HRC, LGBT Bar Advised
WH on Judicial Nonimees

Until last summer I had never heard the name Darcy Kemnitz, but after a gay Iraqi spoke at a fundraiser at the HRC building in Washington, an event sponsored in part by the National LGBT Bar Association, of which she is the director, I had reason to interact with her.

The gay Iraqi, Haider Hamza, made outlandish claims of American soldiers beheading Iraqis and showed the audience a photo of what he alleged was the scene after such an execution. The Washington Blade covered this story extensively, including when the claims were debunked by the U.S Army.

Kemnitz was a key lesbian DC player who vouched for Hamza, and in my dealings with her, she never answered my basic questions about how, or if, she had vetted his photo or any of his claims. She accused me of outing Hamza. To put it mildly, I was unimpressed with her in the defamation of U.S. soldiers.

And as head of the LGBT bar org, Kemnitz has been getting herself asked to the White House, a total of five times.

Four of those occasions were for meetings to advise the administration on judicial nominations, and once for a December 2009 holiday reception with the Obamas. Close to 700 people were also there and was surely tons of fun.

But those four briefings were vastly more intimate, and the logs report they were held with the associate director for public engagement, Kareem Dale. Two of Kemnitz's meetings with him are described as pertaining to judicial nominations, on December 11, 2009, twenty-two in attendance, and December 15, 2009, with 21 present.

The logs say Kemnitz was at the December 14, 2009, meeting with almost two-dozen other people with Dale, but it's described simply as a meeting, no other info made public. She was back with 23 others on January 28, 2010, and the description is blank. Most likely it was part of what appears to be a series of meetings with around two-dozen folks to chat about judicial candidates.

Joining her at all four meetings was HRC's on-staff legal adviser Brian Moulton.

Now I don't know if Elena Kagan's name came up at any of those meetings, or other briefings possibly held after January which will become transparent in future updates, or if potential Supreme Court nominees were discussed, and I'd sure welcome some info from Kemnitz and her bar association, and the HRC, about the agenda they pushed.

Radical notion: Gay Inc reps report back to the community after they schlepp to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for briefings, a movie night, meetings. This should be done so the gay Americans whom they claim to represent get real transparency about what the heck these reps are advancing when they lobby the administration.

While on the surface inviting gay legal folks to at least four, maybe more, briefings at the White House on anything to do with judicial nominations seems like a good thing.

But knowing of Kemnitz's incredible sloppiness over the gay Iraqi scandal, and fully cognizant of longstanding problems over HRC's inept advocacy on behalf of gay Americans for decades, I am frightened to think of the advice these Gay Inc folks are giving the Obama administration.

Kemnitz's FEC file shows she donated $2,000 to the DNC last June, plus she gave them $500 back in 2006.

The Kemnitz and Moulton names are the only gay names I recognize on the list of attendees at those briefings with Dale. Click here and here to read the lists of who's been at those meetings. I recognized no names from Lambda Legal on the lists, and have also searched for top folks from that org, but I can't find any proof in the logs that Kevin Cathcart and crew have been invited to sit down with administration advisers.

Did the National LGBT Bar Association and HRC issue a memo to the community about the meetings, and I missed it?

NGLTF's Director Carey
Breaks $200,000 Salary Ceiling

(Compensation info from the task force's FY 2009 IRS 990 filing. Click to enlarge it.)

There is a few months lag-time from when a 501(c)3 non-profit files its IRS 990 report with the Treasury Department, and when it gets posted for public inspection at the GuideStar site.

In recent years, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has filed its IRS 990 by the end of March, which is why I contacted their director of finance, Brian Johnson, and asked if he would provide me with an electronic version of the FY 2009 filing.

He made a PDF of it available to me, and I am happy to share the most current info on the compensation of the top six executives at NGLTF. Bear in mind that these are last year's figures and they have most likely gone up for 2010.

The executive director, Rea Carey, took home $217,582, thus breaking the $200,000 salary ceiling.

Roberta Sklar, director of communications, earned $144,323; Brian Johnson was compensated $159,845; Sandra Greene, administration director, received $123,832; Russell Roybal, deputy director, earned $118,991; and Jaime Grant, policy director, received $117,426.

Total revenue for NGLTF in FY 2009 was $8.3 million.

By the way, based on the $335,000 it distributed to Christian orgs friendly to gays, I'd say this political org has made quite a strong investment in religion, and I'm not happy about that. I'd like to keep professional gay advocacy orgs out of the religious business, with bright line dividing the political advocates from the Christian orgs, no matter how welcoming they may be to gays. Would be great to hear from gay atheists about the $335,000 in religious-related donation from NGLTF.

