Will this be the year of Massachusetts Republicans? Sean Bielat sure hopes so. The guy looking to unseat Rep. Barney Frank says his greatest ally is, just like Martha Coakley in the Scott Brown race, his own opponent. Barney Frank is a jerk, and Bielat is going to exploit it.
“He’s abrasive. Every time he comes and speaks in the district it works for me. I want him speaking nonstop,” says Bielat, an active duty Marine, where he’s a major. “I think support for Barney is softer than people imagine. He hasn’t had a serious challenger since 1984, nobody who’s raised money. If we can’t do it this year, this guy’s going to be in there till he retires.”
Indeed! Because Frank is so entrenched in the Hill, he’s got access to vast swaths of campaign cash. But just because any Republican now comes along to challenge a Democrat, must everyone be concerned as Coakley (wasn’t)?
The Artist
Barney Frank is a jerk! It’s time for a new direction.
Kyle24
Barney needs to go.
Michael in San Jose
Since when have active duty personnel been allowed to run for federal political office?
Barney Frank may be a jerk, but compared to members of congress who belong to the “Family”, whose sole purpose is to take over the American government and turn it into an Ayatollah, Taliban style Theocracy he looks and sounds like an angel. God Bless Barney…
Cam
Well I’d rather see Barney be challanged in the primaries, but he is a jerk and he gives cover to the homophobes on the Hill by being their pet gay. It hasn’t escaped notice that one of our biggest legislative struggles now is to repeal DADT…legislation that Frank wrote!
delurker
Love Barney. He’ll make quick work of this dink.
The teabaggers are apoplectic at Scott Brown because he voted for cloture on the jobs bill which is mostly tax breaks, and that’s COMMUNIST11!one! They, as usual, over playing their hand thinking that any foaming-at-the-mouth teabagger can be elected anywhere.
RM
Frank’s district went for Martha Coakley 3:1. There are no Teabaggers in Newton or Brookline.
Scott Brown does not have coattails for this guy.
delurker
@RM: “Scott Brown does not have coattails for this guy.”
SB went from hero to zero in lightning speed. I can’t imagine what’ll happen when he votes for Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee.
Paschal
Go ahead everyone. Support conservative homophobes and push out the only people who will even care to hear your pleas. While you’re at it, get rid of Barack Obama who helped get hate crimes to cover sexual orientation and supports other pro-gay measures and elect Rush Limbaugh all because Barack Obama isn’t pro-gay enough. Let’s replace Governor Paterson with Maggie Gallagher and Senator Gillibrand with Bill O’Reilly. All because Democrats aren’t pro-gay enough. Well they’re about a million times better than the Republicans.
DG
@Paschal: The Democrats may be better than the Republicans on gay rights, but I’m not much better
Jaroslaw
Why is everyone so anti-Barney? I’ve read a lot about him and there is definitely some stuff that is not kosher,(LIKE ALL POLITICIANS) but mostly he’s okay. He’s done some pretty amazing stuff or is that all in the past?
Cam
No. 8 · Paschal said…
Go ahead everyone. Support conservative homophobes and push out the only people who will even care to hear your pleas.
__________________
Barney Frank wouldn’t listen to a word gays said until we boycotted his DNC fundraiser. He didn’t sign on to the first bill to repeal DADT and put pressure on Alcey Hastings to pull a gay rights bill earlier this year…..with friends like that…
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Barney was dragged out of his whorehouse closet kicking and screaming. Now he is just another whiney politico fart enjoying the sound of his own voice. Like many a politician, Frank has a terrible case of “not invented here” where he opposes LGBT issues that he did not initiate.
My biggest issue with Frank is how he worked against same-sex marriage. He opposed the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling in favor of marriage equality, he support the failed attempt by the legislature to install civil unions to replace marriage equality, and he remained silent and did nothing to help marriage equality proponents prevent the Massachusetts legislature from attempting to override the Court’s decision with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
In other areas, Frank is as much to blame for the lack of oversight on Wall Street and the economic collapse as many other politicians bought off by investment banking.
*****************************
But Queerty, who the fuck is Sean Beilat and what issues does he support and oppose? Fine he thinks Frank is the blowhard that he is, but what about Beilat himself. While I’d be happy to see a progressive gay/lesbian/trans take on Frank for the Democratic nomination, Queerty, you have provided no information as to whether Beilat would be an improvement or is he a wingnut Maggot Gallagher minion?
