Wonder if the media will call Harry Reid’s bluff?  Ed Morrissey asks us to

. . . remember when Reid insisted on Wednesday that it was just terrible for the House to take the weekend off in the middle of the crisis, just in case the Senate needed them to act on a proposal from the upper chamber?  Now, apparently, it’s Miller Time, according to Politico’s Manu Raju:

Senators catching flights home now – weekend votes ain’t gonna happen, we’re told

The House has at least proposed two different plans to deal with the debt crisis.  The Senate has yet to come up with any plan.  Neither has the White House, despite the hysteria over the August 2nd deadline.  So why are Senators streaming out of Washington DC, Senator Reid?  And doesn’t that make this earlier whining a little more hypocritical?

*Without having passed a budget in 814 days — or a plan to address the debt ceiling.

UPDATE:  I expect California’s junior Senator to call her party leader to task for not scheduling weekend votes.  After all, Mrs. Boxer quoted Ronald Reagan to warn of the risks of default:

The full consequences of a default,’ he said, ‘or even the serious prospect of a default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The nation can ill afford to allow such a result.

So, Ma’am, we agree; Harry Reid should call the Senate back into session and put forward a plan to raise the debt limit and control spending?

There is some good news today; the administration certified the final repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell:

Service members today welcomed a key milestone in repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), as President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, formally issued their certification to the Armed Services committees of both houses of Congress, signifying that the military is ready for the transition. In 60 days, as prescribed in the law passed by Congress and signed by the President last December, repeal will be final.

So much better to have the military certify this than have a court mandate it. The president dilly-dallied on this one, delaying this day. But, with pressure from left-wing gay bloggers and indeed some principled congressional Democrats as well as at least one Senate Republican, he finally acted.

One reason Obama succeeded where Bill Clinton failed was that the Illinois Democrat, unlike his Arkansas counterpart, made this a military issue rather than a gay rights’ issue.  Whereas Clinton moved to repeal the ban while standing beside Barney Frank, Obama sought to repeal the legislation Clinton signed by dispatching his top military aides to Capitol Hill.

Kudos to all those who worked hard to make this day come to pass.  Our nation will be more secure when it can draw on the strengths and patriotism of gay men and lesbian who wish to serve the country which has given us so many opportunities, chief among them, the ability to live free.

It appears there were coordinated terrorist attacks on the ruling party and government of Norway:

At least seven people were killed in a pair of explosions apparently targeting Norway’s government buildings in Oslo and at least 10 more killed in a shooting outside the capital, police said today. . . .

Hours after the blasts, a gunman opened fire at a youth meeting on an island outside of Oslo, killing at least 10. One man was arrested in connection to both attacks. Norwegian Minister of Justice Knut Storberget said the man in custody was Norwegian but his motives are unclear at this time.

Jesse Walker at Reason’s Hit and Run links to this “possible explanation for the explosion (via J.M. Berger).”  Glenn Reynolds links this roundup.

Our prayers are with the victims and their families and our hopes are with the police and armed forces of the Scandinavian nation.  May be perpetrators be swiftly captured — and brought to justice.

UPDATE: From Michelle Malkin who also has a good roundup, “Absolute evil…At least 80 youths killed at the camp, according to police.”  She’s right.  That is absolute evil.  Jim Hoft echoes Michelle, calling this “Pure evil.” Those actions define evil.

Perhaps the most depressing thing about the debate on gay marriage is the dedication of gay marriage advocates to demonizing those who oppose state-recognition of same-sex marriages.  With their childish “No H8″ campaign, they contend that people oppose their view because they hate gay people.

No, there are, I grant, some folks who oppose state recognition of same-sex marriages because of their animus against homosexuals, but they do not represent all such opponents.  Many oppose such recognition because they believe marriage should be reserved for different-sex couples.  Indeed, a good number of these folks (but, alas not all) support state recognition of civil unions, similar benefits, different name.

Should we call the legislators in Rhode Island and Illinois “haters” because they moved forward to recognize civil unions for same-sex couples without calling them marriage?

In fact, some who oppose same-sex marriage treat gay people with dignity.  Such individuals have, for exampl,e hosted me in their homes, listened to my arguments, stood with me in hours of difficulty and even let me play (unsupervised) with their kids.  They know gay people aren’t demons; they don’t disapprove of us, it’s just that their understanding of marriage differs from that of gay activists.

