Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is announcing today that he will not seek re-election. It's a bummer—he'll be a hard act to follow—but I think at age 70 he simply wants some relief and has earned it after 30-plus years and 16 terms.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is saying there are now at least 62 votes in the Senate to pass the stand-alone repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and gives credit to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) for rounding up the support. It's odd to be happy with Lieberman...it's been a long time!

Here's Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pennsylvania, pictured) speaking out on behalf of the repeal on the House floor. Great guy, and it's so sad he'll be gone in January:

The Six Pack has Barney Frank's first post-Prop 8 interview, and it's chock-full of interesting morsels, like his reiteration that he thinks President Obama's official stance on marriage equality is a political calculation.

One thing that sticks in my gay craw: He wags his finger at Kathy Griffin's joke about Scott Brown's daughters, saying they "didn't choose to be in politics and they shouldn't be targets" without acknowledging that they did choose to publicly campaign for their father and therefore should be targets.

On gay Republicans:

"If you're a gay Republican, you're essentially given the rule that, 'It's okay, we won't hold it against you 'cause you're gay, 'cause you couldn't help it. But if you purport to be happy about it then we're gonna kick you out.'"

More—including an allusion to closeted Charlie Crist—here.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California) makes light of and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-California) puts into proper perspective the slurs hurled at Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia). It's incredible that Nunes acts as if this is a free speech issue—no one is saying these people have no right to say what they said, but civilized people should reject and repudiate and seek to distance themselves from such talk. Instead, Nunes explicitly excuses it, saying it's a natural response to "totalitarianism."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) were subjected to slurs today (the F- and N-words, respectively) from agitated Teabaggers roaming the halls of Congress ahead of tomorrow's expected passage of health-care reform. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) was spit on. The more people argue that the Tea Party movement isn't racist, the more the Tea Party movement argues that it is. 

Barney Frank's surprising retreat on the passage of health care reform strikes me very negatively. It smacks of defeatism in the face of the overwhelming power the Democrats currently still have. On first reading, it means no more and no less than "let's play fair" and "this bill is dead meat." Which could not weaken Democrats' hand more.

Above, Barney Frank fucking pwned an idiot at a town hall meeting who vacantly compared President Obama to the Nazis. (Remember not so long ago when referring to public figures as Hitler or invoking Nazi Germany was a nearly career-killing taboo that mandated immediate, abject apologies?)

Why is it that the people most adamantly opposed to Obama's health care solutions—namely the public option (note: it's an option, not requirement—are the ones who could most benefit from it? The mentally deranged, the obese, the elderly...where are the people who have legitimate, reasonable concerns and aren't just waving around diabolical signs calling for "Death to Obama, Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids?"

Let's (us = Democrats) just forget about bipartisanship. Sure, that means we'll get all the blame and will be considered to be hijacking the government, but fuck it—spin it as what it actually is, leadership, and get the Blue Dogs to jump like poodles at the end of a circus act, too.

What is the take-away here?

Barney Frank is weighing in on the DOJ brief (I love how all of these gay bigwigs are weighing in FOREVER after the fact, only due to the pressure) and...he doesn't sound outraged at all. On top of it, he thinks it's "wrong" to boycott the DNC fundraiser. That will be a very interesting night. I think Biden has already sweated through his shorts planning what to say. I am pre-cringing at any jokes about "well, what's new?" or some other flippant remark about the bad break-up between the Obama Administration and the LGBT community that seems to be underway.

An interview with Barney Frank in Condé Nast Portfolio (February 2009) reveals he is testy about his part in the current financial crisis ("I can't account for other people's mistakes!"), disdainful of hedge-fund managers ("They became intoxicated by their own technology...No one will listen to them. They have no power to resist.") and angry at Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain's comment that the bail-out cash was a mere "cushion" for them. 

It's nice to have no-nonsense adults in charge again. Go get 'em, Barney.