The breakdown was thus: Reconciling Ministries Network of Chicago received $100,000; Lutherans Concerned of St. Paul received $85,000; United Church of Christ in Cleveland received $50,000; More Light Presbyterian of Santa Fe received $50,000; and Integrity of Rochester, NY, received $50,000.

On larger matters, I question why NGLTF's leaders need such healthy compensation. What have they accomplished at the federal level, and other places, that directly benefits the rest of the gay community? What exactly is the org's political agenda and are they successful at carrying it out?

Wish I could see valid reasons why NGLTF needs an $8.3 million budget, and some much-needed independent justification for the six-figure salaries.

A copy of the NGLTF IRS 990 for FY 2009 can be obtained from Brian Johnson: bjohnson (at) the taskforce (dot) com.

Kagan's FEC File Reveals She is a Big Old ...

... Democrat! Yes, according to Federal Election Commission records available at NewsMeat.com, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama's Supreme Court pick to join the Supreme Court, is an out-of-the-closet supporter and donor of Democratic Party candidates.

She has donated $12,050 to Democrats and $500 to ActBlue, a progressive org that supports Democratic politicians. Do the contributions reveal anything about her judicial temperament? No, but they sure do show her where her political leanings rest in federal races.

From FEC files:

Barack Obama (D)
President
OBAMA FOR AMERICA Won $4,600

Barack Obama (D)
President
OBAMA FOR AMERICA Won $2,300

Barack Obama (D)
President
OBAMA FOR AMERICA - $-2,300

ACTBLUE - $500

Judy M. Feder (D)
House (VA District: 10)
JUDY FEDER FOR CONGRESS Lost $500

Barack Obama (D)
Senate - IL
OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC Won $1,000

Jon P. Jennings (D)
House (IN District: 08)
FRIENDS OF JON JENNINGS COMMITTEE Lost $250

Barack Obama (D)
Senate - IL
OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC Won $1,000

Ira S. Shapiro (D)
House (MD District: 08)
IRA SHAPIRO FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE Lost $200

John F. Kerry (D)
Senate - MA
KERRY COMMITTEE Won $500

Ira S. Shapiro (D)
House (MD District: 08)
IRA SHAPIRO FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE Lost $250

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Senate - NY
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON FOR US SENATE COMMITTEE INC Won $250

DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE (D) - $1,000

Al Gore (D)
President
GORE/LIEBERMAN GENERAL ELECTION LEGAL AND ACCOUNTING COMPLIANCE FUND Lost $1,000

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Senate - NY
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON FOR US SENATE COMMITTEE INC Won $500

John F. Kerry (D)
Senate - MA
KERRY COMMITTEE Won $1,000

Her donations' record while she lived in Massachusetts illustrates her deep commitment to the state Democratic Party and assorted candidates:

Friedman, David S.
$50.00
5/1/2002

Friedman, David S.
$50.00
8/3/2002

Patrick, Deval L.
$500.00
6/10/2005

Bonifaz, John C.
$500.00
8/2/2006

Democratic State Committee, MA
$500.00
10/10/2006

Murray, Timothy P.
$500.00
10/10/2006

Patrick, Deval L.
$500.00
2/28/2006

On top of searching Kagan's federal and Massachusetts donations, I also checked to see if she donated to any gay-related propositions in California and Maine, two states with recent props, and she made no contributions of any sort in the those states.

WH Visitors Logs:
Charm Offensive & Diverse Voting Blocs

(From the White House photo gallery: "Oct. 13, 2009: 'Much to Sasha’s chagrin, the President starts dancing to the music at the Fiesta Latina event on the South Lawn of the White House.'")

One of the best perks any President has at his disposal is granting access and making invitations for many occasions at the White House, and the Obama administration is no different in this regard than any other recent occupant of the Oval Office.

What is unique with this administration is that they are revealing, on a regular basis, the visitor logs. After drilling down through the search engine using key terms and words, I see evidence illustrating a charm offensive directed at several important Democratic voting blocs.

The receptions, bill signings, briefings, and meetings show a small piece of the larger picture of who is going to the White House and in most cases, a few words about why they were invited. There's a charm offensive at work here -- engaging through access and face-time, those blocs Obama and Biden are going to need in 2012 for reelection.

