"Queers" and the "Christians" Who Hate Them

By Larisa Alexandrovna
The Raw Story

Samuel Wurzelbacher, also known as “Joe the Plumber” has some things to say about Christianity -- or his version of it anyway.

Wurzelbacher was catapulted into the public spotlight after then-Presidential hopeful John McCain called on him during a town-hall meeting and used him as an example of the typical, average American. Of course calling Wurzelbacher an average American is an insult to average Americans. Perhaps the only thing he is representative of is the extremist ideology that has taken over the Republican Party.

Since then, Wurzelbacher has inserted himself into a number of Conservative career roles, including consultant, journalist, and activist. None of these have gone well for obvious reasons, yet Joe the Plumber won’t go away. His latest career incarnation is as an anti-gay rights crusader.

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Wurzelbacher opines on various topics, illustrating rather clearly that between Rush Limbaugh and people like himself, the Republican Party has become a regional, religious group, rather than a political party.

Let’s consider some of Wurzelbacher’s answers:

Q: Why does conservatism appeal to you as a Christian?

A: Conservatism is about the basic rights of individuals. God created us. As far as the government goes, the Founding Fathers based the Constitution off of Christian values. It goes hand-in-hand. As far as the Republican Party? I felt connected to it because individual freedom should not be legislated by the federal government.

The Constitution is based on moral values, not religious dogma. Case in point, Benjamin Franklin, who said: "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."...(Click for remainder.)

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Dems Launch Christian Radio Ad Blitz On Climate Change

By Arthur Delaney
The Huffington Post

A coalition of Democrats and faith advocates is spearheading a new ad blitz on Christian radio to promote congressional action on climate change.

Reps. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.) will join religious and military leaders on Tuesday in unveiling the campaign that includes ads on Christian radio stations in at least eight states, with a focus on members of Congress who may waver on climate change legislation as negotiations are taking place on Capitol Hill.

The campaign is one the first salvos of the American Values Network, a new religious Democratic organization spearheaded by Burns Strider, the veteran operative who led faith outreach for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

"We're trying to push Southern and Midwestern Democrats to let them know the faith community and people from national security angle really think it's important that we pass this legislation," said Kristin Williams, a spokeswoman for Faith In Public Life, in an interview with the Huffington Post. Williams said a priority is making sure that climate change legislation "supports those most vulnerable" and "making sure that in the climate bill there's money for helping people adapt."

The coalition is bolstered by the results of a soon-to-be-released national poll showing that a majority of Americans, including Evangelicals and Catholics, believes "dealing with climate change now will create new jobs and help avoid more serious economic problems in the future" and that "climate change is adversely affecting the poorest communities in the world and that addressing global poverty would increase U.S. security," according to a release....(Click for remainder.)

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Nailed by Racy Photos, Anti-Gay Beauty Queen Says She's Being Mocked for 'Faith'

You know what?  Yes I'm mocking your hypocrisy you bobble-headed fool.

---

By David Edwards
The Raw Story

Miss Morals isn’t so moral after all.

The California beauty queen who blamed her national loss in the Miss USA pageant on comments she made about gays apparently has a stash of racy, topless photos of herself. TheDirty.com released the first of six topless photos of Carrie Prejean.

And there are more, apparently.

“I can assure you, they were quite inappropriate and certainly not photos befitting a beauty queen,” said KVBC’s Alicia Jacobs reports. “After first claiming that the pics were taken when she was 17, overnight Prejean put out a statement saying, ‘I am a Christian and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a… website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, nor do I claim to be.”

“She can continue to advocate for causes, but I don’t think these causes are going to be advocating for her,” one expert told NBC’s Miguel Almagare, who spoke about the controversy on the Today Show Tuesday.

The photos went “too far for NBC News to broadcast,” Almagare added. More details about the photos can be seen here.

This video is from NBC’s The Today Show, broadcast May 5, 2009....(Click for original.)

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Obama Names Consumer Safety Chief

By Helene Cooper
The New York Times

President Obama will nominate Inez Moore Tenenbaum, South Carolina’s former schools superintendent, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Mr. Obama is also asking that the troubled agency, which has been criticized as being too close to corporate America, receive $107 million — a 71-percent increase since fiscal 2007, the statement said. And he nominated Robert S. Adler, a lawyer, to a new position on the commission.

The president had pledged during the campaign that he would double the agency’s funding; the budget request, the White House said, would get him three-fourths of the way there if Congress approves it.

“We must do more to protect the American public — especially our nation’s children — from being harmed by unsafe products,” Mr. Obama said in a statement....(Click for remainder.)

