| November 3, 11:00 AM
, 2020 | - In a room once used by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.), a supporter of the Irish Republican
Army, began hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims; one speaker, Representative Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), wept as he testified about a fellow Muslim American who died as a first responder on September 11, 2001.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
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| December 24, 2015 | - After weeks of infighting, Congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut. House Republicans, who had rejected a nearly identical measure days earlier, were left divided over the stopgap measure, which pitted recently elected lawmakers seeking major reforms against party veterans. “When you start making decisions based on elections,” said Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.), ”then you run the risk of having the mess we just did." President Barack Obama also signed into law a $1 trillion spending bill, warning that he reserved the right to challenge certain provisions promoted by Republicans, such as a prohibition on using the money to repatriate prisoners from Guantánamo Bay.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Raw Story
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
USA Today
Source 4:
USA Today
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| January 15, 2012 | - Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire Republican primary. Jon Huntsman, who placed third, behind Ron Paul, withdrew from the race and endorsed Romney.
| Source 1:
Washington Times
Source 2:
Boston Globe
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| January 11, 2012 | - Warren Buffett offered to match any voluntary contribution made by a Republican congressperson to reduce the national debt. “I’ll even go three-for-one with McConnell,” said Buffett of the Senate minority leader.
| Source:
San Francisco Chronicle
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| January 9, 2012 | - The 2008 Republican nominee, John McCain, endorsed Romney. “I am confident, with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around,” said McCain. “President Romney," he then corrected himself. “President Romney. President Romney.” During a speech to New Hampshire business leaders, Romney said “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need.”
| Source 1:
NBC
Source 2:
AP on YouTube
Source 3:
Bloomberg Businessweek
Source 4:
Concord Monitor
Source 5:
Huffington Post
Source 6:
New York Times blogs
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| January 4, 2012 | - Mitt Romney won the first stage of the Republican leadership race, beating Rick Santorum by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, in the Iowa caucus. “This has been a great victory for him,” said Romney of Santorum. Michele Bachmann, who had claimed she would stay in the race regardless of the Iowa results, suspended her campaign after receiving 5 percent of the vote.
| Source:
CBS
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| December 16, 2011 | - At the final G.O.P. presidential debate before the Iowa Caucuses in January, Michele Bachmann criticized Newt Gingrich for failing to take a strong enough stance against abortion. “The Republican Party can’t get the issue of life wrong,” Bachmann said. “This is a seminal issue.”
| Source:
Washington Post
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| December 6, 2011 | -
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appeared in an ad criticizing gay rights while dressed in a jacket nearly identical to the one worn by Heath Ledger in “Brokeback Mountain,” and a Michigan music teacher was reprimanded for changing the “Deck the Halls” lyric “Don we now our gay apparel” to “Don we now our bright apparel.”
| Source 1:
Yahoo!
Source 2:
ABC 30
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| November 27, 2011 | - The congressional supercommittee assigned to devise a plan for reining in the federal deficit failed to reach an agreement, triggering $1.2 trillion in budget cuts that will take effect in 2013, including cuts to defense spending and Medicare. Senate Democrats planned to follow up the failed talks by introducing $400 billion in new spending legislation over the coming weeks, while Republicans indicated that they would try to reconfigure the automatic cuts in order to spare defense programs. “The knives,” said Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), “are over our heads.”
| Source 1:
Los Angeles Times
Source 2:
The Hill
Source 3:
Reuters via NBC
Source 4:
Politico
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| October 5, 2011 | - Senate Democrats added a 5 percent surtax on millionaires to President Obama's $447-billion jobs bill, and Republican state representative Ritch Workman of Melbourne, Florida, filed a bill to reinstate the practice of dwarf-tossing, which was banned in 1989. “All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get,” said Workman.
| Source 1:
Associated Press via MSNBC
Source 2:
Palm Beach Post
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| September 27, 2011 | - A toilet exploded in a federal building in Washington, injuring at least one employee, and House Republicans introduced legislation to get rid of the dollar bill, while Senate Republicans introduced legislation to save it. “At a time when the government needs to be looking to save every dollar,” said the head of the Dollar Coin Alliance, “we can’t continue to play the same Washington game of serving narrow special interests with half-measure legislation.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
The Hill
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| September 23, 2011 | - At a Republican presidential debate on Thursday, Michele Bachmann pledged to sign the “mother of all repeal bills” to abolish the Department of Education, and Rick Santorum called President Barack Obama “the new King George III.”
