Newt Gingrich, Adulterer

I can't wait for 2008. Between Newt, McCain, and Giuliani alone it will be tough to keep count of the marriages and affairs. The religious right needs to face it - none of these guys gives a damn about their family values. The age of the religious right candidate is dead. Read More......

Open Thread

The latest? Read More......

House to hold hearings on the White House outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame

Oh what a difference an election makes. Read More......

Bob Hattoy, someone you should know

The Human Rights Campaign was able to find AIDS activist (and gay activist) Bob Hattoy's 1992 speech to the Democratic National Convention, and sent it around to a number of us. Bob died this past week. He was the first person with AIDS to openly address any political convention. Bob was also a friend of Bill Clinton, and a friend of mine - he helped me a lot on a number of issues.

But just as important and moving as Bob's speech was for so many of us at the time, it's important to remember that this was 1992. We'd just finished 8 years of Ronald Reagan ignoring AIDS, and 4 years of George Bush, Sr. not doing a hell of a lot more. This was the year that the Republican party launched their culture war against gays and lesbians and so many other Americans. Bob's speech is important for what it signified - finally the public embrace of a person with AIDS (and an openly gay one at that) by one of the political parties, but also it was a huge thing for the Democrats to have done in 1992 when things weren't so great for us. Shortly after Bob's speech, the Republicans felt forced to follow suit and had Mary Ficher, who also has AIDS, speak to their convention. While the Democrats highlighted a gay man with AIDS, the GOP highlighted a woman who got it through her gay husband. Enough said. (Mary has gone on to be a tireless advocate for all people with AIDS, but still, it's interesting to note how the GOP tried to use her disease to bash gays.) Kudos to HRC for posting this on YouTube.

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White House Web site still proudly showing Cheney at CPAC, no denunciation of Ann Coulter or CPAC

Dick, your daughter Mary Cheney is one of those "faggots" Ann Coulter smeared at the very conference you chose to attend. Giuliani and Romney (who also spoke there) and McCain (who didn't even attend) have all denounced Ann Coulter's hateful homophobia, yet you, the father of a very pregnant lesbian daughter, have nothing to say about lending your good name to this hate-filled forum. And it's even worse now that CPAC has refused to condemn Coulter and has left the door open to having her back next year. Will you be speaking at CPAC next year too, Dick, alongside the woman who viciously attacked your daughter and her soon to be out-of-wedlock two-mommied child? Read More......

Media Matters joins Human Rights Campaign in taking on Ann Coulter's newspapers

Excellent. They've got a list of even more papers that syndicate Coulter's column. Read More......

BREAKING: Senate Dems announce BINDING joint resolution to force Bush to begin withdrawal of combat troops in 120 days

From Senator Reid:

It contains binding language to direct the President to transition the mission for U.S. forces in Iraq and begin their phased redeployment within one-hundred twenty days with a goal of redeploying all combat forces by March 31, 2008. A limited number of troops would remain for the purposes of force protection, training and equipping Iraqi troops, and targeted counter-terror options. A full description of the Reid Joint Resolution is attached to this release.

The Democrats are for getting us the hell out. The Republicans are for the slow bleed. Let the voters decide in November 2008 who was right and who was wrong.

Details of Dem resolution:

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GOP Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) says Ann Coulter is her "hero"

Does she still think that? From the Star-Tribune:

Ann Coulter should be slightly less adorable today for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

"In the terms of modern presidency, Ronald Reagan has been a tremendous hero of mine, as has Ann Coulter. I just adore Ann Coulter," Bachmann said in an April 2006 interview with thewindbe-neathmyright-wing.blogspot.com.

If the political provocateur has declined on Bachmann's idolatry-meter since Coulter lobbed a slur in John Edwards' direction, the Minnesota Republican was not confirming it.

The truly revealing and unfortunate thing about this is that Coulter's slur drew laughter and applause above any gasps.

Dumpbachmann.blogspot.-com contributor Karl Bremer e-mailed me about the congresswoman's quote of adoration.

Coulter's comment brought condemnation from the left and the right. She's not having it. In an appearance on "Hannity & Colmes," Coulter said that the f-word "isn't offensive to gays. ... It's a schoolyard taunt. ..."

Why, I wonder, is an adult resorting to childish behavior?

