Following the gay marriage debate in New York, Stephen H. Miller observes:

What’s going on in the New York marriage struggle shows why winning over Republicans (even just a few!) matters greatly. But those who run our leading LGBT political lobbies still seems to be firmly committed to a one-party strategy. Their identity politics is all bound up in being Democrats.

Indeed.

(Emphasis added.)

With Steve’s words in mind, I was wondering how HRC’s leadership thinks they can influence members of the majority caucus (you know those who set the agenda, chair the committees) in the U.S. House of Representatives now that the group has endorsed Barack Obama for reelection before the first ballots have even been cast in the contest for the GOP nomination.

I mean, isn’t part of their work lobbying our federal legislators?  And showing just how eager you are to back one party’s standard bearer is not likely to endear your organization to the opposing party’s leadership.  Just sayin’, ya know?

As many of our readers know, one-time Republican political consultant Fred Karger who happens to be gay has launched a quixotic bid for the GOP presidential nomination. The only problem is that unlike the other Republican Party candidates, he has barely embraced in whole, or in part, the unifying Tea Party small government principles and has not, at least not on his website, called for the repeal of the Democrats’ overhaul of our nation’s health care system.

On his Issues page, we have nothing about health care and only bromides on the economy. This is a screen capture of every thing he has to say about jobs and the economy.

Guess he must really believe that the Gipper just talked us out of the recession, given that he decided to feature it on his web-site.   Must have slipped Fred’s mind how Ronald Reagan worked with then-Fed chair Paul Volcker to wring inflation out of the economy while he pushed tax cuts through Congress and sought regulatory relief through the various federal agencies. (more…)

Earlier this month, I walked down Melrose, a once bustling commercial thoroughfare in Hollywood, and snapped pictures of the numerous MOWBs (PF) Moonbeam-Obama-Waxman-Boxers (Pavley-Feuer), those empty storefronts ubiquitous in Southern California:

Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds linked a post that provided statistics to back up observations to back up my observations, Companies Leaving California In Record Numbers: last year, an average of 3.9 businesses left the (once-)Golden State every week. So far, this year, it’s 5.4.

WIth businesses fleeing to such states as Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and North Carolina, you’d think our legislature would consider bills to reduce the burdens the state imposes on private enterprise, but instead reports Joseph Vranich, the legislature has rejected “business-friendly legislation and Sacramento’s implementation of additional regulation“. No wonder he fears that “California’s hostility towards business will only worsen.” Guess we’ll soon be seeing even more MOWB (PF)s like those above.

Earlier today, reader ILoveCapitalism e-mailed me asking why I hadn’t blogged on the fake lesbian blogger controversy.  In suggesting that I didn’t have “to gloat or anything”, he got at part of the reason I have yet to comment on the matter, at least not in a public forum.

I mean, when I first heard that ostensible lesbian “Paula Brooks” was really a man, I smiled in amusement, given how she, er, he and I had tangled in our comments section.  Seems he felt he only had the moral authority to take on gay conservatives in the guise of a lesbian.

Bill Graber who masqueraded as Ms. Brooks was not the only straight man to play a lesbian on the Internets, “Tom MacMaster, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real,” where “Paula” also blogged, acknowledged that “he was behind the persona of” Amina Arraf AKA “A Gay Girl in Damascus”.

MacMaster and Graber seem to have understood something about the mentality of the left today, that a lesbian has greater moral authority by dint of her minority status, or as, Maureen Dowd might put it, moral authority of those who belong to victim groups is absolute.

RELATED:  Michael Petrelis reports that “straight married Anglo-American Tom MacMaster, the hoaxer behind the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, is very upset with blogger Max Blumenthal“, so upset indeed that he’s thinking of suing.”  Petrelis welcomes the lawsuit as it could “bring a lot more scrutiny to MacMaster and his hoax”.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  ILoveCapitalism offers:

- Straight white men who support a form of politics (“progressive”, politically correct) that made them feel ignored and marginalized to the point where they had to go into a closet just to be taken seriously, hiding their real selves. Umm, what’s that expression that leaps to mind… “self-hating”? (more…)

One of the most heartening things about blogging is not just that it provides the means for gay conservatives (a minority within a minority, as we have been dubbed) to publish our ideas, but also for disgruntled gay liberals to make known their discontent with the gay establishment (or Gay, Inc as it has been dubbed).

