Well, better late than never.

Commenting on a  front-page news analysis in today’s New York Times today that ”reports on a startling (at least at the Times) idea to cut the deficit and thus tame the rapidly rising national debt: economic growth“, John Steele Gordon thinks the idea sounds kind of familiar:

If this sounds familiar, it is because this was the very heart of Reaganomics 30 years ago. It is amusing that [writer David] Leonhardt takes pains to ensure Times readers, before they come down with the vapors, that not all tax-rate reductions are tax cuts.

Read the whole thing.

BREAKING: Ethics committee finds Rangel guilty

The Hill has more:

A House ethics panel has convicted Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) on 11 of 13 counts of violating House ethics rules.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the adjudicatory subcommittee and the full House ethics committee, announced the decision late Tuesday morning following an abbreviated public trial of the 20-term lawmaker and nearly six hours of deliberations.

The next step is to debate sanctions. Do wonder if the current Democratic majority will proceed with all deliberate speed so they can sanction their fellow partisan before the Republicans take over come January.

In an article on outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempts to maintain control over her diminished Democratic caucus, Politico’s Jonathan Allen offers this telling passage:

The effort to tweak the rules and give rank-and-file Democrats more say over influential posts in the caucus reflects frustration over the fact that the Democratic leadership team will remain largely intact despite the Nov. 2 drubbing.

“People woke up the day after the election as afraid of Nancy Pelosi as they were the Monday before. And they shouldn’t be,” said one senior Democratic aide whose own remaining fear of retribution caused her to seek anonymity.

So, Nancy maintains an iron grip over her caucus and has decided to keep her leadership team intact despite the drubbing.   Couple this with a redistricting likely to benefit Republicans, looks like further GOP gains are on the menu for 2012.

UPDATE:  Over at Politico, Jonathan Allen and John F. Harris have a good analysis of why Democrats are keeping Nancy on as their party’s leader in the House.

One of our readers claims it’s “ridiculous” for me to blame Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the failure of DADT repeal. This critic lays the blame primarily at the feet of the Republicans.  To be sure, he does acknowledge that Reid “may have been one of the reasons it didn’t pass”, but that explanation, in my mind, glosses over just how much power the Nevada Democrat has.  Reid controlled the Senate agenda in the 111th Congress.  Indeed, for roughly six months of his tenure, he had a filibuster-proof majority, not needing a single Republican vote to move legislation.

And there several Senate Republicans, notably Susan Collins of Maine, who favor repeal. Only Reid’s ham-handed manner of pursuing repeal turned off even moderates like her.  She wasn’t the only one to fault Reid’s strategy on appeal.  As I wrote last month in a piece for Pajamas Media:

. . . in the Washington Post, . . . Collins . . . faulted the Nevada Democrat for using “procedural tactics” to “prevent Republican amendments.” She wasn’t alone. Her Massachusetts colleague Scott Brown also decried Reid’s tactics. Jarrod Chlapowski, field director for Servicemembers United, a group opposed to DADT, derided Reid’s legislative tactics as “cynical” and called them “a recipe for failure.”

Despite Reid’s tactical blunders, Collins is still hoping to move forward on repeal.  I wonder why the Democratic Leader didn’t try earlier to reach across the partisan divide and solicit the help of the Maine Republican.  According to Politico, she and her Connecticut colleague Joe Lieberman

. . .sent a letter (viewable here) to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, urging him to make the highly-anticipated report public “as soon as possible” to improve the chances that a conditional repeal of the ban on gays in the military – currently attached to a must-pass defense authorization bill – will become law before the clock runs out on the lame-duck session next month.

She seems pretty confident that report will confirm what other studies have shown — that repeal of the ban will not compromise unit cohesion or military effectiveness.  Let’s hope for a speedy release of the report — and a speedy vote on repeal.

If Harry Reid is serious about ending the ban, he’ll reach out to his Republican colleague from Maine and seek her advice in crafting a legislative strategy on repeal.

NB:  Tweaked the post to more accurately reflect the comment of the critic in question.

Today, we learned that the Tea Party doesn’t need to elect its candidates to advance its agenda.  When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the words of Politico’s Manu Raju, “stunned official Washington on Monday by saying he would support a two-year ban on the pet projects“, it was the statement heard round the blogosphere, resounding across the Beltway.  This shrewd politician could read the tea leaves.