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"The real 11 inches of pure hypocrisy"

Quite possibly the best press release ever. From the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:

The real eleven inches of pure hypocrisy

WASHINGTON, March 8 — U.S. Marine reservist Matt Sanchez was given an Academic Freedom Award at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, where Ann Coulter hurled her “faggot” slur against Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. Sanchez, who attends Columbia University, also recently appeared on conservative talk shows where he criticized “radical anti-military students” he met during campus recruiting. Reports have since surfaced that Sanchez has allegedly worked as a gay porn star, prompting silence from his (now former) right-wing cheerleaders and charges of hypocrisy lobbed at Sanchez by gay bloggers.

Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“While it may be delicious to watch our opponents twist and squirm after honoring and embracing a larger-than-life gay porn star, I don’t see any hypocrisy in U.S. Marine reservist Matt Sanchez’s actions. As is his right, he spoke out against what he believed was bad treatment by Columbia’s ‘radical anti-military students’ (Sanchez’s words). Right-wing pundits and organizations pounced on the handsome Latino Marine and showered him with praise and media exposure. Now, they’re scrambling for cover.

“Porn — gay or straight — has no ideology. Porn stars and porn consumers are Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, atheists and evangelicals. There’s no inherent contradiction between Matt Sanchez being pro-military and being part of the ‘adult film’ industry. The real hypocrisy expresses itself in two different and important ways. First, the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law requires Matt Sanchez and thousands of other loyal Americans to hide their sexual orientation to serve their country in the military. Second, Ann Coulter and her ilk lift a man to hero and spokesperson status until — gasp! — he is found out to be a ‘faggot’ (Coulter’s word).

“The important 11 inches in this story? That is the approximate distance between berths on U.S. naval submarines, so defamatorily measured in front of TV cameras by then-Sen. Sam Nunn in 1993, who immorally intimated that openly gay service members could not be permitted to bunk next to straight service members. From that shameful episode, Nunn led Congress to adopt the ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ law, which should now be repealed. Let’s be done with officially enforced closets.”

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Will US military kick out gay porn star and male prostitute Marine who starred in "Touched by an Anal"?

UPDATE: I'm waiting for Mr. Sanchez to endorse the Meehan legislation that would let him continue his service. In the military.

In this first-person piece he just wrote in Salon, former gay porn star and gay prostitute Matt Sanchez, a GOP hero, blames those evil liberals for outing his man-whore, porn star past. Sanchez, who starred in such thrillers as "Touched by an Anal: Four Hours of Heavenly Anal Action" - I'm not joking (this is NOT a work-friendly link) - now says that the porn industry is evil and liberal and that's why he became a conservative. Get it. It's our fault that he was a man-whore, it's our fault that he went in to gay porn. Uh huh. He also notes that his conservative friends are still embracing him. I'm sure they are. We've discovered long ago what hypocritees conservatives are about their family values. (We also discovered how many of the most ardent conservatives are big ole closet cases, so I'm sure they'd love to embrace you, Matt.)

Speaking of hypocrites, this guy says he's a Marine reservist. How cool is that. I didn't know they let gay porn star hookers in the Marine reservists. While I doubt there's a specific line-item in the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) legislation covering starring in gay porn and engaging in gay male prostitution, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's probably covered by the spirit of DADT.

Then again, this guy is making history. By leaving this guy in the Marines, Bush is pretty clearly violating Dont' Ask Don't Tell and establishing a legal precedent for other gays (or guys who have starred in gay porn and worked as gay prostitutes) to stay in the military, since apparently gay sex no longer makes you gay per the Bush administration (then what does?). Yes, I'm sure Matt's conservative friends in the Bush administration, and his buddies Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, won't have any problem with Matt remaining a Marine reservist and keeping his benefits now that they know he's a gay porn star hooker. They'll have no problem with Sanchez being the guy who brings Don't Ask Don't Tell to its knees (sorry, I had to). To paraphrase Syliva Plath, every conservative loves a gay man-whore.

The irony of course is that we evil liberals support Matt's right to serve in the military, his conservative buddies don't. Now, I've heard that Sanchez says he's not gay. Yeah, I'm sure there's an exemption in Don't Ask Don't Tell for guys who perform in gay porn movies and sell themselves as prostitutes to other man. He's not really gay, it's just a job, and an adventure!