Which brings me to the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing earlier this week on the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill (that I support) which repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

While I believe Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) is wrong to oppose the Act pending before the current Congress, he’s spot on when he takes issue with another supporter of the measure:

One of the witnesses before us today says that DOMA was passed for only one reason: “to express disapproval of gay and lesbian people.”  I know this to be false.  (more…)

Wondering about the absence of media scrutiny on why “our esteemed lions of the Fourth Estate toiling in the White House Press Corps” have failed to ask the president about his opposition to a “constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget”, Mark Tapscott finds this to be. . .

. . . an illustration of why so many journalists covering the White House, Congress and national politics so frequently end up functioning like “Homers.” No, I’m not referring to the ancient author, but rather the derisive term for sports reporters who never write anything critical of the home professional teams.

Whether they intend to or not, too many journalists are little more than Homers for the Big Government team.

Via Instapundit.  But, this, as we’ve noted is not the only question they’re not asking. Yesterday in WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription), Paul A. Gigot wrote about one Democrat whose obstructionist tactics have generated little interest in the mainstream media:

His [Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)] role has been obvious for some time, but a revealing and generally laudatory article by Meredith Shiner in Roll Call this week lays out the Schumer strategy of assailing House Republicans as radical, in particular demonizing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in personal terms, and opposing any Democratic concessions on entitlements. Mr. Schumer also led the internal fight against releasing a Senate budget, though Democrats control that body and are supposed to pass a budget resolution under the 1974 budget law.

This is cynicism squared, but Mr. Schumer has been getting away with it because the press pack has fixated on the political narrative of House Republicans vs. President Obama. This gives Senate Democrats up for re-election next year a free pass to hide under Mr. Schumer’s brand of attack politics while pretending to favor spending cuts and debt reduction and to oppose tax increases. (more…)

Yeah, this is a great strategy to show that gay people are emotionally balanced:

A horde of glitter-wielding gay “barbarians” on Thursday paid a visit to a clinic owned by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus. . . .

Once the horde was notified that Marcus, a strategist for his wife’s presidential campaign, was not at the clinic, their leader told the group, “All right, folks, Marcus isn’t coming out so we’re gonna have to act like barbarians.”

With that, the smiling group of about 10 showered the waiting room with glitter while chanting, “You can’t pray away the gay, baby I was born this way.”

Fortunately, these juveniles in need of venting their rage in the public square and drawing attention to themselves are not representative of the gay community.  Let’s hope that gay leaders denounce their childish antics.

This is not to deny these folks the opportunity to criticize Mr. Bachmann and the practices at his clinic, but to criticize their manner of taking issue with him.  Indeed, we should take him to task for his comments on the “sinful nature” of homosexual behavior, but in a civil manner, likely to win favor for our arguments, not gain sympathy for the man under attack.

Taking issue with these clowns, Sister Toldjah contrasts their actions with GOProud’s attempts to meet with Mrs. Bachmann:

Whatever you feel about “gay rights” issues, you have to respect [GOProud Chairman Chris] Barron’s position. It’s amazing what happens once you take liberal narcissism out of the equation, isn’t it? Gay conservatives want answers about Bachmann’s various policy positions, including issues of interest to the gay community – and, unlike HRC and the like, Chris Barron is going to get them. (more…)

Perhaps, I should de-clutter my apartment more often.  When I do so, I keep coming across fodder for blog posts.

Last night, when tidying an old “roll-top” desk I inherited from my grandmother, I came across a passage on liberal arrogance I had printed out from James Taranto’s Best of the Web:

Liberals can be suckered precisely because they think they are the only intelligent people in America. This smug confidence insulates them from having to pay attention to what anybody else is saying. The conventional wisdom among liberals is that people disagree with them only because they are stupid, uneducated, or have been bought off by the sinister forces of American capitalism. . . .

You cannot find a liberal intellectual anywhere who can give you an honest, objective accounting of conservative positions on major issues. All they know is that conservatives are “stupid,” racist” and “scary”–boilerplate terms but unfortunately the exact words employed by [NPR executive Richard] Schiller on the tape. . . .

By assuming they are smarter than everybody else, liberals leave themselves utterly vulnerable to anyone who plays on their sense of superiority.

Feeling so superior maybe they just assume that their policies will work. And when they don’t, they seem unable to figure out why, so they start blaming conservatives.

But, if they’re so smart, wouldn’t they learn from their mistakes?

First of all, while I can understand why Representative Alan West (R-Fla) was upset by his Sunshine State colleague’s cowardly criticism of his vote for budget restraint, I believe he overacted in his intemperate e-mail response.  To be sure, he was right to criticize, but he was wrong to use such harsh language.

