But before you go, remember, “PFNFNDHTIN.”
Moe, let's go for a Maryland miracle to elect a Republican in Barbara Mikulski's place
Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski is running for re-election this year. She will turn 74 in July and because she has atrial fibrillation I think she also has obstructive sleep apnea — but whatever, she has had a long career of public service, and since there’s a possibility she may have begun to consider a graceful retirement today, I covet her seat in the Senate for a fiscally conservative Republican who wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Sen. Mikulski would still have noble work to do in retirement if she came out of the closet as a lesbian and then applied her charm, determination and lifetime of political skills to campaigning for legal equality for lesbians and gays. So it would be a win-win, really.
I think of these things because I am a giver.
So, Moe, what say we get cracking on a Maryland miracle? It’s not like Obama to stop self-destructing and taking everyone he can with him. The more he is frustrated, humiliated and shamed — and Brown’s victory is an epic public pantsing — the more he reveals the real, ruthless Obama who must have what he wants regardless of how he gets it. I have a feeling this is starting to put some people off. You know, the ones who aren’t already under the bus.
Brown WON!!!
moar funny pictures
Massachusetts member of Congress Barney Frank had a much classier reaction to Scott Brown’s victory than I expected, which is quoted at the American Spectator blog by Philip Klein:
Rep. Barney Frank is not a wobbly moderate in a marginal district, but a liberal Democrat who has been supportive of the health care push. And that’s why this statement below, which essentially rules out all of the options being discussed for pushing through Obamacare, deals a potentially fatal blow to the legislation.
Read the rest, including Frank’s statement, here.
H/T: Michelle Malkin, who cautions:
January 19 was an amazing day for grass-roots conservatism. But the Beltway GOP should be warned against unjustified triumphalism. They were late to the game. Activists still haven’t, and won’t, forget the massive amounts of money Washington, D.C. Republicans wasted on Dede Scozzafava. And Scott Brown quite noticeably didn’t mention the word “Republican” once during his prepared remarks.
The GOP brand is still damaged. And instant exploitation of the Brown win — see the NRSC website here — isn’t going to help matters. As I’ve said for many years, the Republican Party needs to clean its own house before it demands that the Democrats clean theirs.
Personally, I expect that Obama/Pelosi/Reid will NOT give up on healthcare reform because the proposed legislation is not about healthcare, it is about nationalizing the healthcare industry and establishing economy-killing taxes and socialistic government intrusion into individual life. Obama does not care if he wins clean or dirty. He just plays to win. This is going to get a LOT uglier before it gets better.
Update, 1/20/2010, Wed.:
Barney Frank today walks back “our respect for democratic procedures [that] must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened”:
That statement created a bit of confusion: Did Frank think the election was a referendum on health care and that Democrats should abandon the plan? Or did he simply think it would be inappropriate of Democrats to ram a compromise bill through the Senate in the window between Brown’s victory and his swearing in. Tonight, Frank laid any doubt to rest.
“I should not have put out a statement late in the evening last night when I was upset because I didn’t really–I think I overstated the pessimism,” Frank told me. “I really was worried–I put out a new statement–I was worried about some Democrats doing crazy things, like ‘don’t seat him’, ‘let Kirk’s vote go.’ I was worried about that.”
Frank laid out a specific, potential way forward for health care, which he acknowledged would be fraught with difficulty. But, he noted, if it fails, Democrats should return to the Senate and ask one moderate Republican [Sen. Olympia Snowe, of Maine] if she really wants to be the person who says, “no way, no how,” to health care reform.
“The one thing is — you might be able to get the Senate bill through the House if there were assurances and agreement on what subsequent amendments would be,” Frank said. “That’s going to be very tricky, but that’s one possibility.”
Frank is talking, roughly, about Plan B, which Democrats have been discussing since the electoral situation in Massachusetts began looking dire. How exactly would that work? Frank explained:
“You have to pass the Senate bill as is and the President signs it. Then people have to be assured that you can get the amendments through the House and the Senate,” Frank said. “Because then the argument would be, ‘Look, the bills already passed so now the question is whether you’re willing to amend it or not.'”
Hitler finds out Republican Scott Brown won Massachusetts Senate seat
Bookworm, Chai is wrong — homosexual equality and religious liberty can co-exist
I am not a registered commenter at Bookworm’s place, so I will have my say here. Regarding homosexual equality and religious liberty, she quotes lesbian attorney Chai Feldblum saying that the demands of the two are not reconcilable and that homosexual equality should win over religious liberty.
