Check out how the Democrat Congress’ (lack of) action has resulted in a significant spike in USA gas prices since they came to power.  Michelle Malkin did all the work on this one.

Now let’s observe how President Bush’s lifting of the Presidential Executive Order on offshore drilling has impacted the price of crude oil.  (Chart created at GasBuddy.com)

One goes up, the other goes down.

July 17 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell more than $5 a barrel, dropping below $130 for the first time in six weeks, as natural gas futures tumbled and global economic growth slows.

But (not my) Speaker Pelosi’s reaction to Bush’s announcement?

“Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil.”

“The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence.”

She is shameless.

I think most Americans know that we need to drill now, drill here, save money.  Well, the Americans that aren’t beholden to Environmental Wackos, Inc.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In this case, the DC city government is telling the US Supreme Court to stick it.  (h/t - The Corner)

District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected.

Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District’s 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit.

But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.

I’m not really sure it was Obama’s genitals that Jesse Jackson was aiming for.   In fact, it is precisely Jackson’s brand of liberalism has effectively neutered all sense of right-vs-wrong, lawfulness-vs-lawlessness in the past 30 years.  Every thing is morally and legally equivalent in the Libs’ World View.

C’mon Justice Department….. stand up for MY rights for once.  You know, the rights actually WRITTEN IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION and not the ones made up by the ACLU.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Congress enacted the HIV visitor and immigrant ban into law in 1993 at a time when supporters of the ban argued that foreign visitors and immigrants with HIV would flock to the U.S. to seek treatment for AIDS, overloading U.S. health facilities. President Bill Clinton expressed opposition to the ban but chose to sign the bill enacting the ban, which was approved by the then Democratic-controlled Congress, drawing criticism from gay and AIDS activists.

A “Democratic-controlled Congress” passed this ban while a Democrat president signed it into law. For all the talk I hear from the Left about how gay-friendly Bill Clinton was as president, with George W. Bush being the epitome of all that is evil, we once again see that the rhetoric just doesn’t add up. This is not to say that Clinton wasn’t gay-friendly at times or that Bush hasn’t been anti-gay at times as well, and vice versa, but this does put things a bit more into perspective. Let’s see, Clinton signed into law DADT, DOMA, and this HIV travel ban that activists have decried. Given the complete lack of spine and principles the man demonstrated while in office, why exactly should gays consider the former president to be a hero? Seems to me that he was all talk and very little action, well, except for all the wrong actions I guess you could say.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

Let’s see a group with a political agenda urges its supporters to boycott a corporation which supports a cause it opposes. Is that wingnuttery or the free market at work?   In our economy, consumers weigh a number of factors before choosing to purchase a product from a particular supplier. These social conservatives are just exercising their freedom.

But, to Joe, it’s wingnuttery when people reject a corporation for the political stands it takes. So, I assume he’ll be taking Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate to task given his group’s call:

for a boycott of two prominent San Diego hotels because their owner, Doug Manchester, contributed more than $100,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8, the ballot measure that would amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Here, we have the same pattern at work, a group with a political agenda urging its supporters to boycott a corporation whose owner supports a cause it opposes.

They’re both right. If a corporation (or its owner) takes a stand on a controversial political issue, then consumers remain free to consider that support when they choose whether to buy the corporation’s product. That’s called freedom. And ain’t it grand?

But, alas, some liberals call it wingnuttery when conservatives exercise theirs.

Me, I’ll make sure to double my order of Chicken McNuggets next time I’m in McDonald’s.

As retired military officers, we share a natural hesitancy to engage actively in politics. There is a healthy discomfort in our profession with any political involvement because the country rightly depends on our military to support any commander in chief with our best military advice and our actions. But two factors compel us to speak out now and openly support John McCain for President: first, the surprising and inaccurate questioning of his record by some of Senator Obama’s leading supporters; and second, the importance to our national security of winning the war we are fighting.

The United States is confronted by many threats to its security and prosperity. Most significantly, we are engaged in a broad conflict with Islamic extremism against enemies espousing the same radical and violent ideology whose full dimensions the American people first glimpsed on September 11, 2001. Success in this war will require not only victory in the “hot” conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as well a balanced and integrated application of all elements of America’s national power as we work with our allies around the world to marginalize radicals and build a shared vision for peace with moderate Islam.

