So is the Vatican's #2 saying that the Pope is gay?

The Vatican's number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, just informed the world that the child rape scandal enveloping the Catholic church is all due to gay people. He went on to allege something that was debunked almost forty years ago, that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked. You have to love how AP handled that little chestnut:

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, made the comments during a news conference Monday in Chile, where one of the church's highest-profile pedophile cases involves a priest having sex with young girls.

Oops.

Of course, in the developed world (that's a jab at the Vatican, not Chile), everyone knows that sexual orientation has nothing to do with rape, child or otherwise. It's stunning that the number two in the Vatican would either outright lie to the world, or be so uneducated and ignorant as to be spreading forty-year old blood lies about an entire class of human beings (so much for infallibility). Almost reminds you of the way the Vatican has treated Jews over the years (not very well). You'd think the people leading one of the world's biggest religions wouldn't be neanderthals. Then again, you'd also think that they weren't chid rapists, and aiding and abetting the rape of children. So what's a lie to men who condone the rape of children.

But getting back to Cardinal Bertone. If he thinks the Catholic church's child rape scandal is being caused by gays, and we now know that the Pope played a significant role in aiding and abetting the rape of those children, then is Cardinal Bertone suggesting that the Pope himself is gay? Read More......

Barney Frank says Obama is not for DADT repeal this year, Frank is 'frustrated, disappointed' with President, Obama's lack of support is 'a problem'

It's not entirely clear why the White House wanted gay people, and the public at large, to think that the President was for the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" this year. Openly-gay Democratic Congressman Barney Frank informs us that the President is not, and it's a real problem.

“I’m frustrated. I’m disappointed with the administration..."

“[President Obama] not being for [DADT repeal this year] will give people an excuse to not vote for it. Thing is – we’ve done hate crimes. We do ENDA. It’s a big agenda all at once. At this point – the President’s refusal to call for repeal this year is a problem."

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Missouri GOPer Roy Blunt wants to end pre-existing condition protections

Throughout the health insurance reform debate, there was one issue that seemed to unite people: ending the practice of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. It polled very, very well:

Most popular by a mile: “Requiring that health insurance companies cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.” Sixty-three percent of respondents said that proposal “absolutely must” be included as part of any final legislation, and another 26% said they “would prefer” for it to be included.

That's 89% when combined. Nothing polls at 89%.

But, in Missouri, House GOPer/Senate candidate Roy Blunt doesn't think the American people deserve that protection. Today, he cast his lot with the insurance companies in a way that was surprisingly big, even for a Republican:

Like any good GOPer, Blunt puts his loyalties to the insurance industry ahead of the public interest. Most of them aren't so obvious and so tone deaf about their fealty to lobbyists. Read More......

Senate votes to end latest GOP filibuster blocking unemployment benefits

This afternoon, the Senate voted to end the filibuster of the legislation to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA, which affected hundreds of thousand of Americans:

The 60-34 vote killed a GOP filibuster against debating the measure, which would extend benefits through the end of the month.

Four Republicans — Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine — voted with Democrats to move the bill forward.

Those hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans lost their benefits last Monday because of this GOP filibuster.

Today, Roll Call (sub. req.) reported that Majority Leader Harry Reid was "on track to set the record for having the best batting average when it comes to killing filibusters." Reid has had to fight an almost unbelievable onslaught of GOP-led filibusters -- against almost everything. Read More......

April and May may be 'do-or-die' time for ENDA and DADT

Joe writes on AMERICAblog gay that if Congress doesn't get to work on passing ENDA, and repealing DADT, in April and May, it may not happen for years to come.

The next couple months are pivotal for the viable pro-equality bills on Capitol Hill. Over the next couple days, we're going to see how motivated Democrats are to take up pro-gay legislation. Already, as John noted, there's talk among House Democrats that the members don't want to take any "tough votes" for the rest of the year. I have a feeling too many people in the Democratic caucus would consider DADT and ENDA among the "tough votes" they won't want to take. We'll be witnessing "political homophobia" in action.

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Boehner: Repealing health bill GOP's 'number one priority'

Good for you, crazy man. I hope we start seeing ads on TV about the GOP wanting to take your child's health insurance away, and reinstate pre-existing conditions. We need the ad campaign (and the campaign overall) we never really had during the health insurance reform debate. Read More......

NYT opinion: The Civil War and Slavery can't be separated

Jon Meacham in the NYT:

Last week, Virginia’s governor, Robert McDonnell, jumped backward when he issued a proclamation recognizing April as Confederate History Month. In it he celebrated those “who fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth” and wrote of the importance of understanding “the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.”

The governor originally chose not to mention slavery in the proclamation, saying he “focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” It seems to follow that, at least for Mr. McDonnell, the plight of Virginia’s slaves does not rank among the most significant aspects of the war.

