Links

"QueerBubbles" posted a picture on his/her blog and even posted it in a few groups. However, he/she refuses to actually discuss the post like a grownup. Queerbubbles resorted name calling, sending nasty messages and deleting posts. How very sad

San Diego, California's "Radio Mayor" and frequent Rush Limbaugh substitute. He discusses local and national issues.

Sen. Barack Obama promised senior citizens Friday that as president, he would protect Social Security benefits and provide universal health care. To extend the life of Social Security, Obama proposed applying a payroll tax to annual incomes above $250,000, affecting the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The Democrat also proposed eliminating income tax for any retiree making less than $50,000. "Secure retirement is no longer a guarantee for the middle class,'' Obama said during a visit to Oakleaf Village retirement center with his wife, Michelle. "It's harder to save and harder to retire."

Remember swiftboating? Gotten one of those Obama is a Muslim email? Well, Obama's not going to go the route of John Kerry. He is out to uncover the truth. http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/

Speaking on a cloudy day at Falcon Stadium, the president compared the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to America's earlier conflicts, particularly World War II.

SAN JOSE—Senator John McCain rejected the endorsement on Thursday of the evangelical leader, the Rev. John C. Hagee, three stormy months after it was first announced as part of an effort to shore up Mr. McCain’s standing among Christian conservatives. The Rev. John C. Hagee (Photo: Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times) The rejection of Mr. Hagee’s endorsement occurred after another controversial sermon from the televangelist and pastor of Cornerstone, a mega-church in San Antonio, surfaced in which he argued that biblical verses made clear that Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust was part of God’s plan to chase the Jews from Europe and drive them to Palestine.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the Democratic Party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, is leaving open the possibility of giving a keynote address on behalf of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) at the Republican National Convention in September. Republicans cl...

A female suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers in the holy city of Karbala on Monday, an official and a witness said, killing at least 43 people and leaving pools of blood on the street leading to one of Iraq's most revered mosques. The blast was the deadliest in a series of attacks that left at least 72 Iraqis dead, including six youths killed when mortar rounds slammed into a soccer field in eastern Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers also were killed Monday in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, bringing the American death toll closer to 4,000 as the U.S.-led war enters its sixth year. At least 3,990 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The violence marred overlapping trips by Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain to Baghdad. Their visits were aimed at touting recent security gains and stressing Washington's long-term commitment to fighting insurgents in Iraq.

Democrat Barack Obama expanded his fragile lead in delegates over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday, picking up at least seven delegates as Iowa activists took the next step in picking delegates to the national convention. Half the 14 delegates allocated to John Edwards on the basis of caucus night projections switched Saturday and Obama got most, if not all, of them.

In an extraordinary day in his more than yearlong quest for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama on Friday sought to put behind him two raging controversies jeopardizing his bid: his relationships with his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and with his friend and political patron, Tony Rezko. Obama held two extensive, separate sessions with journalists from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. An unassuming Obama entered a 10th-floor Sun-Times conference room for a conversation Friday, not as the hotshot at a rally. It was his moment — his time, as he himself might say — to try to bring this to an end. “I think it’s really important to make sure that you guys feel like you’ve got it all,” Obama said.

John McCain is refusing to renounce the endorsement of a prominent Texas televangelist who Democrats say peddles anti-Catholic and other intolerant speech. Instead, the Republican presidential candidate issued a statement Friday afternoon saying he had unspecified disagreements with the San Antonio megachurch leader, John Hagee. Hagee endorsed him at a news conference Wednesday in San Antonio.

The Senate today added payments for seniors and disabled veterans to an economic stimulus package approved by the House that would send checks to most American families, then overwhelmingly approved the $151 billion shot in the arm to the U.S. economy, 81-16. The House is scheduled to give final approval to the legislation tonight and send the plan to President Bush for his signature, ensuring that checks will begin reaching families by mid-May.

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

...For same-sex couples, divorce can be financially ruinous. Heterosexual couples claim a tax deduction for alimony payments, but that benefit is not available to gay and lesbian spouses because the Internal Revenue Service does not recognize their marriages....

There is something called the national interest. It is not an ideology. It is not the possession of a single cabal of self-appointed imperialists. It is not achieved by substituting consensus for principle. It is not "bipartisanship" for its own sake or in pursuit of bad policy. And it is not a euphemism for oil. Email Print Comment Our national interest is the product of more than two centuries of national history which constitutes an amalgam of colossal mistakes, most notably Iraq, and grand sacrifices and noble actions. It required a terrible civil war to establish that slavery was not in our national interest. It required a cold war to establish that alliance and collaboration was in our national interest. Oil dependence, climate change, nuclear proliferation, concentrated wealth, fear of terrorism, theocracy, empire, corruption in government, an arrogant and ignorant executive, and violation of civil liberties are not in our national interest. Equal rights for all, respect for our constitutional guarantees, including most notable habeas corpus, economic opportunity, regulation of market excess, our natural heritage and environment, fairness, justice, and checks and balanced government are all in our national interest.

"The government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto's time of death was read out," said a visibly shaken doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Sweating and putting his head in his hands, he said: "Look, we have been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace." The doctors now find themselves at the center of a political firestorm over the circumstances of Bhutto's death....

France is to suspend diplomatic contacts with Syria, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. Links will be restored only when France has proof that Syria is not blocking progress towards installing a consensus president in Lebanon, Mr Sarkozy said. Lebanon has been without a president since November, as rival pro- and anti- Syrian factions argue over who should fill the post.

From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli In the interest of keeping people on their toes, here's something to keep an eye on in New Hampshire. At midnight tomorrow, civil unions for homosexual couples becomes law here. In fact, some folks plan to gather on the State House steps at midnight to exchange vows. So far the candidates haven't made much of an issue of it here. Remember that at a UNH/Fox News debate on Sept. 5, Sam Brownback was asked about the subject, and when he stood up for an amendment to ban gay marriage, the audience reaction was a mixed bag of boos and applause. One of the debate watchers in the diner, albeit a state employee union member, said: "Absolutely not. We're the state of live free or die, and people should be able to marry the person they love." Still, we're likely to see the candidates at the very least asked about it when they show up in the Granite State post-caucus, possibly in the two debates planned for the short 5-day gap.

The assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is likely to call into question the future of democracy in Pakistan as well as the country's role in fighting terrorism in the region, several international policy experts told ABCNEWS.com. Bhutto was shot this morning in the neck and the chest by a suicide bomber who later blew himself up, killing at least another 20 people, as she left a rally for her Pakistan People's Party. She had just finished addressing thousands in advance of Pakistan's Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. Current Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has yet to decide whether the elections will be postponed.

Veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov withdrew from Russia's presidential race on Wednesday, saying the opposition needed to put forward a single candidate in the March election to withstand the Kremlin's "foul play." Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, officially registered as a presidential candidate on Wednesday, said he might yet decide not to run if he felt the Kremlin was not playing according to the rules during the campaign. In a statement on his personal Web site, the former deputy prime minister and Union of Right Forces (SPS) presidential candidate said the Kremlin had turned democratic elections into "a clear-cut farce." "(The Kremlin) is using Goebbels-esque propaganda, law-enforcement and administrative resources against opposition candidates," Nemtsov said, referring to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. "The democratic opposition needs a single candidate. Therefore, I have made the decision to withdraw from participation in the presidential election." Nemtsov had little chance of beating Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev. Polls show most Russians will back whomever the highly-popular president backs.