GayPatriot.org has been given the full list of the Republicans and Conservatives who have signed onto the amicus brief on the Prop 8 case pending before the US Supreme Court.

This list has been provided to me by a highly-placed Republican source familiar with the Prop 8 issue.

Clint Eastwood, Producer, Director, Actor, Mayor
Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank Group (2005-2007) and Deputy Secretary of Defense (2001-2005)
Cliff S. Asness, Businessman, Philanthropist, and Author
Charlie Bass, Member of Congress, 1995-2007 and 2011-2013
Thomas J. Christensen, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 2006-2008
Jeffrey Cook-McCormac, Senior Advisor, American Unity PAC
S.E. Cupp, Author and Political Commentator
Michele Davis, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Director of Policy Planning, Department of the Treasury, 2006-2009
Janet Duprey, New York State Assemblywoman, 2007-Present
Tyler Deaton, Secretary, New Hampshire Young Republicans, 2011-Present
Chris Edwards, Special Assistant to the President and Director of Press Advance, 2005-2007
Mark J. Ellis, State Chairman, Maine Republican Party, 2005-2006 and 2007-2009
Juleanna Glover, Press Secretary to the Vice President, 2001-2002
John Goodwin, Chief of Staff to Raul Labrador, Member of Congress,2011-2013
Mark Grisanti, New York State Senator, 2011-Present
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Director, Congressional Budget Office, 2003-2005
Cyrus Krohn, Digital Director, Republican National Committee, 2007-2009
Kathryn Lehman, Chief of Staff, House Republican Conference, 2003-2005
Alex Lundry, Director of Data Science, Romney for President, 2012
Beth Myers, Romney for President Campaign Manager, 2007-2008 and Senior Advisor, 2011-2012
B.J. Nikkel, Colorado State Representative and Majority Whip, 2009-2012 and District Director for Congresswoman Marylyn Musgrave, 2002-2006
Richard Painter, Associate Counsel to the President, 2005-2007
Ruth Ann Petroff, Wyoming State Representative, 2011-Present
Gregg Pitts, Director, White House Travel Office, 2006-2009
J. Stanley Pottinger, Assistant U.S. Attorney General (Civil Rights Division), 1973-1977
John Reagan, New Hampshire State Senator, 2012-Present
Adam Schroadter, New Hampshire State Representative, 2010-Present
Richard Tisei, Massachusetts State Senator and Senate Minority Leader, 1991-2011
John Ullyot, Communications Director, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 2003-2007
Sally A. Vastola, Executive Director, National Republican Congressional Committee, 2003-2006
Jacob P. Wagner, Chairman, New Hampshire Federation of College
Republicans, 2012-Present
Dan Zwonitzer, Wyoming State Representative, 2005-present
Frances Fragos Townsend, Homeland Security Advisor to the President, 2004-2008
Brian Roehrkasse, Director of Public Affairs, Department of Justice, 2007-2009
Larry Pressler, U.S. Senator from South Dakota, 1979-1997
Neel Kashkari, Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability, 2008-2009
Aaron Mclean, Press Secretary to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2007-2011
Luis Reyes, Special Assistant to the President, 2006-2008 [or Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 2005-2006]
Josh Ginsberg, Deputy Political Director, Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor, 2006
Meghan O’Sullivan, Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-2007
Jill Hazelbaker, Communications Director, John McCain for President, 2007-2008
Corry Schiermeyer, Director Global Communications, National Security Council, 2005-2007
Alicia Davis Downs, Associate Political Director, White House, 2001-2003
Ken Mehlman, Chairman, Republican National Committee, 2005-2007
Tim Adams, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, 2005-2007
David D. Aufhauser, General Counsel, Department of Treasury, 2001-2003
Cliff S. Asness, Businessman, Philanthropist, and Author
John B. Bellinger III, Legal Adviser to the Department of State, 2005-2009
Katie Biber, General Counsel, Romney for President, 2007-2008 and 2011-2012
Mary Bono Mack, Member of Congress, 1998-2013
William A. Burck, Deputy Staff Secretary, Special Counsel and Deputy Counsel to the President, 2005-2009
Alex Castellanos, Republican Media Advisor
Paul Cellucci, Governor of Massachusetts, 1997-2001, and Ambassador to Canada, 2001-2005
Mary Cheney, Director of Vice Presidential Operations, Bush-Cheney 2004
Jim Cicconi, Assistant to the President & Deputy to the Chief of Staff, 1989-1990
James B. Comey, United States Deputy Attorney General, 2003-2005
R. Clarke Cooper, U.S. Alternative Representative, United Nations Security Council, 2007-2009
Julie Cram, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director White House Office of Public Liaison, 2007-2009
Michele Davis, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Director of Policy Planning, Department of the Treasury, 2006-2009
Kenneth M. Duberstein, White House Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President, 1981-1984 and 1987-1989