Also, how is it possible for active duty service men or women to serve in Congress? While reserves work in both the private and public sectors and can be elected officials, I was of the opinion that active duty service members where full time on the job working within their military branch.
Cam
@No. 12 · Mike in Asheville, nee “in Brooklyn”
Excellent Post!!
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
@Mike in Asheville, nee “in Brooklyn”
Agreed, good post.
Barney Frank has turned into a homophobe – the gay-enabling kind. He will lose his seat to any serious challenger because financial oversight (or lack thereof) happened on his watch!
jason
What has Barney Frank ever done for gay rights in all these years? I can’t think of anything. He’s traded on being “gay” but has delivered little of value to our community. Now he seems to be covering for Obama’s lack of action on DADT.
We need to remember that Barney is no action man when it comes to gay rights.
jason
The Democrats are dishonest. Their so-called embrace of the gay rights notion is a publicity stunt designed to get us to vote for them. Wake up, American gays.
schlukitz
No. 10 · Jaroslaw
No doubt, you’re familiar with the old New Yorker comeback…
“Yeah. But what have you done lately?” LOL
B
No. 4 · Cam wrote, “It hasn’t escaped notice that one of our biggest legislative struggles now is to repeal DADT…legislation that Frank wrote!”
Would you care to provide a citation for that claim? What I found – http://www.towleroad.com/2009/03/military-suppressed-evidence-critical-of-gay-ban-says-author.html – attributes DADT to several individuals:
General Robert Alexander essentially wrote it.
Senator Sam Nunn was the chief Congressional architect.
Professor Charles Moskos was “the academic architect of the policy”
Admiral William Crowe supported it and subsequently changed his mind (quite recently).
Admiral John Hutson supported it and recently admitted that they “exaggerated” risks about unit cohesion while “minimizing the true religious and cultural basis of their opposition”.
Barney Frank was not mentioned. The article mentions “Frank” several times, but that is Nathaniel Frank, the author of a book opposing DADT (the article summarizes that book). It seems a number of people let their prejudices interfere with their jobs and some of the people who were involved are admitting precisely that.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 18 B
[I am by no means a Frank apologist; just read my post @No. 12. I do believe, however, that accuracy is important so that issues can be more fully understood.]
B, your post raised a good question, so I did a little research via Google. The original DADT policy was an administrative decision by executive order from Clinton. As C-I-C, Clinton drew upon the the White House counsel and the Pentagon to draft the order.
Later, Congress determined to make the policy into law. The House bill was written by Ron Dellums, an ultra-liberal Democrat from Berkeley/Oakland who was then the chairman of the House Armed Service Committee. [I attended Cal Berkeley and continued to live in Berkeley/Oakland 1978-90; Dellums has a very long, strong, and true supporter of LGBT issues since before I arrived in Berkeley; today he is the mayor of Oakland.]
There were no co-sponsors to the bill. The Senate version was sponsored by Sam Nunn, longtime Democrat stalwart, who believed that HE should have been elected president though he lacked the balls to challenge G.H.W. Bush’s reelection, planning to run for the open seat after G.H.W. Bush’s “2nd term.” With Clinton’s win, though, Nunn became an obstructionist.
Barney Frank voted for the DADT legislation in the House version and in the House/Senate conference bill (the final legislation that works out differences in bills between the two houses).
While Wikipedia states that Frank attempt to promote compromise legislation, he did not offer any amendments; his one failed amendment was regarding DoD funding of military having nothing to do with DADT.
At the time, the only national voice vehemently opposed to restrictions against lesbian/gay service members and arguing to end all restrictions including DADT was then former Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president. Goldwater was never a religious conservative and became an outspoken supporter of LGBT issues after his grandson came out to him.
****************
DADT was a Clinton sellout of the LGBT community that rallied to support him. Clinton was dealing with health care reform, facing issues over “Travelgate”, and the Vincent Foster suicide, etc. Gays in the military was becoming a lighting rod for the Republicans; who, 1 years after DADT became law, took control of the House. Yes, it was a serious problem for Clinton. However, as my boyfriend shouted at Clinton apologists at the 1994 HRC fundraiser in SF, “Do the right thing!” it was Clinton’s utter failure at showing “presidential” leadership for allowing gays/lesbians to serve openly in the military, that boxed him into the corner he himself created.
