The day before the White House Correspondents dinner, Jamie Kirchick interviewed Meghan McCain for Out, largely focusing on her outspoken support of gay rights. During the interview, McCain took a crack at a man her father made famous during last year’s presidential campaign, Joe the Plumber:

Yet even as the balance begins to shift, the old guard is still yapping in the foreground. Shortly before McCain sat for this interview, Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, gave an interview to Christianity Today in which he complained about “queers” and declared, “I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.” Unprompted, McCain rails against the man her father’s presidential campaign touted as an American everyman and made a showpiece in the weeks before the election. “Joe the Plumber — you can quote me — is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing.”

Wurzelbacher later followed that comment up by saying, “Men kissing each other…it throws me off.” “It’s not something I want around my family,” he told a local ABC affiliate in Toledo, OH.

The Washington Blade reports that, during the Bush administration, “applicants for Justice Department internships and honors programs may have been rejected based on their membership in LGBT” and immigrant advocacy groups. Pro-immigrant groups reportedly made up 25 percent of the list. Some other blacklisted organizations:

The Blade recently learned that among the blacklisted groups was Immigration Equality, which focuses on LGBT-related immigration issues.

Also blacklisted was the immigration project for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. […]

Rachel Tiven, Immigration Equality’s executive director, said in a statement that her organization was “proud to be the only national LGBT organization included in the Bush Justice Department’s list of dangerous organizations” and that “opponents of equality and justice are right to fear us.”

A 2008 report by the Justice Department concluded that former Bush loyalists at the DoJ broke the law by allowing politics to influence hiring decisions. The Justice Department’s screening process was headed by Monica Goodling, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University who acknowledged that she “crossed the line of the civil service rules.” Goodling blocked the hiring of someone she viewed as a “liberal,” and she frequently checked the backgrounds of candidates for their views on “abortion” and “homosexuality.”

The reserve soldier who argued he should not have to go to Afghanistan because of far-fetched claims that President Obama is not legally eligible to be commander-in-chief has had his deployment orders revoked. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook filed a request with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on July 8 seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector because he believes Obama is not a natural born citizen. Though the military has refused to say why the order was revoked, Cook’s lawyer, renowned Obama conspiracy theorist Orly Taitz, was spinning it as a victory. “They have no cards to play with,” Taitz gleefully told Military.com:

“Can you imagine what are the consequences? This is disastrous” for the administration, she said. “We’ll have no military. Because anytime any Soldier, any Sailor, any Airman does not want to follow any orders, all he has to do is call an attorney and say ‘I don’t want to follow this order because I question the legitimacy of the commander in chief.’ “

Cook, an Individual Mobilization Augmentee, had volunteered for a year’s deployment to Afghanistan on May 8 and his orders were issued June 9. But all is not over for Cook or Taitz. A hearing on Cook’s requests will take place Thursday in the Columbus, Georgia federal court.

This past Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broadcasted a series of anti-Obama comments over his “Alo Presidente!” show, at one point even toying with the possibility that President Obama might be assassinated. The Hill quotes Chavez:

On the “imperial” U.S. forces that Chavez thinks killed JFK: “I hope they do not kill Obama, because Obama is biting off more than he can chew.”

Chavez also demanded that Obama “stop dithering” on the military takeover of Honduras. Obama, however, has strongly condemned the Honduran coup and “diffused” Chavez’ charges. Earlier this year, Chavez called Obama a “poor ignoramus” who has the “same stench as Bush.” Obama, however, has vowed to turn a new page in hemispheric relations and it seems that, for the most part, Latin American leaders and their constituents believe him.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who has been searching for excuses to vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor, said on CNN today that Sotomayor’s testimony was “muddled” and lacked clarity. “I do think Roberts and Alito are far superior in terms of answering questions crisply and with clarity and having very little inconsistencies in what they said,” Sessions claimed. The Senate Democratic Leadership office quickly assembled a video reminding Sessions of how “crisply” Roberts and Alito dodged questions that they didn’t want to answer:

Ian Millhiser writes that Sessions clearly “doesn’t remember the Roberts and Alito hearings very well.”