The Political Whore

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

On Saturday, June 27, thousands of people gathered in the streets of St. Petersburg, FL for the city’s annual Gay Pride parade and festival. While we were celebrating and honoring the legacy of the LGBT civil rights movement, our local NBC affiliate (WFLA-Ch. 8) was airing Speechless: Silencing the Christians, an hour long special paid for by the conservative American Family Association (AFA) that makes a series of specious and demeaning claims about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Watch a clip from the program after the jump.

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Elaine Silvestrini over at the Tampa Tribune has a great story to go with all the Brian Blair news today: One of Blair’s benefactors, the late Ralph Hughes, a top Money Man and power broker in Hillsborough County politics and business, died owing millions of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service.

From her story:

The agency has filed a claim with Hughes’ family trust seeking more than $69 million in unpaid income and business taxes and interest for the years 2003 to 2007.

Hughes’ beneficiaries – his widow and two of his three children – are contesting the IRS claim, arguing Hughes paid millions in taxes.

After Hughes died at age 77 on June 27, 2008, Hillsborough County commissioners voted to rename the county’s Moral Courage Award for him. The decision was controversial, with detractors accusing commissioners of repaying their benefactor and injecting politics into what was supposed to be a nonpartisan award.

From the “Consider the Source” File:

Wingnuts Michelle Malkin and Joe “the Plumber and Lousy Foreign Correspondent” Wurzelbacher “are mobilized to help cover this new and evolving revolution,” is the way the miscreants at Pajamas TV put it on the new website for America’s latest faux revolution.

“Uncle Sam – get out of my wallet!” is the catchy slogan (”Don’t Tread on Me” having been trademarked by Nike apparently) for the website, which will help you organize and publicize your own local Tea Party.

America is on the brink of another revolution. In a new American Tea Party, citizens across the USA are beginning to protest giant government programs that reach deep into their pockets. These programs create huge economic burdens on American families and threaten their livelihood now and into the future.

Plus, videos, of course, what revolution could be complete without being televised. Scariest link: “watch Joe Wurzelbacher (Joe the Plumber) interview members of Congress.”

Dumb, meet dumber.

You’ve gotta love any editorial submission that includes the words “All decent, God-fearing Americans.” If it includes the phrases “loose women,” “the American Way” and “innocent unborn baby” then it is gold.

And so it was with great joy that I opened one of three identical e-mails from Jimmy W. Hall of Douglasville, Ga., who argues against the liberal, out-of-touch media’s anointing of President-elect Barack Obama as Time’s Man of the Year. The unpatriotic left looooooooves Obama because (in Hall’s assessment) he is a smoker, is anti-Bible and approves of sex outside of marriage.

Take a trip through the rank underbelly of America in this op-ed:

Surprise, surprise, surprise…  Former Illinois Senator and current President-elect B. Hussein Obama, the key face and member of his troubled state’s corrupt political machine, has been named Time Magazine’s rather dubious “Man of the Year.” Mr. Obama, supposedly politically hindered by being half-black by birth,  joins Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, King Faiscal, Ms. Wallis Simpson, and many other past notables in winning this “honor.”  I ask you – win, lose, or draw last November – was there ever any question about this? …Nope. The modern, dishonest media loves to sometimes honor its own kind.

All decent, God-fearing Americans (a.k.a. Republicans/ conservatives/ independents) must be shaking their heads and wondering about the insane criteria for this award. What could it be? While the left-leaning magazine is up-front about the winner not necessarily being a good person, just an impactful one, the crieria is still very vague.

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Courtesy of ALG Features Syndicate and it staff cartoonist, William Warren: