GOP congressman "offended" because Obama "favors the black person."

He's a sitting GOP congressman from Iowa, and he actually said this:

But the president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race – on the side that favors the black person.”

Um... OK. This isn't a one-off though. The congressman has a rap sheet. Here's one from March 8, 2008, when he announced his bid for re-election in Council Bluffs:

It was during a stop at the KICD studios in north Spencer that he also talked about the presidential campaign and his decision not to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Tom Harkin. King said he would support presumptive GOP nominee John McCain in part because of alternatives coming from the Democratic Party.

"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father might have been," he said. "I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?"

He continued: "I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror."

King thinks radical Islamists will say the United States has capitulated because the Obama administration would be pulling troops out of any conflict associated with al-Qaida.

"Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict."

He continued: "There are implications that have to do with who he is and the position that he's taken. If he were strong on national defense and said 'I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory,' that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror."

These are the people who will take over the House of Representatives if Democrats don't turn out on Election Day.

Who is on Hispanics' side in the white community?

Certainly not the majority:

As with other topics centered on social justice, the gay and lesbian community seems to be at odds with their heterosexual counterparts. As the press release for the poll points out, “in other national opinion polls, 6 out of 10 (60%) heterosexual adults who also have seen, read or heard about Arizona’s forthcoming statute say they support Arizona’s new immigration policies, with 41% saying they strongly support these changes.”

But here's an interesting wrinkle:

According to a new national survey (PDF) released by Harris Interactive, “a clear majority of 63% of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) individuals oppose these policies, with 45% expressing strong opposition.”

Notes Pastor Candace Chellew-Hodge, whose Grace United Church of Christ must be an oasis of sanity in South Carolina's toxic religious environment:

Why the difference? It’s the oppression, silly. As Bob Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs Communications (one of the co-sponsors of the poll) explained: “it’s not surprising that many LGBT individuals are opposed to many forms of statutory discrimination. As citizens and consumers, LGBT behaviors mirror these attitudes—tending to favor and choose destinations, products, and services, as well as making political choices that support equal and respectful treatment for all.”

Through a religious lens, I find this new survey even more interesting. The strongest support for this new law comes from Republican quarters, where the deeply religious, and mostly Christian, portion of the electorate reside. A Pew Research Center poll taken last month shows 82% of Republicans support the new immigration law.

In the gay and lesbian community, to be religious is to be a minority within a minority, so we can’t count religion—especially not Christianity—as one of the main influencing factors on the morality of gay and lesbian people. And yet, it is gays and lesbians who by and large have rejected religion, who are displaying some of the most Christian principles in this matter.

This community of outcasts understands, on a gut level, if not a religious level, that it is good, and just, and moral to welcome the stranger; to show hospitality, especially to the least of these.

Remind me again how people can’t be good without God?

Best line in today's New York Times

Surely there isn't a better one than this:

Back in Spoland, Sofia Karlsson, a police officer and the wife of Mikael Karlsson, said she found her husband most attractive “when he is in the forest with his rifle over his shoulder and the baby on his back.”

Markos' tweets tonight

Many are on the money:

GOP backing most electable candidates, sabotaged by teabaggers. Dem base backing most electable candidates, sabotaged by Dem establishment

Congrats to John Boozman, the next senator from the great state of Arkansas.

So for the sake of loser Blanche Lincoln, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama has alienated labor. Smart!

Just like John Boozman won his Senate seat tonight, so did Barbara Boxer win reelection. Thanks teabaggers!

Also tonight -- Reid won reelection. Never would've guessed it in a million years. I thought he was done. Angle is an unforced error

Won't even be close. Boozman by at least 20%. RT @Karoli: @markos you really pick Boozman over Lincoln? really?

@pbharwood: @markos Unforced error? Angle was a gift from the chicken gods.

More, from his better known perch:

How much do you think the Chamber of Commerce and its corporatist allies will spend on behalf of Blanche Lincoln through the fall? Zero. Suddenly, you're going to see Lincoln quite friendless.
Those evil "out of state" unions and progressive groups sure won't lift a finger to help her. The only question is how much the DSCC wastes on the losing effort.

I've long since quit being impressed by moral victories. In this case, we forced Blanche to dramatically improve the financial reform bill, and it may be too late to strip out her derivatives reform language. And we delivered the kind of pain that no other incumbent wants to suffer. So congressional Democrats have two options -- they can either shape up and be spared primary pain (I'd be happy focusing solely on Joe Lieberman in 2012), or they can be Blanched.
It's much easier to keep your job if you don't have to fight for it twice in a single year.

2010 is a fine year for a comeback

Though, I suppose, 2011 would work just as well.

Grace and beauty

Jr. Walker on David Letterman in 1985, performing his most beloved hit. He would leave us just ten years later.

Interview to end all interviews

Larry Craig on The Daily Show.

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Sinéad O'Connor

Interviewed about John Paul II and Benedict's mess on Irish television:

Andrew Madden

Author of Altar Boy, he was one of the first Irish abuse victims to come forward. Now he has written a chapter in an edited volume in the recently published The Dublin/Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism? The book includes chapters by survivors, theologians, journalists and even a bishop. The excerpt from Madden's chapter is simply devastating:

Can the Catholic Church in Ireland survive all of this? Undoubtedly. They have the leader of our country in our national parliament bending the knee in their direction within a week of reading (presuming he bothered) a report into how they covered up the rape and sexual abuse of children for thirty years.

They have their priests. Those poor priests whose good work we hear so much about! … Working away at the coalface in despair at the way their bishops have let them down – except of course they are not in despair. … They have never spoken collectively in support of a single victim at any time in the last fifteen years …

They will survive too with the support of the ‘faithful.’ Mass-going Catholics who contact radio programmes I’m contributing to and voice support for their inexcusable bishop and then say no, they haven’t read the Report and they don’t know what he’s ‘supposed to have done’. … Mass-going Catholics who march up and down outside ‘sex shops’, objecting to them opening up their areas and then march into Mass the Sunday after the Murphy Report was published with not a scintilla of embarrassment about their sickening hypocrisy.