Robert Shrum: Republican Program For America? Destroy President Obama

 

 

 

For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

- Robert Shrum

Writing in his weekly column for The Daily Beast, author and commentator Robert Shrum calls out the Republicans for their destructive behavior. Their relentless effort to destroy President Obama has been taking place since day one of his administration. Forget how harmful it is to the country. They have paralyzed Washington and any hope of constructive bi-partisan cooperation in the economic recovery or any other urgently needed program.

This is one of Shrum's best columns:

I've written that in the end, congressional Republicans won't agree to move forward on the budget, tax reform, immigration, job creation, or any other issues that matter to mainstream America before the presidential elections. But the fall of 2016 is a long time away, and they have to do something in the meantime. Now we know what it is.

It's not much different from what they've done, or haven't done, all along: obstruct Obama. Traduce him, delegitimize him—and slow economic recovery in hopes that voters will cast a protest vote for the GOP. It worked in 2010, and failed miserably in 2012.

Conservatives are back at it again because the GOP lacks any coherent program other than cutting taxes for the wealthy. Republicans are deeply divided—between the government-hating Tea Party Torquemadas and an establishment that dreads primary defeat, or in John Boehner's case, defenestration as speaker; between the isolationists like Rand Paul and the neo-cons and John McCain.

The animating principle of today's GOP is relentless animus toward the president.

The hard-core base simply rejects his reelection; 49 percent in a Public Policy Poll claim the White House was stolen for Obama last November by groups such as Acorn, Republican-demonized grassroots organization that had disbanded two years earlier. For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

GOP members of Congress are—mostly—not that crude or overt. There is Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a climate-denying fabulist and scowling denizen of the modern-day, flat-earth society, who has suggested impeaching the president for "the most egregious cover-up in American history." He means Benghazi, of course—a concocted conspiracy incomprehensible to most Americans.

Republican leaders in the Senate and House distance themselves from Inhofe, because of the inevitable backlash from voters beyond the fevered precincts of the far right. But fanning the fires of anti-Obama resentment enables Boehner to hold together his restive, fractured caucus—and lets Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell constantly revalidate his ideological credentials. They—and Republicans in general—are taking advantage of three events to bash the president.

The tactic—you can't dignify it by calling it strategy—may finally backfire. First, though, the GOP will prosecute month after month of a multifront war on the White House.

CONTINUE READING THE ENTIRE COLUMN HERE.....>>>>>>

Andrew Sullivan Has It Exactly Right!

 

 

Thanks to JoeMyGod for brining attention to this quote from Andrew Sullivan. It is exactly right and supporters of the President speak up.

"Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes? Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran? Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life? Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation? Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war? So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong." - Andrew Sullivan, responding to Peggy Noonan's claim that "We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate."

The IRS

 

 

Unless there is missing information, there is little doubt that President Obama knew nothing about the outrageous behavior in the Internal Revenue Service. Never should that branch of government be used to intimate or burden any free expression of speech.

The IRS has the ability and powers to create fear and an enormous amount of personal information about each of us to make that fear real.

The systematic effort by the IRS to go after 'Tea Party" type groups is inexcusable. If those groups were progressive we would be wildly off the charts with rage.

This has occurred on the President's watch and he must match his angry words with quick and decisive action to show there is absolute no room in American democracy for this kind of violation of human rights. Heads must roll.

The IRS is long pass due for a major overhaul and reform. The President should work with conservatives to create legislation that not only will deal with this problem but overhaul the entire agency.

Who is being targeted doesn't matter. What matters is that the IRS is out of control and needs to be reformed with the appropriate checks and balances.

ROLLING STONE: Excellent Interview With Vice President Biden

 

 

Rolling Stone Magazine's Douglas Brinkley recently did an in depth interview with Vice President Joe Biden. It covered a wide range of issues. Here is the beginning questions from that interview including a couple on marriage equality

The biggest push since the inauguration has been on gun control. The president made you the point person, and yet the background-check measure failed in the Senate, even though it was supported by 90 percent of the American people. What does it mean that we can't pass even the weakest measures to curb gun violence?

It means two things. One, that we have had an impact on the public's thinking. If we did that poll a week before Sandy Hook, my guess is you wouldn't have 90 percent of the American people. They said, "You have to do something." So we've already won the battle with the American public on this, not just on background checks but on magazines, on assault weapons, et cetera. This is a case where the public is way ahead of Congress, and the Congress hadn't figured it out, just like they were . . .