Long-time gentle readers know I don’t think very much of Chai Feldblum.
Feldblum is wrong. Homosexual equality and religious liberty can co-exist. However, the fact that a coalition of religions have appropriated the apparatus of the state to impose and enforce their religions’ definition of marriage AND to impose second-class citizenship on homosexuals is not in alignment with the Constitution and American ideals.
A few religions have been very enterprising and resourceful in sticking their hands deeply into the public purse, as well, by targeting the sick and vulnerable as part of their evangelical activities. This is why Catholic adoption agencies that receive government funding have been very vocal about their need to have government money while denying their services to gay and lesbian couples who wish to adopt because gays and lesbians are not among their target demographics for evangelism. If they were not accepting government money, they would be entirely free to refuse anyone for any reason. If they wish to do that, then they should stop taking government money. The market will step forward to fill the niches they will leave.
I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the Constitutional rule of separation of church and state means that religion will continue to be allowed to treat lesbians and gays any way they want, within the law. That means their leaders can refuse to perform same-sex marriages.
However, there’s really very little need to worry. One of the first things set up at the beginning of the gay rights movement, as it was called in the 1970’s — I came out in 1972 — was the founding of the Metropolitan Community Church by Rev. Troy Perry, an evangelical Christian. We do not need to take over anyone else’s religion. We have our own. If we need a new one, we’ll create it. We are all kinds of resourceful and self-reliant. It’s really a marvel to behold.
The result of second-class citizenship for lesbians and gays ranges from greater expenses, the constant jeopardy of not being allowed to manage a same-sex spouse’s medical care, and being shut out of socializing institutions of society, such as marriage, to great psychological and emotional damage due to a crime of being rather than of doing.
Equality for homosexuals does not conflict with religious liberty at all. However, it will be a litmus test to show where various religions have gotten their religious teachings adopted as law in order to impose them on everyone. It also will reveal where and how various religions have found out how to get government money by providing services that also allow them to evangelize, even if it is only done in subtle ways. All these religious enterprises have to do to have the freedom to refuse any service to homosexuals is to stop taking government money. Since the government should not be paying for religious activities, getting the religions out of its wallet is overdue. The market will fill in any gaps.
The religious justification for refusing equality to homosexuals generally has to do with the inability of same-sex couples to make babies. First, so what? This is an insufficient objection. Also, it is capriciously applied, since heterosexuals do not have to prove fertility to get married and their marriages are not annulled automatically if they fail to produce children. Second, 20 percent of same-sex couples do have children, usually from a previous marriage of one or both partners, so they need the rights and privileges of equality not only for themselves but also for their families.
The aspirations of homosexuals for access to the tools of equality — such as marriage, adoption and service in the military — are noble ones. Legal recognition of homosexual equality at the local, state and federal levels will make our society stronger and more moral. It will not restrict religious liberty.
(Note: I’ve covered this topic before and provided supporting links — but it’s 4:19 am and I’m not adding links right now because I need to go to bed.)
UPDATED — Obama's 'Enabling Act' trial balloon
Ever since Obama was elected I’ve had the feeling that the organizing principle of his agenda is to destroy America as a capitalist democratic republic in slow motion with such a barrage of debt bombs, government intrusion, weakening of our military, dissolution of border enforcement, stagnation, confusion and fear that Congress would cede its powers to him as president and voters, driven mad with fear and desperation, would agree to trade their liberty and the American dream for the security of Leftist chains — “chains you can believe in.”
It struck me that this strategy already had been used successfully: the fire in the Reichstag, followed by the Enabling Act.
The Obama/Pelosi/Reid debt bombs and high unemployment rate are our modern fire in the Reichstag.
And now George Will reports that Obama/Pelosi/Reid are floating an “Enabling Act” trial balloon, although Will doesn’t call it that — here are the pertinent excerpts, but read the whole thing (boldfacing mine):
The awful idea is for Congress to divest itself of the core competence that the Constitution vests in it — the power to make the taxing and spending choices that shape the nation. This power would be given to an 18-member panel assigned to solve the budgetary crisis.