| Source:
NY Times
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| September 19, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama proposed a $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan that included the “Buffett Rule,” which would increase taxes for the 0.3 percent of Americans who earn more than $1 million a year. Republicans contended that such an increase would discourage investment in new businesses and further stall job growth. “Class warfare may make for really good politics,” said Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), “but it makes for rotten economics.” “This is not class warfare,” said Obama. “It’s math.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| September 13, 2011 | - Bob Turner, the creator of “The Jerry Springer Show,” won the House seat vacated by Anthony Weiner and became the first Republican elected in New York’s Ninth Congressional District since 1920. “We have lit one candle today,” said Turner. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”
| Source 1:
Los Angeles Times
Source 2:
New York Times
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| September 10, 2011 | - At the Republican presidential debate, moderator Brian Williams mentioned that 234 executions had taken place in Texas during Perry’s tenure, and the crowd applauded.
| Source:
Telegraph
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| August 28, 2011 | - An earthquake with a Richter magnitude of 5.9 and an epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, shook much of the East Coast, and Irene, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall in North Carolina and continued up the Atlantic seaboard, killing at least 38 people in 10 states. The unusually large and slow hurricane caused an estimated $7 billion in damages, mostly due to flooding, and left millions of people without power. In Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Irene pushed at least 15 heating-oil trucks into the Ramapo River, spilling large amounts of fuel into the water. “An environmental disaster is floating down the river,” said Tuxedo Park mayor Tom Wilson. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul questioned the need for a federal response to hurricanes. “We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960,” he said.
| Source 1:
ABC News
Source 2:
Slate
Source 3:
Associated Press
Source 4:
All Things Digital
Source 5:
MyFoxNY
Source 6:
Wall Street Journal
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
MSNBC
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| August 17, 2011 | - Rock musician Ted Nugent threw his support behind Texas governor Rick Perry in the Republican leadership race, writing in the Washington Times that he is “wango-tango giddy for an Obama-versus-Perry presidential political brawl.” While campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, Perry suggested that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke was “almost treasonous” and threatened him with ugly Texas treatment, condemned as idiotic a nonexistent federal regulation requiring operators to have a commercial license before driving a tractor across a public road, and argued that America shouldn’t spend money fighting climate change, “a scientific theory that has not been proven.”
| Source 1:
Washington Times
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CBS News
Source 3:
Wall Street Journal
Source 4:
Think Progress
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| August 14, 2011 | -
Scientists failed to differentiate DNA in sperm cocktails, Texas governor Rick Perry became the sixteenth Republican man to declare himself a candidate for president in the 2012 election, and Michele Bachmann won the Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa. After finishing poorly, Tim Pawlenty withdrew.
| Source 1:
PLoS one
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AP via Washington Post
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
CBC
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| August 12, 2011 | -
Cuba held its first wedding of a gay man and a transgender woman, Prague held its first gay-pride march, “Sesame Street” denied that Bert and Ernie were a couple, and Phillip Hinkle, an antigay Republican state representative from Indiana, was discovered to have offered cash to an 18-year-old man in exchange for spending the night, plus a tip for a really good time.
| Source 1:
BBC
Source 2:
BBC
Source 3:
New York Post
Source 4:
Indianapolis Star
Source 5:
Raw Story
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| July 31, 2011 | -
Democratic and Republican leaders concluded a week of fierce debate by agreeing on a “framework” deal to resolve the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis. Were the House and Senate to approve the deal, the ceiling would be raised for the seventy-ninth time in fifty years, increasing in the near term by $900 billion alongside an immediate $917 billion cut in federal discretionary spending. A bipartisan committee would be convened to seek ways of reducing the deficit by at least an additional $1.5 trillion in the next decade. The provisional agreement was reached only two days after the House passed and the Senate rejected John Boehner’s bill to cut spending by $917 billion. “Sausage making is not pretty,” said California senator Dianne Feinstein, “but the sausage we have, I think, is a very different sausage from when we started.”
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
LAT
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| July 14, 2011 | -
Congress failed to agree on a plan to avoid sending the United States into default. President Barack Obama warned that if the debt ceiling were not raised by August 2, checks for the 70 million Americans who receive government benefits might not be mailed out. “Don’t call my bluff,” Obama cautioned Republican leaders during the negotiations. “I don’t need to see markets drop 400 points,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), “but Republicans may need to see markets drop 400 points.”
| Source 1:
New York Daily News
Source 2:
Daily Mail
Source 3:
The Hill
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| July 14, 2011 | - Journalists discovered that Republican presidential candidate Hermann Cain released a gospel album and that the former church of candidate Michelle Bachmann believes the pope to be the Antichrist.
| Source 1:
CBS
Source 2:
Raw Story
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| July 12, 2011 | - Los Angelenos avoided Carmaggeddon; residents of Phonehenge West, a California shantytown started by a former telephone technician, were evicted; and Republicans from the state’s southern inland campaigned for their counties to secede.
| Source 1:
New York times
Source 2:
AP
Source 3:
New York Times
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| July 6, 2011 | -
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann signed a pledge to defend traditional marriage values, fight pornography, and find a cure for homosexuality, and in Mexico, a woman on a conjugal visit was caught attempting to smuggle her husband out of prison in a wheeled suitcase.