We are privileged to have had the opportunity to serve this country in uniform for most of our adult lives. We have had the honor of commanding young Americans of the same caliber and tenacity as those who today remain on the front lines, willingly sacrificing their own well-being and security and offering their lives in order to preserve our freedom. They deserve, and the American people demand, leadership of proven character — leadership that will always put America’s interests ahead of personal gain and political party.

It is our experience as former senior military officers that also gives us great concern about certain foreign policy positions staked out by Senator Obama. We are acutely aware that ill-conceived policies will have serious, if not tragic, consequences for military commanders, the troops they lead, and the nation. We are particularly concerned about his public statements, including his call for a withdrawal from Iraq, unconditional talks with the leaders of rogue states, and the return to a law-enforcement approach to protecting our country from terrorists.

This country has learned the peril of treating terrorists and their state sponsors as little more than a law enforcement problem. We are unanimous in our view that the failures of the past should not be repeated, and we believe that John McCain’s long record of national service, and his demonstrated judgment on matters of national security, make clear who can best defend this country abroad, and assure peace and prosperity at home.

Through a lifetime of service in uniform and in Congress, John McCain has consistently displayed the wisdom and courage to do the right thing for America regardless of the cost to him personally. It is for this reason, above all others, that we endorse John McCain for President, and it is for this reason that we stand with him now as he continues his long history of service to this country.

James B. Davis, General, USAF (RET.)
Ronald J. Hays, Admiral, USN (RET)
James L. Holloway, Admiral, USN (RET)
Jerome L. Johnson, Admiral, USN, (RET)
P.X. Kelley, General, USMC, (RET)
James J. Lindsay, General, USA (RET)
John Michael Loh, General, USAF, (RET)
Leighton W. Smith, Admiral, USN (RET)
Carl Stiner, General, USA (RET)
Donald C. “Deese” Thompson, Vice Admiral, USCG, (RET)
Howard B. Thorsen, Vice Admiral, USCG, (RET)

Balance this list with Obama’s key military supporter:  Douglas MacArthur Wesley Clark.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Yup, ol’ Henry is probing the leak of Valerie Plame’s name, even though Patrick Fitzgerald, the aforementioned prosecutor, after a thorough investigation, did not indict anyone for the underlying offense (i.e., that which he was hired to investigate). In other words, there was no crime.

What is interesting here is not just the Democrats endless probing of this story, but the disingenuous coverage in the MSM. In the first version I read, the Associated Press’s Laurie Kellman reported:

They also include notes about the 2003 State of the Union address, during which President Bush made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore to make a nuclear weapon. That information turned out to be wrong.

(I have saved that version as a .pdf.)

Well, in that version, it wasn’t the information that turned out to be wrong, but Ms. Kellman’s reporting. While the White House may have retracted those remarks, the evidence shows that Bush was not lying. Here’s the president said in that 2003 address: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” And the evidence, including a British intelligence review of their government’s claim, backs him up.

So, AP changed the paragraph:

Other records sought by the House committee include notes about Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, during which he made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore in Africa to make a nuclear weapon. In the spring of 2003, [Joe] Wilson claimed publicly that he had gone to Africa for the CIA to investigate the report and advised the administration it was false months before Bush cited it in the State of the Union speech.

That paragraph is true, but incomplete. Wilson did indeed make such public claims. And he had indeed gone to Africa. But, the CIA found his findings (which he delivered orally) lent credence to claims that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake from Iraq. Not just that, Mr. Wilson could produce no evidence that the Administration had even been aware of his report.

Of course if the White House had been aware of Joe’s mission, it would have gotten the CIA’s interpretation–which would have helped confirm the words the president spoke in the SOTU.

I wonder why Ms. Kellman and her editors at the AP chose to leave that out?

So, I rush out, get my groceries and am leaving the store. As is my wont, I take my bags out of the cart to schlep them to my car. At that moment, one bag bursts with groceries scattering. Before I have time to see this as yet another thing going wrong, a middle-aged woman taking note of my troubles, says, “You need help.”

She hurries into the store, gets me a fresh bag and brings it out to me

She didn’t do very much. I mean, she didn’t even offer to help me pick up my groceries (well, I had gathered them all by the time she returned outside). But, just her recognizing that I needed help, saying as much, then doing something on my behalf made all the difference.

Things are going to work out today.

Gotta remember her small gesture the next time I see someone in need of assistance, however small.

UPDATE: Just shared this post with a friend who wrote back sharing an experience of her own which I reprint with her permission:

I love those kind of moments and I always try to pay it forward. I had that in the 99 cent store last week where a soda can I bought started spraying on me. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights! This man just took it from me and ran it outside. I, of course, thanked him. But I still remember the gesture. It reminded me that there is goodness and kindness. When strangers help me, I always try to send them a silent blessing.