Lew Eisenberg, Finance Chairman, Republican National Committee, 2002-2004
Elizabeth Noyer Feld, Public Affairs Specialist, White House Office of Management and Budget, 1984-1987
David Frum, Special Assistant to the President, 2001-2002
Richard Galen, Communications Director, Speaker’s Political Office, 1996-1997
Mark Gerson, Chairman, Gerson Lehrman Group and Author of The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars and In the Classroom: Dispatches from an Inner-City School that Works
Benjamin Ginsberg, General Counsel, Bush-Cheney 2000 & 2004
Adrian Gray, Director of Strategy, Republican National Committee, 2005-2007
Richard Grenell, Spokesman, U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations, 2001-2008
Patrick Guerriero, Mayor, Melrose Massachusetts and member of Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1993-2001
Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, 2005-2009
Stephen Hadley, Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor, 2005-2009
Richard Hanna, Member of Congress, 2011-Present
Israel Hernandez, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, 2005-2009
Margaret Hoover, Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, 2005-2006
Michael Huffington, Member of Congress, 1993-1995
Jon Huntsman, Governor of Utah, 2005-2009
David A. Javdan, General Counsel, United States Small Business Administration, 2002-2006
Reuben Jeffery, Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs, 2007-2009
Greg Jenkins, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Advance, 2003-2004
Coddy Johnson, National Field Director, Bush-Cheney 2004
Gary Johnson, Governor of New Mexico, 1995-2003
Robert Kabel, Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, 1982-1985
Theodore W. Kassinger, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, 2004-2005
Jonathan Kislak, Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Small Community and Rural Development, 1989-1991
David Kochel, Senior Advisor to Mitt Romney’s Iowa Campaign, 2007-2008 and 2011-2012
James Kolbe, Member of Congress, 1985-2007
Jeffrey Kupfer, Acting Deputy Secretary of Energy, 2008-2009
Kathryn Lehman, Chief of Staff, House Republican Conference, 2003-2005
Daniel Loeb, Businessman and Philanthropist
Alex Lundry, Director of Data Science, Romney for President, 2012
Greg Mankiw, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers, 2003-2005
Catherine Martin, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Communications Director for Policy & Planning, 2005-2007
Kevin Martin, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, 2005-2009
David McCormick, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, 2007-2009
Mark McKinnon, Republican Media Advisor
Bruce P. Mehlman, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, 2001-2003
Connie Morella, Member of Congress, 1987-2003 and U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003-2007
Michael E. Murphy, Republican Political Consultant
Michael Napolitano, White House Office of Political Affairs, 2001-2003
Ana Navarro, National Hispanic Co-Chair for Senator John McCain’s Presidential Campaign, 2008
Noam Neusner, Special Assistant to the President for Economic Speechwriting, 2002-2005
Nancy Pfotenhauer, Economist, Presidential Transition Team, 1988 and President’s Council on Competitiveness, 1990
J. Stanley Pottinger, Assistant U.S. Attorney General (Civil Rights Division), 1973-1977
Michael Powell, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, 2001-2005
Deborah Pryce, Member of Congress, 1993-2009
Kelley Robertson, Chief of Staff, Republican National Committee, 2005-2007
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Member of Congress, 1989-Present
Harvey S. Rosen, Member and Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers, 2003-2005
Lee Rudofsky, Deputy General Counsel, Romney for President, 2012
Patrick Ruffini, eCampaign Director, Republican National Committee, 2005-2007
Steve Schmidt, Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Vice President, 2004-2006
Ken Spain, Communications Director, National Republican Congressional Committee, 2009-2010
Robert Steel, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, 2006-2008
David Stockman, Director, Office of Management and Budget, 1981-1985
Jane Swift, Governor of Massachusetts, 2001-2003
Michael E. Toner, Chairman and Commissioner, Federal Election Commission, 2002-2007
Michael Turk, eCampaign Director for Bush-Cheney 2004
Mark Wallace, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Representative for UN Management and Reform, 2006-2008
Nicolle Wallace, Assistant to the President and White House Communications Director, 2005-2008
William F. Weld, Governor of Massachusetts, 1991-1997, and Assistant U.S. Attorney General (Criminal Division), 1986-1988
Christine Todd Whitman, Governor of New Jersey, 1994-2001, and Administrator of the EPA, 2001-2003
Meg Whitman, Republican Nominee for Governor of California, 2010
Robert Wickers, Republican Political Consultant
Dan Zwonitzer, Wyoming State Representative, 2005-present