In reading blogs like Pam’s House Blend, Queerty and Americablog, to name but a few, I have learned that many gays on the left do not march in lockstep with the Democratic partisans at HRC.  Nor, as we have learned in recent days, have they accepted the word of the increasingly partisan GLAAD as gay gospel.

While we here at GayPatriot have taken the ostensible media watchdog to task for honoring a man who spews the type of hate speech against one segment of gay people they would excoriate had he directed similar speech against all gay people, gay lefty bloggers (and blogresses) have faulted the organization for its “public statements supporting AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile” as well as their letter “to the FCC opposing possible net neutrality rules.”  GLAAD received money from AT & T.

Gay leftie bloggers are concerned about what one calls, “the corporate hijacking of our movement.”

Now, for the record, we here at GayPatriot oppose the FCC’s attempt to impose net neutrality rules, so we did not wade into the controversy.  Yet, what stood out to us (well, to me, at least) was these bloggers were using this new medium to criticize a gay group.

And now we see that, just as in federal legislation action on DADT repeal, their efforts have had a real world impact, “Jarrett Barrios,” as Pam Spaulding reports, “the executive director of GLAAD, has resigned.”  At that link and this, Pam has more on the controversy.

Kudos to these folks for standing up to their principles, even if it meant exposing a rift in the gay community.  We may not agree with them in their criticism of GLAAD, but we do agree that it is better for our community that Barrios no longer heads one of the leading gay organizations.  Now, if only they could be as successful in influencing the board of HRC. . .

UPDATE:   On Facebook, Scott Schmidt asks, “Why is it wrong for gay rights groups to side with corporations that support them but not wrong to side with labor unions?”

Good question. Do hope some of those left-of-center gay bloggers use their web-sites to ask it.

. . . to, as Bill O’Reilly put it, sift ”through 24,000 pages of emails written by then-Gov. Sarah Palin?”

And she’s a former governor.  And not now a presidential candidate.  I wonder how many reporters are investigating how “a radical left-wing special interest group gets a big boost in federally funded grants and contracts after one of its most visible leaders is appointed to a key White House job.”  Or Operation Gunwalker.

Or Obama’s background.

Earlier this month, reflecting on the dismal employment numbers, Log Cabin Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper chided Democrats for pursuing the wrong path to economic health:

It is time the Obama administration got the message. The solution isn’t big government programs, but a strong prescription of spending cuts and tax relief for American job creators. As House Speaker John Boehner said, ‘One look at the jobs report should be enough to show the White House it’s time to get serious about cutting spending and dealing with our ailing economy.

Spending cuts, though, won’t be enough.  We also need regulatory relief.  That said, it is nice to see Log Cabin taking issue with Democratic policies and standing with Republicans on issues of common concern.  On this, at least, Cooper’s leadership represents quite a contrast to the early days of Log Cabin and the middle years of the George W. Bush presidency.  Kudos, Clarke.

He recognizes the ideology that is been consigned to history’s trash can.  Now, if we could only get more gay people to pay attention.

While prices at the pump have tapered off a bit in the past few weeks, they still remain a drain on the pocketbooks of most Americans.  In order to deflect criticism from the Democratic administration, the president’s fellow partisans have demonized oil companies, with Senate Democrats seeking to “deny five major oil companies the domestic production tax credit that is available to all manufacturers and mining companies, including oil companies” because as Michael Barone puts it, “big oil companies get lousy ratings in polls. So stick ‘em with a higher tax bill.”

Problem is, as the sage pundit adds:

. . . energy companies including but not limited to the big oil companies have been developing new economically viable sources of natural gas and oil production, while government subsidies to renewable sources like solar and wind energy aren’t producing significant increases in energy supply. So the policy on this bill is to take away money from the productive and give it to the unproductive.

Read the whole thing.  It does seem some legislative Democrats have a visceral opposition to the productive sector of our economy.