Let's look at more details from the logs:


HISPANICS/LATINOS

The word cinco returned the names of the nearly 300 Hispanic leaders and others who were at a May 4, 2009, party on the eve of Cinco de Mayo.

Searching for Latino, I learned that on October 1, 2009, a meeting was held for 143 Latino leaders, according to the description column of the logs. Meeting may be the wrong word, but unlike other events where the logs say briefing or reception, the description simply read "Latino Leaders."

A few hours after that event, the Veep and Dr. Jill Biden held a reception at their official residence for Hispanic leaders, according to the White House blog, which said 150 leaders were present.

Using fiesta as the search term, revealed the Fiesta Latina Event on October 13, 2009, with almost 400 celebrants enjoying the occasion. This is the event that gay WaPo journalist Jonathan Capehart attended, perhaps with a relative, and that is the reason I knew to search for fiesta.

The term Hispanic retrieved info about an October 28, 2009, briefing for Hispanic journalists. Good to see outreach to Latino voters through reporters for the Spanish language press. 43 people attended the briefing.

Ole, to this bloc for receiving much special attention.

JEWISH

Four separate meetings show up when searching the word Jewish. The logs use two terms in the descriptions: Jewish Outreach Meeting or Jewish Community Outreach Meeting.

One meeting was on September 22, 2009, with 50 people; another was held on September 25, 2009, and 65 showed up. Then 91 people attended an October 14, 2009, meeting, and 56 Jewish leaders were there on October 20, 2009.

The Obamas opened up the White House on December 16 for a Hanukkah reception, and 600 people were invited.

Mazel tov, at getting four meetings over a one-month period, and a holiday reception.

DIVERSITY/LGBT

For the word diversity, the one result was for a December 7, 2009, diversity initiative briefing for 92 key leaders from assorted constituencies, including the gays, but the topic of the briefing was not solely about our issues alone.

Gay leaders present included transgender lobbyist Mara Keisling, who's been to the White House four times; Aubrey Servis representing gay vets; gay lobbyist Steven Elmendorf who's received $430,000 in fees from HRC in the past four years and who has been to the White House at least 8 times; and Mark Bromley, who used to work for Tammy Baldwin and now heads up Global Equality.

Maybe more gays, whose names I'm not familiar with were there, but four out of 92 ain't so bad.

Drilling down for LGBT events, two receptions were held. The first on June 29, 2009, for nearly 350 gay folks and family members, has been widely documented, debated and reported on. However, the second reception, for only 32 gay staffers at federal agencies, was given six days after we lost the right to gay marriage in Maine, and that news was broken by this blog.

This is awkward. On the one hand I want to see gay briefings, just like other constituency briefings, at the White House, but then I stop and think of the weak official gay leaders from HRC/GLAAD/NGLTF/GLSEN/MCC/DNC, and laugh. There isn't enough 420 in San Francisco to get me to think Gay Inc leaders would actually get tough at a briefing, or accomplish much. Still, for purely symbolic reasons, there should be a gay briefing at the White House.

Fabulous, that gays warranted two receptions, and inclusion in the diversity event, but a limp-wristed slap at Gay Inc and the administration for not yet holding a briefing with Democratic gay leaders.

AFRICAN/AFRICAN-AMERICAN

Looking for African-American turns up nothing, but that is because of the seriously deficient search capabilities of the White House search engine. For the all-important description category, the engine picks up only the first word and nothing else.

A search for African returns info on a September 25, 2009, meeting for what the logs say was an African and African American clergy briefing. More than 120 people were present for it.

Hallelujah, for scoring a briefing. Wouldn't surprise me to learn, with a better search engine, of other engagements with a wider array of Africans and African-Americans.

WOMEN & HIV

Looking for women, I found info on two meetings. The first, for 46 individuals, took place on December 7, 2009, and was listed as relating to women and girls.

And on December 8, 2009, there was a meeting on women and HIV/AIDS, and a crowd of 60 folks showed up. This meeting could count for two, being that it dealt with HIV/AIDS and women.

A search for world brought back the names of 51 people who were at the November 30, 2009, meeting on the eve of World AIDS Day. Using the word AIDS as the search term revealed nothing of relevance, highlighting yet again a major flaw in the White House's search engine.

Girlfriends, way to go! Two meetings in two days is laudable. Now let's see Obama sign off on the his National AIDS Strategy, release it to the American public, then implement the immediate do-able top recommendations.

A charm offensive has a legitimate place in our politics, and expanded White House access to a President's key voting bloc is a positive course of action, but I want the Obama administration to show me its road map to permanent federal changes for gays that require more than a memorandum.