Under legislation drafted by Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), and endorsed by 33 other senators, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action would be composed of 16 members of Congress (four each selected by the House speaker and minority leader, and the Senate majority and minority leaders) plus the Treasury secretary and someone the president selects. The panel would propose spending cuts and tax increases to put the government on a glide path to solvency. The menu of proposals would be guaranteed an up-or-down vote — no amendments permitted — in both houses of Congress.
(snip)Regarding procedure, consider a sentence in a Fiscal Times story in The Post on the task force idea, a sentence that seems bland only because of this city’s advanced state of constitutional decadence: “The White House has been talking to Congress to try to craft a proposal that would not wholly relinquish congressional control over major decisions on taxes and spending.”
Wholly? The oath of office for representatives and senators does not commit them to partially or occasionally or when convenient “support and defend,” and bear ” true faith and allegiance” to, the Constitution and “faithfully discharge the duties” of their offices.
(snip)Year one of the Obama administration was devoted to deliberately exacerbating the fiscal crisis. The gusher of spending, combined with the new multitrillion-dollar health-care entitlement, is half of liberalism’s plan to radically and permanently increase government’s grasp on the nation’s wealth. As a response to the crisis, the task force would produce the other half.
The Wikipedia article on the fire in the Reichstag linked here and above has one especially pertinent sentence that jumps out:
Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion by passing the Enabling Act.
I think that’s what is going on now.
P.S.
Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts on Jan. 19.
Update, 1/18/2010, Mon.:
Michelle Malkin highlights today how Obama is leaving America open to terrorist attacks — another stick of kindling for his fire in the Reichstag. At Hot Air, Allahpundit has a post on the Democrats’ favorite group to demonize in their efforts to frighten people into doing their will. Having groups to demonize in order to frighten people was a feature of the strategy employed above to obtain the passage of the Enabling Act. Today Moe Lane features a video explaining how the Democrats’ passage of the Community Reinvestment Act, and their subsequent amendments to it, created the conditions for the mortgage market meltdown that Obama exploited to get into office. Little Miss Attila notes the love of totalitarianism that is the North Star of a leading Leftie economist. Stacy McCain is at ground zero of the resistance.
Update, 1/28/2010, Thurs.:
The AP fact-checked Obama’s State of the Union address made on Jan. 27 — I KNOW, I’m as shocked as you are! — and had the following on the Conrad-Judd proposal for a fiscal responsibility commission that would usurp Congress’s power of the purse (boldfacing mine):
OBAMA: “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.”
THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.
What's Buffy making for dinner tonight?
see more Engrish
Uh, Neo-neocon and Jules, I think the scoop for rallying for Scott Brown belongs to Legal Insurrection and Hill Buzz
H/T for video to Hill Buzz: “Get off your butts: MSNBC admits electing Scott Brown will cripple Obama.”
Success has a thousand fathers and failure only one, as the expression goes.* Now that Republican Scott Brown is polling ahead of the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, for the election in Massachusetts on Jan. 19 to fill the Senate seat that fell vacant when Ted Kennedy died, there’s a rush in Right blogosphere to take some credit. Today Jules Crittenden gratefully cites Neo-neocon, who wrote that on Dec. 9 Crittenden correctly predicted the conditions that could rob Coakley of the easy coronation she expected.
I could be wrong because I didn’t comb the entire blogosphere, but I think the scoop for rallying Republicans nationally to support Scott Brown to become the 41st Republican senator, able to stop Obamacare with a single filibuster, belongs to Prof. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, and Hill Buzz, the blog of a group of moderate Democratic gay men in Chicago who campaigned for McCain/Palin after the nomination was stolen from Hillary.
In contrast, Crittenden’s post on Dec. 9, the day after the primary vote in Massachusetts that selected Martha Coakley for the Democrats and Scott Brown for the Republicans, was dripping with disdain for Brown, his chances AND anyone who was determined to fight for his election:
Brown, talking up tax cuts and slamming stimulus hackery, talked about how all the jobs that were created were Democratic hack jobs. Which is among the reasons he’ll lose. In a low-turnout election, the many, many hacks of Massachusetts will call the shots.
… Legal Insurrection rates me “reasonably pessimistic.” I’ll rate him reasonably wishful, as he notes a Brown win would be “something else” and includes a link to donate to Brown.
