John McCain's campaign sure knows how to evolve! Realizing that their Barack Obama as Paris Hilton angle wasn't sticking, the Republican's ad team has thrown together this Biblically-proportion video: "Praise The One," which paints Obama as a self-entitled, self-professed messiah.

A placidly sarcastic narrator opens the piece, "Let it be known that in 2008, the world will be blessed. They call him 'The One." Thus begins a collection of Obama footage that a fearful person might read as evidence of a false prophet - or, perhaps, as an exceedingly presumptuous charlatan.

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One expects Ralph Nader to say things like, “there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans,” which is a really crazy statement for someone to continue to say after the eight years we’ve had. One also expects Nader to say some things that a lot of liberals might agree with. But now it seems we should expect Ralph Nader to say things like this:

There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white?

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Despite the edict that church is supposed to be separate from state, the intersection of religion and politics has never been more clear than during the Bush administration. And, under this administration, many have come to think that the more religious the American, the more likely said American is to vote Republican.

That is, of course, unless you’re a religious African American…
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The Utah-based purveyors of this Obama monkey doll say, in response to a barrage of criticism, that they “perhaps naively” felt that there was nothing wrong with portraying a black man as a monkey.

They suggest that “this might be a great opportunity to take this moment to really try and transcend still existing racial biases.”

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Oh, Bill, Bill, Bill.

If you're going to tell someone they're misquoting you, make sure you're right. Reporter Mike Memoli caught up with Mr. Clinton today in Pennsylvania and asked him about his remark that Obama played the "race card" after the Jesse Jackson debacle last January.

And, like Hillary's Bosnia memory, Bill's remains a bit hazy.

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As the Democrats duke it out in Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's launched yet ridiculously entitled tour.

His last jaunt across the nation, the "Service To America" tour meant to spread McCain's war-torn story and other biographical bits.

Now the Senator from Arizona's launched his "Time For Action" adventure, which is also being referred to as the "Forgotten Places" tour.

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It's usually gay men who are the target of HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, but a new one launching in New York this week is going after a particular group: black women.

The initiative comes from the Gay Men's Health Crisis (which, of course, is launching a parallel campaign aimed at men-on-men) on the back of statistics that show new HIV diagnoses among black and Hispanic women and women aged 13-29 in NYC is on the rise, even though, city-wide, the number is decreasing (down 5 percent between '05 and '06).

Our one caveat: This looks to be yet another campaign that encourages testing, but doesn't have any message for those who walk into a clinic and learn they're actually infected. Perhaps we'll just rely on HIV counselors to tell them their options?

Nine out of ten doctor's agree: Barack Obama's "race speech" spurred some serious discussion. Of course, yesterday's remarks were more than just a speech - and they were definitely about more than just race.

Obama wasn't simply addressing political woes. He wasn't making excuses for past associations. This was not some political media play. It was a lesson in liberation - and it's up to Americans to take up the Senator's challenge.

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Forget those blasted binaries and get down with some intersectionality this Thursday at the Schomburg Institute in Harlem.

Get all the post-modern details, after the jump…

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Presidential candidate Barack Obama knocked out the competition in South Carolina Saturday. The Democratic Senator from Illinois became the number one stunner with a whopping 55% of the total vote. Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John Edwards received 27% and 18% of the vote, respectively, which means - well, Obama beat the pants off his main competitors. In fact, Obama received more votes than Clinton and Edwards combined.

Many analysts attribute Obama's victory to a high black turnout, which, yes, definitely helped give Obama an electoral boost. According to the AP, four out of five black voters leaned toward Obama. Only 25% of white folk gave him their blessing.

More importantly than race, however, is the fact that Obama has been preparing for South Carolina far longer than his party peers:

Democratic activists here in South Carolina said that the Obama campaign had perhaps the most extensive field operation ever seen in this state.

The reach of the Obama field operation extended even to such often forgotten places as Allendale County, which has the second smallest population of any of the state’s 46 counties.

To cite another locale, Obama had had about 20 supporters working out of his Greenville, S.C. office since mid-summer; Clinton had only five or six starting in the fall, according to one Greenville Democratic activist.

Regardless of one's political leanings, South Carolina illuminates the unprecedented level of excitement within the States' Democratic circles. The last election only brought out 293,000 democrats. MSNBC points out that Obama alone received more than that amount of primary votes.

The campaigns certainly turned out the vote, but let's not forget the gay rights activists who worked tirelessly to break South Carolina's records. The National Stonewall Democrats focussed their energies on South Carolina because of the state's high concentration of black homos and homettes. Said Jon Headly, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats:

Of all the early presidential states, it is the only one with a significant LGBT African American population. We decided to use that as an opportunity to deepen our organizing within the LGBT community, and especially LGBT communities of color.

The Wallers' eschewed traditional events, like fancy-schmancy fundraisers, and instead focused on drawing candidates and their campaigns to a common ground with their potential supporters. For example, the National Stonewall Democrats worked to - and succeeded - draw the candidates to Black Pride events. South Carolina's Stonewall leader, the uber-titled Rev. Dr. Keith L. Riddle explains:

I think presidential candidates expect to encounter our community at black-tie events on the Upper West Side, but not necessarily on historically Black college campuses in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Our presence this season has demonstrated that our community is everywhere and that Democratic politicians should be prepared to address hard questions and issues that impact our families no matter where they find themselves.

We think that's just swell. For too long the national LGBT debate has been framed within insider institutions. It's nice to know that non-profits - and the candidates themselves - are looking elsewhere for perspectives on homo matters. Let's hope that the Democratic candidates remember the little people if elected to office.

Bad news for black men. New CDC research confirms that America's black men who have sex with men are "more than twice as likely to be infected with the AIDS virus than their white counterparts," according to the Baltimore Sun. While one may assume there's a disparity in safe sex practices, researchers claim condom rates remain relatively the same between races.

The problem may find its roots elsewhere:

…New studies point to possible reasons [for skewed infection]. Black gay men in one study were more likely to be currently infected with a sexually transmitted disease, which can make them more likely to catch or transmit HIV.

Blacks were also less likely to be taking anti-retroviral medications, which can lower the concentration of virus in the bloodstream, and with it the chance of transmitting it to others.

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• South Korean soccer fans decided to turn themselves into human light emitting diodes. It's incredible.

• Harvey Keitel presented Snoop Dogg with his Hip-Hop Honor, saying: "There really is no artist in any discipline, any of the arts, that I would rather give an award to. Your work effects the way young people think. I can’t think of a better honor than that. You deserve it.” There you have it: all artists should stop what they're doing. Snoop's way better than you in every single way.

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