Bush Falls...Again!

George Bush is back on that mountain bike and, yep, he's taken another tumble. Riding with an AP reporter on Monday, Bush wiped out and went over the handlebars, landing on his back and cutting his knee. He manfully waved off the medics nearby and continued biking, though later admitting he felt a little shaken up. Shouldn't the President of the United States already know how to ride a bike?
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My Pet Goat II

George Bush is reading another book! The man who famously said he doesn't bother with newspapers (too much possibility of discovering something that challenges or just plain confuses you) is now reading a new book. According to USA Today, Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan said he is currently reading the 9/11 commission's report. It's sad but true that we had to be told this (rather than just assume it) and even sadder that it's actually surprising. (Dick Cheney says he's read "about half" of it.) Any bets on how far Bush gets into the 800+ pages before giving up?

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"Rumored to be a closeted lesbian..."

Ok, this is just too funny. I'm sitting here blogging in our office across the street from the FleetCenter, listening to the convention while occasionally watching the reflection of C-SPAN's coverage in the window behind my computer, and I see a woman come up to speak. She has short brown hair, glasses, and is wearing a nice ride jacket. I hear the commentator say in a very soothing deep vote: "Next up, Janet Napolitano, the Democratic governor of Arizona, and rumored to be a closeted lesbian."

WTF?

Since when did C-SPAN start outing closeted lesbians? Well, of course, it wasn't C-SPAN. It was Sirius OutQ - the gay satellite radio channel I'm working for, commenting on Ms. Napolitano (who I have to admit does resemble Donna Shalala - not that there's anything wrong with it...) Read the rest of this post...

Ooh, ooh, a little Michael Moore gossip!

I have not yet spotted Michael Moore at the convention, but apparently he's THE hot thing. Throngs of media and fans trail are reportedly trailing him around the convention. My buddies at Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ (the satellite radio station I'm covering the convention for) cornered Moore a short while ago and quizzed him about gay marriage. Apparently, he gave them quite an angry earful about the Republicans' shameful tactics in using gaybashing to get votes. Our reporter who got the Moore interview tells me Moore even coined a new term for the Republicans. After Sirius runs the interview tomorrow I'll tell you the word - it's good. :-) Read the rest of this post...

Quick convention update

Hey everyone. I won't be posting photos till later in the evening when I get back to my laptop, but today has been a bit mellower than yesterday. Still a lot of celebrity sitings, just a bit less harried than yesterday.

I spent the day at the convention center itself. Bo-ring. Not a damn thing happens in that place before 4pm. I wandered the halls like the ghost of Mary Worth trying to find someone, ANYONE worth talking to. Nothing.

Well, not that it wasn't fun politico-spotting. Among today's sitings (again, I am SO not looking each of these guys up online to spell-check):

- Congressman Charlie Rangel

- Cong. Jim McDermott

- Blogger Markos (Kos) - we chatted briefly in the hall, he seemed a bit preoccupied/busy, and surprised that I actually recognized him as we'd never met (I'm actually not sure why I DID recognize him... and, by the way, he's quite cute :-) I later almost shared a very special moment with Kos as I visited the bloggers row at the convention and while passing Kos, who was busily typing, Kos' computer cord wrapped around my foot, someone yelled, and I froze in mid air right before I yanked his computer to the floor. That would have earned me a place in blogging history - Hi, I'm the guy who took DailyKos off the air.

- Blogger Jesse of Pandagon.net - Mike Signorile interviewed him on the show today, he was apparently quite interesting. Nice guy too.

- DC blogger Wonkette who is at the convention working for MTV - who was also looking a bit harried - she's the newest HOT HOT HOT blogger, and I suspect she's being interviewed to death.

- Al Franken. Got to see Al Franken doing his show, and then later walking through the crowd with a big backpack on. Franken cuts a funny figure, duck-walking quickly through the crowd, shoulders rocking back and forth.

- FOX News' Sean Hannity, who was covering the convention for ABC Radio. I know, I can't stand the guy, and have a lifetime refusal in to them about NEVER doing his show (mom made me promise I wouldn't ever do his show, and I won't - turned them down twice already). Just watching him do the show, hearing that annoyingly nasal voice, sucking up to the cops watching him, yuck. Hannity mentioned that he apparently got into a big fight with Al Franken yesterday. No further details on what happened, but it sounds juicy.

