News: Nepal, Billie Joe Armstrong, Rugby, LDS

Nine climbers are dead and six are missing after an avalanche in Nepal.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks ready for action on the Kick-Ass 2 set.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird this weekend vowed to "stand up to the violent mobs that seek to criminalize homosexuality".

Happy 50th birthday to The Jetsons!

San Franciscans are mentally preparing for anti-gay, drunk-driving, Prop 8-advocating Archbishop-designate Salvatore Cordileone to take his seat at the head of the Catholic table there. A taste of Cordileone's homophobic rhetoric: "If we misuse the gift of sexuality, we're going to suffer the consequences, and I firmly believe we are suffering the consequences."

Australia's The Purchas Cup brought gay rugby players from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane together for the very first time... That could be the opening of a skin flick.

David Twede, an editor at MormonThink who has been critical of Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy, says he now faces excommunication from the LDS.

Rick Perry's campaign threatened to sue the Huffington Post if it ran a story about gay rumors that have long plagued the failed Republican presidential candidate. "[Aide Ted Delisi] said Perry would be owning a big chunk of AOL, the publicly traded company that owns HuffPo, if this came out. Ted seemed kind of pissed off at the media in general, saying that standards had obviously declined if this is what passes for news these days. Ted was clear that he thought the story was complete hogwash."

The owner of a Portland bar is being investigated for allegedly kicking out an LGBT performance troupe and their friends. One piece of evidence is a voicemail he left in which he blamed cross-dressing or transitioned customers for hurting his business: "People think that A: We're a tranny bar, or B: We're a gay bar. We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don't want to be here on a Friday night now."

These super-heroes have also been politicians. Didn't anyone note that Superman is an alien?

Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day has checked into rehab after having a breakdown during a Las Vegas performance this weekend.

Expect conservatives to start griping about how the Broward County School District in Florida is "encouraging" students to celebrate LGBT history month. Glenn Beck's The Blaze is getting the party started.

Joe Arpaio v 2.0?

Chicago's Moreno Says Cathy 'Muddied' Chick-Fil-A's Gay Progress

Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno is confused, and rightfully so.

Thanks in part to Moreno's efforts, fast food franchise Chick-fil-A last week vowed to stop funding any political groups, especially anti-gay groups it backed in the past. Then, two days later, homophobic company CEO Dan Cathy tweeted support for a discriminatory group, a move Moreno says "muddied" the debate.

"[That tweet], at the least, muddied the progress we had made with Chick-fil-A and, at the worst, contradicted the documents and promises Chick-fil-A made to me and the community earlier this month."

More from CNN:

[Moreno] said the executives confirmed to him that both the foundation and the company in 2012 has not given money and will not give money to those groups.

Cathy's conflicting statement, Moreno said Sunday, is "disturbing."

"I am simply asking Mr. Cathy to confirm statements and documents that HIS company executives provided to me," Moreno said in a written statement, capitalizing "his" for emphasis.

"It's pretty simple, Mr. Cathy. Do you acknowledge and support the policies that your executives outlined to me in writing or do you not? Yes or no?" the statement added.

Chick-fil-A's offices are closed today, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow for a comment, and then probably another day before Cathy totally contradicts it.

50% Of Ohio Voters Not Influenced By Obama's Gay Nup Love: POLL

President Obama appears to have a slight lead in the battleground state of Ohio, where The Cleveland Plain Dealer and other papers took a poll showingthe commander-in-chief ahead by 5 points with 51% of the likely vote, leaving Romney with 46%.

Here are the demographic breakdowns via the Plain Dealer:

Overall, women favor Obama over Romney 53 percent to 43 percent. Men give Romney a slight edge, 49 percent to 48 percent. White voters break for Romney, 51 percent to 46 percent, while 92 percent of black voters back Obama.

When asked if they were better off now than four years ago -- a staple of presidential politics since Ronald Reagan -- 36 percent said they were worse off, 23 percent better and 41 percent "about the same."

Few other issues appear to be moving the needle much for either candidate.

When asked about the president's health care law, 48 percent of respondents said they want Congress to expand the law or keep it as is…. Though Ohioans last fall at the ballot box renounced the administration's health care mandate by a 2-to-1 margin, only 44 percent of poll respondents said they want it repealed.

According to the survey, Ohioans are surprisingly disinterested in President Obama's recent endorsement of marriage equality: an even 50% said his position makes no difference in their decision making process, though some of those may fear being seen as a homophobic and therefore embellished. One never knows with such hot button issues.

First Lady At CBC Gala: Supporting Vote The 'Sit-In Of Our Day': VIDEO

The recent rumor that African-American pastors were telling voters not vote to protest President Obama's support for marriage equality was a hot topic of conversation at the Congressional Black Caucus' annual gala last night. And the high-profile leaders seemed to agree that the suggestion was irresponsible.

