeekly.

DADT National Injunction Declared by Federal Judge

U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips has suspended enforcement of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as a result of her earlier opinion in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States that the policy is unconstitutional.

Ordering the government “immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding” begun under DADT, Phillips’s permanent injunction is about as broad an order as she could have issued in the case.

The government has 60 days — until Monday, December 13, because the 60th day falls on a weekend — to appeal the trial court decision. In the interim, the government could seek a stay of Phillips’s decision from Phillips, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit or, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United and a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement, “This order from Judge Phillips is another historic and courageous step in the right direction, a step that Congress has been noticeably slow in taking.”

Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese called for the administration not to appeal Phillips’s ruling.

“The administration should comply with her order and stop enforcing this unconstitutional, unconscionable law that forces brave lesbian and gay Americans to serve in silence,” he said. “The President has said this law harms our national security and we believe it would be a mistake to appeal the decision. Each additional day that this unjust law remains in force is one more day the federal government is complicit in discrimination.”

Obama Justice Department to Appeal DOMA Ruling

In a move expected by most legal observers, the U.S. Department of Justice this afternoon filed notices of appeal in two cases striking down the federal definition of marriage, contained in the Defense of Marriage Act, as unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro had ruled on July 8 in the cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services, that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional on several grounds, finding that the marriage definition violated the equal protection and due process guarantees, as well as the Spending Clause and Tenth Amendment.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which argued the Gill case on behalf of the plaintiffs, issued a statement moments after the government’s filing.

“We fully expected an appeal and are more than ready to meet it head on,” Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director, said in the statement. “DOMA brings harm to families like our plaintiffs every day, denying married couples and their children basic protections like health insurance, pensions, and Social Security benefits. We are confident in the strength of our case.”

The filing of the notice means that the record of the trial court case will be sent to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Once the record is complete, DOJ will have 40 days to file its brief. GLAD or Massachusetts, depending on the case, will then have 30 days to file its brief. The government then has 14 days to file a reply brief.

So Obama must be a bigot for supporting the Constitutionality of DOMA, right?  I mean if you don’t support gay marriage you are labeled a “bigot”.  Consistency, people!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

To welcome GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia to Los Angeles this weekend, join us at a Happy Hour this coming Sunday, October 17 at 5:30 PM. E-mail me for details.

Perennial Democratic candidate Jerry Brown may have governed like a liberal when he helmed the Golden State, but this year he’s campaigning like a conservative, promising, in a recent ad, not to raise taxes without voter approval.

Taking aim at some of the big-ticket items on his party’s agenda, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin echoes Republican ideas:

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds alerts us to a new poll showing that the “Republican message [is] more popular with voters than Republicans are.”

The general Republican message of less spending, lower taxes and repeal of the health-care overhaul is connecting. Pluralities of those polled support overturning the health-care measure — Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment — and back the “Pledge to America” that offers a road map for how Republicans would govern if they win congressional majorities.

Still, the [recent Bloomberg National] poll suggests voters aren’t embracing Republicans as much as they are rejecting Democrats. . . . The poll finds Republicans in an anomalous position — poised to make political gains while the party and its policies are unpopular.

Methinks this unpopularity has to do with recent memories of Republican governance when the party failed to hold the line on federal spending.  When, in 2006, Democrats regained their majorities in Congress, they had been out of power for 12 years.  For the GOP in 2010, it’s just four, with many thinking it’s just been two years, assuming that Republicans controlled Congress during W’s entire White House tenure.

These Democratic campaigns and polling data suggest that if Republicans hold true to their principles, if they regain their majorities next month, they could hold onto them for a long time.  A long time.

But, that all depends on their willingness to cut government spending while reducing federal regulation and promoting a freedom agenda.

Ever since I saw him on Saturday Night Live, I have considered Steve Martin one of the funniest men alive. So, when I saw his memoir Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life on the bargain table at a bookstore in West Chester, Ohio (that I visited with a reader after we lunched together), I quickly snatched it up.  I mean, at six bucks, it seemed a steal.

The book alas wasn’t worth more than its (marked down) cover price.  I had been reading it since I bought it, carrying it with me on at least two trips out of LA, but only finishing it last night.  At times, the prose is stale, with Martin merely jotting down the facts of his life, as if he were just typing up his notes without trying to craft a narrative.

He seems reticent about his feelings, rarely going into much depth about his various relationships with women or describing his friendships with his fellow entertainers.

Yet, we do learn that he had a trying relationship with his father.  When he was a boy and his father suggested they play catch.  ”This offer,” Martin writes, “to spend time together was so rare that I was confused about what I was supposed to do.” Later, the elder Martin wrote a “bad review” of his son’s first appearance on SNL (leading a co-worker to chide the action as “wrong”).

He got his showbiz start selling guidebooks at Disneyland, soon moving on to the magic shop there.  While in the park, he would visit the shows, watching and learning from the performers.  Later, he performed himself at nearby Knott’s Berry Farm and at various theaters around Los Angeles, then at small venues across the country.  He wrote for television, appeared on “The Tonight Show” and finally got the call for “Saturday Night Live.” (more…)

It’s not just newspapers across the Golden State dubbing 3-term Senator Barbara Boxer an ineffective representative of our state, now congressional watchdogs are calling the career politician’s transparency into question:

Boxer, as chairwoman of the Senate Ethics Committee, led a yearlong investigation beginning in 2008 into whether two Democratic senators acted improperly by being part of a VIP Countrywide program that gave influential clients favorable treatment.

At that time, Boxer told reporters that she had not been a part of the company’s VIP program and did not currently have any Countrywide mortgages. She did, however, volunteer to news outlets that, in the past, she had paid off two Countrywide mortgage home loans.

But one watchdog group says she wasn’t disclosing enough. According to extensive research provided to The Daily Caller by the non-partisan Foundation for Ethics in Public Service, Boxer conducted business with Countrywide on another property too — as co-signer of a house with her son. The group argues that if you add up all the transactions, including re-finances, on those three properties, Boxer has actually signed for at least seven Countrywide mortgages.

Leslie Merritt, the executive director of the watchdog group, said Boxer was “less than candid, if not lying” about her dealings with Countrywide by not disclosing more.

What is it with Boxer and he son?  First, she steers hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars his way.  Then, she moves tribal legislation benefiting the young man.  Meanwhile, Boxer’s committee cleared Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota under investigation for wrongdoing.

Guess the Democrats tapped this Senator to chair the committee because they knew she would look out for her partisan cronies.  Instead of looking out for her fellow partisan, Merritt said the 28-year Washington veteran, “should have also recused herself from participating in the investigation to avoid any appearance of impropriety on her part”. (more…)

I’m with the next Congressman from the Old Dominon’s Second Congressional District:

Scott Rigell, the Republican businessman challenging Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va.) in Nov. 2′s election, said at a meeting with Tea Party-ers over the weekend that Boehner would be an OK Speaker, but that Cantor would be an “outstanding” choice for the next GOP leader.

“I think John Boehner would be a good Speaker,” Rigell told the meeting. “I think Eric Cantor would be an outstanding Speaker, and there may be some others that come along.”

Like Rigell who leads outgoing Congressman “Nye by 6 percent” (“with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report [rating] the contest as a “lean Republican” race”), I agree that the more principled and thoughtful Cantor would be a far better Speaker than Boehner.

He may, however, lack the political acumen of his Buckeye colleague.  All that said, seeing Cantor rise as he has in past Congresses and foreseeing him as Majority Leader in the next Congress is a good sign for the Republican Party.  And the United States of America.