Now, they tell us:

IRS Apologizes For Inappropriately Targeting Conservative Political Groups In 2012 Election

Tell me now, who trying to politicize the federal government? Kudos to the Huffington Post for publishing this (and to AOL for linking it on the home page). Let’s hope more of our left-leaning legacy media cover this story. Goes to the heart of the kind of politics the Obama team practices.

UPDATE: More here and here.

UP-UPDATE:  Looks like this story has legs.  Glenn Reynolds reminds us that when the Democrat was new in office, “BARACK OBAMA JOKED ABOUT TAX AUDITS FOR PEOPLE WHO DISPLEASED HIM. Now the IRS has admitted that it targeted conservative and Tea Party groups in 2012″, adding his own take:

The employees involved should be fired and prosecuted. The affected groups should be compensated for the additional costs they incurred in responding to this illegal harassment, and Congress should take the money out of the IRS’s travel-and-entertainment budget.

I agree.  At least as to the firing.

UP-UPDATE:  Jennifer Rubin finds this to be part of a pattern:  “The degree to which politics has come to predominate on everything from the sequester to national security to the civil rights division and now to the IRS is quite startling. It is a pattern of sublimating everything to partisan politics and electoral advantage.“

In Ace’s “Headlines” sidebar, I just noticed this post at FreedomWorks: 15 Year Old Wisconsin Conservative Meets Bullying From Teachers.

Worth a skim. To be clear: By “bullying”, he does not mean physical assault, but rather a series of moral-emotional assaults from teachers who single him out for questioning (sometimes invasive) and ridicule. From Mr. Backer’s conclusion:

If teachers want bullying to end with homosexuals, other races or religious beliefs, they should want it to end with every type of bullying possible, including political views.

I haven’t done any research that would let me vouch for Mr. Backer’s story, but if it’s true, it’s chilling. Or, to say something more positive: that kid has guts!

Due to the bigoted, bullying, anti-Christian tirade of the Obama Administration’s partner in “anti-bullying”….

…this blog has had its highest traffic in 2 years.

BWAHAHAHA.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I guess the only “real gay bashing” is one that involves gays of a Leftist persuasion? (h/t – Peter Hughes)

Via The Daily Caller:

(With apologies to Bobbie McGee for the headline….)  (And h/t to Instapundit for the articles that inspired this post)

You may recall that in the early days following Jaren Loughner’s (the pot-smoking anarchist) shoot-up in Tucson, I joined with Glenn Beck in his challenge.  I ask you to read it again carefully.  What I am about to write, in my opinion, does not violate that challenge.  But I’m open to interpretation.

Ladies and gents, this call from the Progressives and the liberal media for “civility” is total bullshit.  Please note I rarely use profanity in my posts or comments here.  But yes, I call total and utter bullshit.  This is a ploy by the Left to silence the 40% of Americans who told Gallup last year that they hold conservative principles.

It is easy for Progressives and Democrats to ask for “civility” when they are the ones who call for violent revolution and have been since their halcyon flower-sniffing, pot-smoking, anti-American days of yore.  Us GenXer’s refer to those days as The Sixties.  When we say “The Sixties” — it is with the derisive tone of voice usually reserved for the phrase: “um… this is escargot?”

Oh yeah, and “civility” is easy to call for when your Marxist-taught President’s best buddies are an admitted terrorist (William Ayers) and a black liberation preacher who repeatedly damns this nation (Rev. Whose-Name-Must-Never-Be-Uttered-By-Media).

One calls for “civility” when one’s ideas are soundly rejected in an historic legislative landslide the likes of which few living Americans are cogent enough to remember.

Now those same people are asking that the free peoples of the United States of America disarm themselves in favor of the tyranny of “civility”.  Well, I say HELL NO!  I don’t want violence, but I certainly don’t want these people dictating the terms of my Constitutional surrender.

So I invoke THIS passage of Glenn’s challenge:

I denounce those from the Left, the Right or middle that sees violence as a viable alternative to our long established system of change made within the constraints of our constitutional Republic.

There can be, in my view, nothing more violent in the long-term than straying from the limited government principles of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.  What the Left has systematically proposed to do since the Progressive movement was born is to violently shred our American Republic and tell you to shut up while they do it.

Not on my watch.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

What the hell am I talking about?  Go check it out at BigHollywood.com!

In the meantime, here’s a sample…

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Simple, yet effective country song about the state of our nation and how fed up most Americans are. (h/t – GP reader Spartann)

Unfortunately, standing up against the Obama Administration carries a heavy price. 

Bryan Glover, an assistant coach at Grassland Middle School near Nashville, co-wrote the country music song, “When You’re Holding a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail.”