| Source 1:
Daily Beast
Source 2:
BBC
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| June 26, 2011 | - Revelers at New York City’s gay pride parade waved signs reading “Thank You Governor Cuomo” and “Promise Kept!” after New York became the sixth and largest U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. The state senate vote marked the culmination of an intensive lobbying campaign by gay-rights advocates and Governor Andrew Cuomo, backed by three wealthy Republican businessmen. “We were outgunned,” said Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference, which opposed the bill. “That is a lot to overcome.” Republican congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said she would support a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. “After all,” said Bachmann, “the family is the fundamental unit of government.”
| Source 1:
NY Times
Source 2:
Christian Post
Source 3:
NY Times
|
| June 11, 2011 | -
Republican and Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called for the resignation of Representative Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.), who admitted at a press conference that he had publicly tweeted a photograph of his crotch intended to be sent privately to a 21-year-old woman, and that he had in recent years sent explicit photographs and messages to other women. Before the press conference, publisher Andrew Breitbart, who had disseminated some of these photos, took the podium and demanded an apology from the mainstream media for impugning his coverage of Weiner. “Everything we've reported about this story has been true,” he said. “I'm doing this to save his family.” Weiner checked himself into a psychological treatment center and requested a leave of absence from the House.
| Source 1:
WSJ
Source 2:
Int'l Business Times
Source 3:
LAT
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
Slate
Source 6:
NYT
|
| June 7, 2011 | - Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign manager and senior advisers resigned en masse, and another Republican candidate, Herman Cain, announced that he would not sign into law any bill longer than three pages.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
LAT
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| May 24, 2011 | -
Democrat Kathy Hochul won a special election to become the Congressional
Representative for New York's District 26, a seat Republicans have held for four decades. Republicans denied that Hochul's victory was a response to their proposal to privatize Medicare, even though Hochul was thought certain to lose until she began attacking her opponent for supporting the plan.
| Source:
New York Times
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| April 27, 2011 | - President Obama responded to accusations that he was not born in the United States by releasing his long-form birth certificate, issued by Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu. “I am really proud. I am really honored,” said potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of the release. “I feel I've accomplished something really, really important that no one else was able to do.”
| Source:
The Hill
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| April 15, 2011 | - President Obama, who apparently forgot to turn off his microphone after a fundraising event, was overheard discussing his recent budget negotiations with Republicans and complaining about the White House technology to donors. “Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up?” he asked.
| Source:
NYTimes
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| April 9, 2011 | - Less than an hour and a half before a budget-negotiation stalemate would have necessitated the first U.S. government shutdown since 1995, Democrats and Republicans worked out a compromise. The stopgap agreement, which will fund government operations until Thursday, April 14, proposes a $38-billion reduction in annual spending, the largest ever budget cut, achieved by slashing mainly health and education allocations, including public housing, as well as Pell grants for low-income college students. The military, however, would receive $5 billion more than it did last year.
| Source:
NYT
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| February 22, 2011 | - More than 70,000 protesters rallied in Madison, Wisconsin, against Governor Scott Walker's proposal to strip public-sector unions of their collective-bargaining rights. The state's Republican-controlled assembly passed Walker's plan, while fourteen Democrats in the state senate continued hiding in Illinois to stall a vote in the upper house, where Republicans also hold a majority. Many non-union Wisconsin residents agreed with Walker's crackdown. “I know there was a point for unions back in the day,” said Carrie Fox, who works for a billboard-advertising company. “But now there’s workers’ rights; there’s laws that protect us.” Vicki Guzman, a Canadian government employee who drove down from Guelph, Ontario, to join the protests, said, “It's about solidarity, eh?”
| Source 1:
Reuters
Source 2:
Reuters
Source 3:
Chicago Tribune
Source 4:
NYT
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| February 5, 2011 | -
Republicans celebrated the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan. At St. Elizabeth's psychiatric hospital Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinkley, Jr., who shot the former president 29 years ago in an effort to win the affections of Jodie Foster, was reported to have recently found love. “I see value in people no matter what they’ve said or done,” said Hinkley's girlfriend, a former St. Elizabeth's patient.
| Source:
The Daily
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| January 31, 2011 | - House Republicans sought to restrict the use of federal funds to pay for abortions by redefining rape; under current law, pregnancies resulting from rape can be terminated with government support, but under the new law only “forcible” rape would be covered, excluding statutory and other kinds of rape.
| Source:
ABC News
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| January 20, 2011 | - Alabama Republican governor Robert Bentley apologized for saying on Martin Luther King Day that non-Christians were not his “brothers and sisters.” “If you're not a person who can say you are sorry,” said Bentley, “you're not a very good leader.”