Park Police Withhold Mug Shots
of Choi, Pietrangelo, McGehee

Three gay activists were arrested on March 18 at the White House fence protesting President Obama's less-than fierce advocacy to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. They were servicemembers Dan Choi and Jim Pietrangelo, and activist Robin McGehee of GetEqual.

I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for their mug shots from the U.S. Park Police, the federal law enforcement agency that arrested the three, and the chief replied with the letter below. My curiosity about what the activists looked like when they were booked, and obtaining a federal public document connected to their act of civil disobedience, led me to send in the FOIA.

The Park Police chief explains that the mug shots will not be released because of exemptions in the FOIA statutes, allowing the feds to withhold them since their release could have a stigmatizing effect on the arrestees, and other factors.

I was not aware of this exemption, and a friend pointed me to a February 2009 article from the Tulsa World about it:

The federal government protects the mug shots of its inmates, citing privacy rights. [...]

That means people arrested for violating state laws will have their mug shots made available. But the photos of people detained by federal officials stay secret. [...]

In practice, a college student arrested for public intoxication will have a mug shot publicly available, while the face of a suspected multistate drug-ring leader or identity theft mastermind remains unknown.

"Arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and ridiculous is how I would describe it," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

"It conveys the overall federal attitude that any information to identify a human being is private. It's the federal Privacy Act run amok. You are just not going to get a federal mug shot."

The only way the public sees such mug shot is either when it's leaked, or the arrested person releases it. Maybe the three people arrested in March, along with the other gay arrested recently at the White House fence, could slake my curiosity and share their mug shots on the web. That would help me gain a fuller picture of more aspects about the current mini-wave of angry gay activism in Washington.

Here is the two-page letter. Click to enlarge:

WH Logs: 22 Visits by
Solmonese/Solomonese/Solmenese

While under the 420 influence last night, I recalled that a $500 donation from Human Rights Campaign leader Joe Solmonese to Martha Coakley doesn't show up in Federal Election Commission records, unless his last name is misspelled as Solomonese. That mistake is due to incorrect info from Coakley's campaign staff to the feds, and will never turn up when searching FEC records for contributions from Solmonese.

But if you search FEC filings using "Human Rights Campaign" as the employer of the donor, the Solomonese donations to Coakley turns up. This is a good example of why employer info is crucial to following the money and other things, through the FEC and other transparency tools and search engines.

As I've pored over the White House visitor logs, the missing employer info has stood out as an omission the administration should immediately end, and the three spellings of the HRC executive director's name, without that info, illustrate the need for employer details. It shouldn't take bad typing to gather the complete number of visits.

Also, in my tally of visits by HRC's "man behind the curtain" senior administrator David M. Smith, I can't say for sure how many times his name is in logs because there are dozens of David Smith's listed. All of them lack employer details and that should be unacceptable to all sunshine advocates.

I tried to search the logs using the name Solomonese, but I mistakenly keyed in Solmenese, and up came two visits by Joseph R. Solmenese. The first was on May 11, 2009, with gay liaison Brian Bond for what is described as a roundtable meeting. Thirty-three people were present.

A second Solmenese meeting is listed for June 17, 2009, with POTUS, and the description reads: "MEETING WITH PROMINENT MEMBERS OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY."

That was the day Obama signed a memorandum expanding benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees and HRC's leader was there for the photo-op.

But what about info on Solomonese? Sure enough, the visitor logs reveal a single visit by Solomonese with VPOTUS Joe Biden on June 16, 2009, the day before the President signed that memo.

Under his real name, Solmonese has made 19 visits to the White House, and that number inches up to 22, including the three visits under an alias.

Total number of HRC visits now stands at 107, and the figure for visits by Gay Inc types, which excludes reporter Jonathan Capehart, is 193.

Memo to my fellow searchers of federal logs and files: It pays to think of misspelling a person's last name when drilling down any search engine.

Jew Wiesel's Lesson for the Gays

(Elie Wiesel speaks to the press, after lunching with the President on Tuesday.)

Oy, vey. Those Jews are like the gays, in that they're never satisfied. Always kvetching about something, and at important times, over vital matters, taking out old-fashioned, and still effective, full-page newspaper ads. Wait a sec. That only applies to the Jews, not the fagelahs, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, survivor of the Nazi camps and a major ripoff by Barnie Madoff, Elie Wiesel, noshed with President Obama at the White House this week. The New York Times reported yesterday:

The [Tuesday] lunch meeting between Mr. Wiesel and Mr. Obama came three weeks after Mr. Wiesel took out a full-page advertisement in a number of United States newspapers criticizing the Obama administration for pressuring Mr. Netanyahu to stop Jewish settlement construction in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians would like to put the capital of an eventual Palestinian state.