This former champion of earmarks was deft in explaining his change of heart (some have called it a flip-flop or “about-face“).  He claims to “know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state” and refuses to apologize for them:

But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.

“Behind this principled sounding explanation,” Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff writes

. . . lie solid pragmatic considerations. For one thing, McConnell presumably does not wish to face, or see members of caucus face, strong Tea Party opposition in primaries over the next few cycles.

More fundamentally, McConnell presumably does not want a schism develop between the leadership and the Tea Party faction of his caucus over an issue that is mostly symbolic. Indeed, if McConnell can navigate his way through this issue, there may be no schism.

Read the whole thing.  What is significant is that McConnell recognizes that what political benefit might once have come from earmarks has long since evaporated with the growing public concern about spendthrift politicians in our nation’s capital.  A small government consensus continues to emerge.

The Tea Party has helped make it good politics to oppose the pork-barrel politicians which incumbents once thought essential to survival.

During the course of the 2010 campaign, I was working on a blog post/op-ed with the title I use for this post.  But, as I followed the messages of Republican candidates across the country, I realized that, well, they had already gotten the message.  It didn’t seem necessary.  And since it wasn’t a winning issue in the campaign, it shouldn’t be a defining agenda when the 112th Congress convenes in January.

Thanks in part to the unpopular, big-government initiatives of the Obama Democrats and the concomitant (given popular opinion) growth of the Tea Parties, most Republicans campaigned on fiscal issues.  Those who made an issue of gays (or appeared to do as much) didn’t do as well on Election Day as polls forecast.

Now, our good friends at GOProud “and some Tea Party leaders” are pressing Republicans to stay true to their campaign rhetoric and “to keep social issues off” the agenda:

“On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement,” they write to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell in an advance copy provided to POLITICO. “This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue.”

When Chris Barron of GOProud contacted Bruce and me about the project, each of us eagerly signed on.  His letter is exactly in the spirit of the ideas this blog has been promoting for six year — and that I have been promoting for at last fifteen.  Social conservative Tea Party folk are also signing up:

“When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren’t arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion,” said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member, as well as an Ohio co-coordinator.

King said he signed onto the letter because GOProud seemed to be genuine in pushing for fiscal conservatism and limited government.

“Am I going to be the best man at a same sex-marriage wedding? That’s not something I necessarily believe in,” said King. “I look at myself as pretty socially conservative. But that’s not what we push through the Tea Party Patriots.”

Nice to see a gay conservative group actually working within the framework of conservative groups to keep the focus on the issues which have defined our party at least since the rise of Reagan — and have helped Republicans win elections in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1994 and now 2010.

Even the Advocate has picked up on this.  Guess the message is that a gay Republicans can get media attention without attacking their own party.

It seems Democrats particularly those in employment-challenged California, can’t talk enough about “green jobs.”   Governor-elect Jerry Brown maintains such jobs “will turn the state around“.  Ma’am Boxer touted them on the campaign trail.

Only problem is, as Sonicfrog reminds us, that since voters here “failed to repeal AB32 a couple of Tuesdays ago,”  the majority of my fellow Californians (I voted, “Yes,” on Prop. 23 which would have held that draconian measure in check) “ensured that more jobs, including green jobs, will be leaving the state, or will simply not open their doors here in the first place!”

Problem is is that green jobs cost money, government money — and, well, that money is kind of in short supply right now:

What boosters of green jobs don’t usually mention is most of these jobs require substantial taxpayer subsidies and other special government treatment even to exist in a competitive market. It appears now that even a half-billion dollars in government aid is no guarantee of success.

Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent.

Read the whole thing.  Even without massive taxpayer subsidies, this Democratic promise is about as hollow as the White House claim (that Mrs. Boxer so favorably cited) that the “stimulus” would create (or save) “approximately 400,000 jobs” in the Golden State.

*In fact, some are already leaving.

I’ve just begun to read President George W. Bush’s memoirs — Decision Points. I downloaded it on Kindle last night and haven’t been able to put it down.

I’ll discuss more later as I read more (I’m into the summer of 2000 campaign period now.)

But one takeaway already is that George W. Bush is smart, thoughtful, complex, honest, candid and not the cartoon the media liked to make him out to be.

Like or dislike him — this is required reading!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): I’ve also been reading the book, agree it’s difficult to put down and posted some initial reactions here and here.

