This morning, while scanning the blogs and reading the news, I chanced upon this on AOL’s homepage:

Given how AOL has been increasingly overprotective of Democratic partisans like the unhappy Mr. Frank, I was impressed that they were going to cover the man finally ‘fessing up to carrying water for the failed Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as they were setting the stage in the 1990s and early 2000s, for the financial collapse of 2008.

Oh, but no, the HuffPo was highlighting something far less significant — and using it to show what a swell guy this Massachusetts Democrat is:

Quick-tongued Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is retracting a suggestion he made to cut the deficit by making Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner fly commercial.

That’s because Geithner already does, for the most part, although Frank had suggested in a letter that the country could save “millions” if the secretary would stop taking $150,000 military flights.

. . . .

Frank, who can be quick to point out flaws, was equally quick to be contrite when informed of the Treasury Department’s response.

Gosh, this guy is just so “quick to be contrite.”  If Barney were a stand-up kind of guy, “quick to be contrite,” he’d admit the real big mistakes he made, mistakes which hurt our economy and cost taxpayers billions of dollars, you know, like thwarting Republican efforts to increase federal oversight over the government-backed mortgage giants.*

This isn’t news, just another HuffPo puff piece on a liberal Democrat.  And it doesn’t merit a headline on a web-site’s home page — save if their purpose is to cheerlead for the Democratic Party.  Much as Barney served as the chief congressional cheerleader for Fannie and Freddie.

You know, it just might be news to inquire into Barney’s relationship with a Fannie executive in the 1990s impacted his affection for the now bankrupt government-backed outfit.  Wonder if the HuffPo has done that.

* (more…)

If our friends in the mainstream media (and their allies in the Democratic Party and on left-wing blogs) discover one or two fringe extremists hoisting a racist sign or making juvenile references to a Congressman’s sexuality at a Tea Party rally, they highlight these as evidence of the racism and anti-gay bigotry in the grassroots political movement.  In the highest of dudgeon, Democrats demand that Republicans “differentiate themselves” from such extremists.

But, if you see similarly hateful posters or hear angry bigoted slogans shouted at a left-wing protest, well, then you have to turn to conservative blogs for coverage.  And yesterday the Washington Examiner covered just such prejudiced signage:

Philip Klein provides an instructive example of how one particular Democrat reacted to the handful of hateful symbols at Tea Parties:

The problem that Democrats and their liberal allies have is that they portrayed Tea Partiers as racists by pointing out random signs and isolated offensive statements from protesters. Then House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., infamously dismissed those who were opposing national health care legislation in townhall meetings as people carrying “swastikas.”

What Pelosi and other Democrats did by making such statements was to open themselves up to attacks along the lines of this new ad from the Emergency Committee for Israel, which highlights examples of anti-Semitism at the Occupy Wall St. protests and implores Democrats to condemn them. Based on the standards Democrats held the Tea Party to, this is fair game. Of course, a more positive development would be for both sides to acknowledge that any large protest movement without a clear organization runs the risk of attracting some bigots and fringe characters.

Implores Democrats to condemn such signs?  Hmmm . . . Barney, you’ve got some differentiating to do. (more…)

In a thoughtful post over at his blog Canadian Rattlesnake, Naamloos, a young gay man, contends he lacks “any loyalty to the gay community,” contrasting sexuality to race:

Unlike race, sexuality is not hereditary.  My father is not gay.  Nor is my mother.  Most black people have at least one black biological parent.  I wasn’t born into the gay community.

I haven’t known that I have been gay for my entire life.  Some of my characteristics, however, I have known about, or have become aware of prior to my acknowledgement of my homosexuality.  Such as my conservative political views.

Although I do use the term “gay community” quite frequently, sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing.  With my fellow gay men, I share an attraction to our own sex.  And I do tend to get along well with lesbians, well, the ones like Ellen DeGeneres and Mary Cheney who don’t define themselves by their sexuality.  But, does that a community make?

I also tend to get along well with my fellow conservatives, but rarely hear the expression, “conservative community.”

So, let me leave you with a question, why should we have a community based on our sexuality, but not our ideological inclinations?

Given the results of last November’s mid-term elections and the approach to economic growth favored by congressional Republicans (as indicated in numerous speeches delivered, policy proposals outlined and legislation written — and sometimes even passed in the House), the president’s jobs bill stood no chance of in that GOP-controlled chamber. It may have failed even in the Senate where some Democrats who voted to end debate may well not have voted for final passage of the costly initiative.

