Dana Milbank at the WaPo delivers a stunning and accurate smackdown to the misguided, misleading and unhinged Elaine Donnelly of The Center for Military Readiness, who testified at yesterday's House Armed Services personnel subcommittee hearing on the law known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Donnelly treated the panel to an extraordinary exhibition of rage. She warned of "transgenders in the military." She warned that lesbians would take pictures of people in the shower. She spoke ominously of gays spreading "HIV positivity" through the ranks.
"We're talking about real consequences for real people," Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about "inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community," the prospects of "forcible sodomy" and "exotic forms of sexual expression," and the case of "a group of black lesbians who decided to gang-assault" a fellow soldier.
The far right retooled the amendment to focus on restricting marriage to one man and one woman, leaving out language that could outlaw any legal recognition of unmarried couples and sent it back through the legislature. Just this week, the fundnuts were dealt a blow when, during the waning days of the legislative session, the state senate in a 14-11 vote rejected the ballot initiative.
But it still wasn't over. As the clock ran down, the measure was brought up again in the late hours Friday night -- and the GOP scraped up enough bigots to do the deed.
On primary night I liveblogged from Southern Rail in Carrboro, where U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal held his after-party.
It was a festive atmosphere, even as results came in that made it pretty clear state Senator Kay Hagan would cross the finish line with a lot of distance between her and Jim, and she will face the useless, ineffective Elizabeth Dole in November.
This afternoon I received a fax from Communications Director Hogan Gidley of the Elizabeth Dole campaign regarding the petition that I delivered last Friday on behalf of 1265 readers of Firedoglake, Pam's House Blend, and BlueNC who signed the petition.
Sigh. I didn't receive a response from Sen. Dole's pitiful Constituent Services Letter GeneratorTM. No autopen-signed missive to help me pretend that I heard from my senator.
Friday morning I delivered a petition to Senator Elizabeth Dole's Raleigh office. It was signed by 1,265 concerned citizens -- including more than 300 North Carolinians -- all requesting that Senator Elizabeth Dole use her considerable clout in her party to tell the North Carolina Republican Party's Linda Daves to stop running the race-baiting anti-Obama ad called "Extreme."
Dole said in an interview she didn't want to get involved.
"I am concentrating on getting my work done here in the Senate, and I'm just not going to get into refereeing a third party political ad that has nothing to do with my race," she said.
You can do something about this - we're planning to give Liddy a special delivery. Read on.
I was on the Mike Signorile Show on SIRIUS OutQ 109 on Friday to tackle why it's hard to have productive discussions about race, given the environment of denial and defensiveness that has developed around the subject.
We talked about the NC GOP ad flap this week, and also examined how both Oprah and Condi Rice recently received a cold splash of water in the face to remind them of their blackness -- and thus (in the eyes of many who somehow saw them as "post-racial" figures before) they now part of the secret Black Radical Trojan Horse Agenda, a group apparently as dangerous to our culture as The Homosexual Agenda.
As a native North Carolinian (and current Durham resident), I can tell you that the bottom-feeding video from the NC GOP, supposedly about Dem gubernatorial candidates Bev Perdue and Richard Moore (both endorsed Obama), is standard operating procedure for a state party in a death spiral.
That it is trying to link those candidates' support for Obama to Rev. Wright (how weak is this?) to generate color arousal is not only disgraceful, but a prime example of what kind of games we will see in the fall.
I've blogged extensively about the U.S. Senate race in the state of North Carolina at my pad. Bush rubber-stamping Elizabeth Dole absolutely must be unseated, and despite the roiling Dem presidential primary season, I'm glad that the spotlight will be on my state for the May 6 primary -- it can only help expose the Democratic U.S. Senate candidates to a wider audience.
The leading Dem candidates are former investment banker Jim Neal (who has received the thumbs up from the netroots, and who's openly gay) and State Senator Kay Hagan (who was recruited by Chuck Schumer and the DSCC). One candidate has a problem answering basic questions about pending LGBT legislation.
Joe Sudbay at the progressive political powerhouse Americablog has excellent political instincts. People laughed at him last year when he predicted Hillary Clinton would run into serious political trouble during the primaries - heck, I was one of them.