| Source:
fox memphis
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| January 15, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama, speaking at a memorial service in Arizona for the six killed during Jared Loughner's shooting spree, urged Americans to be better people. “I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it,” Obama said, referring to 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green. “All of us—we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.” The president then choked up, pausing for 51 seconds. “I had her heart in my hand,” said Dr. Randall Friese, the surgeon who operated on Christina. “We filled it with blood. It still didn’t want to beat. So, it was over. We’re finished.” Sales of Glock semi-automatic pistols, the model of handgun used by Loughner, surged. Four Arizona Republicans resigned from public office, fearing violence from Tea Party activists, and Clear Channel removed a Tucson billboard that described Rush Limbaugh as a “straight shooter.” Gabrielle Giffords opened her eye for the first time since the shooting, and the Safeway where the shooting took place reopened.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Bloomberg
Source 5:
Raw Story
Source 6:
Raw Story
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
New York Times
|
| January 6, 2011 | - In an apparent violation of the Constitution, two Republican members participated in the reading, which was an official act of Congress, and later cast votes on the House floor, despite having skipped the swearing in ceremony to attend a fundraiser.
| Source:
Huffington Post
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| December 17, 2010 | - Senate Democrats failed to bring to a vote a $1.1 trillion spending bill needed to fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year. “A number of Republican senators told me they'd like to see this pass,” explained Senate majority leader Harry Reid, “but they can't support it.”
| Source:
CNN
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| December 11, 2010 | - After eating a bowl of oatmeal and drafting ten talking points, Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) spoke for nine hours in opposition to the tax-cut deal struck between President Obama and congressional Republicans. “We should be embarrassed,” he said, “that we are for one second talking about a proposal that gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class.”
| Source 1:
WP
Source 2:
CBS
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NYT
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| November 29, 2010 | - Senate Republicans defeated two attempts by Democrats to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy and to extend tax cuts for the middle-class, and it was estimated that 15 percent of incoming members of the House of Representatives, of whom 90 percent are Republicans, will sleep in their offices. “I'm not doing this as a political stunt,” said freshman Todd Rokita. “I'm doing this because I'm a cheap bastard.”
| Source 1:
NYTimes
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WSJ
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| November 12, 2010 | - Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for governor of New York and former landlord of two gay bars in Buffalo, told constituents that he opposed children being “brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option.” The next day, he appeared on the Today show and criticized Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo for attending a gay pride parade with his children.
| Source 1:
Fox News
Source 2:
NY Daily News
Source 3:
NYT
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| November 4, 2010 | - Three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage were voted out of office, and exit polls suggested that 31 percent of self-identified homosexuals and bisexuals voted Republican.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
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| November 4, 2010 | - MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann without pay for contributing $2,400 to the campaigns of three Democrats; the Republican National Committee showed its support for Nancy Pelosi's bid to become the Minority Leader by hanging above their entrance a “Hire Pelosi” banner; and on election night in Long Island, a retired New York policeman and his sons beat a 38-year-old Turkish immigrant with American flags, telling the recently naturalized man to “get out of my country.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
Source 3:
New York Pos
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| November 3, 2010 | -
Republicans took control of the House after picking up 60 seats in midterm elections, the largest gain in the House since 1948. Democrats maintained control of the Senate (though they lost six seats), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not lose to Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. “Harry Reid isn't just Dracula. He isn't just Lazarus; he's our leader,” said Senator John Kerry. “Our whole caucus is thrilled that he's unbreakable and unbeatable.”
| Source 1:
Time
Source 2:
New York Times
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| November 1, 2010 | - The most expensive midterm election in the country's history neared an end with both parties expecting Republicans to regain control of the House and contend for control of the Senate.
| Source:
New York Times
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| October 31, 2010 | - President Obama declined to endorse Frank Caprio, the Democratic candidate for governor in Rhode Island, who is running against former Republican senator and Obama supporter Lincoln Chafee. Caprio replied that Obama could “shove it.”
| Source:
LA Times
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| October 20, 2010 | - “Rent Is Too Damn High” gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan was revealed not to pay rent, Senator Harry Reid indicated that he has never had to prove his manhood, and New Jersey Republican congressional nominee Jon Runyan, asked to name a recent Supreme Court decision he finds disagreeable, chose Dred Scott.
| Source 1:
NBC
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LVRJ
Source 3:
TPM
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| October 8, 2010 | -
Ohio
Republican congressional candidate Rich Iott was found to be an avid Nazi reenactor. “It's purely historical interest in World War II,” said Iott.
| Source:
The Atlantic
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| October 4, 2010 | - Reports showed that interest groups have spent $80 million so far on the 2010 congressional elections, five times as much as they had at this point in the 2006 midterms. Over half of this was given by donors who did not disclose their identities, and Republican-leaning groups outspent Democratic allies 7 to 1; Democrats called for the Internal Revenue Service to investigate.