… A reader just berated me for insulting Ayla (Brown’s daughter, a singer who was a contestant on American Idol). Apologies to the lovely and talented Ayla Brown from an F-list political commentator. My kids are fans and have your autograph from a Hanover Mall appearance. No offense intended though I entirely understand how it could be taken. Sorry, once I get started with the harsh realities …
Same reader also berated me for failing to be sufficiently optimistic about her dad’s chances and for failing to engage in GOP cheerleading. Sorry, once I get started with the harsh realities …
The big news stories in December were Climategate, Obamacare and the Christmas panty bomber. Prof. Jacobson published posts on Dec. 9 and Dec. 17 calling for Republicans to support Brown. Then, on Monday, December 28, Hill Buzz published a post endorsing Scott Brown. The headline read, “One of the hardest things we’ve ever had to write: Martha Coakley should NOT be the next Senator from Massachusetts,” and they made this impassioned plea:
Our decision to support Scott Brown has nothing to do with Martha Coakley.
We would not support any Democrat running for that Senate seat, because for the sake of the country we believe Democrats should lose the 60-vote edge they currently are abusing.
Every Democrat blindly voting for the Healthcare Rationing bill is doing a great disservice to this nation. They have not read this bill. They do not know what’s in it. They are not executing their sworn duties as representatives of the people to work in their best interests. This is a pork-laden bill filled with hundreds of millions in bribes. It is a bill that will, for the first time in history, usurp the Constitution to force Americans to purchase products against their will. It is a bill that dictates how Americans can spend their own money. It is a bill that will eliminate the Flex Spending Accounts so many families we know of depend on to make ends meet in their household budgets.
It is a tragedy of legislation, rushed through Congress for no valid reason. Instead of behaving in a considered and responsible way, Democrats are ramming this junk through the Senate at full speed while they have those 60 votes. They know that, without that 60-vote edge, they would never be able to wreck the havoc they intend for this country.
So, it is thus with a very heavy heart that we say, clearly, that Martha Coakley must be defeated — this time — in her bid for the Senate.
Coakley has said she will vote the party line on the Healthcare Rationing Bill. That’s enough for us to say she should not be installed in the Senate next month.
Democrats should not have more than 59 votes, so that bills this massive and economy-changing cannot be shoved through in secret in the dead of night.
Support Scott Brown, and stop liberal tyranny from destroying this nation, while we still have a chance to do some damage control.
This was an about-face from Hill Buzz’s post supporting Coakley for Senate published on Oct. 1. After explaining their change of heart, Hill Buzz continued to inspire people to donate to Brown’s campaign and phone bank for him. They also made sure to get ahead of a possible negative that Coakley could use: Brown posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine when he was in law school. And even I can tell the man is smokin’ hot. Hill Buzz made this photo an asset by nicknaming Brown, “Hottie McAwesome.” (Imagine the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over that at the Coakley HQ!)
It looks like Jules Crittenden picked up the story on the GOP’s abandonment of Brown from the Boston Herald, where he is an editor, on Dec. 29, the day after Hill Buzz’s endorsement. Also on Dec. 29, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Prof. Jacobson wrote posts about Crittenden’s story on Brown and his importance as the 41st vote against Obamacare and the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda for America.
If Scott Brown wins the Senate race in Massachusetts on Jan. 19, it will be called the Massachusetts miracle, but I believe it began with the love-of-country and determination to fight regardless of overwhelming odds of Prof. William Jacobson and the dear gay boyz at Hill Buzz.
P.S.
Dear Moe Lane also has been quite the staunch supporter for Brown but he does not have an archives plug-in so it’s not easy to go back and see when he first started posting for Brown.
Update, 1/17/2010, Sun.:
Thanks to dear Dan Collins of POWIP for pointing out that Massachusetts blogger Sissy Willis has been a vocal supporter of Scott Brown since he won the Republican primary on Dec. 8 (and probably before, I didn’t check her archives). And I can’t resist adding that dear Little Miss Attila linked Hill Buzz’s campaign in support of “Hottie McAwesome” on December 31.
Update, 1/17/2010, Sun.:
Over at Neo-neocon’s today a commenter and the eponymous blogger note that I “muffed” this saying: failure is an orphan. I actually do have dysphasia, although I usually Google my way out of it.