I joined the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation as a charter member of some kind a few months ago.  I wanted to be involved during the year of Reagan’s Centennial Birthday Celebration (Feb 6, 2011).

Anyway, as part of the membership I receive various publications throughout the year.  The most recent was a schedule of upcoming events at the Reagan Library related to The President’s 100th Birthday.  On the flip side of the newsletter was this quote, which I thought was appropriate to post today, given the times we live in.

Our Government has no power except that granted by the people.  It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people.  All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states.  The states created the federal government.

Reagan’s First Inaugural Address – Jan 20, 1981

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It was 55 years ago this evening, at 10:04 pm, that a bolt of lightning hit the Hill Valley Courthouse. Thanks to the work of Dr. Emmett Brown, 1.21 gigawatts of electricity was harnessed from the lightning and directed into the time-traveling DeLorean allowing Marty McFly to return to 1985.

Cheers to this notable date in Hollywood movie magic history!!

It is, in large measure, because of George W. Bush that I started blogging.  While I had been so incensed by his decision to back the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) in February 2004 that I wrote in Rudy Giuliani in the California primary and had, in March of that year, considered voting Libertarian in the fall election, I came around while following John Kerry’s campaign.

That Democrat seemed more interested in playing to Democratic critics of W and posturing for the media than in addressing the real security threats to our nation.

And while Bush had an imperfect record on domestic issues and intervened in an issue — amending the federal constitution — from which that charter excludes the executive, he did demonstrate a clear recognition of the need to take an aggressive stance against the enemies of the United States.  By the summer of 2004, I was back to supporting his reelection.

It would seem that most gay Republicans would understand that, while disappointed with his stance on the FMA, the nation faced more pressing challenges.  And John Kerry was clearly not up to those challenges.  With so much at stake, Log Cabin could at least have been more diplomatic in the manner of its non-endorsement.  But, they did it in a manner clearly designed to hurt George W. Bush and, with recent revelations about their funding made manifest in recent months confirming suspicion we then had, in a manner intended to help John Kerry.  Not a very responsible thing for a Republican organization to do in time of war.

Thus, when I read Bruce’s post telling Log Cabin to stick it, I eagerly e-mailed him thanking him for speaking up — and later accepted his invitation to join this then-fledgling blog.

I say all this as prelude to a passage which particularly struck me in the former president’s memoir.  When he asked Dick Cheney to serve as his running mate, that great and good man told the then-governor of Texas that his daughter was gay.  ”I could tell,” Bush wrote

. . . what he meant by the way he said it.  Dick clearly loved his daughter.  I felt he was gauging my tolerance.  ”If you have a problem with this, I’m not your man,” he was essentially saying.

I smiled at him and said, “Dick, take your time.  Please talk to Lynne.  And I could not care less about Mary’s orientation.

While we all may remain disappointed about the former president’s stand on FMA, we continue to accumulate evidence that popular notions of his supposed bigotry in the gay community notwithstanding, George W. Bush does not hate gay people.

It would be nice if folks in the gay community acknowledged W’s reaction to his running mate’s openness about his daughter’s sexuality — and to that vice president’s sterling record on gay issues.

When former President George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, arrived the other day, I started reading it almost right away.  And while the style may be kind of staccato, even sterile, the book is a good and easy read.  Yesterday, when I couldn’t focus on much at home, I took it with me when I set off to a local Starbucks and in an act surely subversive in Los Angeles read it out in the open.

I get the sense in watching this good man in his various television appearances promoting the book that he is a man at peace.  He doesn’t agonize over his legacy or feel the need to demonize his successor or his critics, the latter who are legion.  He has been attacked more viciously than have been some of his predecessors more worthy of reprimand and endured insults his critics wouldn’t level against enemies of our nation, yet he takes it all in stride.  Or at least appears to.  He just brushes it off, as if par for the course.

When, in his book, he does address such criticism, he puts it in historical context:

The shrill debate never affected my decisions.  I read a lot of history, and I was struck by how many presidents had endured harsh criticism.  The measure of their character, and often their success, was how they responded.

By this standard, he is a man of sterling character.  He acknowledges that some suggested he “should have pushed back harder against the caricatures.”  But, he believes would have debased the presidency “to stoop to the critics’ levels.”

Advice to all of us, particularly those in the political arena, who experience the slings and arrows of outrageous attacks.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire:

“We didn’t lose the election because of me,” Ms. Pelosi told National Public Radio in an interview that aired Friday morning. “Our members do not accept that.”