It's not easy to get an endorsement at this high-traffic blog; Joe and the crew over there carefully consider who they back in races, and are looking at the impact of swing states and the growth of progressive politics -- and they have endorsed Jim Neal for the U.S. Senate. See Jim Neal's new video below the fold.
This is priceless. Last week at the Young Democrats convention her in NC there was a private reception with Clintonista and DLC tool James Carville and local pols. Blue America-endorsed North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal was there as Mary Matalin’s husband got up to shill for Neal’s opponent and Chuck Schumer/DSCC-backed candidate State Senator Kay Hagan.
Ryan Teague Beckwith at The News & Observer's Under the Dome has the skinny on what happened, and there's a photo of it below the fold.
For those of you out there who don't have the North Carolina U.S. Senate race on your radar, it's time to take a look, because you need to see the positions of the candidate the Democratic establishment is backing for the May 6 primary.
Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) is running for re-election, and she's done precious little for our state; in fact she's hurt the interests of North Carolinians with her 1) poor constituent services and visibility in the Tar Heel state, and 2) her rubber-stamping of Bush administration's policies that have hurt this nation. In a state with a large military population, many deployed on multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dole has not supported the troops and their families -- or the veterans who returned broken and battered.
Greensboro-native Jim Neal is ready to change things up in more ways than one.
This country has so many issues ahead of us, the economy, Iraq, health care, our shredded civil liberties, yet the fact that we as a country still cannot discuss race; we deny the role it plays in the political discourse when discussing Obama. There isn't a discussion of the tried and true race-baiting tactics that have been used by both parties to stoke fear in the Base of The Black Man at the polls (remember the Harold Ford ads?). Will there be an honest discussion about these political tactics and how they will play out in 2008, or will pundits dance around it, making only veiled references because a frank discussion about race and its toxic role in political elections makes people uncomfortable.
Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Elizabeth Do-Nothing Dole, Jim Neal, reminds people in this video scooped from YouTube, that there is more to "family values" than what we hear from the bible-beating set and the political moral hypocrites.
"Number one, there's no master's degree in parenting. It's a real learn-on-your-feet job. And the longer you do it, the better you get at it because you learn lessons. Without a doubt, raising children is the toughest job I've ever had, but without a doubt it's the most rewarding. The most important people in my life are my children. As a parent, you're no happier than your least happy child. And I have been that way my entire life and I'm that way today, even though my my kids are 20 and 22 years old.
I've been telling my readers over at my blog, Pam's House Blend, about why it's time to boot Senator Elizabeth Dole out of office for some time now. Never mind that I don't agree with her politics -- she's simply not doing the job she was elected to do -- represent and take care of the people of North Carolina. She's been inaccessible, no one seems to know when or if she's ever here (or on the Senate floor for that matter). The fact that she votes to affirm the interests of the Bush Administration is just rancid icing on the cake.
I decided to take a look at the Friends of Elizabeth Dole, her official campaign site.Maybe I just have it all wrong. Perhaps I can learn more about why she should continue to represent my state. After all, here's what Liddy "says" on the front page:
We will be using this Web site to keep my supporters updated about my work in the Senate, my visits back to North Carolina, and other happenings. I look forward to using this as another way of staying in touch with you.
Let's just let the web site speak for itself. Click on for some screenshots.
Faith in America, a North Carolina-based organization formed to end legal and spiritual discrimination against LGBT people in America by providing information about religion-based bigotry and its historic expressions, takes exception with General Pace's remarks about the immorality of gays, since he used his beliefs to justify public policy that discriminates against gays and lesbians who wish to serve their country.
A message from Jimmy Creech, executive director of Faith In America, is after the jump.
I was out of town for a few days, and was, by necessity, mainstream media and blog-free during that time. While at the airport, I saw that Barack Obama finally launched his official bid for the White House, and it's clear that the ways his race is being addressed exposes the inability of people -- white or black -- to discuss race rationally or logically.
Dana Milbank at the WaPo delivers a stunning and accurate smackdown to the misguided, misleading and unhinged Elaine Donnelly of The Center for Military Readiness, who testified at yesterday's House Armed Services personnel subcommittee hearing on the law known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) is running for re-election, and she's done precious little for our state; in fact 