With gay marriage?

Remember, I got criticized for saying I support gay marriage . . . . I just decided I couldn't be quiet about it anymore, and everybody was stunned that that's where the public is. And I'm not stunned; it's where the public's been for a while. Talk to any of your kids, for God's sake.

Did you get blowback from the president or people in general?

I got blowback from everybody but the president. I walked in that Monday, he had a big grin on his face, he put his arms around me and said, "Well, Joe, God love you, you say what you think." I knew he agreed with me. It wasn't like he was in a different place. My point is: That's where the public is on guns. There has been a seminal shift in the attitude of the American public toward gun safety.

Is the Senate really that insulated from the rest of the country?

A lot of our colleagues – a few Democrats and a lot of Republicans who know better – thought, "The public hasn't changed, if I vote with you, I get beat up. . . ." The 17 or 18 people I called and spoke to thought they would get in trouble supporting any additional, quote, "burden on gun ownership." The ones who still said no, the four Democrats and remaining nine or 10 Republicans, they didn't offer any substantive reasoning to be against it. In one form or another, they all said the same thing: "Joe, don't ask me to walk the plank, because the House isn't going to do anything, anyway." The other one was, "Joe, I know it's 85-15, 80-20, 90-10 in my state. You know how it works: The 10 percent that are against, they're all going to be energized; they're going to organize against me. And the 90 percent who are for it, it's not going to be a determining vote for them." My argument was, "You've got it wrong. The public has changed." And guess what? It turns out we were right. To use the vernacular, there's suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord. You find out that the senator from New Hampshire is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, "Jesus, I guess you were right – maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we bring this back up?"

So what's the next move?

We're going right back at it. The biggest thing that's changed is that the people who were for the background checks are saying it will be a determining issue. There's pace on the ball now; this is a different country. I'm convinced we'll be able to bring this back up, and I'm convinced we can win this.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, your language was typically direct. At a memorial service for the slain MIT campus policeman Sean Collier, you called the bombers "two twisted, perverted, cowardly, knock-off jihadis," which, of course, is exactly what everyone in America was thinking. Are these kind of remarks spontaneous?

No, I actually wrote that speech. I wanted to communicate two things: first, to make it clear that there is not this sort of gigantic, coordinated network run by Al Qaeda that has cells all around the country and, second, that the republic is not in jeopardy and there's no reason for us to jettison the Constitution and erect a police state in order to protect people. The moment we change, they win. That's the only way they win. Because what they hate about us is what we stand for. It makes a lie of everything they argue – that there's only one way to run your life and there has to be this constraint on humanity.

My whole point in that speech was, we cannot let them win by buying into what was immediately being argued – that we shouldn't have an immigration bill, that we should try them as enemy combatants, that we should put up more lights, cameras and invade people's privacy more. It was a terrible tragedy, but we found the guys, and we'll find anyone else who was involved. We'll make rational adjustments in plugging holes within our law that could have been plugged, if it turns out to be that way. But do not, do not, do not yield in any way to the intimidation.

Why doesn't the Obama administration use the bully pulpit to talk about climate change like it does for gun control?

We have. The president used the biggest settings he had, in the inaugural address and the State of the Union. In his inaugural address, he said, "We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

In the very beginning, we decided that we had to move on this. And we thought, cap-and-trade. But it got shut down, even when we had a Democratic Congress. So from that point on, the president has been trying to figure out how he can use his executive authority to make some real changes. We've been dealing with a Congress where a significant portion of the other party thinks there's no such thing as global warming. On top of that, we were in the midst of the deepest recession we've had since the Great Depression. So it was easy for the energy-interest guys to make the case that anything we would do to deal with global warming would be a job-killer. You'd see ads all over the country, an African American or a hard-hat guy – classic Democrat, you'd think – saying, "I'm an energy voter, and this idea the Obama administration has is going to cost you your jobs."

Despite the congressional opposition, do you feel the Obama administration has made inroads in the climate fight?

The thing I'm proudest of that we were able to get done in the first term was the Recovery Act. It had $90 billion in clean-energy programs. We had a lot of money going into research and development, and also tax credits for wind and solar energy. Republicans say to me, "That's not government's role," and I say, "Why in the devil do you think we have the investment tax credit you guys get for drilling for oil? How did that start?" The reason it started was six, seven decades ago, we didn't have the technology to know how many dry wells you had to dig before you hit a gusher, so we rewarded people for going out and exploring. We still spend $4 billion a year on that – and they don't even need it anymore. And yet they fight us on renewable-energy tax credits.

