REPUBLICANS BLAME BARNEY FRANK FOR FINANCIAL MELTDOWN

In what has to be the most outrageously ludicrous tactic yet, the republicans now claim that openly gay Rep. Barney Frank was responsible for our current financial crisis.

This is not the first time republicans, along with their right wing media friends, have tried to blame others for what they themselves caused. They've used this maneuver many times before in desperate attempts to distract the public from their own culpability. But this time they've laced their Karl-Rove-manufactured smears with outright homophobia. And the Fox News Network is leading the charge.

According to a story at Edge New York,

An Oct. 6 article in the Huffington Post observes that Fox News and the Business and Media Institute have zeroed in on Frank for having been romantically involved with Herb Moses, whose relationship with Frank, as well as his tenure as a Fannie Mae executive, both ended a decade ago.

The Huffington Post notes that it was the day after Frank appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News program (and contradicted O’Reilly’s assertions) that Fox News published a story claiming that the media had looked the other way during Frank and Moses’ long-ended relationship because of Frank’s status as an openly gay man.

The story also tried to accuse Frank of stalling regulations to rein in Fannie Mae because of his relationship with Moses.

The Huffington Post quoted Frank’s correction of O’Reilly the day before the Fox News article appeared.

Frank said, "You’ve misrepresented this consistently."

Continued Frank, "I became chairman of the committee on January 31st, 2007. Less than two months later, I did what the Republicans hadn’t been able to do in 12 years--get through the committee a very tough regulatory bill."

Added Frank, "The Senate was dragging its feet, as often happens. And in January of 2008, I asked Secretary Paulson to put in the stimulus bill.

"So the earliest chance I got to put tough regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we did it."

That correction by Barney apparently pissed off Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News Network so much that they just had to launch into their false and misleading diatribe against him.

To read the full Edge New York story, go to: Edge New York

To read the full Huffington Post story, go to: Huffington Post

SENEGAL GAY MAN GRANTED RARE REFUGEE STATUS

Pape Mbaye (pronounced POP mm-BYE), 24, is an entertainer from Dakar, Senegal. He was well known throughout West Africa for his dancing, singing and storytelling. This year however, his flamboyance and notoriety attracted the wrong kind of attention and it nearly cost him his life.

Last February a Senegalese magazine published photographs of what they said was an underground gay marriage. Mbaye appeared in the photos and the magazine claimed that he had organized the event. Pape said that in the ensuing six months he was harassed by the police, attacked by armed mobs, driven from his home, maligned in the national media and forced to live on the run.

According to the New York Times;

For the past few years, anti-gay hysteria has been sweeping across swaths of Africa, fueled by sensationalist media reports of open homosexuality among public figures and sustained by deep and abiding taboos that have made even the most hateful speech about gays not just acceptable but almost required. Gay men and women have recently been arrested in Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda and Ghana, among other countries.

“In most countries there is poverty and instability, and usually homosexuality is used as a way of shifting the attention from the actual problem to this thing that is not really the problem but can distract the public,” said Joel Nana, who is from Cameroon and who works for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Christopher Nugent, who is a senior pro bono counsel specializing in refugee and asylum cases with the Washington based law firm Holland & Knight, represented Mbaye in his petition. Nugent said that Mbaye's case was exceptional because his fame made his situation particularly perilous. “He was vilified in the Senegalese media as being the face of the sinful homosexual, and he had scars to show.”

In July, the United States government gave him refugee status. That was one of the rare instances when refugee protection has been granted to a foreigner facing persecution based on sexual orientation.

To read the full story, go to: New York Times

PALIN JUST DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE VICE PRESIDENCY IS SUPPOSED TO BE

Most people in this country don't have the slightest idea what a Vice President does or what that person's powers are. That's somewhat understandable since most people are struggling just to pay their bills and buy food to feed their families. To say that they're distracted by those concerns, especially in today's world, would be a gross understatement.

I do think however, that we have every right to expect the person running for the office of Vice President of the United States to know everything there is to know about that office. Not only should they have an extensive knowledge of and appreciation for the actual authorities of that position but, even more importantly, what powers and authorities that position doesn't have.

The video below is from the one and only VP debate last thursday. This particular section zeros in on moderator Gwen Ifill's question about the candidates' understandings of the office they're running for.

Pay particular attention to Palin's remarks (at the 2:44 time marker) about what she thinks is the authority of the VP. Then listen to what Biden accurately describes as the VP's limitations.

I agree with Sen. Biden. Dick Cheney is the most dangerous Vice President this country has ever seen. He has pushed way beyond the actual powers of his office and is personally responsible for much, if not most, of the severe problems this country now faces. He has worked "behind the scenes" to undermine the United States constitution, deregulate almost all of the safeguards for fair and honest business practices, illegally manipulated no-bid, billion dollar contracts for the company he used to head (Halliburton) and was almost single-handedly responsible for getting us into the Iraq war by forcing the manipulation of CIA information about Iraq, Saddam Hussein and WMD's.

This is the man who Sarah Palin looks to for her definition of what she would be able to do as Vice President.

This should send chills up everyone's spines. Hasn't this country already lost enough? Do we really want to see the Cheney/Bush policies continued?