Instead, the California Democrat attributes the loss of at least 60 seats to high unemployment and “$100 million of outside, unidentified funding.”

Always looking for someone else to blame, are we, Nancy?  Well, it does seem par for the course for your party.  Does seem that you guys are always looking for excuses when the answer should be obvious to anyone to who can read election returns and exits polls.  To paraphrase an expression from one of your party’s political operatives:

It’s the big-government policies, stupid.

Why is it that Democrats are always trying to find excuses for their losses?   Why do they never consider that their policies may be to blame?

RELATED:  ”Yeah, when the right-thinking folks get it wrong,” Glenn Reynolds quips, “it’s never their fault.”

One step Governor-elect Brown could make to help tackles the state’s budget deficit would be to cut the wages of all public employees.  When I checked his web-site and found the Democrat was soliciting suggestions, among the three I offered was one encouraging him to do just that, cut all income over $42,500 earned by public employees by 15%.  (At the time, I thought the national median income was $42,500; it appears to be about $1,000 higher).

At the federal level, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, according to the Washington Examiner, is proposing a different kind of salary cut.  He’s calling for

. . . a federal pay freeze a minimum first step toward what eventually should be a 10 percent cut across the board. If the GOP’s historic landslide victory in the 2010 election was about letting Washington know it’s time to rein in runaway government growth and put Main Street’s needs before those at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Chaffetz’s proposal is the least that can be done. It is also the right time to do it, when the public is genuinely fed up with the status quo. Given the nation’s economic woes, we would love to see the Washington establishment defend the idea that taxpayers should continue to subsidize government salaries inside the Beltway.

“Cuts in federal personnel,” Don Surber contends, seeing the Utah Republican and raising him . . .

. . . must be made. And they must be deep. And they must be painful.

The government is broke.

This is what bankrupt companies do.

Surber, via Instapundit.  With Americans who toil in the private sector seeing their salaries cut across the country, it’s about time government workers share their pain.  After all, it’s those of us who work in the private sector who are paying the salaries of those who work in the public sector.

Let’s hope our elected officials in Washington — and Sacramento — take this action to reduce the costs of government and to remind public employees that they are not immune to economic downturns.

Last night, while preparing dinner, I caught out of the corner of my eye, the scroll on the bottom of the screen on FoxNews, reporting that outgoing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was calling a special session of the legislature to deal with a $6 billion dollar projected deficit.  I had read it was $19 billion.

Later in the evening, when checking the blogs, I read that “News came out today that the California budget deficit is actually closer to $25 billion, twice what we are told.“   A google search offered this explanation on Bloombergeme BusinessWeek:

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, citing a $25.4 billion budget gap over the next 19 months, declared a fiscal emergency and called lawmakers to a special session next month to begin dealing with the problem.

Schwarzenegger, a Republican whose term ends in January, late yesterday ordered the session to start Dec. 6, the day newly elected legislators are sworn in. He wants to take steps to erase an officially estimated $6.1 billion gap that has already emerged in the budget enacted last month.

In addition to the gap forecast for the fiscal year through June, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office yesterday projected a $19 billion gap in the following 12 months.

Whatever the real budget gap, with the election of Democratic Governor as well as the retention of an unpopular Democratic legislature, the voters in California have spoken:  they don’t want Republicans to fix this problem.

Now, thanks to the passage of Prop. 25, they need not worry:  Democrats in Sacramento don’t need Republicans to pass a budget.  It’s their problem now.  But, somehow, I don’t think that’ll stop them from blaming Republicans.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  And California Democrats do always find a way to blame the opposing party.  Only this time, they’re going to have a tougher time convincing the citizens of the Golden State. (more…)

GOProud’s release on Pentagon’s Working Group on DADT:

According to The Washington Post, sources familiar with the findings of the Pentagon’s Working Group say the study will show that an overwhelming majority active duty and reserve troops do not believe lifting the ban on gays in the military would be harmful.  More than 70 percent of active-duty and reserve troops said the effect of repeal would be positive, mixed or nonexistent.  Additionally, the study will conclude there is only minimal and isolated risk to our current war efforts in the lifting the ban.  In response, Christopher R. Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies, issued the following statement:

“The findings of the Pentagon Working Group will confirm that now is the time to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ These findings should be dispositive for anyone who honestly wants a policy that reflects what’s in the best interest of our military and our national security.  Those who continue to oppose repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will do so in the face of overwhelming and compelling evidence to the contrary from the Pentagon’s Working Group.