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UK Home Office 'Name and Shames' 16 People Banned From UK

Jacqui Smith says names  have been made public so others can understand the behaviour Britain is not prepared to tolerate.

By Hélène Mulholland
The Guardian

Hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far right US talk show host are among a "named and shamed" list of people banned by the Home Office from entering the UK, it was revealed today.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October for fostering extremism so others could better understand the behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

Smith told GMTV: "I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country."

A further six who have been excluded in the five months to March have not been named because the Home Office said it was "not considered to be in the public interest" to reveal their names.

Those banned between October and March include Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, two leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang, ex-Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen "Don" Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe.

Fred Waldron Phelps Snr, a 79-year-old American Baptist pastor, and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper are barred for their anti-gay comments....(Click for remainder.)

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U.S. Military Calls Al Jazeera 'Irresponsible and Inappropriate' After Network Broadcast US Soldiers Being Told to "hunt people for Jesus" in Afghanistan

This line has been used before by the Pentagon to describe Al Jazeera’s exposure of US actions in the ‘war on terror’

By Jeremy Scahill
Rebel Reports

Hours after Al Jazeera broadcast footage showing US soldiers being told by the senior military chaplain in Afghanistan to “hunt people for Jesus,” the Pentagon has “confiscated copies of the Bible belonging to Christian US soldiers in Afghanistan,” according to Al Jazeera. (Presumably, the confiscated bibles are the ones translated into Pashto and Dari, which were imported by US soldiers to Afghanistan). “Some of the soldiers who appeared in the video have also been reprimanded, US government officials told Al Jazeera’s James Bays.”

At the Pentagon press briefing today, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “It certainly is, from the United States military’s perspective, not our position to ever push any specific kind of religion, period.”

But that is not the only line coming from the military. A US military spokesperson, Col. Greg Julian, told Al Jazeera: “Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”...(Click for remainder.)

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US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to "Hunt People for Jesus...So We Get Them Into the Kingdom"

Military officials at Bagram are caught on tape urging US soldiers to evangelize in the Muslim country.

By Jeremy Scahill
Rebel Reports

New video evidence has surfaced showing that US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What’s more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge US base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the US military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.

In a video obtained by Al Jazeera and broadcast Monday, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility “to be witnesses for him.”

“The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down,” he says.

“Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That’s what we do, that’s our business.”

The translated Bibles appear to be the New Testament. According to Al Jazeera, US soldiers “had them specially printed and shipped to Afghanistan.” On the tape, one soldier describes how his church in the US helped raise money for the bibles. Al Jazeera reports that “What these soldiers have been doing may well be in direct violation of the US Constitution, their professional codes and the regulations in place for all forces in Afghanistan.” The US military officially forbids “proselytising of any religion, faith or practice.” But, as Al Jazeera reports...(Click for remainder.)

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Credit Card Reform Tests Banking Industry Sway

Financial Sector Strongly Opposes Senate Proposal to Curb Deceptive Practices

By Mike Lillis
The Washington Independent

Last week, as the Senate was poised to kill legislation allowing homeowners the option of bankruptcy to prevent foreclosure, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) provided a grave assessment of Congress’ relationship with the finance industry.

“The banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill,” Durbin told a Chicago radio station. “They frankly own the place.”

To what extent Durbin is correct will be on display this week when the Senate takes up legislation reining in the unfair and deceptive practices commonly used by credit card companies. The proposal, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), would prohibit rate hikes on existing balances, give cardholders longer notice to pay their bills, and prevent card companies from charging fees when customers pay their bills on time. The bill, which has the strong backing of President Obama, has a good chance of passing, but not before the consumer protections are diluted to the satisfaction of at least some moderate senators on both sides of the aisle — lawmakers whose support Dodd will need to overcome a Republican filibuster.

A similar credit card reform proposal, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), passed the House easily last week, but the Senate bill goes even further to protect card users from unexplained fees and surprise rate hikes. The question now on the minds of many anxious consumer and lending advocates is this: How strong can Senate Democrats keep those consumer protections and still have the bill pass the upper chamber?

Standing in their way will be the powerful finance industry, which opposes both chambers’ bills and maintains tremendous influence over Capitol Hill lawmakers. Indeed, the Dodd proposal barely squeaked out of the Senate Banking Committee in March, with Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of bank-friendly South Dakota joining every Republican in siding with the industry to oppose to the bill.

Edward L. Yingling, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, said last week that the congressional proposals raise “serious concerns” for the group....(Click for remainder.)