Ever dutiful to the party of big government, the media have played up his intemperate remarks as they ignore what Tina Korbe called Wasserman-Schultz’s “benign-for-her-but-still-inaccurate floor speech“.  Although the Democrat lambasted Mr. West for voting for a reform bill, she, by her own admission, is “not prepared to commit to any specific proposal“.

Why aren’t we hearing anything about the Democrats’ policy of attacking Republican policies rather than offering alternatives of their own? (more…)

Pay particular attention to what she says about income inequality and wealth creation:

Where’s TOTUK?

And note how she acknowledges her delight in having the chance to respond to her critics. Seems she welcomes their criticism as affording her a chance to make her case.

(H/t Jim Hoft.)

Seems every the Senate Democratic Leader knows that when it comes to taking bold action, Republicans are far better suited to act than is his caucus.  On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

. . . claimed his chamber has a “path forward” for raising the debt ceiling but said he’s waiting on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to tell him what can pass the House.

“I’m at a point where I’m saying we need to hear from the House of Representatives,” Reid said from the Senate floor. “We have a plan to go forward over here. But until we hear from the House of Representatives, really our, all of our work here would be for naught.

“I await the word from the Speaker,” Reid said.

In response, a spokesman for Boehner said the Senate needs to move on the debt-ceiling package that the House passed Tuesday evening.

“We are aware of the deadline, which is why we hope Sen. Reid will move quickly to schedule a vote on the ‘Cut, Cap and Balance plan’ passed by the House with bipartisan support,” the spokesman said.

So, the Republican House acts and the Senate Democratic leader contends he’s waiting on the House to act.   On, and by the way, how many days has it been since Harry Reid’s Senate has passed a budget?  Oh, say about 813.

Seems Republicans have been making those tough budget decisions that the president said we have to make while his party’s leadership, following his lead, has failed to act.  Nice to know that even the Senate Democratic leader acknowledges his partisan adversaries’ capacity for leadership.

(H/t:  Jennifer Rubin)

Now that CNN has released the transcript of Wolf Blitzer’s interview yesterday with DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, we have a record of the CNN anchor pandering to woman the president tapped to helm his party.

It seems they conduct the first part of the interview, that devoted to the debate on the federal debt, is almost entirelythe conditional, with Blitzer asking Democrat what types of programs she could support.  Indeed, it seems he’s the only talking about particular proposals, twice asking her if that were “something you can live with”.  That’s right, the journalist spells out the proposal while the legislator offers commentary.

Um, Wolf, this debate’s been going on for several weeks, shouldn’t the head of the president’s party have a plan?

Never once does he ask her what her plan is.  He offers no followup to her admission that she’s “not prepared to commit to any specific proposal, but like I said, we are willing to put all of our sacred cows on the table to make sure that we can get a big solution to a big problem.”  He doesn’t follow up, ask her about what specific sacred cows she has on the table.  Instead, he addresses her barb against Republicans, suggesting they don’t want to put their “sacred cows on the table.”

And take a gander at this pander:

And so, you are the chair, you have a tough position. You’ve got to get the conservative Democrats, the liberal Democrats, but you’re also a member of Congress. (more…)

Yesterday, Jim Geraghty reprinted account that Mike Allen had included in his newsletter from Politico about a meeting of hedge-fund billionaires in New York where “venture capitalist Ken Langone . . . implored New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider and seek the GOP presidential nomination.”  Several in the audience indicated that they were Republican show voted for Obama because they “couldn’t live with Sarah Palin”:

Many said they were severely disappointed in the president. The biggest complaint was what several called “class warfare.” They said they didn’t understand what they had done to deserve that: If you want to have a conversation about taxation, have a conversation. But a president shouldn’t attack his constituents — he’s not the president of some people, he’s president of all the people. Someone mentioned Huey Long populism.

Well, does seem the media did their job, destroying the reputation of Mrs. Palin while ignoring the background of Mr. Obama, leading Geraghty to comment:

But not all of us are shocked and stunned about Obama’s class warfare and his demonization of you and the sense that he doesn’t think of himself as your president too. Some of us spent two years telling anyone who would listen that he was a lot more liberal than his bland, blank-slate rhetoric suggested. And was all of this worth it because you “couldn’t live” with Sarah Palin? Really?

Emphasis added.  We had news media rifling through Mrs. Palin’s garbage, yet uninterested in checking out Mr. Obama’s story, so much did they swoon over his narrative.  And now, bit by bit, we’re learning not just how far left he’s always been, but also how he’s misrepresented his own background.

