A Maryland native, Mehlman may be looking toward a challenge to Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley (D) in 2010.

Outgoing NRSC Chair Elizabeth Dole, R-NC, e-mailed out a fundraising appeal to the committee’s “most loyal and generous supporters” today seeking help digging out from under “an avalanche of post-campaign debt.”
...

Dole said she felt the Republicans could “walk away from this election with our heads head high,” despite the fact that they lost both houses to the Democrats, because “we fought hard in all our U.S. Senate races and still managed to keep the Senate extremely close!” (emphasis added)

Several Republicans on K Street said they were also flabbergasted when they received a solicitation for donations to a legal defense fund for a staffer at the center of the page scandal. The e-mail request for money was sent a day after the election when Republicans were still reeling from the losses.

"I am astonished by the audacity of this," one GOP lobbyist remarked in an e-mail. "They didn't even wait a respectful amount of time so that people could get over their grief over last night's results."

Jay Timmons, senior vice president of policy and government at the National Association of Manufacturers and former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sent the e-mail, entitled "Kirk Fordham's legal expenses," last Wednesday to several K Street lobbyists, asking them to forward it to others.

Fordham resigned as Reynolds's chief of staff last month. Before moving to Reynolds's office, he had been Foley's chief of staff, and when the page scandal broke, claimed he had tried to warn senior staffers in Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) office about Foley's behavior at least a year earlier. Hastert's staffers dispute this, and argument between Fordham's and Hastert's offices over the issue.

Rocky Mountain News: Opinion Columnists: "Today, threats of outing are used as blackmail, and might amount to criminal extortion, depending on the jurisdiction. Last year, Washington, D.C., homosexual blogger Mike Rogers warned that a vote for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would result in the outing of a senator. Several weeks ago, Rogers followed through on his blackmail, although the claim was so bereft of evidence that it received little attention from most media, other than Air America's Ed Schultz.

Click to visit NGLTF

"Many major gay rights groups oppose outing, saying it's a personal choice and should remain so. But there is a difference of opinion when it comes to the idea of outing political figures perceived as harming gay interests.

'When someone is in a position of power and they are using that power to hurt gay people ... it's perfectly appropriate that they be outed,' says Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. 'We don't do it, but we have no problem with it.' (emphasis added)

Foreman notes that the type of 'outing' happening these days shows, in one way, that social progress has been made. 'The stigma around being gay is gradually diminishing,' he says. 'At one point it was a huge scandal to say someone was gay.' Now, he says, what fuels 'outings' is something else: 'It's not, 'This person's gay.' It's, 'This person's gay and can you believe what they're doing with their power?'

You may remember some of the work Mike and I did with Florida's governor-elect Charlie Crist. You know, Florida’s newly elected anti-gay Republican Governor... the one who, all evidence seems to indicate, is gay.

So while the search to find 100% concrete evidence continues, I've decided that we as the LGBT community need to keep track of Charlie. Today, I am happy to announce the fabulous game:

Let the games begin!

p.s. The Where's Charlie posts will often be accompanied by news on outing Crist.

Where’s Charlie #1:

Clue: The nation’s oldest LGBT civil rights organization gets down, when it’s cold, here.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO-Evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who stepped down last week after confessing that he purchased methamphetamines and various services from a male prostitute, revealed Wednesday that he was repeatedly molested by an unnamed Republican congressman in the late 1990s.

A first-ever museum display, 'Against Nature?,' which opened last month at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum in Norway, presents 51 species of animals exhibiting homosexuality.

Larry kept pressing me about this issue, about gays and names. And I thought that well, you know, I'm a political junkie, probably like you are. And so, you know, in my writer's room, this is anything but news. And by the way, I'm not a million percent sure it's true. I mean, I never dated the guy. But I don't feel especially bad about if this happened to a Republican who is very much part and parcel of this administration, which has used gay issues so divisively. It's hugely hypocritical.

First off, let me say thanks for the welcome. It’s been a long journey to get here (2200 miles so far, and another 900 left). Yet, as I sit here in D.C., and ponder whether the last two years have been worth it only one answer pops into mind:

Hellz yes.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride, but actually you can read all about that in Mike’s post about me. I’ll just skip to some of the more juicy bits.