Advertently or not, Mr. McDonnell is working in a long and dispiriting tradition. Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress, and it is revealing that Virginia’s neo-Confederates are refighting the Civil War in 2010. Whitewashing the war is one way for the right — alienated, anxious and angry about the president, health care reform and all manner of threats, mostly imaginary — to express its unease with the Age of Obama, disguising hate as heritage.

If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let’s talk history. Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration.

[T]he enduring problem for neo-Confederates endures: anyone who seeks an Edenic Southern past in which the war was principally about states’ rights and not slavery is searching in vain, for the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.

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Senator Schumer asks Treasury to block carry-on luggage fees

While I'm in agreement with him that people are tired of being nickle and dimed by the airline industry, the charges don't look that bad to me. Passengers can still bring a bag that's large enough to carry a laptop without having to pay anything extra. At the moment, without such charges there's generally a mad rush to get on fast and cram everything you have in the overhead bins. If you are not in early (or your other flight was delayed) you're not going to find anything because everyone else has decided to pack big bags overhead.

The New York Democrat is making a personal plea to the Treasury Department to rule that carry-on bags are a necessity for travel, which would make them exempt from a separate fee outside the ticket price.

"Airline passengers have always had the right to bring a carry-on bag without having to worry about getting nickeled and dimed by an airline company," Schumer said. "This latest fee is a slap in the face to travelers."

Schumer said carry-on bags often contain medications and other necessities, particularly for families. Carry-on fees artificially avoid higher ticket prices and the taxes applied to tickets, Schumer said.

Unless there's some tricky language that is in there, people should be able to bring a bag that includes everything mentioned above. Here is the link to Spirit Airlines site describing the size of the bag that is allowed. I have a fairly large laptop bag (that can hold two laptops) and it's within the limit. Again, it's not that I don't appreciate Senator Schumer's attempt to help passengers, but this looks OK.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Without getting in to the merits of whether carry-on bags should be charged or not, I'd like to see legislation that simply requires airlines to include all of their "fees" in the price of the ticket online (or offline). So if I'm comparing flights on a Web site, I can see the actual price of the ticket, all fees and charges included. Read More......

House leadership aide: No more tough votes until election

I can think of one "tough vote" that remains: November itself. And this kind of talk from the Democrats is not going to help motivate Latinos, pro-choicers, gays, enviros and others to donate their money to, and come out in droves for, Democrats. I'm sure that smarty-pants Democrats in the White House (Messina, Bond) and DNC (Tobias) are telling everyone not to worry about t he core Democratic constituencies, they'll vote for us anyway in the end, just as they did on health care reform in the House.

But mid-term elections - elections overall - are not congressional votes. People, generally, don't think their vote counts. Not individually. No one really believes that if they don't vote, their one vote will throw an election (even though some times your individual vote CAN swing an election (especially for a House seat), and certainly in the aggregate (think Florida in the 2000 election) - but I still believe that many people don't believe/realize this). By constantly going back on their promises to key Democratic constituencies, Democrats are suppressing enthusiasm, which may very lead a lots of Democrats to not vote. Here's how it works:

1. Say I'm a Democrat, and I'm ticked at the party for turning its back on its promises to my constituency.
2. I also don't want the Republicans to take control of the House, or take back the White House.
3. But I "know" that my single vote will never swing an entire congressional election, and certainly won't be the deciding vote for the presidency.
4. So, I slow down my donations (or stop all together), I don't volunteer to help any campaigns, I bad mouth the party to all my friends (dampening their enthusiasm and creating chatter that leads the media to write stories about dispirited Dems, only leading to further Democratic dispiriting and at the same time energizing Republicans), and when election day comes, I may simply not vote since, I think, my individual vote won't really make a difference, and I just can't stomach voting for these guys again.
5. Thus, I make my point by withholding my support, self-assured that by not donating and not voting I'm not "really" hurting the party, since my individual vote won't matter. It's a stand on principle. And one that, in the aggregate, can unwittingly swing an election.

I'm not saying that this is what I will do, I'm saying it's what a lot of dispirited Dems most certainly may do. What happens next? Well, if enough individual Democrats, all equally convinced that the party has turned its back on them, but also equally convinced that their sole vote won't make a difference in swinging the election, collectively pull their support for the party, suddenly that sea of individuals becomes a minor tidal wive.

And that's the dilemma that the Messinas, Bonds and Tobias' of the world fail to understand. Enthusiasm matters for elections. And the White House, DNC, and Congress have done a really good job of taking Latinos, gays, enviros, pro-choicers, health care advocates and every other core Democratic constituency for granted, killing a lot of the enthusiasm that was there only 15 months ago. And collectively, that enthusiasm gap could be quite harmful to Dems in the fall. Read More......

