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CPAC: Gay GOP Group GOProud Booted, So Breitbart And Buddies Boycott

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It should come as no surprise that the rabidly-right-wing wingnuts at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which hosts an annual conference with a strange consortium that is part Ron Paul Libertarians, part American Family Association hate groups, part Ann Coulter/Andrew Breitbart media whores, part Joe and Jane Average older Republican, part Tea Party patriot extremists, and part news media, (not to mention almost entirely white,) doesn’t particularly like homosexuals. In fact, I think they hate homosexuals.

So, it should also come as no surprise that CPAC’s new board has booted the gay Tea Party group GOProud from being able to co-sponsor the conference, which they have the past two years. Of course, GOProud is welcome to attend, like everyone else, but they cannot be officially affiliated with CPAC or the American Conservative Union, which exists primarily to manage the annual CPAC event.

Media mogul Andrew Breitbart, who sits on GOProud’s board, has decided he will not attend next year’s CPAC in response to the booting, as it were, and now his followers are, well, following.

“The decision means GOProud won’t be able to pay to have a booth at the exhibition hall, nor will the organization have its name appear on promotional materials for CPAC 2012,” writes Chris Johnson at The Washington Blade.

“Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for the American Conservative Union, said ACU Chair Al Cardenas took the issue of GOProud’s participation — as well as other groups — to the board ‘given controversies surrounding a few CPAC 2011 co-sponsors’ and ‘concerns raised by a number of our board members’.”

“GOProud’s participation at CPAC had incurred the wrath of social conservative groups that pledged to boycott sponsorship of the event over the gay conservative group’s involvement. These groups include Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, Liberty Counsel and Liberty University. In 2011, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a social conservative and Tea Party favorite, also declined to participate at CPAC.

“Also last year, GOProud board chair Chris Barron took heat from conservatives after he described Cleta Mitchell, chair of the ACU Foundation, as “a nasty bigot” in an interview. Barron apologized, but ACU chair Cardenas told FrumForum that “it’s going to be difficult to continue the relationship” with GOProud and expressed disappointment in the group’s reaction to the furor over its participation at the event.”

Roger Simon of Pajamas Media is boycotting, as is someone named Ted Frank.

World Net Daily (yes, I know,) also mentions, “a campaign assembled by Americans for Truth’s Peter LaBarbera and Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber to object to GOProud’s participation.

“Barber had objected to GOProud’s endorsement of ‘gay marriage’ as well as its demand that homosexuality be promoted in the U.S. military through the repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ practice’.

GOProud has to take part of the blame for getting the boot. After all, when someone like Chris Barron, GOProud’s co-founder, calls important people nasty names, they’re not too excited about jumping up and supporting the nascent organization.

(Note to GOProud’s Barron and LaSalvia: you actually do catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Not that you really care. If those two spent as much time working for equality as they do bashing “the gay left” as they call us, no doubt we’d all be farther along.)

Interestingly, CPAC also barred the notorious John Birch Society from co-sponsoring CPAC — but no one’s boycotting CPAC for that reason. It’s nice to know that some of the right-wing extremists out there like “the gays” more than “the crazies.”

So now, GOProud is doing what it does best: playing the victim and trying really, really hard to get lots of attention. And when you have a media whore and man who will say or do just about anything, someone like Andrew Breitbart, on your board of directors, how hard could that be? Breitbart is boycotting CPAC, and all the media whorettes who want to get in Breitbart’s good graces are joining in.

Fred Karger, the openly gay Republican presidential candidate, in The Guardian, writes, “If conservative political conference CPAC persists in its anti-gay policy, all Republican presidential candidates should boycott it,” and adds this little dash of insight into the party of supposed free markets and free ideas (sorry, Reason,)

“Alberto “Al” Cardenas, the new head of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has taken bigotry and hypocrisy to new heights. I believe I was a victim of his organisation’s prejudice earlier this year when I wanted to purchase a booth at their annual CPAC gathering in Washington, DC. My credit card information was taken last December, and I was told that I was in. Then, mysteriously, three weeks later, I was told by phone that they had “sold out”. Funny, others were purchasing booths right up until the conference began in mid February.”