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The Other 100 Days

By William Rivers Pitt
The Smirking Chimp

"I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past."
-- Woodrow Wilson

President Obama marked the 100th day of his term with a prime time press conference on Wednesday night, during which he highlighted a few key accomplishments while reminding the American people that he has quite a lot of crazy crap to deal with. A swine flu outbreak tickling the pandemic edge, an economy still hemorrhaging jobs and money, a ballooning deficit, bad banks, a new eruption of violence in Iraq, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, a looming war and a shaky government in Pakistan, and a bunch of very strange people waving tea bags and yelling about Lord only knows what, because they sure didn't. I got this, Obama seemed to be saying, but damn.

The "100 Days" benchmark is a relic from the first trimester of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal reform push, and is for the most part a meaningless milestone used primarily by news media types to fill air time and column inches. Still, the Obama administration can lay claim to a series of important victories, with more still to come if he keeps the wind at his back. The poll numbers are universally positive, and the American people seem willing so far to be patient and give the process time to play out.

For the Republican Party, however, the last 100 days have been something out of a Roger Corman flick: blood on the walls, body parts everywhere, lots of screaming and no plot to speak of. The last 30 months have brought a litany of disasters for the GOP - electoral wipeouts in '06 and '08, a poisoned party "brand," mass voter defections to the Democrats, the total repudiation of their whole ideological slate, and an ex-president about as popular as the mumps - culminating with a run of incidents since the inauguration so unutterably bad as to beggar likeness.

Let's review....(Click for remainder.)

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Why Obama is Taking on Corporate Tax Havens

By Robert Reich
Robert Reich's Blog

Why, one may ask, is Obama taking on yet another huge fight by taking aim at foreign tax havens? Yes, it's unfair that multinationals pay an average tax rate of only 2 percent on their foreign revenues, and it's unfair that some wealthy Americans are avoiding taxes altogether by parking their fortunes abroad. But, hey, these have been true for decades. So why take them on now, when the President is also taking on universal health insurance and global warming, and trying to get the economy going again?

The White House says that some jobs go abroad because American companies are lured there by tax loopholes which, if closed, would bring the jobs home. True. But a crackdown on tax havens might also cost American jobs if companies decided that a higher tax burden here required them to cut payrolls in order to stay competitive or to simply leave the United States altogether.

Another possible explanation is that it was a campaign promise. Obama frequently criticized the tax code for allowing American companies with overseas operations to defer paying taxes on corporate profits if they placed the money back into their foreign subsidiaries. But this can't be it, either. He criticized several other things as well -- such as the North American Free Trade Agreement -- which he now seems comfortable with.

So again: why this, and why now?...(Click for remainder.)

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Retired Brigadier General: Those Who Approved Torture "Must Be Held Accountable"

By Marlene H. Phillips
The Huffington Post

Retired Brigadier General John Adams has something in common with his namesake and distant relative. Like the second president of the United States, the retired brigadier general adheres to one basic principle in his professional actions and beliefs: defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. He stands convinced that those that have acted in a way that would, as he put it, "triage the Constitution" must be brought to justice, including those who approved of and authorized the use of torture on U.S. held detainees.

John Adams understands the gathering of intelligence, having served thirty-plus years in the military in numerous capacities around the world including as a U.S. Army Military Intelligence Officer. Adams was also a distinguished graduate of the Intelligence Officer Basic Tactical Course at the United States Army Intelligence Center in 1977.

In my interview with Adams, he made clear that during all his years of service and training, including his tenure as a professor at West Point, what he learned and what he taught was consistent: the United States military always acts under the rule of law, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and upholds the Constitution. What was not taught, or even discussed, were terms like harsh or enhanced interrogation techniques ("I never heard those terms used"), or arguments concerning what constitutes a so-called unique enemy ("In all my training, the current discussions are the first time I ever heard that argument used"). Said Adams: "I have never known anyone in a leadership position in the military who would condone torture. They would never do it. It would go against all the training we had, and against what we were trained to do, which is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law."

Adams had of course heard the argument as to why this longstanding military policy changed, that '9/11 changed everything.' No one needs to tell Adams what that day represents; on September 11, 2001, he was stationed in the Pentagon as Deputy Director of European Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and he assisted in recovery operations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The pain of that day will always be with him; his voice choked recalling the destruction he witnessed, how his thoughts immediately turned to his own children and the sadness he felt thinking their world had changed forever. Emotions in the Pentagon ran very high after the attack: "Of course there was a lot of emotion," said Adams, "and a lot of motivation for revenge, a feeling of 'let's go get these guys.' We're only human."...(Click for remainder.)