I know Dan and I agree that we prefer Gay Marriage, Domestic Partnerships and/or Civil Unions happen in the context of “the marketplace” (aka – The States) than by judicial fiat through the courts.

Therefore, I philosophically believe that the Prop 8 voters should be respected by the Supreme Court, though that would mean a further struggle in the marketplace in California to see gay marriage. Other states have accomplished it; quite quickly in fact.

That being said, there seems to be a cultural earthquake happening in the Republican Party and the Conservative movement aligned with the SCOTUS’ review of Prop 8 and DOMA.

Breitbart News has learned exclusively that Clint Eastwood has signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, supporting the right of same-sex couples to marry. The brief, which will be released later this evening, has signatures from more than 100 Republican and conservative activists. It involves the case before the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn CA’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

Eastwood isn’t the story, folks. He’s probably always been pro-gay marriage — if not vocally. No, it is the names that previously opposed SSM, but will appear on this amicus brief.

Something is happening. The marketplace is working.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

If President Obama were serious about preventing the supposedly draconian cuts in the sequester, instead of demagoguing Republicans in campaign-style events, he wouldn’t be waiting until the after the last minute to sit down with congressional Republicans.

But, as Jim Geraghty reminds us, campaign-style events are this Democrat’s modus operandi:

How did Obama try to pass his stimulus? Campaign-style events. How did Obama try to pass Obamacare? Campaign-style events. How is Obama pushing for amnesty legislation? Campaign-style events. How is Obama pushing for gun control? Campaign-style events. Fiscal cliff? Campaign-style events. This is all separate from his actual presidential campaign.

Geraghty cites Moe Lane who observes that

Barack Obama knows how to do one thing: elect Barack Obama to public office.  And that’s not ‘elect Democrats.’  Or ‘elect liberals.’  Or even ‘elect people that Barack Obama likes.’  It’s just him: his team is trying pretty hard right now to figure out how to use their over-specialized skill more generally, but they don’t have much time to figure it out and the system is actually rigged against them in this case.

Perhaps, Republicans can be more effective in standing up to this Democrat if every time he attacks them, they respond by pointing out the problem and asking for his plan to fix it, in this case, out-of-control federal spending.

They might also remind Americans of Barack Obama’s promise of a “net spending cut” and pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.

Obama, Top Lawmakers to Meet Friday on Budget Cuts

Why are you waiting until the last minute, Mr. President?

FROM THE COMMENTS: “Actually”, writes Ted B. (Charging Rhino), correcting me, “he’s waiting for AFTER the last minute. The Sequester starts tomorrow-night at Midnight.”

My last post generated a lot of great discussion, which is still continuing.  I hope to highlight or focus on some of the strands of that discussion in future posts, but for now I thought I’d emphasize one passage with the hope of turning it into the conservative meme of the week.

Our commenter Crosspatch wrote a number of very detailed and thoughtful responses, but one paragraph of this comment is worth highlighting for expressing a cogent critique of modern liberals which everyone can understand:

Many Democrats are to people what cat ladies are to cats. The cat lady can not stand the thought of those poor kitties out there all on their own in the dead of winter so she takes them in to “take care of” them. The cats end up being packed into slums as she micromanages them but the task becomes too much, requires too much overhead, and living conditions begin to deteriorate as they are in Detroit. The cat lady isn’t really doing it to help the cat because the cat would probably have a much better quality of life if she had left it alone. She is doing it to help HERSELF not feel bad. Liberals often don’t do things to actually help people so much as they do it to make themselves feel better, like they are doing something about a problem. If you try to explain to them that they are actually doing a disservice to those they are trying to help, you are treated just like any other person who points out a flaw in a “fundamentalist’s” logic. You are attacked and ostracized.