At a time when 57% “of Americans believe the federal government today has too much power“, the president is going to find it hard to sell his policies even to members of his own party facing re-election in “red” or “purple” states — as well as swing districts.

With his failure to advance any of his agenda since his party lost the house, how then will President Obama be able to accomplish anything in his second term?

This year, he can no longer run on the vague mantra of hope and the promise of changing Washington.  He has instead chosen to focus on labeling his partisan adversaries as extremists.  That may well work in securing a second term, but it doesn’t give him a governing agenda.

Over at National Review’s Campaign Spot, the ever-insightul Jim Geraghty considers the mind-set of those youthful protesters “occupying” various cities:

I think two big factors are driving this — the first is the realization that electing Obama, the Munificent Sun-God, didn’t actually do much to fix many of the problems young people were upset about in 2008. The job market still stinks, wage growth is a distant memory, the drop in housing prices hurts current homeowners and not enough young earners have the resources to take advantage of lower home prices and oh, by the way, gas is $4 per gallon instead of $3 per gallon.

Read the whole thing. (Decided to post this quotation because it relates to a piece I’ve been working on — and hope to have up this afternoon.)

Been seeing this ad on a number of conservative and libertarian sites:

Interesting strategy for the sometimes seemingly left-libertarian candidate in the GOP field.

This complements Dan’s posting below quite nicely…. (via Neal Boortz on Twitter)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

“Every single day,” writes Zombie on the PJ Tatler,

more videos emerge from the Occupy movement showing people saying things that, if they had been said by a Tea Partier, would have been front-page news for weeks and discredited the movement forever. But since it’s the Occupy Wall Street movement, darlings of the media and Democratic politicians, they get a pass.

Jim Hoft has been doing a good job linking reports of rude, obnoxious, disrespectful and violent behavior that would dominate the nationals had they but taken place at Tea Party protests.  (Not to mention the evidence of astroturfing.) Commenting on Zombie’s post, Ed Morrissey recalls his experience at the less violent, more civil libertarian/conservative grassroots gatherings:

I’ve been to a few Tea Party events and don’t recall anyone on stage advocating the “bloody” overthrow of the United States.  I have seen on occasions people carrying signs with the famous Thomas Jefferson quote from 1787, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  It is its natural manure.”  The media usually uses those images to paint Tea Party activists as an angry, violent mob.

And yet our media celebrates this movement as the vanguard of an energized liberal base.  Wonder why they’re so excited about these protests with a paltry (at least compared to Tea Party gatherings) turnout and so disinterested in their violent rhetoric and rude behavior?  (Last link via Instapundit.)

Just learned from Michael Petrelis‘s blog (and confirmed via the Sacramento Bee/Associated Press) that Equality California’s (EqCA) new Executive Director Roland Palencia will be stepping down later this week:

The leader of California’s largest gay rights group is leaving his post after only a few months on the job.

Equality California announced Monday that Executive Director Roland Palencia will step down on Friday.

Palencia’s decision comes less than a week after the group said it would not lead a campaign in 2012 to overturn Proposition 8, the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages.

I had meant to blog on the last item, but with the Jewish Holy Days and other stuff on my plate, I haven’t had time to blog.  (And well, in the past few days, haven’t been thinking about politics as much as most of us political bloggers normally do.)  Quickly, don’t think it’s a good idea to put off repeal of Prop. 8.  Given the current polls, a campaign to overturn the ban on state recognition of same-sex marriages could succeed if its leadership included Republicans.  Maybe Mr. Palencia wasn’t willing to work with gay Republicans.

I had refrained form commenting on Palencia’s selection to head EqCA because I had hoped to arrange a meeting between gay conservatives and Palencia and didn’t want to compromise that process.   I had reached out to several individuals close to and involved in the organization.  They were optimistic we could arrange a meeting.  Given that such a meeting seemed possible, I thought we might be more effective if we communicated our concerns privately before criticizing the new leadership publicly.

Perhaps, at a later date — as time allows — I may offer my thoughts on his selection and my hopes for his replacement.

I have no clue why Palencia is stepping down.  All I can say is that it is an interesting development and that I wish him well in his future endeavors.

And people wonder why I cannot relate to Gay, Inc. and the liberal/”progressive” leanings of 90% of America’s gay activists??