- Sushi is amazing.
- You can get all your LGBT news here.
- I just came from a conference put on by these guys.
- See this movie.
- I like long walks on the beach and…

That’s enough about me.

For those of you wondering, I am not only in D.C. to have a gay ol’ time, but also to keep the pressure on soon to be former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman. Let’s just say Mike and I will be keeping Ken’s feet to the fire about his anti-gay stratagems and whatever influence the RNC has over the mainstream media’s continuous double standard concerning people’s sexuality.

I hope you all stay tuned here at blogACTIVE. It’ll be worth it.

Oh, and as Margaret Mead once said:

“Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

Kyle DeVries

It began my first week in college. I saw some typical right-wing nutcases screaming anti-choice rants and weaving signs featuring grotesqueries of fetuses. At first I figured this for a normal day in North Florida. Then I realized not only were these people touting radical anti-choice sentiment they were also praising a man who had murdered abortion doctors. It took me about five minutes to rush to the art center, make a sign that read "support women's right to choose" and rally students around me. Within half an hour we had driven them off campus.

I was hooked instantly.

During the comedian Bill Maher’s appearance on the show Wednesday, he and Mr. King discussed several of the factors contributing to the Democrats’ election victory the day before, among them scandals involving several Republicans, including Representative Mark Foley. Mr. Maher then began to speculate on the sexual orientation of some high-ranking Republican officials, and Mr. King, seeming to forget that he was on the air, asked for names.

The comments were broadcast live, but CNN’s rebroadcast of the show later that evening cut a portion of Mr. Maher’s remarks. In addition, the transcript presented on CNN’s Web site, as well as the one provided to the LexisNexis archiving database, also omits the comments, noting that “a portion of this transcript has been removed.” (A spokeswoman for Nexis said that CNN was responsible for any editing of the transcript.) A video clip from the show available on cnn.com ends right before Mr. King asked Mr. Maher for his opinion about the Mark Foley scandal.

United Press International:
Two sentences that implied Republican Party boss Ken Mehlman is gay were edited out of a segment on the 'Larry King Show' in some U.S. time zones.

The New York Post reported Saturday that comedian Bill Maher made the comment on the CNN show, but that it was edited out in later time zones Wednesday and did not appear later in the show's transcripts.

Maher told King that the Republican Party was 'secretly run by hypocritical gays,' and then later named Mehlman as the specific homosexual individual he was referring to after King egged him on.
...
Mehlman, who resigned from his position Friday after his party's landslide defeat on Election Tuesday, did not return calls to the Post when they sought his response nor did Larry King's spokespeople.

At age fourteen, Matt Hill Comer was on track to become an Eagle Scout, but a run-in with his local Boy Scouts troop over homosexuality took his life in a new direction. Host Frank Stasio speaks to Matt Hill Comer, now a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, about equality, politics and youth activism.

Republican mudslingers digging deep into their anti-gay mud buckets to try to use Pelosi's gay friendliness to scare voters got a very clear message back: What really would have been spooky was leaving the current crop of Republicans in charge of Congress. Two of the most anti-gay Republicans -- Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who compared gay sex to 'man-on-dog' sex, and Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana, who tried to strip federal courts of authority over gay marriage -- got the voters' boot.

Then, as if things could not get worse, there was the disgrace of Sheldon’s own friend and colleague, Rev. Ted Haggard, the Colorado mega-church leader and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an even bigger pillar of Republican support on the Christian right. Sheldon disclosed that he and “a lot” of others knew about Haggard’s homosexuality “for awhile ... but we weren’t sure just how to deal with it.”

Synopsis: When C.J. is gay bashed in the school locker room, then arrested for disorderly conduct because he protests to an administrator about the harassment he has experienced, he decides to fight back by making a video documentary, His project leads him to other rural youth who have suffered anti-gay harassment, and shames the school district into developing an anti-bullying and diversity training program."

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

The panelists, which included Focus chairman James Dobson, Focus vice president of public policy Tom Minnery, Focus analyst Carrie Gordon Earll, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and FRC former president Gary Bauer, praised Democrats while savaging Republicans.

