Americans really should be able to be in the same vicinity as the President, regardless of what’s on their clothing. I recently noted the ordeal with Nicole and Jeff Rank, who were literally arrested for attending a Bush speach while wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. (A judge later threw out the trespassing charges.) As it turns out, […]
The Gadflyer’s Paul Waldman noticed a Fox News classic from today’s Chicago Tribune. The headline alone pretty much tells the story: “O’Reilly Scolds Guest Who Outed Gays, Then Calls Judge a Lesbian” Fox News Channel’s star talk-show personality, Bill O’Reilly, says he is uncomfortable with the practice of outing gay political figures — except, it […]
Want to know how desperate the Republicans are? With about 20 legislative days remaining in this session, the Senate is moving forward with a flag-burning amendment. A proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag won the approval Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee split largely along party lines. Raised by some […]
The Dems’ fundraising success may be the biggest surprise of the year. No one, probably not even Dem leaders, could have expected so much financial support from so many people. In light of the fundraising trends for the past several decades, it’s been assumed that Republicans will always far exceed Dem fundraising. Not anymore. John […]
The sweeping complaint filed with the House Ethics Committee is already facing resistance from the committee’s chairman, before the panel even considers the merit of the charges. With speculation growing over whether the House ethics committee will take up a complaint against Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), ethics Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said his panel […]
What do you know; the whining worked. After protests from the party’s conservative wing, the Republican National Committee has invited several conservative Republicans to speak during the presidential nominating convention, which begins next month in New York. Additions include Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert […]
Yesterday we learned that Halliburton, while Dick Cheney was the company’s CEO, created a subsidiary in the ask-no-questions Cayman Islands while doing business with Iran, which has suspected ties to al Queda. The business “arrangement” is even the subject of a grand jury investigation. Sounds like a pretty big deal, right? The kind of thing […]
Just last week, the AP reported that Donald Rumsfeld, his popularity dropping precipitously, suddenly seemed to be hiding. After years of high-profile interviews and televised briefings, it seemed like the White House, in full campaign mode, wanted to shield a controversial failure like Rumsfeld from public view to bolster the campaign’s prospects. But the Washington […]
Forgive my morbid fascination with the plight of Illinois’ Republicans, but it’s just too interesting to ignore. Nearly a month after Jack Ryan quit the Senate race in the midst of a sex scandal, Dem Barack Obama is still without a GOP challenger. It sounds as though the upcoming debates may be awfully boring — […]
Nine years ago, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich demonstrated his legendary outside-the-box thinking by floating an idea to give families in poverty a tax credit to by a laptop computer. “Maybe that’s expensive, maybe we can’t do it, but [we should send] . . . any signal that we can send to the poorest Americans that says, […]