It was co-written by a parent who has a child on the team. Glover, 26, said he emailed a copy of the song to friends, family members and player’s parents through his personal email account.

And that’s when all the trouble started for the self-described independent conservative.

“The coach called me and said parents were upset – that I was being politically incorrect and the song had racial overtones,” Glover told FOX News Radio. “An hour and a half later I was told I was being terminated.”

“I was informed that I was being let go because of the song,” he said, denying claims there were any racial overtones in the song.

Racial overtones?  Good lord.  Hasn’t the “race card” expired already for overuse?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This post originates from an email from B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest) to Bruce (GayPatriot):

I mean, give me a break.

George W. Bush was no FDR, but Barack Obama could be.

That’s the verdict of 238 of the nation’s leading presidential scholars, who – for a fifth time – rated Franklin Delano Roosevelt the best president ever in the latest Siena College Research Institute poll.

In office for barely two years, Obama entered the survey in the 15th position – two spots behind Bill Clinton and three spots ahead of Ronald Reagan.

Obama got high marks for intelligence, ability to communicate and imagination, but his score was dragged down by his relative lack of experience and family background.

Clinton took office during a recovery and succeeded in bungling his first two years in office so badly that the Republican Congress elected in response to his failures helped prevent him from undoing the accomplishments of the Reagan era.

Yeah, he may rank higher than you or I would like, but not above Reagan and certainly not far above the middle of the pack.

Seems these historians put their political prejudices ahead of their historical judgment.  I mean, Obama ahead of the Gipper.  Give me a break.  The economy has certainly not recovered.  And we haven’t seen the economic turnaround of the like we saw in the 1980s.

And that W is low on the list suggests the scholars crafting the study harbor the animi (animuses?) of the other practitioners of their trade.

=============

Bruce’s additional comments:

And check out this absurd statement from the news article:

“Most of the presidents came from elite backgrounds, and he certainly did not,” said professor Douglas Lonnstrom, who crunched the numbers. “He grew up without a father.”

Oh give me a friggin’ break.  Obama is probably the most elitist president (via education & upbringing) since the John F. Kennedy.  This idea that he had no father makes him “non-elitist” is completely absurd.  How many ordinary Americans do you know that grew up in three different countries, went to the best private schools there and then went on to Harvard?  I credit his work ethic getting there, but I know ordinary people and Obama ain’t one of ‘em.

Is Professor Lonnstrom suggesting that because Obama is BLACK that he’s no elitist?  Well, that’s just downright RAAAACIST!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As the folks at Hillbuzz are learning, so entrenched is the hatred some people feel for Sarah Palin that they simply can’t reason with anyone who has a kind word to say for that charismatic Republican and accomplished reformer.   They’re not content just to disagree with her policies, they must needs define her as a horrible, no good, very bad woman.  She’s not just wrong on the issues, she’s been a failure as a politician and is dishonest and unkind to boot.   Plus she wears army boots!

Why can’t some on the left just agree to disagree?  There are indeed many who do.  (I’m fortunate to count a good number of these fine fellows (and gals) as friends.)  But, yet whenever anyone raises his (or her) voice in dissent, some on the left are quick to pounce, demonizing that person, often in the most vicious terms.

Considering the treatment Joe Lieberman has received from the leftosphere, Darleen Click asks and observes

So what is the Left to do with people who are obviously unenlightened and have the audacity to disagree? They can’t be mistaken, so they must be evil or stupid.

Can’t they just be smart people who have reached different conclusions on certain issues?  Why must some define their ideological adversaries (and even their occasional allies) as evil and dumb?

I already have.  You should too.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It is all but impossible to attend a gay confab without the leaders touting their commitment to diversity, singing paeans to the ideal of diversity or apologizing for not being diverse enough.   And sure enough, at most such confabs, you’ll see that there are representatives from a great variety of gay interest groups, from transgender activists to spokespeople of associations of any number of ethnic groups.

One group which you almost never see represented is Republicans even as GOP candidates continue to win a greater share of the gay vote.

And given how Republicans have overwhelming opposed state recognition of same-sex marriage, you’d think that gay activists would want to target this demographic as a source of support for their initiatives.  After all, if it was the failure of their outreach efforts which caused voters to approve Prop 8 last fall, they failed most spectacularly among Republicans.