Far more background from our Joe:

Andy at Towleroad tipped us off to the story of conservative star Matt Sanchez that was intially exposed by Joe.My.God. in post titled "Jeff Gannon Redux." That gets your attention, huh?

Seems that in addition to being a star at CPAC and in other right wing circles, including appearances on O'Reilly and Hannity, Sanchez has starred in a number of "films" that probably weren't being shown at CPAC -- or maybe they were:

Now, if you're like me, you might think, "Hmm, 36 years old and he's a junior in college and only a corporal in the Marines?" Odd, but not totally implausible. But Sanchez' face tinkled a few gay bells out there in fairyland, and last night I began to get emails letting me know that his rather late appearance on the Ivy League scene was because Sanchez has had a lengthy career in gay porn, working under the names Rod Majors (NSFW) and Pierre LaBranche, starring in such art films as Jawbreaker.... [This is where it gets not so work place friendly]

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Sanchez had a "devoted following" from his film career. One wonders if Sanchez had a devoted following at CPAC?

Joe.My.God. is staying on top of this one. He's talked to Sanchez and just posted an interview with him here. Read More......

4th newspaper drops Ann Coulter over "faggot" remark

From E&P; Read More......

Senior Republicans knew about Walter Reed soldier abuse, but didn't speak up

They knew, but didn't want to embarrass the Army. Yeah, what's 600,000 disability claims not yet responded to, soldiers sleeping in their own urine, mold, cockroaches and asbestos compared to embarrassing the Army.

From Congressional Quarterly:

Senior Republicans who knew about problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center while their party controlled Congress insist they did all they could to prod the Pentagon to fix them.

But C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital’s problems to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Young and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, both acknowledged in interviews that they were aware of patient care problems at Walter Reed long before The Washington Post exposed them two weeks ago.

And get this: The Republican in charge of all military funding in the House didn't want to weild his influence to fix the problems at Walter Reed and across the entire military hospital system because he discovered the problems during his time off, and he didn't want to mix business with pleasure. I'm not kidding.

“What else do you want me to do? I am not going to go into a hospital and push my way into a medical situation,” Young said after the hearing.

Young said he “separates my life as a member of Congress and the work I do on a volunteer basis,” visiting military hospitals with his wife almost every week.

Young said he used his role as an appropriator to push to fund a new lab at Walter Reed and a new phone system at Fort Carson so patients could more easily make appointments.

But he said he purposely opted to bring concerns about individual patients’ care privately to the attention of Walter Reed commanders, rather than wield his clout as an Appropriations subcommittee chairman.

Wow, a new lab and a new phone system. I'm sure that really helped the guys sleeping in their own urine while you and your wife did practically nothing to stop it. Read More......

Why did GOP Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE-03) pay his father $141,666 out of his campaign money?

Smith Watch reports that FEC filings show that new GOP Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE-03) paid his dad $141,666 out of campaign funds for "payroll processing." Dad sells insurance. So what exactly did dad do for the campaign that he was paid $141,666? That's an awful lot of money in Nebraska - hell, it's an awful lot of money in DC.

Looking at the FEC Web site, and at the electronic filings, this is how the $141,000 breaks down as direct payments to Smith's Dad:

In-Kind: Birthday Invitations: $219.35
In-Kind: Flight for two: $497.58
In-Kind: Office Space: $2525.00
Debt Repayment: $22,055.54
Payroll Processing: $116, 389.38

Any campaign finance experts out there want to weigh in on whether this is as odd as it seems, or just standard practice? Read More......

Bush Admin. to government experts: Don't talk about the polar bears

The Bush Administration doesn't want the government's experts talking about global warming and dying polar bears. Experts will speak of science and facts and that doesn't fit the Bush agenda. So, they can't talk about reality:

Over the past week, biologists and wildlife officials received a cover note and two sample memorandums to be used as a guide in preparing travel requests. Under the heading “Foreign Travel — New Requirement — Please Review and Comply, Importance: High,” the cover note said:

“Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears.”

The sample memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests, indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel “understands the administration’s position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues.”

The simple translation of the government-speak in this memo is "Keep your scientific mouths shut and let the political team do the spin." Just don't talk about those damn polar bears. Read More......

Petraeus: No military solution in Iraq

Four years in to the war that Bush chose to start, in the middle of the escalation of that war, General Petraeus speaks:

"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq," Petraeus said.