Many in our mainstream media have taken Barack Obama’s word as gospel.  And when it comes to subjecting him to the same sort of scrutiny to which they subject Republicans, particularly Republican women, well, they’ve just taken a pass.

Yesterday was one of the few days I caught CNN’s resident JournoLister Jeffrey Toobin smiling.  That liberal pundit often tries to show how wise and dispassionate he is by putting on his serious Edward R. Murrow face and delivering Democratic talking points with a grim demeanor.

But, not when talking about the hacking scandal facing Rubert Murdoch’s empire.  Yesterday, he was practically giddy as he detailed Murdoch’s woes spelled out his suspicions about Murdoch’s knowledge of the hacking.  He just knew Murdoch had to know about it because, well, he wasn’t watching The Simpsons (a show on a network owned by the media mogul).

Does seem that’s the only scandal that really interests the folks at CNN.  It’s as if they believe that as soon as people see what a horrible, no good very bad man is Rupert Murdoch, FoxNews’ audience share will drop and people will turn to the more “responsible” journalists at CNN for their news.

Toobin may be giddy now, but he promises to return to his serious face when the dust settles after the collapse of FoxNews.  And then he can once again provide serious commentary to those who currently depend on a Murdoch outlet for their information on national and world affairs.

“Obama’s numbers,” writes Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic outfit, about its poll, showing the president slipping, particularly among independents:

. . . are worse than they appear to be on the surface. The vast majority of the undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama’s doing but aren’t committing to a candidate yet while they wait to see how the Republican field shakes out. Here’s an idea of where these various match ups might stand once all voters have made up their minds:

-In the Obama/Romney head to head 21% of undecideds approve of Obama and 61% disapprove. If you allocate them based on their approval/disapprove of Obama, Romney would lead 52-48.

Emphasis added. Seems they’re more ready to vote for a generic Republican than a specific Republican.  The latest Gallup poll or registered voters shows the “Republican Party’s candidate for president” beating Obama in the 2012 election by a margin of 47% to 39%.

What’s interesting to note as well is that not all those approve of the president’s performance are sold on renewing the Obama’s lease on the Oval Office.

Thanks to Wolf Blitzer’s bias, I got a little more cardio in today after my workout. As I was beginning my cool-down, I looked up to a television monitor in my gym to see the CNN anchor interviewing the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Florida Congressman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

As per the above  blurb from the Situation’s Room Facebook page, the focus was on Representative Allen West’s intemperate remarks in an e-mail to Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz after she demagogued the Florida Republican’s vote his vote to hold the line on federal spending:

“The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries — unbelievable from a member from South Florida,” Wasserman Schultz charged Tuesday on the House floor, without mentioning West’s name.

In an e-mail responding to her attack, West called the Democrat “vile, despicable and cowardly” in large part because she leveled her attack after the Republican had left the House floor.

What was interesting about Blitzer’s segment with the Democrat* was that while he focused on the Republican’s intemperate remarks, he did not question her on the substance of her attack on said Republican.  Jim Treacher summarized her remarks as “boilerplate Democratic rhetoric about Republicans killing Grandma for Big Oil.”  Tina Korbe points out that the Democrat’s statement was “inaccurate”:

The “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill makes no changes to Social Security or Medicare. Most of the cuts in the bill come from discretionary spending, anyway, but the bill specifies that the $35 billion cuts to mandatory spending would come from non-veterans, non-Social Security, non-Medicare spending.

Wonder if Wolf asked to justify her attack.  And if he asked the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee about her plan to hold the line on federal spending and put forward a plan to make Medicare solvent in light of the recent trustees’ report.

Oh, and one more thing.  In the thirty minutes I was watching Wolf’s program, waiting for a Republican to come on to offer a balanced perspective, I caught only one other politician on his show, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.  Mrs. McCaskill is a Democrat.

* (more…)

Whenever President Obama signals his support for some lofty idea, sometimes in soaring rhetoric, we need always ask for the details.  In his campaign, he promised us hope and change, but what exactly were we hoping for?  What changes was he promising?

He was going to giving us a “net spending cut”, but never spelled out the specific government programs he was going to cut.  Just over three months ago, he delivered a major speech on the budget, yet provided no specifics of how he was going to get federal spending under control.