| Source 1:
Bloomberg
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The Washington Post
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| October 1, 2010 | - Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, who once said that homosexuals have an “identity disorder,” was endorsed by her lesbian sister, Jennie. “Blood,” said Jennie, “is thicker than politics.”
| Source:
NYT
|
| September 24, 2010 | - HBO released a previously unaired 1998 television clip of Christine O'Donnell, now a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Delaware, in which she said evolution is a myth. “Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?” she demanded to know.
| Source:
HBO via Thinkprogress
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| September 22, 2010 | -
Republican senators blocked a $726 billion defense bill containing provisions to repeal “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” and provide U.S. citizenship to some foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants.
| Source:
WSJ
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| September 18, 2010 | - The Tea Party scored several upsets in midterm primary elections, with Christine O'Donnell winning the Republican nomination for Senate in Delaware. O'Donnell was endorsed by Sarah Palin but criticized by many prominent Republicans, including Karl Rove, who accused her of saying “a lot of nutty things.” “I never joined a coven,“ O'Donnell once said, ”but I did, I did . . . I dabbled into witchcraft.” She described her introduction to sorcery: “We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.” The anti-masturbation candidate, who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, has a history of personal finance problems and is alleged to have misused campaign funds for personal expenses; she does not believe that condoms can prevent AIDS and has said that efforts to promote condom use are ”anti-human."
| Source 1:
New York Times
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CNN
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ABC News
Source 4:
ABC News
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| September 18, 2010 | - The Republican Party in Montana was considering outlawing homosexuality.
| Source:
CBS News
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| July 21, 2010 | - The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 6 to approve Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, sending her candidacy to the full Senate for confirmation. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was the lone Republican to vote in favor of Kagan. “No one spent more time trying to beat President Obama than I did,” said Graham, who was also the only Republican committee member to vote for Sonia Sotomayor. “But President Obama won.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
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| July 2, 2010 | - The Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, the nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. G.O.P senators attacked Kagan by comparing her with former justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked in the 1980s. According to Republicans, Marshall, the nation's first African-American Supreme Court judge and prior to that the civil-rights lawyer who successfully argued against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, was a “well-known activist” and the “epitome of a results-oriented judge.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) asked where Kagan had been last Christmas Day, when a Nigerian terrorist attempted to blow up a plane arriving in Detroit. “Like all Jews,” Kagan answered, “I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.” By the final hearing, Republicans admitted that Kagan's wit had charmed them: “You kind of light up a room,” Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) told her.
| Source 1:
CBS
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Wash Post
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Wash Post
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TPM
Source 5:
nyt
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| June 10, 2010 | - Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina won the Republican Senate nomination in California, and Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed military veteran who was recently charged with a felony for showing pornography to a university student, became South Carolina's Democratic Senate nominee. “The people of South Carolina have spoken,” Greene said. “The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina.” Democrats questioned how the unknown candidate could have beat his opponent, a former legislator and judge, and some speculated foul play. “I don't know if he was a Republican plant,” South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn said. "What is an unemployed guy doing paying $10,000 to run for the United States Senate? That just doesn’t add up.”
| Source 1:
Los Angeles Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Politico
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| May 18, 2010 | - Commentators declared that a wave of “outsiders” was toppling incumbents in the Senate, as Democratic Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania lost a primary to Representative Joe Sestak, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff with Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, and Rand Paul won the Republican Senate nomination in Kentucky.
| Source:
New York Times
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| March 21, 2010 | - With a blue “Tedstrong” bracelet around his wrist and 22 pens (19 to be handed out as souvenirs, two for posterity, and one for himself), President Barack Obama signed a health-care reform bill that will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. “This is a big fucking deal,” said Vice President Joe Biden. Republican lawmakers, not one of whom voted to pass the law, were outraged. Corey Poitier, a Florida GOP candidate for Congress, compared Obama to a Little Rascal: “Listen up, Buckwheat. This is not how it is done!” Poitier, who is black, defended the remark. “People love Buckwheat,” he said, then looked at his palms to prove he wasn't racist. “This isn't a spray tan. This is real.”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Gawker
Source 3:
CBS News
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| March 15, 2010 | - Senate Democrats also introduced a modest finance-reform bill that failed to include provisions for an independent consumer-protection agency; in a concession to Republicans, against the advice of members of the Fed's own Consumer Advisory Council, the bill would make the agency a part of the Federal Reserve.
| Source 1:
WSJ
Source 2:
LAT
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
Reuters
Source 5:
NYT
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| February 26, 2010 | -
Democrats and Republicans met for the first-ever health-care summit, a televised event that ran well past its scheduled six hours and in which lawmakers, led by President Barack Obama, debated the merits of health-care legislation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) complained that Democrats were being given more time to speak, a point Obama conceded. “You're right,” he said, “there was an imbalance on the opening statements because I'm the president.”