Karger, so innocently, adds,

“How can anyone running for president attend, let alone speak at CPAC’s September Florida event or the February conference next year? It is tantamount to endorsing discrimination against an entire class of Americans.”

You really have to smile when you see the gay Right realize what the gay Left has seen all along. What? Discrimination against an entire class of Americans? You mean, like DOMA, And DADT, and no ENDA, and…

Politico’s Ben Smith says GOProud’s “exclusion has become the kind of cause celebre to the libertarian right that its inclusion was to social conservatives,” and adds,

“Cardenas met today, I’m told, with the executive director of the gay conservative group GOProud, Jimmy LaSalvia. It was, a person briefed on the event said, “not a good meeting.” The representatives of GOProud were furious to learn from WorldNetDaily and the Daily Caller that they’d been dropped from the organization, and were also none-too-thrilled about Cardenas’s wife’s recent comments on the subject.”

Comments?

Oh, yes:

“Unfortunately, the biggest victory of the gay movement has been to shift the debate from a ‘behavior’ to identity, whereby those that oppose homosexuality are considered bigoted or hateful. They have equated it to the Civil Rights Movement, seeking to obtain the rights granted under the constitution to all races or religions. Sexual behavior does not fall into either category!!!!It is not about homosexuals wanting to enter into a ‘marriage’ so much as it is about them wanting to gain acceptance into mainstream society by redefining the traditional definition of the institution.”

That was just a small portion.

Meanwhile, in an amusing piece, Alana Goodman writes, “If CPAC caves to outside controversy and blocks one contentious group from participating, then it sets a precedent that could lead to other organizations getting blackballed in the future.”

Funny how “the gays” are always the ones who get blackballed.

 

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‘Bootlicking’: Johnson Ripped for Shrugging Off Trump Ethics Oversight

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2 hours ago

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May 14, 2025

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Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says he has no concerns about any potentially unethical or unlawful actions being taken by President Donald Trump, arguing that Trump is acting “in the open.” Defending his decision not to pursue oversight, Johnson baselessly claimed that aggressive investigations into then-President Joe Biden were justified because his allegedly concealed actions were integral to what the Speaker called the “Biden Crime Family.”

Johnson’s top three committee chairmen were tasked with investigating President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and on his watch a formal impeachment investigation was opened. The committees in part relied on a former FBI source who later admitted he had made up the lies about President Biden and his son.

Speaker Johnson on Wednesday was asked whether he is “equally concerned about President Trump’s family’s business dealings, especially given the fact that he is in a region now where his family has billions of dollars in investments in Doha, Saudi Arabia, and the fact that he has a crypto business now, where he’s auctioned off access to the White House for the highest bidder in his meme coin?”

“Look,” Johnson replied, “there are authorities that police the executive branch, ethics rules. I’m not an expert in that. My expertise is here in the House, okay?”

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“I will say that the reason that many people referred to the Bidens as the ‘Biden Crime Family’ is because they were doing all this stuff behind curtains in the back rooms,” Johnson alleged. “They were trying to conceal it, and they repeatedly lied about it, and they set up shell companies into a family was all engaged in getting all on the dole.”

“Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open, they’re not trying to conceal anything,” Johnson insisted.

NBC News’ Chief Capitol Hill Correspondent Ryan Nobles, who had asked the initial questions, informed Speaker Johnson that “the investment in the meme coin, those folks, are not transparent. We do not know who those people are.”

But Johnson vowed ignorance, while insisting that others have oversight responsibilities.

“I don’t know anything about the meme coin thing. I don’t, don’t know. I can just tell you that, I mean, President Trump has had nothing to hide. He’s very upfront about it, and and there are people who watch all the ethics of that, but, I mean, I’ve got to be concerned with running the House of Representatives, and that’s what I do.”

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“Congress has oversight responsibility, but, um, I think, so far as I know, the ethics are all being followed, so…”

Critics blasted the Speaker.

“Congratulations to @SpeakerJohnson for making Chapter 15 of Profiles in Sycophancy!” said U.S, Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), mocking the Speaker. “Can’t believe it took you this long. ‘It’s not crime if it’s out in the open except for the memecoins I don’t understand’ isn’t a legal opinion. It’s bootlicking.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Trump to Middle East: ‘You’re the Envy of the World’

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4 hours ago

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May 14, 2025

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President Donald Trump, during his visit this week to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, declared the Middle East “the envy of the world,” “the center of the world,” while asserting that the region’s leaders know exactly “where my loyalties lie.”