Some bloggers opposed to Barack Obama say they suspect Obama’s supporters — with the assistance of Google — may have tried to censor them when the Internet giant froze their Web sites for five days last month.

Seven blogs run by Democrats who oppose Obama’s nomination for the presidency were incorrectly flagged as spam sites by Blogger, the hosting service Google has owned since 2003. Google says it was an automated response from a spam filter.

But the bloggers believe that Web surfers who support Obama took advantage of a loophole in Blogger’s system that allows readers to report spam blogs, the artificial Web sites that abound on the Internet and are used to promote other sites.

“It appears that [Blogger's] policy can be manipulated by people determined to shut down the free exchange of ideas,” said Carissa Snedeker, whose blog, BlueLyon, was among those that were frozen.

“It’s unusual — I’ve never heard of similar blogs of the same nature being shut down like that,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the tech site SearchEngineLand.com.

<….>

“The conclusion that many of us came to was that we were specifically targeted by some over-enthusiastic Obama supporters,” Snedeker said.

The bloggers believe it’s part of a larger campaign to evict them from left-wing sites like the Huffington Post and DailyKos.

(For you younger folk that aren’t allowed to be taught these things in your public schools, here’s a refresher on the Gestapo so you can follow the allusion.)

And can someone remind me again…. what side of the political spectrum will you find the roots of fascism?  Let me help you out — read this book:  Liberal Fascism.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

On the one hand, you have those who refuse to understand some people’s legitimate opposition to gay marriage (see e.g., this post). On the other, you have those who refuse to consider the legitimate religious beliefs of those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

Doesn’t look like we’re going to get a very substantive debate on one of the most serious issues of our time (indeed of any time).

I had intended to blog on that, noting that similarity on both sides of the issues–a refusal to understand the arguments of their adversaries. David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch seem to be two of the noble exceptions in this debate.

Not just that. There seems to be a dichotomy between the leaders of each movement and the people they claim to represent. While sensible people offer serious objections to gay marriage, the leaders of the movement seem to have a problem with any who do not accept Jesus as their personal savior. When most gay people who seek to have their relationships recognized as marriage understand the meaning of the institution, the leaders of the movement for gay marriage do not.

Anyway, I have already said more than I had thought I would be able to write today.

Since getting back from Cincinnati, while my mind has been aswirl with thoughts, ideas and images, I’ve really not been in much of a mood to do any more than scribble them down on a piece of paper as a reference for a future e-mail, post or other writing.  That is, I haven’t really felt up to organizing them into a post.

Perhaps, it’s that I’ve been blogging so intensely since March that as per this post, I need to take a break to focus on other things and recharge my batteries (so to speak).

Anyway, I hope to build on the ideas I addressed in the first part of this post in a subsequent piece because of the importance of marriage to our society. Shouldn’t the debate on extending that ancient institution to same-sex couple be more than a series of insults hurled back and forth?

As I’ve said before, I’m amazed at the lameness of this debate. It’s why I single out Rauch so readily.

And I had wanted to say something about Tony Snow who, like me, is a native of Cincinnati and whose very presence taught me some important lessons about dealing with difficulty and finding one’s way in the world. I found Bruce’s tribute most touching.

Just as he didn’t know Bruce was at the table next to him at the Alexandria restaurant, he didn’t know how much his life had impacted mine. Yet, just as Bruce felt he was in his company, I often felt I had been in the presence of this man even though I had never come close to the man.

I hope to get the chance to explain why in a future post.

Just a wee bit of advice for the future: never, ever drive over a recently filled trench on a construction site right after a torrential rain. Not good. Car’s fine but my pride is still in trauma.

So anyways, how about it?  What if the guy you don’t want to be president actually wins this year? What are you most concerned about them doing if they end up in the Oval Office come 2009? Is there anything good you think they might do that your candidate won’t do himself?

Ok, I’m off to the car wash…

– John (Average Gay Joe)

I wish this emailed press release was a satire, but unfortunately it is not. 

The Legalization of Gay Marriage in California Offers New Opportunity for the Jewelry Industry

NEW YORK, July 14 /PRNewswire/ — There are many reasons for the wedding industry to celebrate California state Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn a ban on gay marriage.

The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law estimates that same-sex weddings could generate up to $683.6 million in additional revenue for the industry over the next three years.