| Source:
Washington Post
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| February 22, 2010 | - A new jobs bill, calling for tax exemptions for businesses and $20 billion in transportation funds, passed in the Senate with the support of many Republican senators, including the newly elected Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and was sent to the House.
| Source:
Talking Points Memo
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| February 18, 2010 | -
Republicans rallied in Washington at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which some likened to a right-wing Woodstock. Dick Cheney paid a surprise visit to the gathering, and his daughter Liz analyzed President Obama's plan to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay: “Man, use your brain, dude, that's totally stupid.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
ABC News
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| January 27, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama skipped jury duty to deliver his first State of the Union address. In the 70-minute speech, Obama blamed Republicans for “saying no to everything,” Democratic leaders in Congress for “horse-trading,” and the Supreme Court for a recent decision that will allow elections to be “bankrolled by special interests.” Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed the words “not true.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dozed. Obama also criticized banks, lobbyists, his own political strategy, and, indirectly, root canals; an objection from the American Society of Endodontists was duly noted. The president announced that leftover stimulus money would generate 1.5 million new jobs for the 15 million out-of-work Americans and called for a new bill to create jobs by giving tax credits to small businesses that hire new workers. He planned to cut the federal deficit with a freeze on domestic spending that, if successful, would reduce the United States' expected shortfall by less than 3 percent over the next ten years. Thirty-two minutes into the address, Obama reiterated his commitment to health-care reform. He also said he wanted to end the Iraq war. “Make no mistake,” he said. “All of our troops are coming home.” He also committed 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan for December. MSNBC host Chris Matthews was impressed: “I forgot he was black tonight,” he said.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
UPI
Source 5:
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Source 6:
New York Times
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
New York Times
Source 9:
New York Times
Source 10:
MSNBC
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| January 20, 2010 | -
Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley to become a Massachusetts senator, nabbing the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy and ending the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. With his two daughters, Arianna, 19, and Ayla, 21, standing behind him, Brown (who once posed nude for Cosmopolitan) announced during his victory speech that both children were “available.” Brown then corrected himself after Ayla whispered into his ear: “Only kidding,” he said, “Arianna definitely is not available. But Ayla is!”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 6, 2010 | - Senator Harry Reid apologized for saying, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that Obama was a viable candidate because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” G.O.P. Chairman Michael Steele called on Reid to step down as Senate majority leader over his “anachronistic language”; Steele also called the current Republican platform “one of the best political documents that’s been written in the last 25 years,” adding, “honest Injun on that.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Chicago Tribune
|
| 0, 2009 | - The U.S. Senate voted 60‒39 to bring the $848 billion health-care plan, with a diminished public option, to the floor for debate, but only after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to concessions for centrist Democrats, such as providing as much as $300 million in extra Medicare funding to Senator Mary Landrieu's state of Louisiana. No Republicans voted for the measure. A poll found that only 38 percent of Americans support the plan, an all-time low; another poll found that 52 percent of Republicans believe community organization umbrella group ACORN stole the 2008 election for President Barack Obama, with an additional 21 percent undecided.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Examiner.com
Source 3:
Talking Points Memo
|
| December 24, 2009 | - Voting on Christmas Eve for the first time since 1895, the Senate passed a sweeping health-care bill that does not include a public option. Majority Leader Harry Reid accidentally voted “no” before instantly reversing his vote (“It was just--I am bushed,” he explained); ultimately, Democrats supplied every one of the 60 votes needed to pass the bill, leaving Republican Senator Orrin Hatch to complain that some of those votes were obtained with “a grab bag of back-room Chicago-style buyoffs.” The Senate bill will be merged next month with the version that passed the House, which does include a public option; among the issues to be reconciled are abortion coverage, the severity of fines for those who don't buy coverage, and the amount of government subsidies to those who are unable to afford insurance.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
NPR
|
| December 15, 2009 | - An amendment that would have allowed Americans to buy their medication abroad failed in the Senate, in large part because of resistance from the White House, and Republican senators tried to slow debate on health care by demanding a 700-page amendment be read out loud, thus delaying the passing of a bill that provides funding for U.S. troops. Neither President Obama nor the Senate leadership seemed particularly upset or surprised by the final bill, which Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, was planning to pass by Christmas Eve.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 7, 2009 | - U.S. Senator Harry Reid compared the Republican opponents of health-care reform with earlier conservatives who had fought against civil rights, women's rights, and a congressional acknowledgment of the wrongs of slavery. “Instead of joining us on the right side of history,” Reid said, “all the Republicans can come up with is, 'Slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right.”