Indeed, the Golden State’s leading gay activist group, Equality California, routinely touts its commitment to diversity with its Executive Director Geoff Kors boasting yesterday that “18 [recently-hired] field organizers that reflect the diversity of California.”  Actually, they don’t.  In a state where 34.3% of registered voters identify as Republicans, representatives of the EqCA could not identify a single Republican among those new hires.  If they were truly committed to diversity, they would have made sure to include Republicans among their supposedly diverse cadre of field organizers,

In response to my query about the number of Republicans in this number, Jay Davis, EqCA “Online Community Director” wrote,

We don’t have an exact number of our field organizers who are Republicans. We don’t ask about political affiliation when we hire. I can say, having met all of our organizers, that they represent a number of different points of view.

While they say their field organizers reflect the diversity of the state, they also say they’re not interested in political diversity. (more…)

Awesome.

(click here for full view of letter)

Dear President Obama:

I write you today simply to ask two questions about the new White House program to monitor information released about the proposed health care reform:

1 – How will the “fishy” information collected via flag@whitehouse.gov be used?

2 – Will the people who are flagged as “fishy” be made aware that they’ve been reported?

The debate about proposed health care reform has become heated over the past months.  I cannot see how this debate can be advanced in a productive manner if people can no longer speak freely without fear that they may be reported to the White House. The privacy of those who are reported could potentially be put in jeopardy, as email addresses, IP addresses and other identifying information will undoubtedly be forwarded along — perhaps without the author’s knowledge.

I look forward to your reply to my questions and hope that you will take to heart the concerns fo the American people over this program.

Sincerely,

Sue Myrick
Member of Congress

in addition to my research for my dissertation, I have been reading Mary Lefkowitz’s Not Out Of Africa: How “Afrocentrism” Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History.  While this book may well help me with my work,* I’m reading it largely for my own edification.

In her book Lefkowitz explains her frustration at having to refute theories about the supposed African origins of Greek thought which, for political reasons, have gained wide currency in our universities (and even in the media) despite being based more on political conjecture than serious scholarship:

To respond to the kinds of allegations that are now being made requires us in effect to start from the beginning, to explain the nature of the ancient evidence, and to discuss what has long been known and established as if it were now subject to serious question.  In short, we are being put on the defensive when in ordinary circumstances there would have been nothing to be defensive about.  Worst of all, making this sort of defense keeps us from going on to discover new material and bring our attention to bear on real interpretative problems. Instead of getting on with our work, we must rehearse what has long been known.  But, nonetheless, the case for the defense must be made.

Emphasis added.

Sometimes, I feel that we intellectual conservatives are in the same boat as serious classicists in needing to debunk misrepresentations which have gained wide currency.

How many times have our readers, many of whom have only read left=wing tracts (and blog posts) about the origins (and ideas) of the modern American conservative movement, who have never attended a Republican event (save to search only the most extreme elements and report on them as if they were representative of the entire gathering) and never socialized with thoughtful conservatives, told us exactly what the GOP and American conservatism is all about?  When we report our experiences as openly gay men and women at Republican or conservative events, they ignore our experiences.

(Never happened, they say, doesn’t fit their narrative.)  After all, they read the DailyKos and the Daily Dish, they know us better than we do ourselves.

It doesn’t matter if we point how how we criticized George W. Bush on spending; they know that we were unfailing in our infatuation.

it would be nice if they could see us as we are and address the arguments that we make.  As it would be nice if politicized scholars would address the Greeks as they were, acknowledging Egyptian influence on Greek culture without seeing that influence, significant thogh it may well have been, as the source of all that was great about Greece.

And it’s too bad that we, like serious classical scholars, have to devote so much time to rebutting silly allegations instead of promoting our ideas– and our candidates.  But, then again, maybe that’s their strategy, to get us bogged down in defense so we don’t have time to develop a serious offense.

* (more…)

I have this thought every now and again when I “friend” someone on Facebook who doesn’t know about my politics.  Given the circles in which I have traveled over the years, it seems the better part of the people I have met are to the left of the political center.  Now, many of these people do know about my politics, given that I have been “out” politically even in some very liberal circles.  But, some do not.  And I wonder how they might react when I link a post I have written here.

On more than one occasion, when I have come out politically to friends (& acquaintances) in Hollywood, they were surprised that someone so “thoughtful,” “creative” and/or ‘sensitive” (their adjectives not mine) could be Republican.

So, it struck me (and not for the first time) that while we intellectual conservatives with an artistic bent (as well as artistic conservatives with an intellectual bent) have regularly traveled in circles where we are a minority, many of our liberal counterparts have rarely encountered conservatives.

I wonder if that is why so many (but fortunately not all) on the left so readily dismiss conservative ideas without even considering them and why some otherwise very smart liberals do not seem capable of engaging their “ideological adversaries” on an intellectual level, preferring ad hominem attacks to argument.  We, in contrast, are used to defending our ideas and often encounter liberals who accord them (and us) much respect.  So, we know there are thoughtful liberals out there and thus do not define them as a monolithic narrow-minded bloc.