With the current state of the economy, the ruling is particularly good news for jewelers as same-sex couples look to purchase wedding rings and wedding jewelry. Many traditional jewelers have already started to cater to same-sex couples, including Erica Courtney, Catherine Angiel, Furrer Jacot and Neil Lane, who designed Portia de Rossi’s Platinum engagement ring.

Platinum rings are not only the highest quality, but express the importance of a couple’s commitment to each other with the metal that will stand the test of time beyond all other metals.

“As with heterosexual couples, gay couples see their wedding bands as a tangible symbol of their love and commitment to one another,” reports Gay Family Support, a gay-rights organization.

One of the main problems that I have had with the arguments in favor of gay marriage is that the Gay Left has under-stressed love and commitment, and uber-stressed the financial benefits.  Bad idea.

Perhaps if I thought gay activists took the covenant of marriage seriously, I’d be more supportive. 

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

PatriotPartner alerted me to this steamy item.  It was actually in the online version of the Charlotte Observer newspaper.  Mormons Exposed – the calendar!

The 2008 Men on a Mission calendar features twelve handsome returned Mormon missionaries from across the United States who, for the first time ever, have dared to pose bare-chested in a steamy national calendar.

Usually seen riding their bicycles and preaching door-to-door, these hunky young men of faith explode with sexuality on each calendar page. Hand-selected for their striking appearances and powerful spiritual commitment, the “devout dozen” are stepping away from the Mormon traditions of modest dress, and “baring their testimony” to demonstrate that they can have strong faith and be proud of who they are, both with a sense of individualism and a sense of humor.

I’m not quite sure what to think of this — real, satire, little bit of both?

Anyway…. a little-bit of eye candy for you today.  Pass the offering plate!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

So in addition to sparking fear among IndyMac customers, Senator Schumer has cost you and me (taxpayers) potentially billions of dollars from our pockets.

Way to go, jackass!  (Hey, it IS the Democrat Party mascot; Schumer is just representing it well.)

If the IndyMac panic sparks other bank runs, perhaps Schumer will be responsible for millions of other Americans panicking and sparking the return of Hoovervilles SchumerVilles.

(Photo courtesy of BusinessWeek.com)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

So enforcement of US immigration laws is terrorism to Mr. Obama? Oh my. Such an audacious display of shameless pandering could be admirable, as far as practical politics go, if it didn’t betray the utter cluelessness of the man. Ed Morrissey from Hot Air asks a very pertinent question that the Obamessiah needs to answer:

[I]f that’s what Obama thinks of ICE, why has he done nothing about them during the three years he’s been in the Senate?

Well, Senator, what say you? Surely if ICE has behaved in such a nefarious manner as you suggest they have it would be incumbent upon a man of your position to do something to stop them. What exactly have you done about this, other than campaigning for the highest office in the land after only a year’s experience as a junior senator?

– John (Average Gay Joe)

One was a life-long liberal (Russert) and received the lion’s share of fawning media coverage from the entire MSM establishment upon his death; the other a reformed liberal-turned-conservative (Snow) and the newspapers, cable networks and rest of the MSM nearly overlooked his passing this weekend.

But Tony Snow achieved something few others in American politics ever will — he was both in and out of journalism and was at the highest position of government public affairs:  White House Press Secretary.  Had cancer not taken him away from that job, I believe Snow would have re-set the standard for WH Press Secretary in the model of Jim Brady & Larry Speakes — and away from the Mike McCurry and Scott McClellan model.  I will leave you to compare the differences.

I once had dinner with Tony Snow.   He never knew it of course, as my table was next to his at a local hangout in Alexandria, VA called Bilbo Baggins.  But I remember feeling like I was in the company of a just a normal (and very tall!) guy and his wife and friends even though I knew he was one of the “biggies” in American journalism at the time.

The differences between Tim Russert and Tony Snow are many, including how the MSM handled each death much differently.  In my mind, a key difference is that we all probably completely understand what we lost in Russert’s premature death; but few people outside of the FOX family and those in the White House staff will fully appreciate what future void Tony Snow’s death is to our nation and its public discourse.

Tony Snow, RIP.

[RELATED STORY: The Character of Optimism - Bill Kristol, The New York Times]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Based on one law professor who just happens to teach in McCain’s home state (a fact Wolf breathlessly reported), the network tried to resurrect the story that the presumptive Republican nominee may not be constitutionally eligible to serve (he was not born in one of the forty-eight states then admitted to the Union, but in the Panama Canal Zone, then a U.S. territory).