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Rebranding Will Not Be Enough For These Republicans

By Lincoln Mitchell
The Huffington Post

Last week, the news that the Republican Party, was kicking off an initiative called the National Council for a New America, as part of an effort to rebrand itself, was somewhat lost due to the extensive coverage of Barack Obama's first hundred days as president and the news of Arlen Specter switching parties. Republican Party heavyweights, from the past and, presumably, future such as Haley Barbour, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal and others behind this initiative apparently think the problem their party faces is one of branding and image, suggesting things may be worse for the GOP than initially thought.

In politics, rebranding generally means shifting emphasis and image away from negative and towards positive associations. This is why President Obama has sought to, and already begun, succeeding in rebranding America. During the presidency of George W. Bush many people around the world began to see our country through a negative prism based on the arrogance and destructive policies of our president. Obama's presidency makes it possible for people to see the US through a different prism, one of hope and opportunity. Importantly, with regards to the notion of rebranding, regardless of whether or not much of our foreign policy may not change all that dramatically during the Obama presidency, the way we present those policies and ourselves will.

In business, rebranding is also what you do when you haven't updated your advertising jingle for too many years, your mascot's clothes need to be updated, or your product's colors need to be brightened or muted because of changes in fashion. The problems the Republican Party faces, however, will not be solved by rebranding. The Republicans don't have problems of slogan or presentation. Their problems go much deeper than that. In these days of increased concern about swine flu, porcine allusions may require even more sensitivity than ever, but simply rebranding the Republican Party by somehow updating its image, with apologies to Sarah Palin, really is putting lipstick on a pig....(Click for remainder.)

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Glenn Beck's Incest Fantasy

By Ellen
News Hounds

We're going to throw a little something out there, and you may, as we did, find it deeply disturbing. Glenn Beck wrote the following passages in one of his books: “I thought that one day, I would just wake up and realize it was just a stupid fling . . just innocent experimentation... I thought that if I admitted the love I had been hiding, society would reject me . . . .”

“It all started one day when I was twelve . . . That's when I found my true love . . . I had looked this person's way a few times and got that nervous feeling in my stomach – but I had been taught that this love was forbidden.”

“Then came the fair . . . my hand brushed this person's . . . my palms began to sweat . . . my hands began to shake . . . the Ferris wheel came to a complete stop.”

“I looked deeply into this person's eyes, and reached out to softly touch this person's face. I leaned in and I kissed this person.”

“I kissed my sister. First our lips met, seconds later our tongues. I ran my fingers through her silky hair and felt her soft skin. It was the height of passion and the moment I knew who my true love was . . . We knew we had done something so wrong, but at the same time, something so very right.”

“Since then we have met in secret several times . . My sister and I are in love . . . I realize that I am different . . . but am I so different that I haven't earned the right to love . . . I simply ask you to be tolerant.”

“ . . . We will make love.”

“Please do not refer to us as an 'incestuous' couple. Keep the hate language to yourself. We prefer to think of the gift we have been given as 'familial love.'”

“By now, you probably have realized that I am not in love with my sister . . . I wrote this to make a point.”

What you just read were excerpts of a passage (pp. 154-159) from Beck's book, The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland,copyright 2003....(Click for remainder.)

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An Even Worse Bybee Memo

By David Swanson
Democrats.com

Jay Bybee wrote another memo that nobody has noticed, one purporting to authorize crimes far worse than torture, the same crimes the torture was itself intended to create false justifications for. On October 23, 2002, Assistant Attorney General Bybee signed a 48-page memo to the "counsel to the president" (Alberto Gonzales) titled "Authority of the President Under Domestic and International Law to Use Military Force Against Iraq." This was another secret law, but instead of authorizing particular uses of torture (which in reality were far exceeded, engaged in prior to the memos, etc.), this one authorized any president to single-handedly commit what Nuremberg called "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And while the torture memos extensively and grotesquely limited the days of sleep deprivation and the hours of waterboarding, the aggressive war memo included only a single paragraph at the bottom of page 47 requiring that:

"Were the President to determine that the use of force in self-defense is necessary to counter the threat posed by Iraq's WMD program, such force should be proportional; in other words, it should be limited to that which is needed to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq."

When this memo was written, our president, vice president, and top cabinet officials were screaming about Iraq's vast quantities of weapons, but Bybee was already crafting his justifications around the idea of weapons "programs."

