“Media critic” at the Washington Post Howard Kurtz informs his readers today that Ken Mehlman’s gayitude was an open secret. Another media critic might actually, you know, criticize the media over such an open secret well-known to everyone who produces media but no one who consumes it, but not Kurtz. Speaking of Open Secrets, though, Ken has a few others of interest as well: donations to anti-gay politicians.

The right-wing is in overdrive attacking Judge Vaughn Walker’s bias, since they say he is ‘openly gay.’ Of course, Walker isn’t openly gay by any stretch of the imagination. But Michaelangelo Signorile perpetuates a dangerous stereotype, difficult to shed for men of my generation and Vaughn Walker’s, by calling these lies ‘smears’ in his otherwise excellent HuffPost article today. It’s not a smear to call someone openly gay, since there’s nothing wrong with being gay in the first place.

We had Congressman Mike Rogers on MSNBC today regarding his controversial comments calling for capital punishment of Pvt. Manning, who is charged with releasing classified information to Wikileaks.

You all met Joshua Segall a few months ago on a liveblog he did at FireDog. His opponent is Congressman Mike Rogers from Alabama. Rogers’ campaign manager in ’06 and his current Deputy C.O.S. in his Congressional office, Christopher Brinson was reprimanded for his role in Abu Ghraib, his underling is serving 10 years. More after the fold.