In terms of conservation, we've doubled the fuel-economy standards, which is going to save hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and about $1.7 trillion over time – without, basically, any Republican support. In the meantime, also, there has been at least a near-term boom in terms of natural gas. Theoretically, it would be nice not to have any carbon fuels. But natural gas is a hell of a lot less polluting. So in this budget, we're continuing to push for the transition from coal-fired plants to natural-gas electric plants. If you moved the trucking fleet in this nation to natural-gas-run vehicles, you'd save hundreds of millions of dollars and cut greenhouse-gas emissions. And you'd reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

But it's been hard to get our arms around, with this Congress, what you know you should be doing. You should be attacking the carbon emissions, period, and whether it's cap-and-trade or carbon tax or whatever, that's the realm in which we should be playing. In the meantime, the president is going to use his executive authority to, essentially, clean up the bad stuff, encourage the good stuff and promote private industry moving in that direction. If we had a different Congress, I think you'd see a more aggressive emissions legislation.

You mentioned a carbon tax. Is the Obama administration going to follow the lead of China and propose such a policy?

The truth is, right now, no, because we know it will go nowhere. Look, one of the things we are doing, and the president is asking me to kind of get ahead of here, is that we have a real chance, both in this hemisphere and with China, to enter into joint ventures on renewable energy and on cleaner-burning natural gas. Let me give you an example: The Chinese are building something like one new coal-fired plant a week – a week. So pick the biggest coal-fired plant you know around here that's spewing pollution, and they're building them every week, and they've been doing that for the last six or seven years.

The Chinese have figured out that they have a giant environmental problem. Folks in Beijing, some days, literally can't breathe. Over a million Chinese die prematurely every year because of air pollution. And the pollution generated in China is choking us, not just the Chinese. One of the examples I used on the campaign trail last year was that after the Japanese tsunami, we had huge chunks of cement, chunks of piers, washing up on the beach in Oregon. If the current can carry that stuff across the ocean, imagine what's coming across in the atmosphere. So we have a great opportunity here to figure out how we can not only begin to wean ourselves off of carbon-based fuels but wean the world off of them too. It's just a gigantic opportunity, and it produces a boatload of jobs. There are going to be 600,000 new jobs out there in the gas industry over the next 10 to 12 years.

READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW HERE......

PHOTOGRAPHY: President Obama's April!

 

 

 

White House photographer Pete Souza has recorded President Obama's April. Included in the President's April was time with the families of Newtown and his battle for more controls on guns. Enjoy!

Robert Shrum: Nancy Pelosi Would Be The Perfect Speaker of the House!

 

 

Commentator and author Robert Shrum writing for The Daily Beast says if the Democrats take back the House that Nancy Pelosi would be one of the best Speakers of the House ever. He writes that, despite her unfavorable ratings from relentless attacks from Republicans, she has the politics to gather the Democratic Party and push through progressive legislation for the President to sign. No wonder the Republicans are so worried about her.

Shrum writes:

Even before she was elected Democratic leader in 2003, she was a pioneering architect of legislation to combat HIV/AIDS. She voted against the Defense of Marriage Act—and against the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. And after she became leader, she marshaled near unanimous Democratic opposition to Bush’s scheme to privatize Social Security, and the intimidated the GOP majority didn’t even dare bring it to a vote.

As speaker in 2007, she pushed through an increase in the minimum wage—and a once resistant Bush signed it as part of the bill for Hurricane Katrina relief and supplemental funding for U.S. military forces in Iraq. A year later, she pungently described Bush as “a total failure, losing all credibility…on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject”—an assessment that’s worth remembering during this week’s exquisitely polite rituals at the dedication of the Bush presidential library.

A masterful inside politician, a Democrat’s Democrat, she nonetheless transcended partisanship when the economic crisis hit during the twilight of the Bush administration. After Republicans first defeated the bank bailout bill in the House—and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777 points in one day—she persuaded 33 Democrats to switch their votes, and the bill passed despite the opposition of a majority of GOP members. The bailout wasn’t popular, but it was an essential first step back from the brink of a second Great Depression, and then, as now, Pelosi knew that popularity counts in politics, but it isn’t the only standard of public service.