The result was guaranteed to be massive death, no matter how "proportional" to the nonexistent threat. But the permission was also guaranteed to be wildly exceeded by anybody's definition. The result has been 1.2 - 1.3 million deaths according to Just Foreign Policy's updated figure based on the Johns Hopkins / Lancet report, and according to the British polling company Opinion Research Business's estimate as of August 2007. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has reached 4.7 million. If these estimates are accurate, a total of nearly 6 million human beings have been displaced from their homes or killed. Many times that many have certainly been injured, traumatized, impoverished, and deprived of clean water and other basic needs, including the need to have parents.

And what has accumulated in the evil of the whole? The current occupation of Iraq has seen the United States target civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances; use antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas; use white phosphorous as a weapon; use depleted uranium weapons; employ a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs; engage in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations; including by blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing down orchards; detain people without charge or legal process without the rights of prisoners of war; imprison children; torture; and murder. Michael Haas has published a well-documented book with the clear title: "George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes." Jay Bybee's liability must not be minimized....(Click for remainder.)

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David Shuster Follows the Trail of the Goposaurs

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Batshit Crazy Michele Bachmann Talks About Orgies

By John Aravosis
AMERICAblog

Putting aside the comedic value for a moment, the Republicans have a real problem here. Their top representatives in the national spotlight are an ongoing source of embarrassment. Bachmann, Limbaugh, Steele, Palin, Gingrich, Boehner, Cantor. They're also, all, embarrassingly conservative - or like Steele and Romney, trying awfully hard to fool people into thinking they are. Either way, they don't present a very enticing picture for moderates.

"During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed," Bachmann said. She then told the crowd that April 26 was National Debt Day, which conservatives commemorate as the moment government spending outpaces revenue. As Bachmann explains, "The government spent its wad by April 26. Every dime government spends after April 26 throughout the rest of this fiscal year is borrowed money."

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Joe the "Fucking Dirtbag": I Would Never Let Queers 'Anywhere Near My Children'

By Ali Frick
Think Progress

In an interview with Christianity Today, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher said that calling gay people “queer” “is not like a slur” because homosexuality is “strange and unusual.” He also declared that he would never let his gay “friends” “anywhere near my children:”

Q: In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

JTP: At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

When asked if he had planned to run for public office, Wurzelbacher said he didn’t have any “right now.” “God hasn’t said, ‘Joe, I want you to run.’ I feel more important to just encourage people to get involved, one way or another. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great. I don’t know if I want to be a leader,” he said....(Click for original.)

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Gonzales & Ashcroft Still Defending Waterboarding

By Bob Fertik
Democrats.com

On April 27, MSNBC's Dan Abrams interviewed former AG's John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales before a cheering rightwing audience at American Jewish University. Both Ashcroft and Gonzales continue to insist waterboarding was legal when authorized by DoJ lawyers under their supervision. (Full transcript.) Will their hyper-legal defenses keep them out of jail? Stay tuned...

Abrams: Judge Gonzales, I’m going to ask you a very direct question. And it relates to something you just said. Do you believe waterboarding is torture?

AG: Here’s what I’ll say. I think that the U.S. government provided advice to CIA interrogators based upon the best legal reasoning by the lawyers in the Department of Justice. Was it torture, when that advice was given? No. Were the interrogations harsh? Yes. Did they save lives? Absolutely.

[Applause]

Did they get it right? I’m asking your legal opinion. Waterboarding is—they define it in all the memos how waterboarding is defined—and if we need it defined I’m happy to read from it—how torture is defined. Do you think legally that waterboarding is torture?

AG: Dan, when I served in the administration, the position of the administration was that under certain conditions and circumstances, this technique would be lawful.

Now that you’ve had some time to think about it. You’ve been out of office for a while, and you get the opportunity to look back with 20/20 hindsight. Do you look back and do you say to yourself, we got that one right?

AG: Wouldn’t it be great, if all of us in public service, could go back and correct any mistakes that we may have made on behalf of the American public?

Well, you’ve got the opportunity right now.

AG: —We don’t have that opportunity.

You have the opportunity to say you know what, we blew it. We messed this one up, we got this one wrong.

AG: I will say that I made my fair share of mistakes in government. But I will also say that I, and the people that I work with, took actions to the very best of our abilities to protect our country in a very difficult period in our nation’s history. [Applause.]

Let me follow this. The U.S. military prosecuted our own troops for using waterboarding in the Philippines, tried the Japanese for war crimes for using it against the Allies and the U.S. troops in WWII. And yet, we’re suggesting that it’s not torture. [Applause]...(Click for remainder.)

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Oprah Discusses Gay Marriage With Hugh Jackman and Others

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