When I was quickly skimming through the many comments, I originally glossed over that paragraph, but subsequent comments by Chris H. and Bastiat Fan made me take a closer look at it.

One of the themes of Crosspatch’s comments has to do with the ways in which the leftist media and the educational establishment both set the ground rules and expectations for debate and discussion of issues to make it difficult for conservatives to respond.

One way conservatives can fight against this, it seems to me, is to generate as many powerful and accessible counter-narratives as we can to begin to change the way people view both conservative and liberal ideas.

The Crazy Cat Lady Liberal meme has that power.  Although I found a reference to a similar idea from a column by John Hawkins that appeared last march the idea hasn’t caught on widely yet, and it’s time we see to it that it does.  (As an aside, it should surprise no one that there really are crazy cat lady liberals who are proud of being both of those things.)

Busy with a number of projects today, including entertaining Bruce with whom I just had a nice lunch and to whom I just showed a gas station selling a gallon of regular for over $5, but did want to remind our readers despite the CPAC dustup, many conservative institutions favor the inclusion of gay conservatives.

Shortly, after returning home (from spending my early afternoon with Bruce where CPAC came up), I caught this headline on the National Review’s homepage:

On Sunday, Bruce reported that “nothing has changed [since] The CPAC Board voted before CPAC 2012 to remove GOProud as a sponsoring organization.” Today, the flagship conservative magazine offered “Five reasons CPAC should embrace the gay conservative group.”

CPAC’s decision to exclude this gay conservative group is not sitting well with all movement conservatives. Daniel Foster, the National Review’s news editor, makes a strong case for inclusion:

GOProud is consistently big-C “movement” conservative on the important issues — especially on fiscal policy and the size of government, but also on social issues such as abortion. After all, GOProud was founded by a couple of Log Cabin Republicans dissatisfied with that group’s Main-Street-partnership-style centrism. This alone is a pretty good reason for their inclusion at CPAC. But arguably more interesting, and more important for a powwow that’s ostensibly about making conservative advocacy more effective, is GOProud’s lower-case conservatism.

Read the whole thing.  Foster holds that “the move against GOProud does seem to be all downside.” Indeed.

Just another reminder about the broad-based conservative movement.  The current organizers of CPAC don’t speak for all conservatives.

The incumbent President of the United States has decided to lay off blaming his predecessor for the nation’s sorry economic and fiscal situation and is now blaming someone else:

Facing an end of the week deadline, President Barack Obama said Monday that Congress can avert sweeping across-the-board cuts with “just a little bit of compromise,” as he sought to stick lawmakers with the blame if the budget ax falls.

Obama’s always trying to stick someone else with the blame.  He tries to pin the blame on Congress even while, as Jim Geraghty reports, he “has not met any congressional leaders face-to-face to discuss avoiding sequestration yet.”

If he really wanted to avoid these cuts, he’d been holding regular meetings with these leaders.  Seems he’d rather blame Congress than sit down with its leaders.

And this from the guy who four years ago told Jay Leno that one thing he wanted “to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.”

Physician, heal thyself.

A few weeks ago, a reader at Instapundit found an interesting passage in the archives which Glenn Reynolds had first quoted in February 2002.  I made note of the passage because it seemed to fit so well with both the social liberalism theme and also with the distinction (increasingly hard to recognize in the age of Obama, I admit) between liberals and leftists to which I made reference in my last post.

The passage is from an article by Judith Lewis entitled “Why I’m Not a Protestor” that appeared in the LA Weekly on Jan. 30, 2002:

And whatever these perfect strangers from Kentucky stood for, however distant they were from the causes of global minimum wage, clean energy and sustainable peace, they were still able to treat people who shared almost none of their values without contempt. We were able to do the same, and to us, that was a hugely political act.

