The Michael Steele trainwreck is a thing of the near past, and his misdeeds are now eclipsed by a double  wallop: An expensive fundraiser for GOP freshmen Congress people, and what at least is being speculated on as being a warming towards the LGBT community.

The GOP fundraiser designed to feather the nests of  GOP freshmen for the 2012 elections was conceived by incoming Rep. Jeff Denham of California, a two-time State Senator,  and features House Speaker-elect John Boehner on the invite– though the dandy-but-manly Orange Crush will not be attending the $2,500 per person ticket affair to be held at the W Hotel reports Politico. However lobbyists will be attending, along with political action committee members and other GOP supporters who will be gobbling the canapes. And some may even shell out for the $500K package that includes tickets for eight and a VIP suite at the W (was that hotel chosen to make the location easy to remeber or as a tribute to the two former presidents/POTUSES/POTI?).

Denham of course will benefit from the fundraiser since it helps fill his reelection coffers as well as those of the 86 other wet-behind-the-ears Congresspeople.  Denham has been working with the National Republican Congressional Committee to help raise dough for the newcomers and created a leadership PAC which funneled $100K to the NRCC. Only eleven newbies have joined the committee, and a number have declined the offer.

Wait, $2,500 aticket? That’s 2.5x higher than Nancy Pelosi’s 2008 freshman prom where tickets were $1000. Okay, yeah there’s the increased cost of living,  but seriously I didn’t think things were that out of control!  And aren’t the Republicans supposed to be all about austerity and stuff like government spending?  Oh, but it’s okay to spend a lot to get into government. I see…and granted  the GOP has proposed $35 million spending cuts in the Congressional budget, which will reduce staff size and office supplies, but still that

Well, what do you get for that ticket? A performance by that anti-GOP-envisioned family values singer LeAnn Rimes who recently performed a number of songs (including one in a sexy Santa outfit) with the Gay Mens Chorus of Los Angeles and earlier this year confessed to an extra-marital affair. Hey, maybe it’s the GOP’s way to lure more free thinkers and libertines into the Grand Old Party.

Several news sources (including my own local teevee channel KTLA which  has great coverage of car chases) have speculated that Sarah Palin may becoming more free thinking in her views of the LGBT community.  She retweeted the following message from openly lesbian NRA member and conservative commentator Tammy Bruce:

Bruce says she was not commenting on DADT, but rather tweeted this remark in response to the recently publicized videos shown aboard the USS Enterprise several years ago, made by now-recently-relieved-of-command Navy Capt. Owen Honors when he was aircraft carrier’s second-in-command. The videos included gay slurs, homoerotic shower scenes,  and really dumb bad acting by creepy Capt Honors himself.

(Side note: if the diversity-dishonoring Honors was second-in-command, how did the first-in-command feel about the videos? Why did he allow Honors to continue to make them? Isn’t that giving tacit okay on that attitude, and what has happened to him?).

Conservatives4Palin are making the case that Bruce’s tweet is more a comment on society and psychology than of stance on DADT, DOMA, ENDA and other LGBTQ issues.

The people Bruce is mocking are those on the right and the left who spend every waking hour of their day thinking about homosexuality. In the same way that someone is not necessarily anti-gay if he or she opposes repeal of DADT and civil unions, someone isn’t necessarily endorsing homosexuality if he or she supports repeal of DADT and civil unions.

Speaking of psychology, here’s a  clue for Conservatives4Palin: “Complaining about” is very different than “thinking about.”

Wow. Just wow. Target — which has a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign for the their workplace environment and support of LGBT causes and importanlty for many consumers focuses on budget style, featuring some great designers like Alexander McQueen, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Zac Posen — is now off my spending list for a while.

Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel and his wife donated $5,000 each — the maximum allowable — to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachman’s campaign, and Target itself donated $150,000 to MN Forward, a PAC which is supporting Tom Emmer’s run for governor of Minnesota, reports The Awl.com.

In a letter sent out today, Steinhafel says

Target has a history of supporting organizations and candidates, on both sides of the aisle, who seek to advance policies aligned with our business objectives, such as job creation and economic growth. MN Forward is focused specifically on those issues and is committed to supporting candidates from any party who will work to improve the state’s job climate. However, it is also important to note that we rarely endorse all advocated positions of the organizations or candidates we support, and we do not have a political or social agenda.

But what if the candidates supported by the PAC don’t have your employees’ best interests at heart? Does that help the job climate of the state overall? Or does that create an environment where the corporation is a mini-state with its own rules that can benefit or harm the employees because the corporation is removed of state regulation?

Here’s some info about Emmer from Gayrights.Change.org

Tom Emmer (the anti-gay Minnesota gubernatorial candidate that Target’s $150,000 made its way to) wants to bar gays and lesbians from getting married, and is a friend and financial supporter of a ministry that advocates violence and discrimination toward LGBT people. And like it or not, Target financially supported his campaign, even if the money wasn’t a direct contribution.

Michele Bachmann has dropped some nifty anti-LGBT comments in her speeches and has a rotten record on supporting LGBT rights including voting against the repeal of DADT and voting against expanding hate crimes legislation to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Here are a couple of her comments collected by Gayrights.Change.org.

Bachmann said if gay marriage were to become legal:

[Gay marriage] is an earthquake issue. This will change our state forever. Because the immediate consequence, if gay marriage goes through, is that K-12 little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it.

On people who are gay or lesbian:

If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.

Best Buy — which supports many of the same LGBT causes as Target —  just added to MN Forward’s kitty with a $150,000 donation, proving that their profits are the most important thing in the long run, not the long-term rights of all the people in areas where they do business.

[H/T TheAwl.com, Gayrights.Change.org]

I wish I had taken an earlier flight to Las Vegas Tuesday for Netroots Nation 2010 so I could join the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) demonstration in front of the Statue of Liberty that adorns New York New York’s exterior. Yes, it was 106 degrees, and that shows total commitment to get workplace equality passed. So does getting arrested which is what happened to Lt. Dan Choi and seven other demonstration participants. Lt. Choi was discharged from the military because of his arrest during a DADT rally earlier this year.

Lt. Choi was released by early afternoon and joined us at the LGBT caucus pre-sessions.

Me and Lt Choi. He is so awesome.

Oscar winning actress Anna Paquin taped a video PSA for the True Colors Foundation Give a Damn project, announcing:

I’m Anna Paquin. I’m bisexual, and I give a damn.

Radaronline.com has one of the organization’s videos which features Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, Cynthia Nixon, Sharon and Kelly Osbourne, Judith Light, Kim Kardashian, Clay Aiken, and Wanda Sykes–all proclaiming they “Give A Damn” about equality no matter what their sexuality, but Paquin’s announcement has caused wegivedamn.org‘s servers to clog as everyone rushes to view her buoyant message.

The True Colors Fund is the non-profit arm of the True Colors Tour. Co-founded by Cyndi Lauper, the organization’s goals are

to inspire and engage everyone, particularly the straight community, to become active participants in the advancement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) equality and ensure a strong and vibrant LGBT community.

This just in:

As you read this, GetEqual.org members are entering Pelosi’s offices in DC and her district office in San Francisco. They won’t leave until Speaker Pelosi commits to bring the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to the floor for a vote this month – or until they are arrested.

Earlier today GetEqual.org and bloggers had urged followers to call Pelosi’s office to ENDA passed. Caller were unable ot get though becaue health care reform protesters jammed the lines when

radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday afternoon gave his listening audience the Capitol switchboard phone number and encouraged them to call it. At the end of the show, Rush bragged that the switchboard had shut down.