Swat team members stand outside a Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire earlier this evening.

A man police identified as Lee Eisenberg walked into a Clinton campaign office in Rochester, NH earlier this afternoon, claiming he had a bomb strapped to his chest and began taking hostages. The suspect has since been arrested and no one was harmed.

Eisenberg had a history of mental illness; Clinton wasn’t in New Hampshire today; she was in Washinton, D.C. preparing a speech for the Democratic National Committe. It is not clear this was an attack directed toward her.

The New York Times covered the incident via live blog posts.

Update 6:30pm: All’s well that ends well, I suppose. The police have resolved the situation peacefully and arrested Eisenberg - it seems that indeed, it was an unstable guy using flares, not a bomb. Even so, I wonder what the fallout will be…

Ironically, Eisenberg was calling Wolf Blitzer while he was in there, complaining about America’s mental health situation.

Read more…

It has been said that there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. In its effort to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) through the House of Representatives without gender identity or expression, the Human Rights Campaign provided us with all three.

On Nov. 7, the House passed H.R. 3685, an ENDA without gender identity or expression, contrary to the express wishes of every LGBT organization — except for HRC — that was actively engaged in the legislative process. Only a day before HRC release a survey purporting to show that more than two-thirds of LGBT people surveyed supported the passage of the version of ENDA that did not include language that would explicitly include transgendered and gender-variant people.

The timing alone raised questions about whether HRC was attempting to manipulate the legislative process by using dubious statistics to advance its own agenda — to provide U.S. Rep. Barney Frank the pretext he needed to strip gender identity and expression from ENDA. Now, two experts in survey research are questioning the methodology in the controversial HRC poll.

Read more…

Eons ago, when Barack Obama announced he was going to see if he could be the next resident of the White House, Princeton professor Cornel West was talking at a Tavis Smiley event. West was indifferent to Obama. In fact everyone in the Democratic field bored him. Fair enough. I’m still wondering what made Christopher Dodd think he could be president.

However, now West is into the Obama Kool-Aid. Big time. Last night West introduced Obama to a crowded Apollo Theater, the famed landmark of Harlem, U.S. of A.

“We don’t expect him to be Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X,” West said. “He is his mama’s son, and we love him for it.”

Read more…

I’ll accept your support but I won’t let you serve openly in the military.

Last night’s CNN/YouTube debate offerred a study in contrasts on LGBT issues — and we’re just talking about Mike Huckabee.

The former governor of Arkansas suggested that he was open to accepting the support of the Log Cabin Republicans — though he notably avoided referring to them as ‘gay’ in responding to the question from YouTube audience member David Cercone of Pompano Beach, Florida (no doubt himself a Log Cabin Republican).

“You know, in my position in this entire election, I need the support of anybody and everybody I can get,” Huckabee responded.

Anderson Cooper then asked Huckabee, “Should they support you?”

“Sure they should,” Huckabee responded. Read more…

Will Rudy’s former gay-friendly ways haunt him?

The Empire State Pride Agenda (New York’s statewide LGBT civil rights and advocacy organization) has launched a new section of their website they’re calling “The Giuliani Files” and it’s a compendium of info (and YouTube videos) chronicling Rudy Giuliani’s history on LGBT issues.

So, what’s the point? Is this supposed to endear the drag-loving former mayor to queer voters? Uh, no… Its purpose is to expose the flip-floppy hypocrisy that Giuliani employs as he tries to run from his prior history of LGBT-support (as feeble as many feel that support may have been).

The “Files” include letters from Giuliani supporting domestic partnership and hate crimes legislation, and the videos show him voicing LGBT support and courting the gay vote while appearing at queer fundraisers. Basically, Pride Agenda must be hoping that they can provide the ammo which other anti-gay conservatives can use to attack the powerful GOP candidate, who they perceive as pro-gay.

Read more…

Man. What is the deal with CNN and debate questions? At last night’s GOP Keith H. Kerr, a retired general, asked the candidates about “Don’t Ask, Don’ Tell.” Nothing wrong with that of course but Kerr ain’t your average citizen asking questions to possible leaders of the free world. Instead he’s shilling for Hillary Clinton’s return to the White House.

After the debate it was revealed that Kerr is a co-chair of “Veterans and Military Retirees for Hillary.” In 2004, Kerr also was part of a veteran’s committee for John Kerry’s sorry presidential run. Rather strange pedigree for a guy who described himself as a member of the Log Cabin Republicans. A Log Cabin-er working for Kerry and Clinton to be elected? Yeah right!

As for the candidates and DADT? Come on now. These guys are playing to their base and were not going to say anything provocative or worth listening to. Mitt Romney did his standard “back in the day I thought the policy was wrong but now I realize that won’t get me your vote so today I’m saying something different” routine. John McCain gave the military its appropriate props then said DADT works fine. I wonder if McCain has ever spoken to folk who have been booted? Give the good people at SLDN a call Senator McCain. They might give you some useful information.

By the way: how much do you want to bet that Clinton is chewing out some poor operative for this?