The advertisement, in which Mr. Wiesel wrote that “Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul,” alarmed White House officials, in part because it came on the heels of similar advertisements from the World Jewish Congress and grumbling from members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, that Mr. Obama was pushing Mr. Netanyahu too hard.

Back in April, after the Human Rights Campaign placed full-page ads in gay papers that aren't read in the White House or in Congress, targeting the gay community not the Obama administration, I called on them to take out ads in Washington papers. Send a message to the President through national or mainstream advertising. Radical concept not on HRC's radar.

But for the Jews favoring Israel's housing and security positions, they have a few bones to pick with Obama, and they use standard political pressure tactics to get his attention, to the point where he's gotta meet with Wiesel. Just like the Jews, a niche voting bloc with big bucks to throw at candidates, the gays are on somewhat comparable footing with the Jews, in terms of votes and dollars.

But unlike the Jews, we don't demand our well-funded HRC, NGLTF, GLAAD and other Gay Inc orgs pool their resources and political power, and take out ads in the New York Times and Washinton Post, to lobby Obama.

Nor do we see gay moguls -- Jon Stryker, Bruce Bastion, Jim Hormel, Tim Gill, David Geffen, Michael Huffington, Henry van Ameringen, David Bohnett , Jonathan Lewis, et al. -- filling in the marketing void. Why can't they launch an independent print and multi-media campaign?

Jew Wiesel did it. Fagelah Geffen and crew could pick up a few pointers from him about wielding power in Washington and getting the President's full and undivided attention.

The incompetence of Gay Inc, compounded by the failure of any mogul to fund a media campaign at this crucial legislative time, makes me verklempt.

WaPo's Capehart's Axelrod Meeting at WH

A few weeks ago, after gay military vets staged a civil disobedience at the White House fence, openly gay Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart had harsh words for the vets and other activists:

Now, allow me one small gripe about yesterday's action. I want repeal of don't ask don't tell as much as the six veterans who put their bodies where their mouths were by getting arrested. But I have two suggestions for them for next time -- because there will be one. First, change the scene of action from the White House to the Capitol. Repeal of don't ask don't tell requires congressional action. And nothing says "Listen to me!" like civil disobedience in the office of the Speaker or the Senate Majority Leader. Second, if they insist on the White House as a venue, they should at least ensure that Obama is on the premises. He was en route back to Washington aboard Air Force One when the DADT Six were carted away.

Gosh, that is remarkably in-line with Obama administration thinking, wouldn't you say? I do, and I also wonder if Capehart's three visits to the White House colored his thinking.

The visitor logs reveal Capehart on October 9, 2009, had a one-on-one meeting with public liaison Valerie Jarrett, four days later he was one of almost 400 guests at the Obamas' fiesta Latino event, and on January 27 he was one of eight people at a meeting with David Axelrod, senior adviser to the President.

Oh, one more little thing about that fiesta. The logs show that a Margaret K. Capehart was at it. Relative of Jonathan's? I can't say, but assuming she is, it's good to see him spread his access to family. I'd do the same if I was receiving invitations to the White House. Ole!

For all I know, Capehart may have been an Obama fan long before enjoying a few meetings and one party at the White House. He may not work at any Gay Inc org, but he is a key player in the games waged by Gay Inc, and his criticism of the vets at the fence sure get him a few more invitations from the administration.

32 Gays Went to WH Reception,
6-Days After Maine Loss

Those fabulous White House visitor logs are still of interest to me, because they're providing much-needed transparency about the Obama's administration and gay leaders, or gay appointees and congressional staffers, and who has White House access from the community.

To recap, the President and his administration offered no help at all to retain Maine's gay marriage rights that were on the November 3, 2009, ballot, and the day after we suffered another electoral defeat, HRC leaders attended a classical concert at the White House. Two nights after the loss, he had some NGLTF leaders over for a movie.

Today's news is that six days after the Maine loss, 32 gays from federal agencies and at least one from a congressional staff, attended what the visitor logs say was an LGBT reception.

Gee, what nice people Barack and Michelle are. As we gays mourned another setback at the ballot box, the charming couple quietly invited our community's leaders and appointees in the following week to a concert, a movie and reception. I can't think of any reason why the millions of ordinary gays in fly-over country, and lots more on the coasts, aren't satisfied with these symbolic crumbs of access and perks. Who needs job and housing protection when gay leaders enjoy socializing with the Obamas are their lovely home? Snark, snark.