Some of their ideological confrères (and -soeurs) out there, however, don’t seem to meet many intellectual (or intelligent) conservatives.  So they just assume . . .

* (more…)

The abundance of evidence that the Holocaust shooter harbored strong animosities against the two most recent Republican presidents and  had little in common ideologically with the mainstream of modern American conservatism notwithstanding, certain left-of-center pundits and bloggers have attributed his murderous actions to (what they define as) “hateful” conservative rhetoric.

And yet, as they make the jump from the shooter’s actions to their ideological adversaries, they do little to illuminate his motivations, exposing only their own prejudices against conseratives.  Because, they believe, the shooter hated Jews, he had to be a “right-winger” because the right wing is the source for anti-Semitism in America.  Such an attitude shows that while they accuse those of us on the right of living in the past, their understanding of anti-Semitism dates back at least forty years.

Their views of conservatives have little to do with the reality of the conservative movement in America today, indeed, with the conservative movement as it has been evolving at least since William F. Buckely, Jr. launched the National Review in 1955.  And yet, all too many in the MSM, equally clueless about the ideas undergirding American conservatism, don’t challenge them on their misunderstanding.

And when they do get challenged, well, they don’t know how to react.  Witness Barney Frank earlier this week.   When the unhappy Massachusetts Democrat accused CNBC host Mark Haines of “wanting to do ‘nothing’ about the economic crisis, which isn’t at all what Haines said,” the host tried to correct the record.  Instead of acknowledging his error, the Congressman “played victim and whined his way off the stage.”

It seems this mean-spirited liberal has bought into the propaganda his party has used to discredit the opposition, believing critics of Democratic plans just want to “do nothing.”  When faced with evidence to the contrary, he becomes disoriented, lashing out at the misrepresented party and refusing to engage in any kind of dialogue.

Thus, since conservatives don’t fit their narrative of what we’re supposed to be, they have to resort to name-calling because arguing with us would mean acknowledging our ideas.  And by dint of acknowledging our ideas, they undercut their (at that point, previously) prejudiced worldview.

They might find it easier to talk to us, if they tried to see us as we are and not as their prejudices define us.

Now that I know that some left-of-center gay activists have lobbied their more intransigent confrères to include Republicans in conferences to oppose Prop 8 (last year) and to repeal it (this year), I realize the difficulty of promoting inclusion at gay confabs and campaigns.

There are those averse to working with Republicans in any situation, even if our support would help them achieve their ostensible objectives.  They won’t yield even to colleagues like-minded on most political issues, yet more broad-minded on the issue of including partisan adversaries.

Given the intolerance and prejudice of certain leading gay activists, it would require an almost herculean effort to secure the regular inclusion of Republicans in gay political confabs.  I don’t know that I’m up to that fight.  But, I do know that some liberal gay men and lesbians have worked behind the scenes on behalf of their ideological and partisan adversaries.  I appreciate their efforts and commend them for their diligence on our behalf.

I had hoped to work with some of these people to secure our inclusion.  I know that many are up to the task, but it might be asking too much of them to press them to work for inclusion of people that some gay activists perceive as representatives of their greatest enemy and whom they define as self-hating.  The time they would devote to fighting for inclusion within gay organizations is time they could not spend fighting for greater tolerance of gay people in society at large.

it’s unfortunate that there are some really hateful gay activists out there.  But, it’s important for us gay Republicans to realize that those narrow-minded zealots are not the universe of gay activists.  There are also some really good folks whose politics we do not share, but who do believe gay conservatives deserve a place at the table, even if they plan on disagreeing with us as soon as we are seated.

I want to begin this post by commending the various gay organizations spearheading  “Meet in the Middle” event in Fresno yesterday.  They’re taking a step in the right direction by gathering in a more Republican region of the state, understanding that they need “explain who we are to the heartland,” as Orange County gay activist Linda May put it.

I believe, Prop 8 will be overturned, if those organized in favor of a new ballot initiative doing just that, work to change people’s minds by making the case for gay marriage (instead of attacking supporters of the institution’s traditional definition).  To that end, they need develop a strategy to reach Republicans, given that Republicans, like Fresno residents, voted overwhelmingly in favor of Prop 8.