When you demonize the oil companies, you demonize those entrepreneurs best suited to develop new sources of energy and more efficient means of production.  By contrast, if government would reduce the amount of regulations it imposes on oil companies while lowering the tax burden on these energy developers, their costs go down and their ability to innovate goes up, making them better able to reduce the price at the pump.

In his address last Thursday to the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev charted a new for the largest republic of the former Soviet Union, choosing to scrap the “excessive government role in the economy and the excessive centralization of power are the taxes on the future”.

Yet, as the Russians move away from centralized government, John Hinderaker finds American Democrats digging in their heels and defending policies which have failed, thwarting entrepreneurial innovation and stymying economic growth:

Here in the U.S., Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid must realize that they are fighting a rear-guard action on behalf of an ideology that already has been consigned to history’s trash can. But they and their colleagues are like the dog that can whistle, but only knows one tune. They have no other ideas to offer, and will ride their discredited theories all the way to ruin, if the voters let them.

*yet still championed by President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Alright, so it’s well-known (and almost excusable with today’s short-attention-span public) that sex sells. That explains why the at-first reluctant former mainstream media went wall-to-wall with coverage of soon-to-be (but not soon enough) former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s naughtiness. (Of course, their initial reluctance is no question due to the “D” he wears on the right side of his title.) That Weiner was one of the nastiest, most partisan, and rhetorically ugly members of the once-vaunted assembly was of no interest to the press. That his support for policies that have been an albatross around America’s neck also rose no brows. What they wanted were those pics (once Andrew Breitbart forced their hands with undeniable photographic evidence that they were never going to seek out themselves) and a salacious headline (one preferably that included a grade-school-era pun, if possible, please).

The next thing the press darlings love is a human-interest story. Forget the details of a crime. Forget any sort of ongoing work of the authorities to capture a criminal. Certainly forget any sort of racial description of an alleged perpetrator. But if something’s gone down in the big city, you can count on the locals (and if it’s dramatic enough, the Big Three) to cover the angle of the family that’s been affected or the children left orphaned.

So we were introduced over and over to the dutiful wife, Huma Abedin—currently with child. Naturally the angle of her working for the oft-humiliated wife of the former president and current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was played, often with a sly wink. Much was made about the likelihood of the two conferring over how to best deal with the situation, both in public and in private. In fact, it wasn’t until Mrs. Weiner returned from her overseas trip with the Secretary (on which she’d been when the whole escapade broke) that the Congressman finally decided to fold up his tent and go home. There was even the irony of Bill Clinton having officiated at their wedding. (Is he a rabbi now? Talk about a comeback!)

In all that, though; in all the delving into this couple’s details and discussing ad nauseam about what’s next for them… no interest from those stalwarts for the Public’s Right To Know about this little tidbit:

It turns out that Huma Abedin may have very close links to a little terrorist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) claims to have leaked an extensive list of members of the Brotherhood’s secret women’s division, which is known alternately as the Muslim Sisterhood or the International Women’s Organization (IWO). This detailed list was partially published by Al Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers. And it included Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin.

Apparently her brother is also closely tied with the Brotherhood.
(more…)

While I appreciate Michelle Bachmann’s charisma and her ability to articulate the unifying message of the Tea Party, I have some concerns about her past statements on state recognition of same-sex relationships. That said, if you’re going to take issue with her arguments, do so in the same manner she offers them.

Why do some gay lefties feel the need to throw stuff on their ideological adversaries:

Why are they so reluctant to engage them?

Via Instapundit.

RELATED: Note the words I wrote in a blog post two years ago that Michelle Malkin chose to feature in a post on civility and tolerance. Why does the woman in the video above prefer political theater to serious argument?

UPDATE: Over at RedState, Caleb Howe comments on this video:

“She can run, but she can’t hide.” Yeah, nothing says “I’m in hiding” like running for President, plainly stating your views repeatedly on national television, and speaking at a major conference. . . .

“The left: we throw stuff and stuff.” Powerful message.

Yeah, well, throwing stuff is a lot easier than acknowledging your adversary’s points and countering them with well-thought out arguments.