"Anyone that would encourage people not to vote given what we had to go through to get the right to vote is someone who is operating at the height of amnesia," Rev. Al Sharpton told Washington's WUSA. CBC President Dr. Elsie Scott insisted, "We need every vote. Every vote counts."

And That same message provided a subtext for Michelle Obama's comments on the importance of voting, and the fact that all laws matter, not just the ones that directly impact respective citizens' lives:

Much like they did 50, 150 years ago, our laws still shape so many aspects of our lives: Whether our kids have clean air and safe streets, or not. …Whether our sons and daughters who wear our country’s uniform get the benefits they’ve earned, or not... As citizens of this great country, that is our most fundamental right, our most solemn obligation -- to cast our ballots and have our say in the laws that shape our lives.
…
And make no mistake about it, this is the march of our time -- marching door to door, registering people to vote.  Marching everyone you know to the polls every single election. See, this is the sit-in of our day -- sitting in a phone bank, sitting in your living room, calling everyone you know -- (applause) -- your friends, your neighbors, that nephew you haven’t seen in a while, that classmate you haven’t spoken to in years -- making sure they all know how to register, where to vote -- every year, in every election.

This is the movement of our era -- protecting that fundamental right not just for this election, but for the next generation and generations to come.

Meanwhile, CNN's Roland Martin says the original AP report about the black pastors' suggestion was ill-researched and misleading: "Not a single one of these pastors was quoted [in the report] as saying they have or plan to tell their congregations not to vote in the presidential election. Not one."

Watch video of Michelle Obama's CBC remarks AFTER THE JUMP.

State Dept Says CNN 'Indefensible' For Journal Use: VIDEO

Last Wednesday, Anderson Cooper and his team at CNN issued a report that they said delved deep into slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens' political mindset. The information was said to have come from someone familiar with Stevens' thinking — and as it turns out was based partially on Stevens' journal. The item had been found by a CNN team, and details contained in it were used to build the CNN report.

"The information for that report, like all of CNN's reporting, was carefully vetted. Some of that information was found in a personal journal of Ambassador Stevens in his handwriting," said Cooper. "We came upon the journal through our reporting and notified the family. At their request, we returned that journal to them. We reported what we found newsworthy in the ambassador's writings. A reporter followed up on what we found newsworthy, as I said, in the ambassador's writings."

CNN provided more information yesterday, "The journal was found on the floor of the largely unsecured consulate compound where he was fatally wounded. CNN notified Stevens’ family about the journal within hours after it was discovered and at the family’s request provided it to them via a third party. The journal consists of just seven pages of handwriting in a hard-bound book.”

Right-wingers are already jumping down Cooper and company's collective throat, and so too is the State Department, which called CNN's use of the dead man's journal "indefensible".

Read more AFTER THE JUMP.

"What [CNN is] not owning up to is reading and transcribing Chris’s diary well before bothering to tell the family or anyone else that they took it from the site of the attack. Or that when they finally did tell them, they completely ignored the wishes of the family," said Philippe Reines, an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to Politico.

"Anderson Cooper didn’t even bother to offer any other explanation as to why the network broke its promise to the family. And only did so after being contacted by a reporter asking about the diary and their convoluted sourcing. How do they justify that? They have yet to even try to defend the indefensible.”

Given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting,' he said. He also wondered, "Whose first instinct is to remove from a crime scene the diary of a man killed along with three other Americans serving our country, read it, transcribe it, email it around your newsroom for others to read and then call the family?"

CNN, clearly on the defensive, offered further explanation, and a barb at the State Department: "The real question here is why is the State Department now attacking the messenger... The reason CNN ultimately reported Friday on the existence of the journal was because leaks to media organizations incorrectly suggested CNN had not quickly returned the journal, which we did."

Watch Cooper explain the journal report, via Mediaite:

Romney Uses Nancy Pelosi's Multi-Tasking Against Obama: VIDEO

With the Obama administration and other Democrats zeroing in on Mitt Romney's shady tax practices, the GOP candidate's campaign today released an advert using journalist Bob Woodward's recent book on the Obama White House, The Price of Politics, to slam the president as ineffective.

According to the book, and the ad, called "Mute Button", the commander-in-chief had some trouble getting all of his Democratic ducks in a row during the debt ceiling debate because, you know, lawmakers are people too and sometimes they get along and sometimes they don't.

Told by the GOP's narrator, this Democratic discord means Obama is a bad leader and should be defeated in November: "If he cannot lead his own party, how can he lead America?"

Watch the attack AFTER THE JUMP.