I just got a cease-and-desist letter from YouTube, see below, regarding my CNN footage I posted. The footage, you'll recall, was from Larry King Live last night in which Bill Maher outed Republican Party chair Ken Mehlman as gay. It seems that CNN has suddenly decided that it no longer wants bloggers, or YouTube, posting any of its video, which is kind of surprising since I always thought we were doing a CNN a favor by constantly touting their network. Apparently I was wrong.

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson accused the Republican Party of abandoning values voters in the midterm elections -- and paying the price by losing control of Congress. 'What did they do with their power?' Dobson said in a statement. 'Very little that values voters care about.'

Finger-pointing abounded in the days after Democrats seized control of Congress after 12 years in the minority. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, issued a statement railing against the Republicans for letting their majorities slip away.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R), who came up just short yesterday in his Senate race against Rep. Ben Cardin (D), is mulling a bid for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, according to an informed GOP source.

Steele would not challenge current RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, but chatter among Republican insiders is that Mehlman has made clear for months that he might not return to his current post.

'Chairman Mehlman will be making an announcement regarding his future at the RNC in the coming weeks,' said RNC communication director Brian Jones.

Closeted Craig Tries to Deceive Values Voters Again

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Gay activist Mike Rogers today criticized Larry Craig's election-eve endorsement of Idaho's anti-gay marriage amendment as a desperate act of denial.

Late Monday afternoon, Craig put out a press release to "clarify" his support of HJR 2, which would ban domestic partnerships or civil unions. Craig's announcement came just weeks after Rogers reported on Craig's multiple sexual encounters with men in Idaho and Washington, D.C.

"It shouldn't fall to an out-of-state gay activist blogger to call on Larry Craig to tell the truth to his state's social conservative voters," said Rogers. "Those voters and I might disagree on HJR 2, but we can all agree that it's time for leaders like Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman and Rep. Mark Foley to be honest with the citizens about who they are. Tell the truth and let the political chips fall where they may."

Craig's release Monday came in response to a mailing from an anti-HJR 2 group in Idaho. In response, Craig announced his support of HJR 2 and reiterated his backing of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Earlier this year, Craig voted in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution.

"I fully support DOMA and still believe the appropriate definition of marriage is a union between one man and one woman, consistent with Idaho's law on the subject," Craig wrote.

In October, Rogers reported that three separate and corroborating male sources described having sex with Craig -- two in the Pacific Northwest and one who said he and Craig met in two different bathrooms of Washington, D.C.'s Union Station train depot. Rogers called on Craig to be proud of who he is and to level with "values voters" whose support he has taken for granted.

Rogers broke the news on the nationally syndicated Ed Schultz show, which broadcasts in the Spokane market. It was covered by the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Idaho State Journal, Idaho Falls Post-Register, Lewiston Tribune, CBSNews.com and USA Today.

Rogers called Craig's late support of HJR 2 "a cheap attempt to shore up the support of social conservatives." Rogers has contacted individual Idaho religious and values leaders to share what he knows about Craig.

But in a few days, after the elections are over, Gowler and Miller said they will once again throw their staffers at the story.

'I think the next story is -- Is Larry Craig Gay? And why does that matter in Idaho?' Miller said. 'It's as much a story about the voters as it is about the senator.'

That assertion raises a question: When does a public official's sexuality, a realm that some still consider to be something of a private zone, become news?

The answer from Miller and Gowler: When it matters to the voters.

Rumors that Craig is gay have circulated for years, Miller said. The Rogers claim has rekindled and strengthened those rumors. Both Miller and Gowler said it's possible the Rogers claim was true."
.....
"Many of [Craig's] supporters would not vote for him if they knew he was homosexual. ... So I think it is an issue," Gowler said. "I'm willing to spend some resources to find out if it's true [that Craig is gay].