Here they are… front and center with their radical messages at another anti-American protest movement.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

When our President is beholden to union special interests and a failed Keynesian economic dogma, most of us could have  did predict his “recovery” plans would have been a complete FAIL.

From Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com:

When running for President, Barack Obama decried the decline of American household income, which certainly dropped during the 2007-2009 Great Recession.  Since the recovery began in June 2009 — a recovery for which Obama has repeatedly claimed credit — that trend has gotten worse, not better.  A new report shows that the percentage of decline in household income during the so-called recovery actually doubled that of the recession:

During the recession, which economists say lasted from Dec. 2007 to June 2009, the median annual household income fell by 3.2 percent, from $55,309 to $53,518, according to a report authored by two former U.S. Census Bureau officials. But in the post-recession period from June 2009 to June 2011, the figure fell by 6.7 percent, from $53,518 in June 2009 to $49,909 in June 2011. …

The study found that during the post-recessionary period, families with just a male or female head with no spouse present saw a 7.3 percent decline in income compared to the 4.5 percent drop for married-couple households. Income for households with a head under the age of 25 fell by 9.5 percent, significantly more than the 5.5 percent decline for households with a head who is 45 to 54 years old.

Again, I repeat: Our President Spent $787 Billion Dollars Of Our Money And We Got Was This Lousy 9.1% Unemployment Rate (Forever…)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Well, if the president’s jobs bill enjoys majority support as the Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests, it isn’t helping his overall approval which, according to Gallup, just slipped to 38:

Seems his poll numbers are heading in the opposite direction of the Gipper’s in the third year of his term. Many pundits have claimed that Obama could win because his numbers this year were similar to Reagan’s in 1983. Only problem was that Reagan’s polls started ticking upwards as his economic plan kicked in. Obama’s plan was supposed to start working just a few months after it was passed (more than two years ago).

Maybe that’s because as Jim Hoft reports, “In Ronald Reagan’s third September in office he created 1.1 million jobs in one month.”  (By contrast, “Employers added 103,000 jobs in [Obama's third] September [in office]. Half of those were striking Verizon workers returning to work.”)

Well, technically, the Gipper didn’t create the jobs.  He just put policies in place which made it possible for entrepreneurs and businessmen to create and expand their enterprises, thus making it necessary for them to bring on more employees.

Remember when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosic called the burgeoning Tea Party protests “astroturf“?

Well, now House Minority Leader, the San Francisco Democrat is singing a different tune as she sees protests more in line with her ideology.  She has praised the latest round of anti-Wall Street (at least I think that’s what they’re against) protests, heralding them “for their spontaneity.” About this movement, she added, “It’s independent … it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective.”

Well, these rallies aren’t quite as spontaneous as Mrs. Pelosi contends:

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital.

The DC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots.

One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.

Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.

Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”

TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.

Mrs. Pelosi couldn’t be reached for comment.

Glenn Reynolds who tipped me off to this story quipped, “If it were a Tea Party it doing this it would make national news.”

Indeed.

UPDATE:  Glenn links more evidence of Astroturf: (more…)

Perhaps, having heard from left-of-center pundits that he needs to act more like Harry S Truman in order to win reelection next fall, President Obama is pulling a page from his Missouri predecessor’s playbook:

“I would love nothing more than to not be out there campaigning,” Obama said at a press conference in the East Room of the White House. “I would love nothing more than to see Congress get so aggressive… that I can’t campaign against them as a do-nothing Congress.”

He accused Republicans of objecting to his $447 billion American Jobs Act not for policy reasons, but because they want to thwart his reelection campaign.

Problem is that unlike Truman, Obama faces only one house of Congress controlled by the opposition.  In 1948, when the Missouri Democrat ran for reelection, Republicans had majorities in both houses.

And the Republican chamber has hardly been a d0-nothing body, having passed numerous bills with job-creating reforms, only to see them languish in the Senate.  And they’re not the kind of bills the president is likely to support.

It’s not that that House Republicans are doing nothing, it’s that they’re not doing what the president wants them to do. (more…)

It’s always fascinating to see how liberals perceive conservatives.  They tend to define us not by our ideas or our most accomplished or eloquent leaders, but by the fringe extremists who cling onto our movement hoping to mean some meaning there.