But it is the kind of political act for which the current crop of activist groups — from the Voters Rights March to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center — have increasingly little patience. Faced with dissenting views or even devil’s advocacy from newspaper reporters, they grow hostile and deny access. When I’ve collaborated with activists on the left, as I did recently on a Web site, I’ve found them willing to censor discussions or use ridicule when certain words make them uncomfortable. When I’ve written about them, they’ve been unhappy that I’ve focused on their personal struggles and not exclusively on the issues, and as a member of the media, I’ve endured their suspicion and scorn. Were these people ever to actually run the country, I complained loudly in the summer of 2000, while I was up in Malibu covering the Ruckus Society’s direct-action training camp, it would be a bona fide fascist dictatorship.

Although the LA Weekly article ends by reiterating the writer’s allegiance to leftist goals and ideals, she intends it as a warning to her fellow liberals and leftists that they need to learn to work and play well with others.  Despite her moment of clarity, she is unable to recognize that the leftist activist class is extreme and intolerant because leftist philosophies inevitably end up there.

The passage came to mind again when I saw this recent interview with Juan Williams at the Daily Caller.  In the interview, Williams talks about what he learned from his firing by NPR:  the liberal media will “shut you down, stab you, kill you, fire you” if you disagree, he tells Ginni Thomas.

Both examples remind me of the many political change stories that Neoneocon has collected and written about over the years.  Although neither Judith Lewis (in the LA Weekly article) nor Juan Williams have abandoned their belief in leftist ideas, both have experienced a key element of leftism that has inspired many others to look more closely at conservative ideas and conservative thinkers.

In other words, the ingrained tendency of the left to go too far often unsettles the willingness of individuals to continue to believe in the narrative of a beneficent and well-intentioned politics–a belief which, however unfounded, is one of the hallmarks of social liberalism.   At least that has been my experience.

What have our readers observed?  Were any of you political changers?  Was there something about the anger, intolerance, and extremism of the leftist activist class that inspired you to question your views or, alternately, that made you more resolute in your conservative beliefs?

I have been getting some emails and commenters have written about the situation regarding GOProud & CPAC this year.

Actually, nothing has changed.  The CPAC Board voted before CPAC 2012 to remove GOProud as a sponsoring organization.  There has been no news since then.

The recent Twitter fury about the issue resulted from a blogger noting that Chris Hayes, MSNBC host, was invited to be on a panel by CPAC.  She noted how odd it was to have a liberal commentator included, but GOProud still excluded.

That’s it.  But I thought it was worth a mention.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

Full Disclosure:  I am now Vice Chair of GOProud.

I was reminded to mention that the now-infamous Chick-Fil-A laser video has been nominated for a Blog Bash Award at CPAC 2013.

Ben Howe and Chris Loesch did all the hard work.  Acting was easy; I just played myself!

Here it is again for your viewing pleasure: Not Without My Chicken.

A leaked memo to the Charlotte Observer on Thursday night has political watchers’ tongues wagging across North Carolina today.

Read all about it, here at WatchDogWire.com – North Carolina.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

News from the world of the absurd…..

Hallie Kuperman loves to dance. But what she loves even more is sharing this passion with visitors to her social dancing club, the Century Ballroom.

Hallie purchased the vintage dancing space 16 years ago, turning it into a Seattle institution. The Century Ballroom not only teaches swing, tango and the foxtrot, it also hosts cabarets and other live performances for an eclectic crowd of all ages. The club’s trendsetting owner has become a prominent and beloved figure in the community.

Business was swinging until a surprise bill arrived from Washington’s Department of Revenue. The state agency decided to reinterpret an obscure old tax, audited the Century Ballroom, and demanded a check for $92,000.

Read the WHOLE THING at FreedomWorks by my blogger friend Jon Gabriel.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

It never ceases to amaze me that so many liberals fail to grasp the reality of the law of unintended consequences with respect to any piece of supposedly well-intentioned legislation.  I use the word “liberals” here rather than “leftists” because I mean to refer not to the hard-core, doctrinaire leftists, but to the garden variety liberals who continually get fooled by the left into supporting their ill-intentioned schemes.