UP-UPDATE:  Even Bachmann’s sensible critics castigate the glitterer.  At Dump Bachmann, Eva Young writes:

I personally condemn this move. Here at Dump Bachmann we’ve been exposing Michele Bachmann’s words and record. This glitter bombing of candidates doesn’t accomplish anything.

Perhaps, we might be able to get to the bottom of the Barack Obama’s changing stance on gay marriage if some leading gay rights’ activists were more interested in advocating for gay people than in agitating for Democratic politicians:

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE, ME OR YOUR OWN LYING EYES? Senior White House aide: 1996 Obama gay marriage questionnaire is a fake, even though Obama signed it. Presumably the White House is demanding release of the original long-form questionnaire.

While HRC is silent, gay bloggers and blogreses are asking questions.  At Pam’s House Blend, Autumn Sandeen feels like she’s “watching a denial from the Obama Administration of Barack Obama’s 1996 position on marriage equality in the face of documentation that makes the denial appear to be a lie. It looks to me to be an attempt at a history rewrite“:

I can’t imagine that this isn’t going to cause problems between the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the Obama Administration, and it will require someone more senior to White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer in an attempt to straighten this out.

Once again, gay and lesbian bloggers (and blogresses), working on a shoestring, are doing the work the national gay organizations, with multi-million dollar budgets, fancy offices and expense accounts refuse to do.

Does seem Obama arrives at his positions on gay issues, not on their merits, but on their politically expediency.

It seems he supported state recognition of same-sex marriage in his first campaign, yet subsequently never marched in any gay pride parade — or otherwise participated in such celebrations.  You’d think national gay groups would be asking questions, especially given the president’s aggressive solicitation of gay money and votes.

Kudos to the gay leftie bloggers unwilling to serve as lickspittles to a Democratic president with whom they are, by and large, ideologically in sync.  Would it we could say the same thing for the national gay groups.  But, for them it seems, fealty to the Democratic Party — and its standard bearers — remains the highest bond.

Contrasting New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie’s success at crafting a budget deal with legislative Democrats in his state, Jennifer Rubin speculates that it might be possible in Washington but for one thing:

The key ingredient missing in D.C., of course, is executive leadership. President Obama has ducked, delegated and demagogued. It is up to Senate and House leaders to forge a deal. And then to complete the task, the voters in 2012 will need to elect a president with the same fortitude and courage as Christie. Maybe Christie himself.

Emphasis addded.  Read the whole thing.

Ever confident in the power of big government to save the state she represents in the United States Senate, our state’s junior Senator defended her vote for the so-called stimulus, er, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, back in February 2009, favorably citing the White House’s prediction that the legislation would “save or create approximately 400,000 jobs in California“. Do wonder how that career politician explains the latest unemployment numbers from the Golden State:

California, New York and Pennsylvania reported large job losses, partly reversing gains earlier this year. California said employers cut 29,200 jobs last month, with big losses in professional and business services, which includes accounting, engineering, and temporary services. The construction sector also lost jobs.

Cutting 29,200 jobs last month?  With 11.7% of its workforce (officially) out of work, California now has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation.  And our governor is still trying to maintain the state’s high tax rates.

Seems he doesn’t want to settle for second place.

Reading Glenn’s report of efforts to stop the Gaza Flotilla, I started wondering if those do-gooders eager to help those suffering under the Islamicist tyranny in Gaza had organized such aquatic caravans to provide relief to those suffering under similar regimes in Syria, Iran and Libya or in such impoverished places like Somalia.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

One could say that of the many factors contributing to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, perhaps the most important was that he came across as calm during the market meltdown in the midst of the presidential campaign while his Republican rival appeared erratic.  But, maybe his calm demeanor was not that of a leader showing he could keep his cool in a crisis, but a of man with little ability to show emotion, a man who was somewhat detached from his fellows and their difficulties.

As long as the difficulty doesn’t impact him personally, the president maintains his cool facade.