Her chance to change America as well as his came with Barack Obama’s inauguration. The following two years saw what the political scientist Norman Ornstein called “the best Congress you’ll ever hate.” The unrelenting GOP opposition, the distortions and the demagoguery, would cost House Democrats their majority in 2010, but in the meantime they did what had to be done and wrote a new chapter in our national life.

The president, Pelosi, and her leadership team secured a second economy-saving measure, the $800 billion stimulus package, without a single Republican vote in the House. The legislation not only included one of the biggest middle-class tax cuts in history but also pumped resources into broadband and wireless Internet, clean energy, a modern electricity grid, education, transportation, and infrastructure. It responded to “the fierce urgency” of the moment—and it advanced a futuristic vision of America. The investment could have been greater, but it was the most that could be squeezed through a polarized Congress. Or as Michael Grunwald of Time put it in his book The New New Deal, the stimulus was “stocked” with “game-changers” that will strengthen the economy for decades to come.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN BY CLICKING HERE.....

VIDEO: President Obama Speaks At Boston Marathon Memorial

 

 

President and Ms. Obama has more than their fair share at speaking at memorials around the country from gun violence. In Boston, he once again was called upon as our President to reassure the nation by speaking at the Boston Marathon Memorial Service. He gave a powerful and moving speech.

Robert Shrum: Democrats Should Be Supporting President Obama's Budget Plan

 

 

Commentator and strategist Robert Shrum bravely advocates that it is time for Democrats to 'get real' and support President Obama's budget proposal. In a thoughtful and informative column in The Daily Beast, Shrum makes the case that President Obama's proposals are not 'draconian'.

The columnist states:

You would think President Obama was proposing to repeal the New Deal. (Well, actually, that’s Paul Ryan.)

This wasn’t the Republican reaction, of course, to a budget that was pre-dead on arrival, dismissed in advance by House Speaker John Boehner and disdained by the Tea-spooked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who couldn’t take yes for an answer when the president called for the entitlement changes McConnell had previously promised “would get Republicans interested in new revenue.” Aside from the fiscal fallout of a failed budgetary process that could slow the economic recovery, the episode points to a likely and grim outcome of these two years—that not much will emerge living or lasting from this Congress.

And don’t just blame GOP members, largely trapped in their gerrymandered red districts, incapable of doing right even if they recognize it, as they cower before the threat of primary challenges. The Democratic base, and prominent Democrats in the Senate and House, rushed to scorn the president’s Social Security and Medicare reforms as a betrayal of progressive principle. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was “shocked,” which presumably means she hadn’t been reading the wave of advance stories on the Obama budget. Iowa’s Tom Harkin denounced “an unnecessary attack on a critical program.” And Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Social Security “has no place in this debate over federal spending.”

That’s an amazing statement, given that Social Security and Medicare account for 35 percent of federal outlays, and the trust funds for both are in serious and not-so-long-term trouble. We are far from the bipartisan moment in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan, House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and Alan Greenspan rescued Social Security—by, yes, gradually raising the retirement age.

In the face of the Obama reforms, the instant rhetoric and reactions were purple—among many, but not all, Democratic officials and across the liberal blogosphere. But what’s the reality, not the abstract jeremiads about a sacrosanct safety net, but the specific dollars-and-cents impacts of the proposals? The president didn’t ask for any fundamental changes in either Social Security or Medicare, which the House Republican budget would voucherize.

Obama would shift the annual cost of living increases for Social Security to a new formula with the unfortunate name “chained CPI.” But the consequences for benefits are not draconian, or even substantial—and as I’ve argued before, the formula has been altered in the past. It’s not sacrosanct, a matter of basic principle, even if the program is. Chained CPI would initially yield about $2 less a month in the average Social Security check. And as its effects multiplied, in 20 years, the difference would be $126—approximately $2,100 instead of $2,200 a month.

Beyond that, the president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Bob Greenstein, one of the landmark defenders of the safety net and a passionate advocate but a cooler head, pointed out that Obama was offering essential offsets to chained CPI: “[His] budget includes a series of adjustments and protections for the very old and for people with low incomes... It should prevent an increase in the overall poverty rates among the very old.”

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And what’s the alternative to calibrated entitlement reforms that reform rather than gut Social Security and Medicare? Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner explains: “You squeeze early childhood programs, you squeeze Head Start, you squeeze education and veterans.” Or now, or later, Congress could lift the eligibility age for Medicare to 67 or beyond, potentially leaving millions of seniors without any coverage while saving hardly any money.

