• Barack Obama,  Gay Marriage

    President Obama Evolves and Now Supports Gay Marriage

    May 9, 2012 /

    Is anyone surprised about a flip-flop on gay marriage?

    President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.

    In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this place, based on conversations with his own staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and conversations with his wife and own daughters.

    “I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts, in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday. Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer.”

    The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

    So, President Obama whose one in six of his political campaign cash bundlers are gay suddenly gets religion. Is this too cynical?

    I mean, really, is there anyone out there who did not think Obama favored same sex or gay, homosexual marriage?

    Well, this certainly will be a contrast with Mitt Romney who supports traditional marriage. But Obama for what it is worth hedged a bit by saying his position is like Republican Dick Cheney’s – he supports the state’s right to define marriage.

    Here is the video link.

  • CA-26,  David Cruz Thayne,  Julia Brownley

    CA-26: Julia Brownley Flip Flops on Support for Israel?

    May 9, 2012 /

    Screenshot from DavidCruzThayne2012

    According to the press release from fellow Democrat David Cruz Thayne:

    Assemblymember Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica), a candidate in the Congressional District 26 race, asserted at a Monday night candidates’ forum: “As I said once, I’ll say it twice, and I’ll say it again, I will defend Israel and oppose nuclear proliferation…and will work hard in Congress to protect [the relationship between the United States and Israel].”

    But in recorded remarks when speaking with Democratic Party activists just last month, Brownley repeatedly stated that she “would not support Israel” if it determined to use force in its attempts to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.

    “The duplicity and double-talk of career politicians like Julia Brownley on this issue should concern all voters in the district,” said Alex Thompson, campaign manager for Democratic candidate David Cruz Thayne. “She is playing the same old political games of telling different groups of voters what they want to hear instead of what she really believes. And since she has lived in Santa Monica the past 25 years, how are Ventura County voters supposed to know which is the real Julia Brownley? The voters of Ventura County deserve better.”

    Here is the video:

    Unless this video is widely disseminated, I see a very limited impact on this race.

    In the meantime, California Assemblywoman Julia Brownley has been racking up the endorsements of national and state Democrats.

    If there was ever much doubt that Assemblywoman Julia Brownley is the choice of national Democratic leaders for an open Ventura County congressional seat, recent campaign developments should have pretty much erased it.

    Late last week, the House Majority PAC, which is raising and spending money to elect Democrats to Congress, began running a cable television ad supporting Brownley, a Democrat who moved from Santa Monica to Oak Park for the race.  The group spent about $156,000 on the ads, which are scheduled to run for a week.

    On Tuesday, California’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, announced they were endorsing Brownley.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Brownley “a champion for education in California.”  Sen. Barbara Boxer said Brownley  could be counted on “to protect California’s environment, women’s health and Medicare for our seniors, which have been under unprecedented attack by the extreme right.”

    There are three other Democrats in the race—Realtor/entrepreneur/CEO Albert Maxwell Goldberg, Oxnard Harbor Commissioner Jess Herrera and independent small businessman David Cruz Thayne.

    Now, all Brownley has to do is make sure that David Cruz Thayne does not siphon off enough votes from Democrats to enable NPP Linda Parks to sneak into second place.

  • Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 9, 2012

    May 9, 2012 /

    The Morning Flap: These are my links for May 7th through May 9th:

    • Wave of violence in Germany over party’s use of anti-Muslim cartoons– GERMANY is beginning to regret its decision to allow a far-right political party to display anti-Muslim cartoons near mosques as part of an electioneering campaign.Spikes in violence at recent gatherings – including a major riot on Saturday that left two police officers seriously injured with stab wounds – have triggered fears of more bloodshed.Courts in Germany took the view that cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed and Allah – both outlawed under Islam – were acceptable in a country where freedom of expression is enshrined in the constitution. But with resistance growing to the tactics of the radical Pro NRW party, Germany is looking to defuse tensions.More than 100 people were arrested at the protest in Bonn on Saturday where the police officers were stabbed in the legs; a further 27 officers were injured. One man has been charged with trying to incite the deaths of three policemen among the crowd of 600 Salafist Muslim demonstrators outside the King Fahd Academy in Bonn.The far-right Pro NRW party has said it intends to send activists to 25 mosques in the run-up to the state election in North Rhine-Westphalia on 13 May, staging protests in Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Wuppertal and Solingen.
    • Roots of Lugar’s Defeat Began Back Home – The tea party, an unsteady movement that was beginning to resemble a wayward ship in 2012, found its north star in Indiana on Tuesday night.
      State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, a victory owing to the incumbent’s inept campaign, the outside groups that lashed him on the air, and a story about his out-of-state residency that would not go away. But well before those issues got a foothold, a grassroots-driven, local movement to unseat Lugar was well under way.
      Sixteen months ago, a collection of tea party organizers met in the city of Tipton. Their goal was to address flaws in the movement that were exposed in 2010, when infighting and competing agendas largely driven by national groups and consultants hindered its ability to make lasting gains. What resulted was “Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate,” a network of 60 tea party groups dedicated to retiring Lugar.
      “We didn’t have the unity [in 2010]. Once we built the foundation of unity, we went out and educated people about Lugar’s voting record,” said Monica Boyer, one of the group’s cofounders.
      The group endorsed Mourdock after a September straw poll showed that he was the preferred choice of conservative activists. National groups like the Tea Party Express that in 2010 were responsible for the rise of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska had yet to enter fray in a major way. The national group FreedomWorks had met with Boyer’s organization, but it didn’t jump in with full force until Mourdock emerged as the consensus candidate.
    • Elizabeth Warren Ancestor Rounded Up Cherokees For Trail of Tears –
    • Will gay marriage haunt Obama in November?– Gay marriage is in the news — because Vice President Joe Biden put it there. He let the genie out of the bottle and got ahead of his boss on an issue the president has been trying to straddle for the last year and a half.President Obama’s coalition — minority voters and young voters — have very different views about gay marriage, evidenced in 2008 in California, when young voters came out to oppose an amendment that would ban gay marriage, while African Americans supported it.And then there’s the money, according to the Washington Post, one in six bundlers — the people who raise the big bucks for the Obama campaign — is gay. They are still raising money for a man who continues to twist himself into a pretzel over gay marriage, and whose White House still can’t figure out how to message it. Why? Because they believe wholeheartedly that he actually supports gay marriage, and if re-elected he will come out in full support of it and flip his position.
    • Christie won’t say whether he’ll seek re-election –
    • Why Dick Lugar lost –
    • Lugar unloads on ‘unrelenting’ partisanship –
    • Carville: Wake up Democrats; you could lose –
    • Obama ‘disappointed’ by North Carolina same-sex marriage ban– President Obama’s campaign said he was “disappointed” that North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the state.”The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples,” Obama North Carolina campaign spokesman Cameron French said, in a Tuesday statement on the vote over Amendment 1.
    • Lugar loss has lessons for Republicans, Democrats –
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 7 & 8, 2012 – Base Voters – Day By Day May 7 & 8, 2012 – Base Voters
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-08 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-08
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 6, 2012 – Phat Future – Day By Day May 6, 2012 – Phat Future
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama and Romney in a Dead Heat – President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama and Romney in a Dead Heat
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » President 2012 Poll Watch: Race Close in 12 Swing States – President 2012 Poll Watch: Race Close in 12 Swing States
    • Capitol Alert: Tobacco firms chip in another $15 million against Prop 29 – RT @CapitolAlert: Tobacco firms chip in another $15 million against Prop 29
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 7, 2012