- Robert Reich - who is the smallest man in the world - walked by and then interviewed with Hannity. I talked to Reich's people about the article he wrote this past April about the horrors of Bush's second term, if we don't get rid of him. You may recall I posted the article a few days ago. I told his peeps how impressed I, and a lot of you, were with his article and she said she was going to tell him because, apparently, he got some bad feedback after the article initially ran. Some people, liberals included, thought the article was too harsh! She did indicate that attitudes were clearly changing, as now, some 4 months later, more people appreciating the articles take-no-prisoners description of what the next 4 years of a Bush presidency would look like. And getting back to the height issue - I kid you not, the man is like 4 feet tall.

- I also got to speak at length with blogger Nathan of NateKnowsNada.org - nice guy, gay, studying policy sci in graduate school at Harvard, has a partner (sigh). He was unsure about "outing campaign were nobody is really being outed since they're already 'out'" - until I told him about the recent comments by these Republican staffers in the Wash Post and NY Times in which they indicate that being gay is the last issue of concern on the list of things they care about in life. And that several of them actually support the Gay Bashing marriage amendment. He agreed that those people suck.

Other than that, Ted Kennedy just gave his speech, in which he was one of the very few convention speakers to say the G-word (gay). Gephardt is speaking now. I won't be on the floor tonight, as I'll be attending the Planned Parenthood gala at which I'm promised I'll be interviewing a few famous people. If that actually happens, I'll post pictures later.

Anyway, that's it for now. More later. JOHN Read the rest of this post...

A picture's worth a thousand words...

So the GOP is trying to make the Kerry space-suit photo  the new Dukakis-in-a-tank.    Of course, then there's...

 


which one is more stupid?
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Moore invites Bush to Crawford screening of F-911

I'm cracking up laughing with this one!  Hey, George is in town so why not?

...Moore later offered to come to Crawford to introduce his movie and discuss it afterward.
Organizers expect about 1,000 people to attend the show Wednesday night at a football stadium parking lot; police said demonstrators against the film were also expected.

Moore, on his Web site, invited Bush to attend, saying he wanted a chance to thank him personally for starring in the film. "And let's face it, you've got some of the funniest lines in the film!" he wrote.

BREAKING NEWS: Jerry Falwell to give invocation on opening night of Republican Convention in NYC

UPDATE: I just checked with Mel's people. He was at Falwell's church and heard him say that he was going to be doing the invocation.

Well, we knew the honeymoon wouldn't last long. After having been beaten up for weeks by the radical right, the Republicans have decided to go for Convention 1992 all over again. Yes, they've caved to the fundamentalist wackos and added intolerant bigots like Jerry Falwell to the evening's festivities. I suppose this means the Bush campaign agrees with Falwell that gays and lesbians, ACLU members and pro-choicers caused September 11?

I KNEW the Republicans were going to make it fun to cover their convention next month.

More on this issue from Rev. Mel White of Soulforce, I just received this email from him. Mel is a long-time pain in Falwell's neck:

Hi friend,
Jerry Falwell just announced at Thomas Road Baptist Church that he would be giving the invocation on opening night at the Republican National Convention in NYC. I was stunned.

What more evidence do we need that IF George Bush is re-elected, he will have no choice but to support Fundamentalist Christian goals for this nation, its courts and its Constitution?!

In his second term, WITH ALL THE OTHER TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF HIS RE-ELECTION, Bush could cripple our struggle for civil rights for sexual and gender minorities. We must not let that happen...

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Are Passports Gay?