The difference between a basic liberal and a hard-core leftist is nicely illustrated by the anecdote that opens this article about the left’s scheme to undermine American power in the world and the American way of life.  Daren Jonescu describes an acquaintance of his, a teacher, and a liberal, who was surprised to learn that the Communist Party of the U.S.A. had endorsed Obama:

When I explained that the Party’s official endorsement cited Obama’s signature policy initiatives as the surest means to achieving socialism in America, and that CPUSA leaders were actively campaigning for Obama in swing states, my colleague fell silent for a moment, and then said, matter-of-factly, “It doesn’t really bother me; I guess it might bother me if Obama were endorsing the Communist Party, but if they’re endorsing him, it doesn’t matter.”

In typical fashion, the liberal here manages to convince himself that what should be obvious is really inconsequential.

But I digress.  While it seems clear to me that the left’s aim in pursuing gun-control is to disarm the populace, liberals always buy into it because they believe the lie that gun-control will somehow reduce “gun-violence,” even though lawbreakers will always find ways to acquire guns.

In the current environment, for example, all the gun-control talk has created a run on guns, ammunition, and the magazines that the politicians are talking about outlawing.  And the liberals are flummoxed and upset about all of the guns being sold these days.  It’s a classic case of failing to understand the law of unintended consequences whenever gun-control becomes a fixation of the politicians and their agents in the media.

Of course, that is only just the beginning.  Opponents of more gun-control are always quick to point out that as the measures fail to achieve their aims, the calls for more restrictions and more confiscatory legislation will only escalate.  Conservatives recognize this, and leftists know that is their ultimate aim.  But liberals always delude themselves into perpetuating the lies of the left.

Every so often, though, they get a clue that the problem might not be as easily fixed as proponents of immediate legislative fixes would have them believe.  Consider, for instance, the title of this recent Washington Post article: “Weapons made with 3-D printers could test gun-control efforts.”

To follow the implications of that story to its logical conclusions is to recognize that one unsuccessful gun-control bill is but the first step down a slippery slope that can lead to more and more government intervention into every aspect of our lives, yet “liberals” still manage to remain in denial about that reality.

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – Obama and the Leftist Infiltration of Israeli Media
• Simply Jews – Guardian – confirming the obsession
• The Political Commentator – Another Obama snow-job: Sequestration = Republican-owned recession!
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Heaven forbid! A conservative comics writer is against gay “marriage”
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Mookie Redux – Return of al Sadr
• VA Right! - Gluttony – Big Government’s Deadly Sin
• The Razor – The Elephant In The Room -– Having Kids Out-of-Wedlock Culture
• The Right Planet – So, You Bought a Gun, Huh?
• Joshuapundit-State Of The Union?
• Gay Patriot – To the true conservative, politics is of secondary importance
• Bookworm Room – Dems are troglodytes about women and self-defense, and they’re selling this as a virtue for the next election
• The Mellow Jihadi – 1 Billion Rising and the Qu’ran
• The Glittering Eye - Multi-Tasking the 2013 State of the Union
• Rhymes With Right – Sen. Dan Patrick Moves To Dumb-Down Texas Graduation Requirements, Eliminate Government And Economics Requirement (more…)

Just caught this headline on Yahoo!

Then read this on the Washington Examiner, Obama pushes $50 billion stimulus plan as automatic budget cuts loom:

The White House on Wednesday pushed for tens of billions of dollars in stimulus funding for decaying roads and bridges, a request dismissed by Republicans as not serious amid the broader debate over spending cuts in Washington.

The plan outlined by administration officials Wednesday calls for $50 billion in spending on highways, transit systems and airports, part of the president’s push for a wave of new government investments. Like other ideas touted in President Obama’s State of the Union address, it lacks a payment plan.

The Democrat does seem oblivious to our nation’s spending problem.

• From Misfit Politics, the Conservative Punk…Brandon Morse
  
• From Breitbart.com, Twitter goddess… Mary Chastain
  
• The host of the Tony Katz Radio Show… Tony Katz
  
• From the Conservative Daily News, Twitter’s @GaltsGirl – Michelle Ray
  
• Investigative writer and co-host of The Chat Pack Live – Mandy Nagy
  
• He’s loud, proud, and he’s on Nancy Pelosi’s drone kill list, it’s Twitter’s own @NorthDallas30

And as always, I’m your host for the night!

