McCain Stays Silent On Hagee’s Homophobic
Slurs

Earlier this week, right wing pastor John Hagee, a supporter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), re-embraced his oft-repeated belief that Hurricane Katrina represented “the curse of God” for the sins of New Orleans. Though the media have put McCain on the spot over Hagee’s characterization of the Catholic Church as “the Great Whore,” they have been reticent to press McCain on Hagee’s homophobic comments.

To his credit, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked McCain last night about the “bad things” Hagee has said “about Catholics and gays and other things like that.” McCain only repudiated the statements about the Catholic church, however, tacitly refusing to denounce Hagee’s despicable homophobic slurs:

O’REILLY: OK. John Hagee is a guy…

MCCAIN: Yes.

O’REILLY: …that you sought his endorsement in San Antonio, Texas. He said bad things about Catholics and gays and other things like that. And your opponents are saying, hey, you know, McCain hangs around with Hagee. Obama hangs around Wright. No difference.

MCCAIN: I do not embrace a view that he stated about the Catholic church. I steadfastly reject it and repudiate it. I’ve never been in Pastor Hagee’s church. I know him, but the fact is that I accept his endorsement.

Watch it:

video details and more

Throughout the controversy, right wingers have completely ignored Hagee’s anti-gay comments. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich said McCain “should make clear that he disagrees with statements of anti-Catholicism.” He was silent, however, about Hagee’s homophobia. In the past, McCain has repeatedly rejected Hagee’s Catholic comments, but has refused to distance himself from Hagee’s anti-gay comments (even rejecting a question from a reporter on the subject as “nonsense.”)

O’Reilly suggested that McCain had little interaction with Hagee other than “having breakfast” with him once. In fact, as Newsweek pointed out, “McCain personally wooed Hagee for more than a year.” Indeed, Hagee’s endorsement was an integral part of McCain’s attempts to woo religious conservatives.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Who Can Save the Democrats Hillary's Core of
Women Supporters, Writes Peggy Noonan

BE ELECTED
by Christine Bowman

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist, former speechwriter to Ronald Reagan, and author of The Case Against Hillary Clinton (2000) had this to say today:

White women have been Mrs. Clinton's most reliable base of support and readiest crutch, the superdelegate said. And maybe they're the only ones who can break through, both to Mrs. Clinton and to the country ...

Bookmark/Search this post with: buzzflash | delicious | digg | technorati Technorati Tags: Be-Elected Democrats Clinton Noonan Feinstein Boxer Gandy

read more

Read The Full Article:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/election08/173

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Government Impounds Myanmar Aid Supplies

Normally when a catastrophic situation arises, we post ways to help in our side bar. The reason I have held off on doing that for the victims of the cyclone in Burma/Myanmar is that, as was suspected, the military government is impounding the few[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://mouemagazine.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/government-impounds-myanmar-aid-supp
lies/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Three Books About Being Black In America In 1900

I’ve recently read, or am in the process of reading, three books about being Black in America in the years leading up to and following 1900.A book I’ve finished is Sport Of The Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar. (Drawing above.) This is a novel. It is the story of a black family in New York City at the beginning of [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/three-books-about-being-black-in-ame
rica-in-and-around-1900/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

GOP Makes Obstruction An Even Higher Priority
Than Moms

So much for that "family values" party label. Via Dana Milbank: "It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood."...[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/09/gop-makes-obsctruction-even-higher-priority-tha
n-moms/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Drunken driving charge on way to visit mistress
and illegitimate daughter -- Rep. Vito Fossella is GOP Hypocrite of the Week

THE BUZZFLASH GOP HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK

http://gophypocrites.com/2008/05/hyp08019.html

Vito Fossella

Welcome back to the Buzzflash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

This is our preface to this week's award: U.S. Congressman "Fossella, who was elected in 1997, is an arch-conservative with close ties to the Bush White House, which may make it more difficult for him to recover."

A U.S. representative who is tied at the hip with the Bushevik is the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week? How could that happen and what does Fossella have to recover from?
Bookmark/Search this post with: buzzflash | delicious | digg | technorati Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Honors Vito Fossella drunken driving mistress love child illegitimate daughter

read more

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Federal judge orders CIA to turn over 2002
torture memo for review.

