Politics

Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney shared the stage with his 2008 presidential campaign rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in San Diego, where they observed Memorial Day and Romney spoke about the need for a strong U.S. military.

Romney noted the threats posed by Iran and its nuclear ambition; China and its military superpower aspiration; and Mexico and its drug-related violence, and said that the U.S. has chosen to maintain a strong military not only to win wars, but to prevent them.

"Because a strong America is the best deterrent to war that ever has been invented," Romney said to a crowd of some 5,000 people, the Los Angeles Times reported. more >>

Nearly half of all Americans have a close friend or relative who has given his or her life while serving in the military, according to a national survey by Rasmussen Reports released in time for Memorial Day.

The survey shows that 45 percent of Americans said they have had a friend or relative who died while serving the country. It also found that 40 percent of Americans have close friends or relatives currently serving in Afghanistan.

"While those that gave their all are our heroes, I have this feeling that it is the loved ones of our fallen that are our true heroes, the ones that have to endure the sacrifice of one of their own. Our children, parents, grandparents, or friends, it is not easy to accept the loss when it happens," wrote John Kubicek in his blog post, "The Flavor of Freedom," on Sunday. more >>

Richard Grenell, an openly gay foreign policy expert, was on staff with the Romney campaign for less than two weeks. But in his first interview since resigning, he insists that he was not forced to step down.

In a recent interview with The Desert Sun, Grenell said that it was his decision to leave the Romney campaign after he realized he would be a distraction to the campaign and its message.

"The far left doesn't want a gay person to be conservative and the far right doesn't want a conservative to be a gay person," says Grenell. "Some of the most hateful, mean-spirited intolerant comments about me being the foreign policy and national security spokesman for Governor Romney…were coming from the left." more >>

A Brazilian Senate Judiciary Committee, responsible for reviewing the Criminal Code, approved Friday a proposal to criminalize "homophobia" and other situations that can be considered discriminatory against homosexuals.

According the current wording of the bill, any person who discriminates based on gender, identity or sexual orientation as well as regional origin will face criminal charges. Under current laws only those who discriminate against another person because of race, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin can be prosecuted.

The new legislation's wording also proposes that any person discriminated against can request the commencement of legal proceedings at any time, even if the discriminatory act happened a long time ago. Moreover, under the proposals if the accused is arrested temporarily, controversially they will not have the right to be released on bail. more >>

Brazil has become the latest country to pave the way for same-sex marriage after it approved a measure on Thursday changing the legal definition of a "civil union" to simply be between two people, without making it exclusive to a man and a woman.

The measure passed the Brazilian senate, its first legislative step in congress, after the issue had been disputed for 16 years, the Associated Press reported.

The Senate still does not approve of gay marriage, but Brazil's judiciary has already moved toward legalizing same-sex marriages after state courts last year began allowing civil unions between homosexuals to be converted to full marriages. more >>

Newt Gingrich, the one-time front-runner in the 2012 Republican primary, says he forgives the party's presumptive nominee for running hard-hitting ads against him earlier this year.

"Mitt Romney did what he had to do to become the nominee," Gingrich told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Thursday. "He's worked at this for six years … When he got to the crunch, he was tough enough and smart enough to beat me in Florida."

When Matthews asked Gingrich if the accusations Romney aimed at him were true, he said "no." more >>