Tune in LIVE at 9PM Eastern on The 405 Radio Network, or join in via Twitter with hashtag #MGMN

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

I had thought that once I found my stride writing this novel, I would start blogging once again, perhaps not at the pace I did during the election, but at least more often than once every blue moon.

And yet, finding my stride (again) as a writer of fiction has changed me in ways that I had not even anticipated when I started writing.  I find that certain things, don’t bother me as once as they used to.  I take them more in stride.

Except when I feel the bite of bad government policies, I don’t feel the same rage at the arrogance of the liberal elites as I normally do, those who would dictate to us how we run our own lives.

Perhaps this is because for those of a truly conservative disposition, politics is not the primary focus of our lives.  By and large, we don’t see it as a source of meaning.  We find meanings in other endeavors.  We understand that government should serve, as Mr. Jefferson understood, to protect certain inalienable rights.

We often regret that we have to get involved in the messy business of politics to block policies which infringe upon our liberties and our ability to pursue happiness.

More on this anon.  Perhaps.

Dan did a post a few days ago, but I wanted to re-invite our friends in the Los Angeles area to join me and him for “Meatless Monday” by enjoying a hearty steak dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Glendale, Calif. The official event invite is here on Facebook.

And since I’m also new Vice Chair of GOProud, I’ll be talking about our new efforts at chapter development and outreach.

For those not familiar with “The Great Steak Dinner Bet,” here’s the video from CPAC 2010.

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

There was a LOT of Global Warming interrupting our drive from Spartanburg to York in South Carolina this afternoon.

An hour drive took two hours. And my goodness, do people in the South NOT know how to drive!!!

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

Presidents’ Day is this coming Monday, but Lincoln’s birthday was this past Tuesday, February 12th.  I was traveling that day, and had the misfortune of being subjected to hearing most of the State of the Union address as I completed the last leg of that day’s journey.

As Dan and others have pointed out many times in the past, Obama is fond of comparing himself to Republican Presidents, especially Lincoln and Reagan.  Perhaps it is because both Lincoln and Reagan were associated with the state of Illinois: Reagan was born there, grew up there, and went to college there, and although Lincoln didn’t move to Illinois until his 21st year, he is most associated with the state where he became a country lawyer, served in the state legislature, and represented a district in the House of Representatives.

Or perhaps Obama compares himself to Republicans because he doesn’t want to remind the public that his political views place him to the left of Clinton, Carter, and Johnson, or, for that matter, far, far to the left of Kennedy.  Perhaps he simply wants to preserve the narrative about his alleged “post-partisanship” and thinks that comparing himself to Republican Presidents is one way to keep pulling the wool over the public’s eyes in that regard.

Whatever the reason, hearing him speak on Lincoln’s birthday only reminded me, once again, how far Obama falls from Lincoln’s historic presidency (despite Steven Spielberg’s and Tony Kushner’s attempts to draw such a parallel through their recent film).   Not only was the speech the usual melange of the same tiresome platitudes we’ve been hearing from him over the last five years, as both Bruce and Jeff have pointed out here, it was also full of his usual partisan talking points, as he placed blame on Republicans wherever he could, and he rationalized future power-grabs by the Executive branch.

In the context of Lincoln’s birthday, though, I am less interested in the SOTU, and more interested in what Obama said on January 21st of this year.  Until Bruce posted the entirety of Washington’s second inaugural last month, the second inaugural address I was most familiar with was Lincoln’s.  I had read about FDR’s second inaugural address, but never felt moved to read it in its entirety, and have generally had just passing interest in the speeches delivered on the second inaugurals of the presidents who were re-elected in my lifetime.  But Lincoln’s second inaugural address is anthologized in textbooks alongside the Gettysburg Address, and I have read both many times.  They are both lessons in brevity, resolve and humility.

Consider, for instance, the way that Lincoln discusses the issue of slavery and the conflict between the North and the South in his second inaugural address:

Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

These are not the words of a proud and arrogant man.  These are the words of a man who is troubled by the horrible conflict which has engulfed his nation and who prays for its speedy resolution, even as he fears the terrible price that both sides in the conflict still have to pay.  Lincoln’s words are even more powerful in that way that they echo, perhaps unintentionally, one of Jefferson’s most striking passages from his Notes on the State of Virginia:

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