Yesterday on his eponymous CNN show, Piers Morgan suggested that Tea Party folk harbor some pretty extreme views:

When you see tea party candidates and they are against evolution, climate change, and resolutely so, they think gay marriage is a sin and so on and so on . . . .

Huh? I thought they were primarily concerned about the size of government. If Tea Party critics paid more attention to this phenomenon as it is and not as they imagine it to be, they might realize how diverse are members of the dynamic grassroots movement.

One tea party favorite, U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), announced “this weekend that she opposes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state“:

Ellmers said that while she opposes same-sex marriages, she believes the proposed amendment goes too far because it would also ban civil unions.

“Congresswoman Ellmers has always believed that marriage is a sacred institution and is defined as the union between one man and one woman,” Ellmers spokesman Tom Doheny wrote in an email to the Raleigh News & Observer. “That is why she has and will continue to protect and defend marriage at the federal level.

“When asked about civil unions, which are different than marriage, she said that she finds nothing wrong with people being granted them, but at the same time, it is currently a state issue and up to the voters to decide,” Doheny said. (more…)

If Rick Perry wanted to, he could turn the story of the hunting camp his family leased on its head, making those who blow it out of proportion look like fools while burnishing his own image.  All he needs do is pull a page from Richard Nixon’s campaign for the vice presidency in 1952 when he briefly became a liability to the Republican ticket.

When then-Senator Nixon (he held the seat now occupied by Mrs. Boxer), the Republican nominee for Vice President, was “accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to reimburse him for his political expenses“, he took to their airwaves to defend himself — and attack his accusers.

He reminded Americans that he was a man from a modest background and could not pay for all expenses related to his office out of his own pocket.  His wife did not wear a mink coat, instead wore a “respectable Republican cloth coat.”  He did acknowledge, however, that he was keeping one gift:

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.

For the Nixons, the family dream was to own a dog.  For the Perrys, it was to find a place that could use as a hunting camp.

As Nixon did, Perry could make a speech about this dream, to find a place where his family could go to engage in the kind of recreation they enjoy.   Just as the dog made the Nixons seems like an average family, so would this story make the Perrys seem like an all-American family, seeking a place where the family could gather together on weekends and for vacations. (more…)

In yesterday’s WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription), Dorothy Rabinowitz forecast that the “saga of the painted-over rock on the Perry family hunting grounds will roll on a few more days before it’s displaced by some other invented scandal”. Yeah, our media do seem more transfixed with such invented scandals (provided they involve a prominent a Republican) than they are with real scandals involving the incumbent Democratic President of the United States.

Indeed, it seems that Mr. Perry has already been subject to more scrutiny over his recreational activities than Barack Obama received about his voting record (or absence* thereof), his political associates (and associations) and his theological choices. Indeed, save for the conservative blogs, Jake Tapper’s inquiries and a journalist or two at CBS News, the mainstream media seem unusually indifferent to a variety of scandals swirling inside the incumbent administration.

1. The collapse of Solyndra and the guaranteeing of loans to energy companies enjoying “cozy relationships” with leading Democrats. No wonder the administration is trying to distract us, suggesting Republican opposition to solar subsidies is based on “defeatism.”
2. Gunrunner or Operation Fast and Furious, where the White House deems it “reasonable” for media to ignore a story about our government authorizing and facilitating the sale of guns to murderous Mexican drug cartels.  And where the Attorney General appears to be, um, well, misrepresenting his knowledge of the program.
3. The raid on Gibson Guitar.  (We could almost call this the converse of Solyndra, holding companies whose executes donate to Republican candidates to a higher standard. With Solyndra et al., the Democratic administration doles out federal benefits out to their friends. Here, they use the full power of the federal government against those not deemed friendly enough.)
4. Politicized hiring in the Justice Department’s “career civil service ranks” where the president’s political appointees are trying to ensure that new (supposedly non-political) hires share the administration’s ideological outlook.

Wonder if beyond Jake Tapper and Sharryl Attkisson at CBSNews, anyone in the mainstream media will give these stories the treatment the Washington Post accorded a hunting camp with an offensive name in Texas or the Bush Administration exercising its constitutional authority in firing a handful of U.S. Attorneys.

Seems like we’ve got a “little homework assignment” for the mainstream media.

—–

*Or, should I say “presence” thereof.