This has been asked and answered so many time that it seems the only reason Blitzer dwelled on this was to created doubts in people’s minds about John McCain. He’s just recycling old news for partisan advantage.

Seems it’s not just MSNBC which has become the “news” network of the Obama campaign.

And then there was Jack Cafferty wondering if Jesse Jackson’s latest outrageous statement would impact the rabble-rouser’s relevance.

C’mon, Jack, Jesse has been making outrageous comments now for a quarter-century and the media has nourished his ambitions by featuring him regularly while Democratic politicians continue to play court to the charlatan. Even your network, Jack, continue to feature the man.

The only reason he’s been “relevant” for so long is because media outlets like CNN fawn on the repeatedly-disgraced liberal activist.

He’ll only become irrelevant when new organizations stop paying attention to him and refuse to put microphones and camera in front of him whenever he demagogues some issue.

Would the media devote as much attention to a conservative preacher who repeatedly made mean-spirited comments and remarks which border on anti-Semitism? How would the media treat a conservative who headed a non-profit organization (which received money from the federal government) and used that organization’s funds to pay his mistress and support the child born of their affair?

WIth his permission, I quote his message verbatim and invite you to offer your own thoughts in the comment section: 

Well, the community idolizes youth and sees older than 30 as “throwaway”, yet worships material goods and lifestyles that rarely ever become affordable until at LEAST one’s late 30s, sometimes later. It’s an unspoken neurosis!

UPDATE: When a reader messaged me his thought, I decided to post on it as I thought it was certain to stir up controversy and conversation — as it has. Which is good because with my trip back home, my return to LA and now my Theater Managing duties at Outfest (it’s not too late to get tickets–if last night is any indication, the program includes a lot of powerful films), I don’t really have much energy to write today, but may yet do a short post on media bias.

Anyway, while thinking about my friend’s comment, I recalled a script I had mapped out which fits the pattern of gay neurosis he described. The story begins with a twentysomething guy trying to buy something expensive in a trendy Palm Springs shop. When he learns he has maxed out his credit card, the clerk lets him buy the item because his partner’s credit is always good here.

This young’un has shacked up with a rich older man to have all the privileges of wealth while still a “hottie.” His older lover tolerates his occasional “extra-marital” flings so long as he’s there when he needs him (sexually and for “display” purposes).

Well, the young man’s life changes when his partner’s next door neighbor, a successful Hollywood agent, lets one of his charity clients, a writer who barely scrapes by, stay at his desert home for a few weeks. Attracted by this man not all that much older than he, the young man reevaluates his life, wondering if he could give up his lifestyle with the rich old man to share a different life with a (relatively) impoverished artist whom he loves.

Those who know me can figure out how it ends (in my imagination). And that ending shows how, I believe, gay men can best address that “neurosis.”

Given the stakes in this campaign, particularly Obama’s inconstancy, especially on matters of national security and his preference for federal profligacy, I would pinch my nose and vote for John McCain (as I voted for W four years ago) if he took Barnes’ advice.

That said, I highly doubt McCain will do anything more than he has already done, signal his opposition to lifting the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy and his support for the traditional definition of marriage. It would be counterproductive for McCain to make it a staple of his stump speech to highlight these positions.

While such rhetoric might galvanize social conservatives, it would do so at the expense of independent voters who have long held a favorable opinion of John McCain. Indeed, it would also upset most rank-and-file Republicans who would rather our party’s presumptive nominee focus on national security, the economy and the importance of appointing conservative judges.  They would see it as a distraction from the real issues at stake in this election.

The judicial issue should appeal to social conservatives without upsetting independent voters. Most people would rather have legislatures than judges resolve controversial social issues.

But, if John McCain dwells on gay issues, many voters would wonder why he’s so obsessed with one group. They might see this obsession as disqualifying him from leading a nation which includes such people.  As I’ve said before, I think most Americans are neither pro-gay, nor anti-gay, but are “anti-anti-gay [and] would rather that . . . politicians didn’t talk too much about gay issues.”

So, Senator, we know where you stand on these issues. I wish you had taken a different position on gays in the military, but so be it. Your record of service and your position on most issues clearly qualifies you to lead this nation, far more so than your opponent’s record qualifies him.  Focus on that record and your policy proposals on national security, the economy, health care, the judiciary and other key issues. And leave us gays alone.

But, I kind of think you had planned to do that anyway.