CNN.com reports that a man who married his partner once Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage -- they've been together for 23 years! -- was denied a passport under his new last name. This is just one of the many examples of practical, day-to-day problems raised when the US government tries to deny the reality of how people are living. Canada and other countries will recognize gay marriages, so eventually will the EU and it's just going to be impossible for the US to treat legally recognized marriages by our allies or individual states as second-class.
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France Steps Away From Gay Marriage

In the "two steps forward, one step back" dance that characterizes the gay rights struggle today, a French court has annulled France's first gay marriage. The ruling will undoubtedly be appealed and reach the European Court of Human Rights. The French aren't so c'est la vie on this: equal rights for gays has been political dynamite.
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Monday's convention wrap-up

(This was written late last night). Man, what a busy day. I got back to my room after midnight, traffic was insane, and I'm absolutely exhausted. The convention has so far been a hoot. I have to admit, it's fun hobnobbing with all the politicos. Even being from DC, where we see them all the time, something about being here at the convention adds an extra zest that you just don't feel when you see them back home.

Some of the highlights:

Interviewing Barbara Boxer (who right before was talking to former recording industry lobbyist and gay rights guru Hilary Rosen):



Going through the FleetCenter, seeing who you could pick out of the crowd. Saw Ted Koppel and Chris Bury of ABCNews (Koppel is SO short). Saw the OTHER Senator Kerrey, former Dem senator from Nebraska. Also saw congresspeople Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) (forget my spelling, it's 1AM, I'm NOT looking up these names) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) hugging outside a restaurant (it was a good-natured hug, watch your minds).

But of course the BIG fun was going onto the convention floor this evening for Hillary's and Bill's speeches. Hill was good, she only spoke about 5 minutes, but the crowd loved her.



Then came Bill. Man, that guy can work a crowd. It was absolutely exhilirating standing there with tens of thousands of people all getting more and more worked up, as only Clinton knows how.



Standing literally next to us was a gaggle of local and national who's-whos, such as former Clinton cabinet Secretary Cisneros, who was definitely enjoying Bill's speech:



DC city councilmember Adrian Fenty:



And just to my left was someone who Mike Signorile, my cohort on the convention floor, swore to me WASN'T who I thought it was. Well, after seeing the "Speaker Pelosi" cord around her neck, I knew it had to be, none other than, openly-lesbian member of Congress Tammy Baldwin! And yep, it was her. She was really nice - I asked if I could get a picture (for you all), and she said, why not get one together?! She then took my camera, handed it to her lover (who she introduced me to), and her lover took this pic of the two of us (looking a bit oompa-loompa-ish, sorry, bad lighting):



After Bill finished speaking - well, ok, BEFORE he finished speaking because, guess what, he went on for a while - we had to leave because you only get floor access for about a half hour at a time (well, at least that was the way it worked for us). Anyway, on the way out we passed talk radio alley (or some such name), and who was broadcasting live, but our favorite Air America(n) Jeanine Garofolo (again, I'm not looking up her name to spell it right, you know who I mean).



Finally, by around 11:30, after we fought our way through the throngs exiting the convention center, we, quite accidentally, walked by the little cage set up for the protesters. I kid you not, they gave them a cage. (Where's Jack-Off Ryan when you need him?) These cage had double-walled fences, a meshed in top, and BARBED WIRE. As Mike Signorile exclaimed while looking at the set-up "Flying monkeys could get out of there!" It was quite the nasty looking spectacle.



I'm sure there's more to tell, but I've got to get up in 8.5 hours, so I'm signing off. Tomorrow, I'll try to find Kos and Atrios on blogger row - would be fun to finally see them in person. JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Medicare to slash payments for cancer drugs, requesting comments

The change is being proposed because oncologists are often profiting enormously from pumping chemo drugs into patients so the government wants to allow a profit that is closer to 6% above the cost that the doctor pays.  Needless to say the doctors who have been profiting from this treatment are not happy.  I encourage you to let your voice be heard on the matter, especially those who have been through cancer treatment or those who have family that have been through the process.  Cheney might have looked into this angle of cutting costs before blaming it all on patients and greedy lawyers.  It's nice to see that some greedy doctors are already playing the fear game with patients.

Some cancer doctors, who along with a few other types of health care providers customarily pocket the difference between what Medicare pays for certain medications and what the drug makers actually charge the doctors, have warned that they will stop caring for Medicare patients if the price cuts become permanent.

Last year, 70 percent of oncologists' income came from drug mark-ups, according to Medicare data.

Fearing the changes, some cancer doctors have sent letters to patients warning that they may have to check themselves into hospitals to receive care or they may soon be given older, more toxic cancer drugs.