The likelihood that I would back Rick Perry for the Republican presidential nomination has been waning since he accused the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of “treasonous” behavior for “printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history”.  Even after his commentary caused a media firestorm, he stood by those comments.

Now, I agree with the Texas governor that it is “treacherous” for the Federal Reserve to print more money at the present time as that would fuel inflation and thus further retard any real economic recovery.  Yet, Bernanke’s action is hardly treason; he’s not trying to betray his country, he’s trying to help it. The policy may be wrong-headed, but the policy-maker does not intend to harm the country.  And isn’t intent necessary to commit treason?

A man who aspires to national leadership does not so fault the motives of public servants — or his ideological adversaries.

That said, I believe the mainstream media have blown the story of the stone with the offensive word (that Perry and his family painted over) way out of proportion.  On Monday, John King devoted a segment of his eponymous CNN program to the “invented scandal”.  Fortunately, he included Donna Brazile in the discussion (let’s hope we see more of her*).  This sharp lady also seems to offer a smart and sensible commentary.

This Democratic strategist who happens to be African-American brought some sense to the discussion:

I’ve known Rick Perry when he was a Democrat. So I believe I can say this with credibility that he’s not a racist. So I don’t think that’s the issue.

The issue is the insensitivity of having that word written on a rock, and not doing something about it, and according to him they did something about it.

Now let’s go beyond that and stop dealing with what I call race in a very superficial way. It’s more of a distraction. It’s more annoying when you discuss it, especially when you discuss it in political company. So I think we need to move on.

Governor Perry will have to say that for himself. I can tell you that he is, at least from my knowledge of him back in the 1980s, he’s a decent person.

While some in the Democratic Party — and their allies in the mainstream media — have been grandstanding the issue, at least one Democratic partisan dismisses this story.  Why must they dwell on stories like this?

Oh, yeah, because their favored candidate has polling numbers like these.

* (more…)

While some in the mainstream media still think President Obama is the favorite in next fall’s presidential election, one statistic should be, well, sobering.  According the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, twice as many registered voters will vote against the Democrat than will vote for him:

Among registered voters, 46% say they will definitely not vote for Obama next year, while only 23% say they definitely will — a slight improvement over August’s results.

And this from a poll with a sample “with a sample tilted toward Democrats”.  A recent McClatchy/Marist poll has an even higher number, “49 percent of voters” saying “they definitely plan to vote against Obama in 2012.” Not just that, the president’s numbers on the economy are in the tank:

His approval numbers on the economy are almost as bad, 32/64, and only 66% of Democrats approve, while 29% disapprove.  Independents disapprove 26/69.  Voters now give an edge to Republicans in Congress on economic leadership, 43/41, never a good sign for an incumbent President.

The current presumptive Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, has a huge advantage on this, the biggest issue on voters’ minds:

Quinnipiac asked respondents whether Obama or Mitt Romney would do better as the nation’s economic leader — and Romney wins by 10 points, 49/39, with indies giving him a 13-point edge, 49/36.

No wonder his team is trying to distract us by focusing on Republicans’ flaws (real, perceived and invented). If the 2012 election were a referendum on Barack Obama, the current opposition would win in a potentially realigning landslide.

UPDATE:  Now, I’m not saying it’s a done deal for the GOP.  The administration’s negative campaign could work.  But, if we go by the WaPo/ABCNews numbers, Obama will have to win approximately 90% of the voters who aren’t yet definitely set on voting for (or against) him.

Seems that, for whatever reason, Wall Street has become the favorite punch-bagging for the politically correct and professionally anxious youth and well-educated politicians and intellectuals, but in a number of posts yesterday, Glenn suggested suggests places who might bear more responsibility for their current anxieties than our nation’s financial capital, including their own alma maters:

DAN PRIMACK: They Should Be Marching On Universities, Not Wall Street:
“Take a look at We Are the 99 Percent – a website on which protest sympathizers share their tales of economic hardship. Very few of them mention banks, or even bank bailouts. The vast majority of them, however, do mention college debt.” Universities are major Democratic constituencies, and as such unlikely to be targeted.

. . . or perhaps the seat of corporate lobbying . . .

BUSINESS INSIDER: They Should Be Occupying K Street.

OWS protestors are highly critical of big corporations lobbying Congress and Washington DC regulatory agencies to tilt the playing field in big business favor. It sounds like they don’t appreciate the virtues of crony capitalism, otherwise known as “The Chicago Way”. (more…)