While Frank was not in an easy position, leadership is when one rises to the occasion and puts out s full effort for their beliefs. Frank was, for all intents and purposes, a supporter of DADT, with the belief that accepting crumbs was better than nothing. Frank was wrong. It has now been 16+ years of DADT, and those crumbs digested in 1993 have kept government sponsored homophobic discrimination LEGAL enabling wingnut homophobes to constantly harass the LGBT community.
schlukitz
A very thoughtful and excellent post, Mike.
B
No. 19 · Mike in Asheville, nee “in Brooklyn” – thanks for posting additional information on it. It seems Cam’s claim
that Barney Frank wrote DADT is BS. Instead, Frank voted for
it, probably reluctantly, as what he probably thought was the
best compromise achievable at the time.
So, we can criticize him (in hindsight) for being wishy-washy or maybe for making a bad decision, but he didn’t come up with DADT or push it. There’s a tendency these days in American politics to demonize the opposition. That really has to end. We should criticize a politician for what he/she actually did, without exaggerating it.
Jaroslaw
Thanks Schlukitz – yes I’ve heard the expression “what have you done for me lately.” 🙂
OK DADT has turned into a disaster, and the Clintons weren’t perfect and even sell outs sometimes I suppose.
But would the alternative have been better? And what were the politics of the time? It seems not long ago a constitutional amenmdment at the federal level banning SSM was a very real threat.
Laws and court precedents build on each other, Barney knew that; it turned out well in Massachussetts but it could have just as easily gone the other way.
B
No. 22 · Jaroslaw “OK DADT has turned into a disaster, and the Clintons weren’t perfect and even sell outs sometimes I suppose. But would the alternative have been better? And what were the politics of the time? It seems not long ago a constitutional amenmdment at the federal level banning SSM was a very real threat.”
There’s a theory that DOMA stopped an effort to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages (much harder to undo than a regular law), and that Clinton signed it because (a) it was passed in part in the hope that Clinton would veto it and give Dole a campaign issue and (b) a veto would be overridden anyway. So Clinton took the easy way out to win the election, although the outcome probably would have been the same regarding DOMA regardless.
Meanwhile the DADT policy was supposed to be “DADTDP” (Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue), but the “don’t pursue” part seems to have been ignored. It could have turned out better than it did – if “don’t tell” mostly meant “don’t go into the gory details about your sexcapades last Saturday night when talking to your straight peers, and especially not when talking to your commanding officer.”
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
@No. 19 · Mike in Asheville, nee “in Brooklyn”
Via Google, huh? I thought you were a Bing man!
BTW – Vote Green Party!
Nancy
—
545 vs 300,000,000
EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does..
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 apparently inept selfish human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want.. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red ..
If the Army &Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems..
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it……….. Is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren’t so darned true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid.
Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me
to my doom…’
When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge T ax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Ser vice FeeTax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge=2 0Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the hell happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’
And I still have to ‘press 1’ for English!?
I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!
GO AHEAD – – – BE AN AMERICAN!!!
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Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now.
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Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. =
B
No. 25 · Nancy wrote, ” 545 vs 300,000,000″ … poor attempt at
humor.
To really skewer politics, try this one:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/12/06/ED15883.DTL
(It’s about Tom Ammiano’s runoff election with Willie Brown in San Francisco. The Republicans, who loathed Willie Brown, had to give Willie Brown campaign contributions because Willie Brown was by far the more conservative of the two, and Willie just laughed all the way to the bank. Ammiano kicked off his campaign by riding down Market Street from the Castro in a pink Cadillac convertible while wearing a boa [if I remember correctly], which you can see on a DVD, “See How They Run”. The trailer is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R5c6GfoLsY but there are multiple films with the same name, apparently.)
aPOA
I have had it with Barney and Rangel! Both left wingers with no consideration for there constituants what so ever.
ricki
Scott beat Martha in barney’s district which includes more than Brookline and Newton
Barbara
Barney Frank was in bed with Fannie & Freddie and even lied to Congress to protect them. Boys, get off your knees and try to think of the future of your country for a change. Remember, life doesn’t revolve around all you queens.
Nate
What about Earl Sholley? Sean looks great on paper and has a great story but he’s only been living in Massachusetts for 3 years. Earl Sholley has been here for the long haul, has more name recognition, a better public speaker and more life experience. I think Sholley will appeal more to the average Joe who is looking for someone to replace Frank with a good common sense perspective. Sholley For Congress