In an “unusual” move, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of New York yesterday ordered the CIA “to submit to the court a 2002 memo said to specify harsh interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists held abroad.” Hellerstein will “determine whether it should be made public pursuant” to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the ACLU and other groups. The Aug. 1, 2002 memo was written by then-Justice Department official John Yoo, focusing “on the specific interrogation techniques that were deemed legally permissible at the CIA” and including “discussion of waterboarding.”

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

For personal attacks and "character issues,"
Contessa Brewer/Corporate Mainstream Media is BuzzFlash's Media Putz of the Week

THE BUZZFLASH MEDIA PUTZ OF THE WEEK

http://mediaputz.com/08/05/putz0508.html

Contessa Brewer and the Corporate Mainstream Media

For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.

We received so many nominations for individual members of the corporate "Big Media" that we decided to just present a group BuzzFlash Media Putz this week. The occasion for the recognition is that until the Indiana/North Carolina primaries, the corporate press focused for weeks on tin lapel pins, Jeremiah Wright, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other issues that have no relevance to the problems facing America.

In fact, as recently as last Sunday, Tim Russert, the "dean" of insider D.C. broadcast-journalism "respectability," grilled Barack Obama yet again on Rev. Wright, taking up a large part of an hour interview with a topic that was old news, a distraction, and had no bearing on the severe problems facing our nation.

buzzflash

delicious

digg

technorati

read more

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Barack Obama Is Electable, But . . .

While Barack Obama has the Problem, there is no doubt he is electable. Heck, any Dem would be in this political climate. Paul Krugman explains why:

First, votes are affected by the state of the economy — mainly economic performance in the year or so preceding the election. Second, the approval rating of the current president strongly affects his party’s ability to hold power. Third, the electorate seems to suffer from an eight-year itch: parties rarely manage to hold the White House for more than two terms in a row. This year, all of these factors strongly favor the Democrats. Indeed, the Democratic Party hasn’t enjoyed this favorable a political environment since 1964.

But being electable does not mean he will win. Krugman recognizes the problem:

There’s just one thing that should give Democrats pause — but it’s a big one: the fight for the nomination has divided the party along class and race lines in a way that I believe is unprecedented, at least in modern times.

Ironically, much of Mr. Obama’s initial appeal was the hope that he could transcend these divisions. At first, voting patterns seemed consistent with this hope. In February, for example, he received the support of half of Virginia’s white voters as well as that of a huge majority of African-Americans.

But this week, Mr. Obama, while continuing to win huge African-American majorities, lost North Carolina whites by 23 points, Indiana whites by 22 points. Mr. Obama’s white support continues to be concentrated among the highly educated; there was little in Tuesday’s results to suggest that his problems with working-class whites have significantly diminished.

That is "the problem." Krugman puts it succinctly:

[Obama] needs to bring Democrats who opposed him back into the fold.

Krugman advises the following:

So what can be done to heal the party’s current divisions? More tirades from Obama supporters against Mrs. Clinton are not the answer — they will only further alienate her grass-roots supporters, many of whom feel that she received a raw deal.

Nor is it helpful to insult the groups that supported Mrs. Clinton, either by suggesting that racism was their only motivation or by minimizing their importance.

After the Pennsylvania primary, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, airily dismissed concerns about working-class whites, saying that they have “gone to the Republican nominee for many elections.” On Tuesday night, Donna Brazile, the Democratic strategist, declared that “we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics.” That sort of thing has to stop.

One thing the Democrats definitely need to do is give delegates from Florida and Michigan — representatives of citizens who voted in good faith, and whose support the party may well need this November — seats at the convention.

And to the extent that campaigning matters, Mr. Obama should center his campaign on economic issues that matter to working-class families, whatever their race.

Good advice.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Mikes Blog Roundup

Attytood: Cheney gives Philly economy a shot in the face Newshoggers: Nice, if true, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference either way.Average Bro: Cotton Hill & John McCain - Separated at birth?Jewschool: Israel’s ArabsDani Rodrik: If the Danes can do it, why can’t others?Crooked Timber: Phyllis Schlafly’s honorary degree: a travesty [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/09/mikes-blog-roundup-287/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!