Here's the list, with links to info on who they folks are and where they work, or question marks when I couldn't Google pertinent info on them, of the gay folks who on November 9, 2009, went to the President's smallish LGBT reception:

Saba Abebe
Office of Diversity
Department of Energy

Mark Agrast
Office of Legislative Affairs
Department of Justice

Christopher Busch
??

Matt Collier
Special Assistant to the Director
Office of Personnel and Management

Jonathan Cordone
Senior Vice President
Export-Import Bank

Sarah Dale
??

Virginia Davis
??

Michelle Depass
Special Assistant
Environmental Protection Agency

John Dey
??

Rashad Drakeford
Staff Assistant
Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-NY
[Correction: Drakeford has written to inform me that he is not gay. He says he's a straight guy and has a girlfriend. -michael.]

Lindsay Dubin
Campaign Organizer

Sarah Duffy
??

Carl Fillichio
Senior Public Affairs Adviser
Department of Labor

Gina Flores
??

Jonathan Foley
Senior Adviser to the Director
Office of Personnel and Management

Jose Garcia
??

Suzanne Gelderman
Associate Director, Small Businesses
Department of Energy

Cynthia Giles
Special Assistant
Environmental Protection Agency

Tracy Hannah
??

Camille Hazeur
Director, Civil Rights Division
Department of Transportation

Craig Hooks
Special Assistant
Environmental Protection Agency

Neal Kemkar
Special Assistant
Department of Labor

Courtnay Lewis
??

Jennifer Mason
Deputy Chief of Staff
Office of Personnel and Management

Marybeth Maxwell
Special Assistant
Department of Labor

Joan Padilla
??

Robert Perciasepe
Deputy Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency

Raymond Rivera
Special Assistant
Interior Department

Duncan Teater
Staffer
White House

Dorothy Vanderbeck
??

Sedelta Verble
Director, Office of Communications
Office of Personnel and Management

One of the funny things about this November 9 event is that neither the White House nor gay Obama supporters have said anything about it. Why keep such an event quiet? Well, as with the concert and movie night, the Obama administration and Gay Inc leaders are in agreement: The less visibility and attention about the schmoozing the better.

Day After Gays Lost Maine,
HRC Leaders at White House Concert

Fred Hochberg is a gay Democrat with a lotta bucks. A longtime board member and one-time co-chair of the board of the Human Rights Campaign, Hochberg is now head of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. He was appointed to that position by President Obama, and he has many policy and social reasons that draw him to the White House.

Visitor logs show that Hochberg has been at the Obama White House 13 times, up through the end of January 2010.

Hochberg was one of three gay leaders at a November 4, 2009, classical music concert with POTUS and FLOTUS. That was the day after we lost gay marriage rights in Maine, without Obama lifting one of his boney fingers to help us.

Hochberg, his partner Tom Healy, and current member of the HRC Foundation's board Mary S. Snider, all trooped up to the White House to hear old world classics. Nice.

We had just suffered our 32nd or 33rd gay ballot initiative, this time about marriages, and three of our Gay Inc leaders engaged in political business as usual with our Oval Office fierce advocate. Oops, sorry about that. The promised fierce advocate is MIA.

Then the next day, three NGLTF leaders took their tired asses up to the White House for a flick, and never told the community about it. Look, if gay leaders are going to be spending downtime with the President and his family at the White House, they have a solemn duty to inform the rest of us about it. Show us some photos from the screening.

More on Hochberg. He's was at four meetings where less than five people were present, and he's been at one event with 1,156 other people. On December 7, 2009, Hochberg attended the White House's Congressional Ball, which is the first Gay Inc name to show up in the logs for a ball.

Then on December 16 he was back for the Obamas' first reception to mark Hanukkah, also a first for a gay leader. Almost 600 showed up for that event.

Total number of visits for partner Healy is 5, coupled with Hochberg's 13, sub-totals to 18. Add that to the 172 visits from other Gay Inc types, and the total number of visits for these folks now stands at 190.

Photo-ops for Rea Carey and Joe Solmonese. Cocktail parties and bill signing ceremonies. A classical performance and sharing the popcorn bowl with Barack and Michelle. Let's us not forget about the ball we now know Hochberg and Healy were at.

The Gay Inc leaders sure know how to play limp-wristed politics with this White House.