News: Hillary Clinton Leads, Noah's Arc Movie, Ann Coulter, Colombia

· The latest poll by the Associated Press shows Democratic presidential candidate Sen. "Hillary Clinton ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, her closest rival, by more than 20 points—46 percent to 25 percent." The latest data compounds previous frustrating reports—see here and here—on Obama's lack of traction among his would-be core constituency. "While he hopes to be the first black president, and his strategy relies in part on blacks coming out for him, his support among black voters has dropped by 5 percentage points since the last survey.

· Noah's Arc actor Wilson Cruz says contrary to previous reports, the recently-canceled Logo series is headed to the big screen and currently in pre-production. "We have a script. We should be shooting before the end of the year, maybe November-ish."

· Report: Conservatives "worried" President George W. Bush may accept the hate crimes measure as part of the defense authorization bill.

· Colombia becomes first nation in Latin America to extend social security and health benefits coverage to same-sex couples.

"In a 7-2 vote, the Constitutional Court ruled ... to deny access to social security benefits to same-sex partners would violate their right to dignified life and promoted an 'absolute lack of protection' for couples of the same sex." Andres Duque at Blabbeando notes the courts in his native country "are bestowing equal rights to same-sex partners even as the legislature has sought to block the recognition of same-sex partnership rights."

· Meanwhile, advances and setbacks for gay rights stateside. California: Court rules tax assessors must treat domestic partners as married couples. Arkansas: One step closer to banning adoption by gay couples.

· Media Matters reports the latest bizarre "personal fantasy" of right-wing harpy Ann Coulter: "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen."

Comments

['dre]

Good to hear that the straight to DVD movie is still in the works, evil grin!

And, Ann Coulter, this chick really has some mental health issues with this nonsense, but, it sells books and that's all she wants.

And, Latin American courts are more progressive than the right wing nuts, sorry, activist judges, on the courts of this country are, shows who is third world and backwards doesn't it now?

[Jim]

Funny about Ann Coulter. For twenty years now, I've been telling friends how much better off we all would be if the franchise were limited to just black women.

Apparently, Ann and I have different visions of a good society.

[Andy in Seattle]

If we took away voting rights for everyone but land-owning males of European descent, like those "Founding Fathers" originally framed in the Constitution, we could live out your little fantasy, Ann... but then I doubt the men in charge would tolerate anyone as 'uppity' as you, Ms. Coulter, having an opinion, much less expressing it.

Ann, really, get some help.