The question here, the question the president had to answer, is what’s both acceptable and attainable. Progressives, for example, favor abolishing the limit on income subject to Social Security payroll tax—currently $113,700. Everyone would pay on every dollar. Fat chance that would get through this, or perhaps any, Congress.

The Obama budget does raise taxes on the wealthy by capping their deductions—which is one reason Democrats should rally to it. And there’s another: it increases spending now, while back-loading steeper deficit reduction, to support and speed the pace of the recovery. Do Democrats really think it’s smart to go into the midterms weighed down by the vulnerability of a sluggish economy? That didn’t work out so well for them in 2010.

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Just because the GOP is unserious about government doesn’t mean Democrats should be unserious too. The president has been responsible and brave. In any event, his party could fight out 2014 on Medicare and Social Security against an opposition that has a long record, and a contemporary one, of inveterate hostility to the social safety net.

Democrats could prove willing, as they showed during the battle at the fiscal cliff, to compromise—and settle for the Obama budget. They should. But what then would happen in the Republican House of hard-core reactionaries, where all good ideas seem to go to die? The columnist Jonathan Alter makes the case that Congress conceivably may agree on a “B.I.G.” agenda—that with a “cracking of gridlock,” a decent budget, real immigration reform, and some gun-control could pass. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m convinced we’re doomed to see a season full of sound and fury, legislating nothing big.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN BY CLICKING HERE

PHOTOGRAPHS: President Obama's Busy Month of March

 

 

 

BusinessInsider.com has a photo essay of President Obama's activities for the month of May. All of the photographs come from White House photographer Pete Souza. Here are some of my favorites:

See the rest here.

President Obama's Top Twelve LGBT Appointees!

 

 

 

Jeremy Bernard  - White House Social Secretary

Journalist Lisa Keen in the Windy City Times has profiled the top twelve appointments that President Obama has made in his four and a half years in office. Some of the Judges are awaiting confirmation and one major judge had to withdraw because of Republican opposition.

Keen estimates that the President has appointed 268 openly LGBT people in his first term. That is compared to President Clinton's 140 over eight years.

President Obama is also the first President to appoint a Trangender person to his team and so far he has appointed three. Keen picks the top twelve:

1. JOHN BERRY: Director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Some LGBT activists were hopeful that President Obama would make the first appointment of an openly gay person to a cabinet level position. So far, that hasn't happened and his appointment of John Berry as OPM director probably comes closest. OPM has more than 5,000 employees and manages personnel issues for some 2.8 million for U.S. federal civil service employees around the world. One of its biggest missions lately has been issuing guidelines to other federal agencies on how to handle furloughs associated with the current sequestration budget cuts.

2. STUART DELERY: Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice.

There are 12 assistant attorneys general at DOJ. Stuart Delery has been appointed to head the department's Civil Division, which represents the U.S. government in litigation involving such critical matters as national security, presidential powers, immigration, energy, banking, and consumer protection. Recently, the Division has defended the Affordable Care Act and the administration's protection of information concerning the CIA use of drones to eliminate suspected terrorists. The DOJ Civil Division has 1,400 employees. Delery took the helm as Acting Assistant Attorney General in February 2012, but his official nomination to the post is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

3. FRED HOCHBERG: Chairman, Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Fred Hochberg was appointed to the position in Obama's first term, and in March, the president reappointed him for a second stint. The Export-Import Bank provides financial credit and support to promote the sale of American goods to other countries. In doing so, the aim is to support and promote jobs in the United States. Under Hochberg, the bank says it "supported more than 255,000 American jobs" in FY 2012 with almost $36 billions of financing.

4. EDWARD DUMONT : Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Withdrawn):

Any federal bench provides the appointee with a potential for a lifetime of influence. The 179 judges appointed to a federal appeals court have influence over —not just a district but — several states. The 16 judges of the appeals court for the Federal Circuit have jurisdiction nationally on a limited variety of legal conflicts, including disputes over patents, trademarks, international trade agreements, government contracts, federal personnel, and veterans' benefits. President Obama named a highly qualified openly gay man, Edward DuMont, to a Federal Circuit seat, but Republicans in the Senate, perhaps suspecting it would improve DuMont's chances for eventual consideration as a Supreme Court candidate, refused to allow DuMont even a hearing. DuMont eventually withdrew his nomination.

