After Mitt Romney got booed at his NAACP talk (which will doubtless WIN him votes from his base), he claimed he has secret black supporters who are too scared to admit it. This reminds me of when John McCain, another loser, claimed to know how to fix the world's problems but wouldn't tell anyone.

P.S. For all the flak President Obama gets for reading from TelePrompTers (like everyone giving long speeches), what about Romney? At the NAACP, the dumbass read "end of quote" when a quote ended.

It may be a valid story that The Coalition of African American Pastors has announced its disagreement with the NAACP over marriage equality, but did Yahoo! have to make this particular story—complete with a helpful link to an anti-equality petition—a lead story? If that doesn't already smack of bias, the entire tone of the article is like a press release against gays, quoting the Coalition's head ad nauseuma and approvingly noting his ideas come from Martin Luther King Jr., God and St. Thomas Aquinas (not necessarily in that order). It's shockingly unjournalistic.

Even more interesting, as pointed out by a reader, the author of the piece, intern Meagan Clark, has a Twitter on which she states she loves Texas and Jesus.

In another piece she wrote, marriage equality is referred to in quotes. You know, like pro-life should be and never is.

This is beyond rich! Gov. Paul LePage, the frothy-mouthed nutjob elected as a (Tea Party-backed) Republican in Maine, recently said the NAACP could "kiss my butt" (and said he'd tell President Obama to "go to hell" if elected). His defensive justification?

"If they want, they can look at my family picture. My son happens to be black, so they can do whatever they'd like about it." 

His son was said to have been adopted from Jamaica. Hmmm...adopted black son...nice defense! Does ya one better than "some of my best friends are."

"Devon...joined Paul's family like Paul joined other families in his youth"

But then a strange thing happened—LePage did an about-face and attended the NAACP event in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. that he'd been railing against. And now, questions have been raised about that son.

NAACP prez Benjamin Todd Jealous has the money quote regarding Glenn Back's outrageous "Restoring Honor" (???) rally that he insists on holding on the August 28 anniversary and at the site of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech.

Beck contemptibly claims the civil rights movement is an "abomination" because too many white people have been called out as racist, saying his rally means the end of that.

Jealous points out:

"Dr. King never had to ask anyone to leave their signs and guns at home."

Oh, snap!

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack goofed monumentally in his decision to can Shirely Sherrod at the first whiff of a Breitbart-fueled media race war, but there's no denying he's owned up to it in a classy and heartfelt way. This is what leaders should do when they fuck up. Now if only we can get President Obama to do this on marriage equality and the wars...video of Vilsack after the jump...

The case of Shirley Sherrod seemed so clear-cut—it sounded like she was admitting to failing poor white farmers purposefully, making her an immediate target for the new right, which thinks the NAACP is the most racist organization in history. Yet the full, unedited video tells a far different story—she's no racist, she's a living example of the history of racism in our country and the current healing process. For that, she was railroaded out of a job. I hope the woman is offered her job back; so does the wife of the white farmer she was alleged to have wronged, who today called her "a friend for life."

Even Glenn Beck feels bad that this woman was brought down. It's a terrific example of why rushing to judgment is fraught with the potential for disaster.

From Towleroad: NAACP chairman Julian Bond gave a hella good speech regarding gay rights, saying in part, "When someone asks me, 'Are gay rights civil rights?' my answer is always, 'Of course they are.'"

Speaking of good speaking, Greg Hernandez at Greg in Hollywood quotes Sen. Dianne Feinstein at a Human Rights Campaign dinner Saturday, sounding very much like someone who is going to run for governor:

"Fifty years ago, it was still against the law for African-Americans to eat at the same lunch counter as whites. Yet two weeks ago, I attended a White House dinner at the invitation of a President who is the product of a marriage that was still illegal in over a dozen states when he was born...It may take another year, or five. It may take another ballot initiative. But I firmly believe that equal marriage rights will one day be the law in the State of California. I hope that day comes soon, and I believe it will."