I see that GOProud, an organization that was billed to be a new kind of Log Cabin Republicans but has turned into a hybrid Uncle Tom apologist for kind-of-pro-gay-but-only-when-people-ask-about-it, not-anti-equality-but-not-gay-bashing-either Republicans, is now working to take down Barney Frank. Today, they've endorsed his challenger, Sean Bielat, and are actively working on his behalf.
This isn't anything new for GOProud. I wrote here about how they're the same organization that endorsed Mary Bono Mack, a woman who voted against DADT repeal, refuses to support an inclusive ENDA, voted to ban same-sex adoption in DC, and refuses to take a position on Prop 8, over the man who would be the first openly gay married parent elected to Congress, Mayor Steve Pougnet. A clear contrast here, but they didn't care. I wrote here how they tripped over each other to defend Rep. Charles Djou (R-HI), who said he voted for DADT repeal because of that serious problem we all know exists in the military:
DJOU: On that particular issue, it comes from personal experience. I have served for nearly 10 years now in the United States Army Reserve. What concerned me about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is that it just simply doesn't work. And I have seen too many instances as an army reservist, soldiers would sign up for a re-enlistment bonus. Get this gigantic sum from the American taxpayer. And then as soon as the unit gets called up to mobilize to Iraq and Afghanistan, they suddenly claim they are gay, with no prior indication of that whatsoever. Get the discharge and keep the bonus. That's wrong, that's unfair and that's why this policy should be changed.
Ohhkay. When LGBT activists rolled their eyes, GOProud ED Jimmy LaSalvia snapped:
"The fact that any on the gay left would analyze why Charles Djou voted for DADT repeal, rather than the fact that he did, shows that they are more interested in affirmation and the group hug than actually delivering results for our community," he said.
Awesome!
So let's look at their press release announcing how exactly kicking Barney Frank out of Congress will advance LGBT equality.
"If we really want to protect gay jobs we don't need to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA], we need to fire Barney Frank," said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud. "From his perch atop the Financial Services committee, Barney Frank was one of the architects of the financial meltdown that cost millions of Americans - including gay and lesbian workers - their jobs.
This is the biggest crock of bullshit. ENDA doesn't really matter, and Barney Frank created the financial meltdown. I'm guessing this is why they closed comments on the website post announcing this- they don't want people saying they're full of it.
They continue:
Sean Bielat is a common-sense conservative who supports policies that will grow our economy, create jobs, and improve the lives of all Americans, but especially gay and lesbian Americans."
"After almost 30 years in Washington, Barney Frank is everything that is wrong with politics today," continued LaSalvia. "Instead of supporting pragmatic approaches to healthcare, social security and tax reform that would help gay and lesbian families, Barney Frank has preferred to play partisan politics and serve as the all-too-willing attack dog for the most radical elements of the Democrat Party."
[...]
"Unlike Barney Frank, Sean Bielat supports free-market healthcare reforms that will make domestic partner benefits more available to gays and lesbians and will give individuals - not the government - more control over their healthcare," said LaSalvia. "Sean also supports reforms to Social Security, creating personal savings accounts allowing gays and lesbians couples to leave their Social Security to their partners or whoever else they choose - reform opposed by Barney Frank."
Sean Bielat believes that marriage is a state issue and opposes a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Bielat strongly backs 2nd Amendment rights, supports efforts to aggressively fight terrorism and the spread of tyrannical anti-gay radical Islamic regimes, and favors school choice.
Basically, GOProud's recipe for finding "pro-LGBT" Republicans to support is :
1. Taking FreedomWorks' altar-of-the-free-market solutions for America- school choice, privatizing Social Security with personal accounts, give every newborn a Social Security card and a gun because it's his/her Constitutional right, etc.- and then throwing in the a random mention of "which will of course benefit gays and lesbians" or some variation thereof to describe the policy
2. Making sure the potential Republican doesn't support lynching gays or anything crazy
3. Finding some random issue they can claim to be a measure of LGBT support, like opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment or "my neighbor down the street is gay" or whatever works
and Voilà! You have a pro-LGBT Republican! Basically, under this model, nearly any policy can be worded to be a pro-LGBT policy, and any Republican can be a pro-LGBT Republican.
I had the privilege of speaking to New Organizing Institute's LGBT Bootcamp a few days ago, and tonight they're holding a party at NGP Software which the GOProud Chairman, Chris Barron, has been invited to attend. Since the Bootcampers learned about the concept of "theory of change" a few days ago, if Barron accepts, I'd love to hear a report on Barron's theory of change regarding how defeating Barney Frank and Steve Pougnet, along with being apologists for Republican homophobes, dismissing the importance of ENDA, and generally sucker-punching our movement out of our best advocates and votes, will advance LGBT equality.
Bringing Republicans on board is one thing. Being another FreedomWorks with gay staffers in charge who justify their work to bring down our best LGBT advocates by throwing around "gays and lesbians" in a press release here and there is another.
Most veterans of left blogistan know that there is a broad and consistent disparity between left and right wing internet presence, in that left wing sites are much more likely and frequent to allow unrestricted (anonymous) or unmoderated but pseudononymous commenters. Many right wing blogs (Instapundit, NRO Online for example) simply do not allow comments at all. Places like Redstate are infamous for how quickly one can be banned for politely deviating from movement conservative dogma. In a famous example Tom Delay briefly allowed comments to his site, and the results were preserved for posterity. There are exceptions but this is a pretty general trend, and pretty indicatative of the deeper ideology that drives the left and right.
Browsing around on the site of Dick Armey's "Freedomworks", we get a healthy reminder of what happens when right wing sites neglect to curtail commenting on their sites. In a post titled "Help Us Defeat Obamacare", Freedomworks boasts of having slowed the progress on Obama's health care reform, highlights approvingly the reluctant blue dogs and asks readers to call several key members of congress. It seems the public at large is not, in fact eager to help.
The very first reply:
Follow inside to see that this was not an aberration.
(h/t Ben P in "Quick Hits") Apparently, Rick Santelli's televised rant was at least 6 months in the making, according to Playboy online, which reports that the website pushing the "spontaneous" outpouring of support for Santelli was registered by name by a rigtwing Chicago media figure back in August. Whatever you think of it, Playboy has a long history of breaking stories the traditional media overlooks, and it looks like they've done it again. Because that's just the first level of the story. The deeper level is that all this pre-planned organizing is backed by the Koch family and their foundations, in much the same way that Richard Mellon Scaife supplied the main push behind Whitewater. Although there are obvious differences, and we're just at the beginning here, there are obvious similarities as well: a big bucks clandestine conservative operation speaheaded by a single family outfit, in coordination with people on the ground of the home state of a popularly elected Democratic President, fronting themselves as part of a populist opposition.
Before getting to the Playboy quote, here's what Ritholtz wrote:
I was interviewed by several journalists last week about Rick Santelli's Rant - my exact quote was it had a "Faux" feel to it. (I haven't seen it in print yet)
What was so odd about this was that Santelli is usually on the ball; we usually agree more often than we disagree. He's been responsible for some of the best moments on Squawk Box.
But his rant somehow felt wrong. After we've pissed through over $7 trillion dollars in Federal bailouts to banks, brokers, automakers, insurers, etc., this was a pittance, the least offensive of all the vast sums of wasted money spent on "losers" to use Santelli's phrase. It seemed like a whole lot of noise over "just" $75 billion, or 1% of the rest of the total ne'er-do-well bailout monies.
All this is, of course, patently obvious to anyone. But Ritholtz isn't just anyone. He's someone money people listen to. And he goes on to quote from Playboy, but mostly just about the first level....
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