5. GRANT COLFAX: Director, White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

This is the office charged with coordinating the federal response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. That includes implementing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to reduce the incidence of HIV infection and make sure people with HIV receive proper medical care. In this position, Grant Colfax also serves as the president's lead advisor on HIV-related domestic policy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men having sex with men account for 63 percent of new HIV infections, and the percentage is even higher (72 percent) for MSM 13 to 24 years old.

6. CHAI FELDBLUM: Commissioner, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This is the agency charged with enforcing federal laws against discrimination in the workplace. EEOC laws pertain to employers with more than 15 employees, including the federal government itself. While federal law does not proscribe sexual orientation-based discrimination in the workplace, an executive order signed by President Clinton prohibits such discrimination by the federal government. President Obama named Chai Feldblum as one of five commissioners who direct the EEOC's work.

7. ROBERTA ACHENBERG: Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The eight-member commission is charged with guiding the federal government's national civil rights policy and the enforcement of its civil rights laws. Among other things, it does research and analysis into potential discrimination in voting rights, and holds public hearings and issues reports on civil rights matters. President Obama named Roberta Achtenberg, a prominent appointee during the Clinton administration, to one of the eight seats.

8. ELAINE KAPLAN: Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

This is another court with national jurisdiction and specialized cases. Its 16 active judges deliberate over lawsuits brought by private citizens against the U.S. government. President Clinton appointed Emily Hewitt to the court in 1998, and President Obama designated her as Chief Judge in March 2009. Last month, President Obama also nominated Elaine Kaplan, who is currently general counsel to the OPM, to the Federal Claims bench. If confirmed by the Senate, she will join the bench in deciding lawsuits against the U.S. relating to taxes, government contracts, natural resources, and foreign governments.

9. JEREMY BERNARD: Social Secretary, The White House.

It may not sound like a power position, but insiders say it is. The White House Social Secretary works for the First Lady to plan all White House events, from small coffee receptions to large state dinners. In the world of power politics, an invitation to a White House party carries real value. For many invitees, it signals recognition from Washington's most powerful entity that the guest has some political influence. And for those at the more select events, it's an opportunity to be seen as part of a powerful elite. The Social Secretary, says Socarides, "basically decides who gets invited. The current Social Secretary, Jeremy Bernard, is "the highest ranking gay person at the White House," says Socarides. When appointed, in February 2011, Bernard became the first man —and the first openly gay person—to be appointed to the position.

10. OETKEN, NATHAN, FITZGERALD and CHEN: Judges, U.S. District Court.

There are more than 600 federal district court judges, but each has a lifetime appointment and serves as the first line of judgment in legal conflicts big and small. President Obama has nominated seven openly LGBT people to federal district court positions in six different districts. Four have already been confirmed (Paul Oetken and Alison Nathan in Manhattan, Michael Fitzgerald in Los Angeles, and Pamela Chen in Brooklyn). Three others are still pending (Nitza Quiñones Alejandro in Philadelphia, Michael Shane in Oregon, and William Thomas in Miami).

11. NUMBEROUS: Associate Counsel to the President.

There are at least a dozen people identified as Associate Counsel to the President, and they fall below the Counselor, the Principal Deputy Counselor, and the Senior Counselor. They are not as high up as Karen Tramontano was when she served as Counselor to President Clinton's Chief of Staff. But they do have influence, says Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president of the Center for American Progress, a group that has had a great deal of interaction with President Obama's White House. The associate counsels have played key roles in a number of issues including the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and workplace discrimination, from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to drafting an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation. Two lesbians have held one of the positions thus far in the Obama White House: Allison Nathan, who is now a U.S. district court judge, and Kathleen Hartnett, who just left.

12. HERB SCHULTZ: Director, Region IX, Health and Human Services.

HHS has ten regional offices that address intergovernmental and external affairs and the president appoints the director of each region. Based in San Francisco, Region 9 covers the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii, as well as several territories. Each region serves as the HHS Secretary's advisor and liaison to state and local governments and community organizations on matters of policy and programs. Herb Schultz, former senior advisor to then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is director of Region 9. The Center for American Progress' Stachelberg says the job covers such matters as implementation of the Affordable Care Act, AIDS service delivery, and programs aimed at lesbian health. "Running that region," she says, "is a huge responsibility."