The “America First” president, aiming to sign defense and economic agreements worth about $2 trillion, also announced the end of sanctions on Syria. Trump has also been lobbying to accept a controversial and possibly unconstitutional gift from Qatar of a $400 million “flying palace” luxury jetliner, to use as Air Force One.

“I’ve seen tremendous unities, tremendous friendship, and the whole world is watching the Middle East, and many are watching with envy,” Trump declared, according to video from Bloomberg News, as he lavished praise on the Middle East leaders. “You have something very special going on. Incredible opportunities are within reach for this region.”

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Trump, who offered no praise for the U.S., blasted his predecessor repeatedly during his remarks, telling the Middle East leaders that “the Biden administration created havoc and bedlam by basically being incompetent, but by empowering Iran and its proxies, sending them billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars.”

“Everybody at this table knows where my loyalties lie. Always have,” he insisted. “They’ll never waver, never. And we’ll stand with our friends and partners, and we’ll confront the aggression that threatens us all.”

Trump claimed that “we have a mandate from the American people, the likes of which people haven’t seen for 129 years. They say it was the most consequential election in America in 129 years. So that sounds like a long time, so we’ll take that.”

“It’s all started on November 5th with the election, but a stable and peaceful Middle East will be a successful and prosperous Middle East, and that’s what you’ve done, and that’s what you’re doing. And, you know, it’s amazing because when I was here last, it was fine, it was doing good, and then I see the things that you’re doing here, and in your countries, it’s just an incredible, what you’re doing is the whole world is talking about it. The whole world is watching us,” Trump said.

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“The whole world, the whole world is talking about what you, what you’re doing and you’re the envy of the world together. We’re in this room and we’re going [to] forge a Middle East that well be a thriving commercial, diplomatic and cultural crossroads at the geographic center of the world. That’s what it is. It’s the center of the world.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Image via Reuters

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‘Wild Negative Coattails for Trump’: Omaha Elects Its First Black Democratic Mayor

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6 hours ago

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May 14, 2025

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Voters in Omaha, Nebraska just elected their first Black mayor, Democrat John Ewing Jr., in a historic shift, ousting a three-term Republican who has held that office since 2013. Some political observers say it’s the shape of things to come, as President Donald Trump’s favorability continues to drop and prices continue to rise, with more instability — economic and political — expected ahead.

Ewing, a former deputy police chief, beat Jean Stothert, who tried to embrace the MAGA agenda without fully embracing President Trump.

“Omaha’s Republican mayor Jean Stothert was a 12-year incumbent, once seen as untouchable,” observed Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott. “Then she endorsed Trump, ran on anti-trans bathroom bans — and lost decisively. A clear rejection of MAGA at the ballot box.”

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Calling it “a fresh test of voter attitudes in a politically competitive slice of the country,” The Washington Post described Stothert as “a formidable opponent,” whom “Democrats sought to tie…to President Donald Trump’s unpopular agenda — another warning sign for Republicans in a critical battleground area.”

The New York Times, describing Omaha as “a politically divided city that has outsize importance in presidential elections,” reported that “the race provided an opportunity for strategists from both parties to gauge voters’ moods — even if much of the campaign focused on municipal nuts-and-bolts issues like street paving, crime and a planned streetcar.”

“Another example of a red to blue flip,” U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said. “Voters are angry at Republicans who are enabling the harmful policies of Trump.”

Kamala Harris won Omaha’s single electoral vote by about five points. Ewing, with results not yet official, appears to be winning by about ten points.

“Democrats just beat the longest-serving incumbent mayor in the country in Omaha, Nebraska, where I grew up,” declared Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, a former Harris advisor. “Jean Stothert was considered unbeatable, and they did it. That’s how much of a drag Trump is right now.”

“Wild negative coattails for Trump,” Nellis noted, and called it “a political shockwave,” where “Republicans are panicking.”

Watch Ewing’s victory speech below or at this link.

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