Sarah Palin is my beat at Newsreal blog
Yesterday I began covering former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as my beat for David Horowitz’s Newsreal blog. My post about her debut last night on The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News as a news analyst went live a couple of hours ago. It begins as follows:
From the first moment of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s debut as a Fox news analyst on The O’Reilly Factor last night, the deathknell began to sound for the Leftist meme that she is dishonest, not intelligent and not ready to be president of the United States.
Gov. Palin’s move to Fox News is a win-win because the leading cable news network now has a telegenic and eloquent insider with a proven ability to generate high ratings while Gov. Palin now has direct access to the public and plenty of ability to prove herself. Why, it might just be that last night was the moment the planet began to heal and the oceans to still be primarily influenced by sunspots and tides because there’s no such goshdarn thing as anthropogenic global warming.
I do expect my coverage of Gov. Palin to focus on her positive qualities because I do not think people understand them. I also think hardly anyone writes about them in a useful way — or at all. So those are what I think deserve the emphasis. People who want to read negative coverage about her have plenty of alternatives, so that niche is saturated while I am virtually alone, except for Hill Buzz.
I also expect my coverage of Gov. Palin will be about explaining her “common sense conservatism” to help people understand how much more it can do for them than the elitist, statist totalitarianism of the Left, however much they sneer at the talents of a woman who has risen high in politics and become a multi-millionaire by dint of her own efforts while they worship a man who thinks money comes from rich people rather than creativity and the incentive of getting to keep the fruits of one’s labor.
A Conservative Lesbian celebrates its first birthday today
A year ago today I was seized with the passion to make the leap from reading blogs to writing one. I started with a free WordPress blog, but quickly went the self-hosted route so my first post here is dated January 25, 2009.
In terms of passion, joy, enthusiasm and good luck — and a feeling that I am fulfilling my destiny — this experience is comparable to the amazing sequence of events that brought my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, into my life.
I am grateful to my fellow conservative and libertarian bloggers who embraced me without reserve and mentored me. I am especially grateful to the following:
Joy McCann of Little Miss Attila, whose invitation to coffee gave me the courage to sign up for CPAC 2009; Stacy McCain, of The Other McCain, who was the gracious subject of my first post last March to receive an Insta-Lanche, and his co-blogger, Chris “Smitty” Smith; Jennifer Lawson, The Bloggess; Prof. Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit; Prof. William Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection; Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit, of Hot Air; Michelle Malkin (for accepting my trackbacks); my dear Hill Buzz boyz for being one of the first to put this blog in their blogroll the way I prefer to be listed (“A Conservative Lesbian”); Roger Simon and Aaron Hanscom of Pajamas Media; David Horowitz, Jamie Glazov and David Swindle of Newsreal blog — and for inducting me into the Sisterhood of the Feminist Hawks; Daniel Blatt, of Gay Patriot; Andrew Breitbart; Charles Winecoff, of Big Hollywood; Serge Gor; Matthew Vadum; Moe Lane; Jimmy Bise; Cassandra of Villainous Company; Dan Riehl; The Anchoress (for accepting my trackbacks); No Sheeples Here — I’m sure there are more, but I’ll have to finish this post later.
Update, later on 1/12/2010, Tues.:
I had to stop writing earlier to go to an appointment and as I was heading to my car I realized that I hadn’t yet thanked my dear, gentle readers. So now I am thanking you. You all are the best. I am grateful to each and every one of you.
Looking forward to 2010, I will continue blogging here because it gives me so much joy. I also will cover Gov. Sarah Palin for David Horowitz’s Newsreal blog starting tonight. Eric Hoffer and his book, The True Believer, are fundamental to the point of view over there — and I was raised on Eric Hoffer, so it’s a good fit. By the way, this has been brewing since I sided with Phyllis Chesler against Naomi Wolf over burqas, and they promptly welcomed me into the Sisterhood of the Feminist Hawks, so it is not related to my favorable review of David Horowitz’s latest book, A Cracking of the Heart. I also will continue to submit pieces periodically to Pajamas Media — they have been very good to me and I like them a lot.
I also have other writing projects I’ll be working on to generate my own income. I’m currently working for room and board as my father’s caregiver. I am glad to be making his life as long and happy as I can. And I feel fortunate to have meaningful work to do while I am recovering my health and re-starting my writing career.
Thank you, dear gentle readers — I wish you every blessing always and I look forward to continuing to blog for you!