Yesterday, we read that he had praised the deficit-reduction plan of the bipartisan “Gang of Six”.  (Gotta love how Yahoo! include the Obama mantra of “hope” in the AP article they published.)  Today, Conn Carroll reports in the Washington Examiner:

If the Gang of Six’s goal was to produce a detailed and credible plan to reduce our nation’s deficits and solve the debt limit crisis, then they failed spectacularly yesterday. The plan they released contains no specific spending cuts, kicks all the major decisions down the road to Senate committees and congressional commissions, and depending on what baseline you use, raises taxes by as much as $3 trillion. And Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Gang of Six, admitted yesterday that the details of the plan are nowhere near firm enough to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office before the August 2nd deadline.

Emphasis added.  Details nowhere near firm enough to be scored by the CBO.  Now, why does that sound familiar?

According to Kevin Sack of the New York Times, “The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.”

Yet, as Rich Noyes (who alerted me to the above) notes, “ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to mention Scott’s now-undisputed account, drawn from a review of Ms. Dunham’s [Obama's mother] correspondence with the insurance company“.  Throughout “the 2008 campaign” and in his “push for ObamaCare”, those networks repeated his claim that when his mother “was sick with terminal cancer, she had to fight with insurance companies to ‘pay for her treatment.’”

We now have the White House refusing to challenge evidence of his misrepresenting the facts in order to push through unpopular legislation.  When there were just allegations (none substantiated) that the president’s predecessor lied us into war, the media all but made a martyr of the long-since discredited accuser.

Had the media treated Barack Obama as they treated George W. Bush, they would be rifling through all his statements on his mother’s illness and in support of his health care overhaul to see what other lies he told mischaracterizations he made.

And now those pundits and talking heads who refuse to look into allegation of Obama’s misrepresentations are celebrating him as the “the adult in the room“ in the battle over the debt ceiling, even though the Democrat has yet to offer his own plan to cut spending — or even to provide an actual plan to support his April 13 budget speech.

Why is a media so obsessed with the color of Sarah Palin’s stockings so heistant to look into the president’s misrepresentations and manufactured statistics and so reluctant to excoriate him for his failure to offer a plan to address our nation’s pressing fiscal problems (problems which his policies exacerbated)?

Just about a year ago, I blogged that I would “reconsider my opposition” to hate crimes legislation should I see ”convincing evidence that such laws actually reduce violent crime”.  In that post, I pointed out that “we have a whole raft of evidence showing that crime rates go down when states adopt concealed-carry laws.”

Hence my belief that such legislation advances “gay rights” because it offers us an effective tool to protect ourselves from gay-bashers.  If such creeps fear we have a gun, they’ll be less likely to attack.

Just this week, we learn how effective that fear can be — and how it served to protect one of our friends attacked by a teenager in a jurisdiction with “a hate crimes law explicitly address[ing] sexual orientation.”

Riding home from work on his bike a few days ago, GOProud Executive Director Jimmy LaSalvia “was attacked on a secluded street behind Union Station“:

. . . the unidentified youth punched him in the chest about 8:30 p.m. as he rode past the youth and six or seven other male teenagers who were with the person that struck him on 2nd Street, N.E. just north of L Street.

After calling Jimmy a “faggot”,

the attacker and a few of the others with him “puffed up their chests and were clearly ready to continue the attack,” [Jimmy] said. But seconds later, the group fled the scene after he kept his hand inside his backpack, “allowing them to wonder if I was reaching for a gun.”

The District’s hate crimes law didn’t deter Jimmy’s attackers; the fear he had a gun did.

Glad to hear Jimmy’s doing okay.

“The House,” Jeff Goldstein writes at protein wisdom, “did its job“:

For now. That they were cut off at the knees by the Senate? Well, we’ll see what happens. We’re being told by our betters that now that this political theater is out of the way (and the ludicrous Tea Party dolts “mollified”), the grownups can talk, and therefore that real leaders (of the kind it takes to raise our ability to vote ourselves a credit increase in order pay for more things we can’t pay for by way of more borrowing we’ll soon be unable to pay back), can dig in their heels and reach a good, solid, bipartisan compromise.

Offering a view a bit less cynical, Ed Morrissey says the ball is now in the president’s court:

John Boehner and the Republican caucus in the House passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act as promised on a near-party-line vote tonight, 234-190.  The move puts the onus back on the White House to propose an alternative or assume responsibility for killing the debt-ceiling hike it contains. . . .

Oh, and, by the way, has the White House presented any such alternative plan?

Obama Supports Repeal of Defense of Marriage Act:

President Obama is throwing his support behind the Respect for Marriage Act – the bill to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage even for couples married under state law.

Why didn’t he make any effort to repeal DOMA earlier in his term. Just asking.

*or similar legislation