| Source:
Fox News
|
| December 2, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama, after a meal of Chesapeake striped bass and mango sorbet, visited West Point and announced his plan to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan in order to “deny Al Qaeda a safe haven,” “reverse the Taliban's momentum,” and “strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government”; and then, after eighteen months (more than a year before the 2012 election), to start withdrawing troops. Republicans in Congress worried that the announcement of a withdrawal date would allow the Taliban and Al Qaeda to plan for the American military's departure, while Democrats questioned whether a significant drawdown in U.S. forces would actually occur. “Can any of you tell me, after July 2011, that we won't have tens of thousands of troops years beyond that date?” asked Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. “We will have 100,000 forces, troops there,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained later in the week. “And they are not leaving in July of 2011. Some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.” Representative Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, suggested that the combined escalation and exit strategy was engineered to please critics. “There's an old adage that a camel is a horse designed by committee,” Flake said. “This looks to be a policy designed by committee, a little something for everyone.” Hillary Clinton pointed out that camels are sturdy, ancient, and, though plodding, will get you where you need to go.
| Source 1:
The Atlantic
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
Politico
|
| December 2, 2009 | - The New York State Senate voted 38-24 to reject a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage. “Certainly this is an emotional issue and an important issue for many New Yorkers,” Republican Tom Libous said. “I just don't think the majority care too much about it.”
| Source:
NYT
|
| November 29, 2009 | - News leaked that President Barack Obama would send roughly 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, with the possibility of sending 10,000 more in a year, even as NATO allies spoke about withdrawing their own forces. Both Democrats and Republicans were skeptical of the strategy; Republican Senator Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) said that the call for phased deployment was “reminiscent of Vietnam.” Obama is expected, in a forthcoming speech at West Point, to provide a time frame for when American forces will leave the country and to stress that the goal in Afghanistan is to “defeat” Al Qaeda.
| Source 1:
The Daily Beast
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
Source 3:
Talking Points Memo
|
| November 13, 2009 | - The Republican National Committee said that its health-insurance plan would no longer pay for abortions.
| Source:
Politico
|
| November 5, 2009 | - The House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 220 to 215, a $1.1 trillion health-care bill that requires employers to provide insurance coverage or face a tax penalty, expands Medicaid coverage, establishes a government-run insurance plan, and blocks the use of federal insurance subsidies for abortions. “A lot of Blue Dogs in this country,” said Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, “are going to have a lot of 'splaining to do.” Protesters outside the Capitol chanted “Kill the bill,” and fat activists voiced concerns about the bill's “weight-loss agenda.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Fox News
|
| November 5, 2009 | -
Republicans were voted in as governors in Virginia and New Jersey but lost one House seat in New York. “The Republican renaissance has begun!” said Steele. “If you don't think last night was sweet, you need to go see a doctor!”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| October 20, 2009 | - Twitter closed the accounts of 33 Connecticut
Republicans who had registered under the names of Democratic state representatives and posted tweets that state Republican chairman Chris Healy described as “satire.” “I'm not quite sure what the issue is,” said Healy of Twitter's decision, “other than that the Democrats were successful in stopping free speech.”
| Source:
Hartford Advocate
|
| September 19, 2009 | - After months of negotiation by the bipartisan “gang of six” in the Senate, Senator Max Baucus unveiled his $776-billion health-care reform bill, which is supported by none of the gang's three Republican members and received a lukewarm response from Democrats. Baucus's plan, which includes member-run insurance co-operatives but no public option, would mandate that all Americans buy insurance and would provide subsidies for those who can't afford it. The subsidies would be paid for in part by an excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans, including those provided to firefighters, coal miners, and many other union workers. “That's not really a smart idea,” said Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller. The bill will now be taken up by the Senate Finance Committee, whose members have already drafted at least 564 amendments.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Minnesota Star Tribune
Source 3:
The Note
Source 4:
Newser
|
| September 10, 2009 | -
California state legislator Mike Duvall, a Republican, resigned after he unwittingly bragged about having sex with much younger women--including one who wore “little eye-patch underwear”--into a hot microphone before a hearing.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| September 4, 2009 | - Polls showed that the level of public support for health-care reform was plummeting, a result of both Democratic capitulation--as when Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D., Mont.), after a year of preparation, released a proposal that lacked a public option--and a Republican campaign of lies regarding “death panels,” the cost of medical care, cuts in Medicare benefits, and “rationing.” President Barack Obama indicated that the White House may give up on Congress and draft its own bill; he also telephoned representatives who support the public option, including Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.), to talk about the bill. “I didn't come away from this discussion feeling that we were dead,” said Grijalva. The president scheduled a health-care speech before a joint session of Congress, and FOX News announced that it would not air it. A fight at a pro-health-care rally near Los Angeles ended when a pro-reform protester bit off the finger of an anti-reform protester.
| Source 1:
Who Runs Gov.