We will know, now, very soon. The two victories of the “moral values” maniacs in 2000 and 2004 were never a movement but a battle of the rearguard. The sustained direction of the past 40 years of American history — toward the victories of civil rights, the democratisation of the South, the loosening of moral strictures — demonstrates that the Bush phenomenon is above all a last stand, the ultimate and terrible outburst of a beast that knows it is wounded and is gambling it all. The reasons to hope largely overtake the grounds for worry.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig said today that he will be voting 'Yes' on HJR 2, the proposed amendment to the Idaho Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Craig wanted to clarify his position after a mass-mailing from a group called 'Families for a Better Idaho' was sent to voters over the weekend, suggesting that he does not support the amendment."

We pray that lies would be exposed;
We pray deception would be exposed.

I wonder about the young people both in his parish and national organization he used to lead, who have gay desires themselves? Who is going to counsel them? What will they be told?

Are all homophobic Republicans secretly gay? The leaders of the party with a penchant for condemning others would do well to look inward. It's time to call them on their hypocrisy.

As Gov. Jeb Bush was campaigning with Republican Charlie Crist in Orlando Friday, a local television reporter asked each of them what they thought of new allegations from people claiming in depositions that another man has claimed Crist is gay.

'Silly season junk. Next question,'' Crist replied.

The governor was more forceful. He called the reporter a 'horse's ass' for interrupting someone else who was asking a question and then criticized the 'unfounded allegations'' that have emerged at the last minute.

Crist has repeatedly said he is not gay, although rumors continue to surface, especially in the final days of the campaign.

The governor also said Republicans should stop criticizing U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts lawmaker who apologized this week for botching a joke that appeared to question the intelligence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

'As much as I don't like John Kerry or his views, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt,'' Bush said. 'He apologized."

FANNING FLAMES. I spoke to Mike Rogers, who runs BlogActive.com. In mid-October, Rogers outed Senator Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, as gay. (Craig's office said the allegation was 'absolutely ridiculous.') Rogers tells me he has been busy since then calling social conservatives--such as leaders of mega-churches--to tell them about Craig and other leading Washington Republicans who are thought to be gay. 'I'm trying to reach out across aisle,' Rogers says, 'and build coalitions with huge right-wing mega-churches across the country and call out the guys who covered up the Foley scandal. I'm telling these conservatives about the men who are living what the conservatives call the 'homosexual lifestyle' but who are asking the religious conservatives to follow them into the polling booth.' In short, he's trying to provoke a clash between the social cons who oppose gay rights (and who, in some cases, demonize gays) and a Republican Party that is a home to in-the-closet gay legislators and staffers."

Don't tell Dobson, but the Bush administration has been known to hire gays. In fact, when Mark Dybul was sworn in as the nation's global AIDS ambassador recently, his partner, Jason Claire, held the Bible during his swearing-in ceremony with Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush as enthusiastic witnesses.

Dobson has been considered an important Christian voice in the United States, but lately he comes across as putting partisan politics ahead of values as he does the bidding of Washington Republicans.

Remember his quick defense for the president's inexperienced Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers?

Worse, Dobson even found a way to excuse Mark Foley's repugnant behavior with congressional pages, guessing it was some 'sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.

A former gay male escort is going public on the eve of Colorado voting on two ballot issues relating to gay marriage, claiming a three-year sexual relationship with a prominent Colorado Springs pastor who has been an outspoken opponent of same-sex unions.

A Denver resident identifying himself as Mike Jones said he had a sexual relationship with Ted Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

During an appearance today on the Peter Boyles show on KHOW 630 AM radio, Jones said 'After sitting back and contemplating this issue, the biggest reason (for exposing it) is being a gay man all my life, I have experience with my friends, some great sadness of people that were in a relationship through the years' and were not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as a married man and woman."

1. Mr. Reynolds, is your wife an active real estate agent or broker?
2. Does your wife handle real estate business for the surrogates court in your home county?
3. If yes, in dollars, how much business does your wife receive from the county?
4. What percentage of your wife's real estate sales/brokerage is from public sources, such as fees and other income generated by the Surrogate's court transactions?
5. What percentage of the Surrogate's court's real estate business is awarded to your wife?
6. Under what circumstances was the business awarded and was it competitive. If so, where would I find the bidding and other contracting documents.?