Monday, October 15, 2012

October 15, 2012

 



NEWSMAX
At 32-0, Gay Marriage Forces 1st Win at Polls
The Associated Press
October, 14, 2012

Irene Huskens has the wedding venue picked out: a charming bed-and-breakfast in southern Maryland. But the wedding is no sure thing.

The plans made by Huskens, a 43-year-old police captain, and her partner, Leia Burks, hinge on whether Marylanders make history on Nov. 6 by voting to legalize same-sex marriage. A "yes" vote, and the wedding is on. A "no" victory? Huskens is loath to consider it.

"There are a lot of Marylanders who want to set the precedent of equality who will vote from their gut for fairness," she said at her colonial suburban home in Prince George's County, where she and Burks are raising two adopted children.

Dating back to 1998, 32 states have held votes on same-sex marriage, and all 32 have opposed it. Maryland is one of four states with Nov. 6 referendums on the issue — and gay-marriage advocates believe there's a strong chance the streak will be broken.

In Maryland, Maine and Washington, it's an up-or-down vote on legalizing same-sex marriage. In Minnesota, there's a measure to place a ban on gay marriage in the state constitution, as 30 other states have done previously.

Groups supporting same-sex marriage, which has been legalized by court rulings or legislative votes in six states and the District of Columbia, are donating millions of dollars to the four campaigns. They're hoping for at least one victory to deprive their foes of the potent argument that gay marriage has never prevailed at the ballot box.

"Our opposition uses this talking point with elected officials and in courtrooms," said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign. The national gay-rights group is contributing more than $4.4 million to the four state campaigns.

"If we're able to win one of these four, it will be a narrative change — proof that the public has moved our way dramatically," Griffin said.

Opponents of gay marriage expect to be outspent in the four states, perhaps by more than 2-to-1 overall, yet they remain hopeful their winning streak can be preserved.

"We definitely can win all four if we can increase the fundraising," said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, which has pumped more than $2 million into the campaigns against gay marriage. Its TV advertising is just beginning, including in the expensive markets that reach Marylanders in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

"We do have a big hill to climb to be able to effectively communicate our message," Brown said. "But we don't need to match the other side — we win repeatedly while being outspent."

All four states are expected to be carried in November by President Barack Obama, who came out in support of same-sex marriage earlier this year.

Read more: http://goo.gl/aXSo
 
 

TOWNHALL
That Bus is Rolling ... Hillary's Headed Under
by Carol Platt Liebau
October 14, 2012

As Eliana Johnson points out over at NRO, this morning, David Axelrod continued to throw Hillary Clinton and the State Department under the bus, doubling down on the story that Joe Biden's royal "we" at the veep debate referred only to a party of two -- himself and the President -- not knowing about the requests for enhanced security In Libya. Apparently, in the Obama presidency, the buck doesn't stop with the President . . . it stops with, in Axelrod's words, "the security folks at the State Department."

What Biden and Axelrod are essentially saying is that Hillary Clinton is thoroughly to blame for this debacle. If she somehow knew about the requests but denied them (and then failed to communicate that fact to the higest levels after the attacks), she's been guilty of a serious breach of judgment. It's really a firing offense (not that President Obama can do that for political reasons . . .) If, on the other hand, those requests were being denied and she didn't even know about them, then she's manifestly incompetent --- also a firing offense.

I've never been a big fan of Hillary Clinton's, but I can hardly believe she'd make the mistake of not doing proper CYA on a matter of this magnitude, especially when thoughts of 2016 lurk in her (and certainly her husband's) brain. It seems to me more likely that the Obama White House generally is just trying to insulate itself from blame by letting all the garbage run downhill into the Secretary of State's office. And in addition, Joe Biden would probably looove to dispatch a potential rival for 2016, since he apparently harbors presidential ambitions (case closed: that means he's absolutely delusional, especially after that bizarre debate outing last week).

Ed Klein is reporting that Bill Clinton doesn't like this turn of events one bit. As I predicted here, the whole Clinton-Obama dynamic is becoming more fascinating by the day. Indeed, "rev the bus -- someone's going under it" . . . but the Clinton are no doubt determined that Hillary isn't going to be the one to take the fall for this.

So expect more details damaging to Obama and Biden slowly to trickle out.
 
Read more:  http://goo.gl/YsPoQ
 
hillary under the bus

THE DAILY CALLER
Tea party leader: Movement’s role ‘more important and more difficult’ if Romney wins
by Alex Pappas
September 28, 2012

If Mitt Romney becomes president, don’t expect the tea party movement to just fade away without Barack Obama in the White House.

“I think that our role becomes even more important and more difficult at that point,” Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin told The Daily Caller in a Thursday afternoon interview at a Washington, D.C. coffee shop.

Martin said the conservative grassroots will embrace the role of making sure Romney sticks to the fiscal principles he’s campaigned on: cutting government and reducing spending.


“I think that if Romney wins,” Martin told TheDC, “that’ll be a huge challenge for us and something that the Republicans won’t quite know how to deal with.”

The tea party coordinator said if Republicans end up with control of both Congress and the White House, and then allow spending to get out of control, tea party activists are “not going to put up with that again.”
“That’s part of what motivated people, what sparked the anger in this movement,” she said.

Asked to describe the general tea party mood heading into the election, she quoted an activist from Florida who told her she feels “grim determination.”

“It’s not excitement and exuberance, it’s just grim determination,” Martin said. “So much is at stake. The president himself has said this election is a choice between two different futures for America. The people in this movement get that.”

Does that mean tea partiers, many of whom have been wary of Romney all along, aren’t excited about the Republican nominee?

“I don’t know that it’s really that,” Martin said after a pause. “People understand where we’re headed and they’re worried. They’re really worried about their country.”

Asked to describe the frequency with which the Romney campaign and Tea Party Patriots interact, Martin said it was not very often.

“We had Romney on a couple tele-town halls, back when we did those as the primary season was in full swing,” she said. “Other than that, we haven’t had any contact with him at all.”

One likely reason for this, she said, is that with her group’s tax status, “there can’t be collaboration or coordination, so I’m not surprised they haven’t reached out.”

But can she envision members of the Tea Party Patriots going to the White House to meet with Romney’s people?

“I haven’t even thought of that at all,” she said. “I really haven’t.”

Jenny Beth Martin is confident of one thing, however. ”Whether they get to know us or not, they’ll know who we are when they’re elected and they don’t cut the spending,” she said.

Read more: http://goo.gl/cisYG

 

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