“We urge Republicans in the Senate to follow the recommendations of the Pentagon and join with the growing chorus of conservative foreign policy leaders like former Vice President Dick Cheney, potential 2012 Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, Liz Cheney of Keep America Safe, and Fox News’ Charles Krauthammer in supporting repeal of this failed policy. (more…)

As per this video from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (via Michelle Malkin), we can never thank our veterans enough.

It is because of countless brave men and women that we are free today. Let us always remember that. Always.

At its August 1998 national “convention” in Dallas, Texas, the leadership of Log Cabin was preparing to announce a new strategy in preparation for the 200 elections. Eager to participate in that discussion, I wrote the first (of what would become three) “Virginia Plans” where the club I then led, the Log Cabin Republican Club of Northern Virginia, would present our views of the direction, we believed, the organization should take.

Alas that there was no forum at that conclave where clubs could present their views, but my club, in voting to ratify the document, had also voted the resources to photocopy it, so I distributed it and received much positive feedback. In the following months, I would write the two remaining plans.

Thinking about those plans in the wake of an election where the victorious GOP largely ignored gay issues, I re-read them and found that much of what our club had recommended back then, GOProud was promoting in the current cycle, notably this (from the first plan):

Many of us have joined the party of Abraham Lincoln, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan because we believe that government is growing out of control. We favor a smaller government which, we believe, would better protect our freedom. It is the Republican Party which has long championed individual rights. It is our party which champions economic freedom and the free enterprise system. And it is our party which favors a sensible foreign policy and a defense strong enough to protect our legitimate national interests and so better guarantee freedom within our borders.

As soon as I figure out how to post .pdfs, I will do so, making these plans accessible to all.

Earlier today, a friend of mine indicated on Facebook that she likes her wife’s status, that latter having signed up for a rather mature group calling on people to “Subversively move George W. Bush’s memoir to crime section in book shops”. What grown-ups!

Now, I should note that I have the profoundest respect for these two women, indeed, it was seeing them together on the eve of the 2008 election that ended my wavering on Prop 8.  I had been so offended by the nasty tone of the Prop 8 opponents that I had considered leaving the ballot measure blank.  But, aware of their relationship, I realized that some same-sex couples who sought state recognition of their relationships as marriages understood what marriage meant.  I voted, “No.”

That said, through this post, let me ask (in a slightly revised manner) the question, I asked in my Facebook comment, “How would you react if conservatives organized the same scheme for the book by a prominent Democrat?”

What this Facebook group shows is that nearly two years this good man, but flawed chief executive left office, some on the left can’t let go of him.  He’s gone, fellas, and ain’t coming back — and has had the decency to refrain from criticizing his successor — or otherwise interjecting himself into the political arena.

Those still obsessed with George W. Bush should do themselves a favor — and, to borrow an expression, just move on.  He sure has.

The Golden State used to be the state not just of the latest fads, but also the newest ideas.  Well, tomorrow its junior Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer, turns 70 while the Governor-elect reached that milestone two-and-one-half years ago.  He was old news when he ran for president eighteen years ago.

And neither, like some leaders who reach their political prime in their eighth decade, has, at least not in their recent campaigns done much to challenge the current way of thinking.  They just want to return to the same old/same old.  It is no wonder then that outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, clinging onto power as House Democratic Leader, is also from California.  She’s even older than Mrs. Boxer.

Guess if the Democratic Party in the Golden State can’t come up with younger voices to helm the state or represent it in the Senate, then, well, Mrs. Pelosi thinks the septuagenarians should hold onto power in the House, even at the expense of pushing aside young blood.  Glenn reminds us that in Mrs. Pelosi’s caucus there’s no room at the top for young Democrats“:

A younger generation of Democrats is chafing at being asked to stand aside and let a triumvirate of elders keep their leadership positions in the wake of a catastrophic midterm election result.

Barring an unexpected shake-up, House Democrats next year will be led by a combination of Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Steny Hoyer (Md.) and James Clyburn (S.C.) — lawmakers who are 70 or older and have served in Congress for decades.

Hey, Democrats, nothing personal.  Ol’ Nancy still thinks trends begin in California.  And if her state elects old politicians with old ideas, then, gosh darn it, she’s going to make sure that old politicians with old ideas lead her caucus well.