Sometimes, when he tours areas which just experienced a disaster, it appears he’s going through the motions, visiting the town and talking to the people not because he feels their pain (to borrow an expression of his most immediate Democratic predecessor who really could make it appear that he did), but because this is what a president does.  Or, perhaps, he’s just not as media savvy in such situations as was Bill Clinton.

But, then there’s this.  Just moments after honoring those who gave their all for our freedom on Memorial Day, he heads off for the golf course for yet another round.  I don’t begrudge him his leisure and grant every president should enjoy some recreation on his days off, but did Mr. Obama consider how it might appear if he headed off for the links on the day when we’re supposed to be honoring those who died in this nation’s service?  Maybe he just thinks the media will cover for him.*

These thoughts came to mind as I caught this post on Instapundit.  Glenn links a post on Powerline where John Hinderaker, commented on Michele Bachmann’s observation about the president’s apparent absence of empathy:

That Barack Obama is without a clue when it comes to the economy is no revelation, but that he lacks empathy–traditionally a Democratic refrain–is a bold and interesting twist. The fact is that Obama does often seem to be weirdly detached from the problems he ostensibly is trying to solve.

Read the whole thing.  When it comes to the economy, Obama doesn’t seem as engaged as he was during the push to overhaul our nation’s health care system.   (more…)

Reporting that Russ Feingold, voted out of office last fall by the voters of Wisconsin, said, “Russ Feingold says “The game’s not over until we win”, Glenn Reynolds quipped, “By any means necessary, apparently.”

Given that Mr. Feingold voted for Obamacare, even as the American people (and apparently also those in his home state) were rejecting it, it seems he and his ilk are bound and determined to impose their agenda on America, no matter what the voters say.

ADDENDUM:  Can you imagine the media reaction if a Republican had made a comment similar to Feingold’s?

I had this thought while watching the Gay Pride parade this past Sunday in West Hollywood and catching sight of the first Obama 2012 sticker:  why were so many of our fellow gays so gung-ho about Obama in 2008, even to the point of regularly deriding Hillary despite his absence then of a record on gay issues.  The Democrat had, in his campaign, shared a platform with an anti-gay singer.  And to my knowledge, hadn’t done much of anything for gay people when in the Illinois — or United States — Senate.

The Illinois legislature didn’t pass a “non-discrimination” law until January 2005, the very month Barack Obama began his service in another legislature.  In his eight years in the Illinois Senate did the Democrat work to advance this legislation, legislation near and dear to the hearts of gay activists?  Did he press his colleagues on same-sex civil unions?

Not just that, as I noted on Tuesday, “Mrs. Clinton participated in gay Pride parades in New York.  Obama never participated in such celebrations in Chicago.”  (Thanks to the folks at Hillbuzz for keeping track of this failure to participate.)

Yeah, I realize this in 2011 and I’m asking a question about 2008, but I’m still wondering why so many gay activists preferred Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton that year when they had little (if any) evidence that he was a champion of their causes.

NB:  Added the parenthetical (some) to the title to make my point clearer.  Thanks, readers, for helping me realize that title leant itself to misinterpretation.

“This president,” Obama strategist David Axelrod told CNN’s John King earlier this week, “was scrutinized, more perhaps than any candidate ever had been.”

Oh yeah, say the editors of the Washington Examiner, commenting on the media frenzy over Obama’s appointments of big donors to key posts Sarah Palin’s e-mails:

too many media outlets that went wild over the Palin emails have not devoted anywhere near as much passion, energy and resources to holding President Obama accountable on the pledge he made on his first day in the Oval Office — that he would run the most transparent administration ever. The list of Obama transparency outrages is a long one, but it has received only sporadic coverage in most precincts of the mainstream media.

Read the whole thing. I’m sure Mr. King will ask Axelrod about this next time he has him on his program.

Via HotAir.com

Representative Anthony D. Weiner has told friends that he plans to resign his seat after coming under growing pressure from his Democratic colleagues to leave the House, said a person told of Mr. Weiner’s plans.

Mr. Weiner, a Democrat, came to the conclusion that he could no longer serve after having long discussions with his wife,  Huma Abedin, when she returned home on Tuesday after traveling abroad with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Our long national nightmare is over.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)