I did not attend “Meet in the Middle” (even as I had considered going as it might provide fodder for blog posts) for a great variety of reasons, chief, among them, that while approximately one in every four self-identified gay voter votes Republican, organizers included no Republicans on the event agenda, as just as their confrères (and soeurs) invited no Republicans to speak at the Decision Day Rally, as they had no Republicans at a Town hall on gay marriage at LA’s Gay and Lesbian Center, as they included no Republicans in the officials program of the “Equality Summit.”

See the pattern?  In conferences on gay marriage, the organizing groups regularly exclude gay Republicans.

To overturn Prop 8, they’d do well to include those who know how to talk to a group which voted overwhelmingly in favor of the ballot initiative.

Perhaps gay Republicans should start boycotting such confabs until the organizers acknowledge our presence in the community.  If we were an approved minority which threatened such action, they would bend over backwards to accommodate us, even holding seminars exploring their own internalized bias against political minorities in the gay community.

More on this anon, much more.

Bravo.

GOProud Unequivocally Opposes “Outing”
Statement of Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director

(Washington, D.C.) – In light of the latest debate regarding “outing,” sparked by the release of the film “Outrage,” Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, issued the following statement:

“GOProud is the only national gay organization that is unequivocally opposed to outing. We stand for the proposition that an individual’s personal life isn’t relevant to policy – period.

“We want the government – as well as liberal activists – out of people’s bedrooms. The sex police is just as distasteful coming from the far left as it is coming from the far right.”

This blog was originally formed to combat the intrusion of liberal activists in the personal lives of gay Republican Congressional staffers. Log Cabin (Republicans) has a history of selectively opposing “outing”. It is time that we take a stand on personal liberty and oppose these gay fascist tactics. And we can’t be afraid to call it out as such. These are bully, brownshirt tactics meant to suppress free speech and individual decision-making.

Here is a very good CNN segment about the new film.

Notice how Charles Moran of Log Cabin is steamrolled by both Don Lemon and Michelangelo Signorile. I would note that I once appeared on Signorile’s SIRIUS radio program. He was one of the most angry, hateful individuals I have ever encountered. So I’m not surprised he plays bully in this CNN segment. He is a bully 24/7. Very typical of the rest of the self-righteous Gay Left activists.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In studying the digestive systems in mammals, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov made an important discovery about canine reflexes:

. . . he struck a bell when the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.

Just as these dogs respond by drooling to the mere sound of a bell, so do some on the left, particularly the gay left, respond to the mere sound of the descriptors, “gay conservative” or “gay Republicans.”  As soon as they hear these words, they shout “self-loathing,” “self-hating,” calling those defined by said descriptors the equivalent to “Jewish Nazis” or “black Klansman.”

So Pavlovian is their response, it’s almost like a comedy routine.

The other day Bruce alerted me to a comment on a blog linking my first piece on the Iowa marriage decision.  I laughed out loud when I read the latest left-wing response to our ideas.  While often claiming to be more intelligent than their conservative counterparts, many on the left insist on insulting conservatives rather than addressing our points.  (Please note that this does not apply to all of our critics as, in the comment thread to my post, a number offered thoughtful counterarguments in a civil tone.)

As I consider the Pavlovian response of all too many critics of gay conservatives, I better understand Barney Frank’s preference of insult to argument when addressing his adversaries.  It’s just part of the political culture in which he was brought up.

Whenever a prominent Republican does something which offends the sensibilities of the politically correct gay élite, they rush to release a statement condemning said individual in particular and the Republican Party in geneeral. At times, they do with good reason as a number of Republicans over the years have said some pretty obnoxious things about gay people and proposed some pretty odious policies.

But, when a Republican shows a degree of tolerance for gay Americans, indicating perhaps that he (or she) believes we should welcome gays into the party’s ranks, he is met mostly by silence from the major gay organizations. Yeah, a few might say something ever once in a while, especially if the MSM picks up on it, but their words seem forced, perfunctory.  And to be sure, some of the left-of-center gay blogs will pick up the story. Towleroad and Queerty have a pretty good record on things like this.

How many gay organizations, for example, praised Mary Cheney for giving more money to defeat Proposition 8 than did Matt Foreman, the immediate past executive director of the far left National Gay and Lesbian Task Force?

On the whole, any openness a prominent Republican shows to gay men and lesbians does not draw the attention as does intolerance. It simply doesn’t fit their narrative of narrow-minded Republicans.

And sometimes, Log Cabin, an ostensibly Republican organization, eager to join the chorus of criticism of a politically incorrect Republican, remains silent when a prominent Republican reaches out to gays.

In today’s Washington Blade, two former Log Cabin officials, Christopher Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia, provide yet another example of this phenomenon. After the new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele indicated opposition to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage and his support for “legal protections for gay couples,” he was met by silence from leading gay organizations:

(more…)