"Military action is necessary to help improve security ... but it is not sufficient."

Four years later, we've spent a lot of money and destroyed way too many lives in war that has no military solution. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Get it started. There's plenty to discuss... Read More......

International Women's Day - food for thought

One of my passions is travel and I have had the good fortune to spend a lot of time seeing the world and meeting with all kinds of people. What has always stood out in my travel has been the delta between men and women in terms of social, political and economic status. In many agricultural societies women are often working the fields and feeding the families though when you look at positions of power in business or government, they are seriously underrepresented. Of course, I can also look in my own backyard here in France and see a problems with women being properly represented in business and government, even though France does have a woman as one of the leading candidates for president though I would consider Segolene Royal as the exception that proves the rule. Back in the US, while the situation is improving, representation in government still lacks what one finds in Scandinavia who are about 50/50 men and women.

The Independent lists a few things to consider on this day, reminding us of how far we have to go.

Figures compiled by the British government, development agencies and human rights groups resemble a roll call of shame:

* Two-thirds of the world's 800 million illiterate adults are women as girls are not seen as worth the investment, or are busy collecting water or firewood or doing other domestic chores.

* Two million girls aged from five to 15 join the commercial sex market every year.

* Domestic violence kills and injures more people in the developing world than war, cancer or traffic accidents.

* Seventy per cent of the world's poorest people are women.

* Violence against women causes more deaths and disabilities among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war.

* Women produce half the world's food, but own less than two per cent of the land.

* Of the more than one billion people living in extreme poverty, 70 per cent are women.

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Bush's "encouraging signs" in Iraq continue

Bush made his latest clueless statement about Iraq on Monday, which was an especially bloody day in Iraq which claimed 9 American soldiers and dozens of Iraqis. Since Monday, the day Bush made his bizarre comment, Iraq has experienced a string of very large and very deadly attacks.

A suicide attacker blew himself up in a cafe northeast of the capital Wednesday, killing 30 people as a wave of violence left 90 Iraqis dead throughout the country.

The bloodshed persisted as Iraqi security forces struggled to protect more than 1 million Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala for annual religious rituals that begin Friday. The pilgrims are facing a string of attacks along the way that have claimed at least 174 lives in two days — among 284 killed across Iraq since Tuesday.

They included 22 people — 12 police commandos and 10 civilians — who died Wednesday in a car bombing at a checkpoint in southern Baghdad set up to protect pilgrims, the U.S. military said. An Iraqi TV cameraman working for a Shiite-owned station was among the civilian dead, his station said.

Just north of the capital, a powerful bomb killed three American soldiers trying to clear explosives from a major highway, the U.S. military said. One American soldier was wounded in the attack.

What person in their right mind could possibly view any of this as encouraging? Read More......

Bush prescription drug program in need of price negotiation

Fear must be running through the veins of Republicans and their Big Pharma lobbyists right now because there is talk in Washington about, horror of horrors, price negotiation for prescription drugs. Bush and the Republicans, never a group to stand in the way of shoveling cash to big business at the expense of middle class consumers, tried their best to ignore common sense but even AARP (who helped re-elect Bush) is now complaining about prescription drug prices being out of control.

The prices for about 200 prescription drugs commonly used by seniors in the United States rose nearly twice the rate of inflation, a seniors group said Tuesday, making a case for letting the government negotiate drug prices.

Insomnia pill Ambien, made by Sanofi-Aventis, topped the list with a 30 percent rise in price in 2006, said the report by the seniors' lobby AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

Since when has price negotiations been a bad thing? Do the Republicans really live their own lives this way and not negotiate? Isn't it time to be on the side of the American citizen and not a damned corporation? Is it really that difficult to help out the American middle class? Read More......

Nigeria ready to pass horrifying punitive anti-gay law, all at the behest of the anti-gay Anglican bishop the Anglican Communion is taking orders from

Gee, what a surprise. The guy the Anglican Communion is taking orders from, the guy that made them adopt their new anti-gay stance, is the same guy who is helping pass legislation in Nigeria that could make it illegal for people of the same gender to even have dinner together.

Hell of a church you've got there. Taking orders from some hateful troglodyte who think it's still the 15th century. What's next for the Anglican church, burning witches? Read More......