Miss. Governor Haley Barbour defends the confederacy

Apparently, defending the confederacy really is a new GOP talking point. Last week, the new Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, caused a firestorm when the declared that April was "Confederate History Month."

Yesterday, CNN's Candy Crowley had what CNN billed as an "exclusive interview" with another GOP superstar, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. He currently heads the campaign committee for Republican Governors and he used to be the RNC Chairman. And, there's a lot of speculation that Barbour will run for president in 2012.

Barbour is on board with celebrating the confederacy and really didn't understand the controversy:
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NY TImes: Recession experts say, 'For the record, this recession isn’t over yet.'

The unemployment rate is 9.7%, yet Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to block unemployment benefits. The major financial institutions are up to their same old tricks (and making huge profits), yet Senate Republicans are planning a strategy to derail financial reform. They're still playing games with the economy that they helped to ruin. As the GOPers keep playing politics, we get word from the experts on recessions that this one isn't over:

For the record, this recession isn’t over yet.

A committee of economists, charged with determining the official turning points in the nation’s business cycles, certifies the beginnings and ends of recessions. But this time, the committee members say, the evidence is not so easy to decipher.

The committee plans to announce on Monday that it cannot yet declare an end to the recession that began in December 2007, several members indicated on Sunday. Such an acknowledgment is rare in the history of setting dates to business cycles and could affect the behavior of investors and consumers.

Despite a recent uptick in employment and income, the decision of the committee at a meeting on Friday reflects a lingering worry that the economy could turn downward again in a so-called double-dip recession.

Most of us are ready for this recession to be over. But, for GOPers, dragging it out helps their electoral prospects in 2010. Read More......

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The nuclear security summit gets underway today at the Washington Convention Center. I just heard on NPR that it's the largest such gathering since FDR convened world leaders to start the United Nations back in 1945. This summit is designed to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear material. That is, of course, a worthy goal. But, how come it hasn't been done already? George Bush was too preoccupied with Iraq, which wasn't a nuclear threat, to worry about actual nuclear threats. Another failed legacy.

Congress returns today. The Senate will vote this afternoon to end the GOP filibuster of an extension of unemployment insurance and COBRA. Last Monday, hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their benefits because of the GOP's filibuster. No surprise the same GOPers who helped lead us to the brink of financial collapse are doing their best to ruin the most vulnerable victims of the economic downturn. I do hope the White House and Senate Democrats have a strategy to get this legislation passed and enacted.

Over the next few days, I suspect we'll get a sense of the mood of House Democrats and whether they have the stomach to take up what they view as "controversial" legislation over the next few months. There's increasing chatter that the GOP could take the House in November. Last week, Nate Silver posted an analysis of generic polling that showed a possible 50 seat loss. The House Democratic caucus is going to decide whether to move ahead with legislation that could inspire their base, i.e. ENDA and DADT, or they're going to take avoid anything that smacks of contention. My guess is they opt for the latter.

Let's get it started... Read More......

High ranking Bishop blames Jews for Pope criticism in child rape scandal

As if the defense of the Pope could get any uglier. Any day now it's going to be the fault of the children who were victims. The worst part is that they don't have any understanding of the world around them. People are angry that there have been so many instances of child rape matched with so many cases of cover-up. It's not one single country or diocese, but around the world. Anyone who held any position of leadership in the church could easily be implicated because sweeping these stories under the carpet is what they all did and promoted. For decades. Are they seriously trying to push such a defense?

A furious transatlantic row has erupted over quotes that were attributed to a retired Italian bishop, which suggested that Jews were behind the current criticism of the Catholic church's record on tackling clerical sex abuse.

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is.

The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."

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Russia: pilot error and president's desire to arrive in Smolensk may have caused crash

How easy could it have been for the pilot to ignore the president's demand to land, if that was in fact the situation? The Independent:

Alexander Alyoshin, deputy chief of the Russian Air Force's general staff, said the pilot had ignored several orders from air-traffic control not to land at Smolensk because of thick fog. "The head of the air-traffic control group gave a command to the crew to put the aircraft into the horizontal position, and when the crew did not implement this order, several times gave orders to divert to an alternative airport.

"Despite this, the crew continued the descent. Unfortunately this ended in tragedy."

The airport is a small, military facility that does not usually accept civilian craft. Aviation experts speculated that the pilots may have been ordered to land by the Polish President. "It's a clear case of VIP-passenger syndrome," flight safety expert Viktor Timoshkin told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "Air-traffic control told him to take the plane to Moscow or Minsk. I'm certain that the pilot will have told the President about this, and got a firm reply that the plane must land in Smolensk."

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