Source 2:
Politico
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
KTLA
Source 6:
Black Star News
Source 7:
CNN
|
| August 6, 2009 | - Screenwriter Budd Schulberg, whose 1957 film A Face in the Crowd depicted the rise to power of a fascist hillbilly drug-company spokesman, died, as did film director and Republican John Hughes. In a eulogy, actor and economist Ben Stein said that Hughes was “to the postwar middle class white kid what John Keats was to the age of upheaval during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars,” and that his film Home Alone had captured “the mindset of the rich pre-teen child: total paranoia combined with almost Hitlerian fantasies of power and sadism.”
| Source 1:
AP via Fox
Source 2:
YouTube
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
The American Spectator
Source 5:
LAT
Source 6:
Variety
|
| August 1, 2009 | -
Congress defied President Barack Obama and adjourned for the summer without passing a health-care-reform bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved its own version of the bill 31-28 (with five Democrats and all 23 Republicans voting against it); its bill is one of five already produced or soon to be produced by the House and Senate. President Obama and congressional Democrats planned to tour the country to talk about the issue, while Republicans planned to identify the health-care plan as a failure akin to the $787 billion stimulus package, which after six months has yet to reverse unemployment. Health-insurance companies, described by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “immoral” and “the villains in this,” were spending $1 million a day to lobby lawmakers. A poll found that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress. Thirty-nine million Americans were on food stamps.
| Source 1:
FOXNews.com
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
CNN
Source 4:
The New York Times
Source 5:
CQ Politics
Source 6:
Politico
Source 7:
Fox News
Source 8:
Politico
Source 9:
USA Today
|
| July 24, 2009 | - The Congressional Budget Office announced that a proposed plan to control health-care spending would save only $2 billion over ten years, compared to a proposed $1 trillion in spending, although the agency also pointed out that the legislation could increase the proportion of people receiving insurance through their employers, despite Republican claims to the contrary. Democrats, with control of both the House and Senate, fought among themselves. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman threatened to move the bill to the floor without a committee vote if the Blue Dogs, seven conservative Democrats, refused to cooperate; Nancy Pelosi vowed that the bill would pass without them. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid simply caved to Republican pressure and announced that there would be no vote on a new health-care bill until after the August recess.
| Source 1:
Politico
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
Talking Points Memo
Source 4:
CBS News
|
| July 21, 2009 | -
G.O.P. Chairman Michael Steele gave a speech at the National Press Club, reciting a Republican memo verbatim. “Slow down, Mr. President,” said the memo and Steele, even though health-care reform has been a national issue since 1912. “We can't afford to get health care wrong.”
| Source 1:
Bnet
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| July 13, 2009 | - Sonia Sotomayor, who is expected to be confirmed to the Supreme Court in August, was interrogated for four days by Democratic and Republican senators of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans grilled Sotomayor on her legal positions. Democrats lauded her; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) said that her life story gave him “piel de gallina,” or goose bumps. Sotomayor was, however, not able to answer when Senator Al Franken (D., Minn.) asked her to name the one case that Perry Mason lost. “Didn't the White House prepare you for that?” he said. Reporters noted that Sotomayor was “a big toucher” who responded to Republican senators' proffered handshakes with a warm smile and a squeeze of their shoulders, and they also pointed out that on the second day of the hearings, when the judge was asked by Senator Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) to explain her “wise Latina woman” comment, she blinked at least 247 times while answering, averaging 90 blinks per minute in the morning; that rate decreased to 50 blinks per minute in the afternoon. At least four anti-abortion protesters were arrested at the hearings, including 61-year-old Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that made abortion legal.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
Washington Post
|
| May 29, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx-born, divorced, childless, diabetic, Hispanic federal judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Analysts studying Sotomayor's decisions were unable to determine whether she would uphold Roe v. Wade, or whether she was distinctly pro- or anti-business, but much was made of a 2001 speech at the University of California at Berkeley in which she expressed hopes that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” During the speech she also expressed fondness for “platos de arroz, gandoles y pernil,” a dish made with rice, beans, and pork. “Her word choice in 2001 was poor,” offered White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, but many Republicans were unconvinced. “The comments she made about the quality of her decisions being better than those of a white male—I mean, we need to go further into her record to see whether this is a trend,” said Senator John Cornyn (R., Tex.), one of 98 non-Hispanic senators, who was considered for the Supreme Court in 2005 but not appointed. Newt Gingrich, who in 2007 spoke out against bilingual education by suggesting that students should “learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” criticized Sotomayor via Twitter. “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw,” tweeted Gingrich. “Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
The Guardian
Source 5:
The Washington Post
Source 6:
The Los Angeles Times
Source 7:
Fox News
Source 8:
The White House
Source 9:
The New York Times
Source 10:
FJC.gov
Source 11:
Wikipedia.org
Source 12:
Leading the news
|
| May 23, 2009 | - The Republican National Committee released an ad comparing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with Pussy Galore from the James Bond film Goldfinger.
| Source 1:
CBS News
Source 2:
Politico
|
| May 19, 2009 | - After a Republican-written energy bill failed in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, committee chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and Edward Markey (D., Mass.) drafted 946 pages of compromise legislation that proposes to reduce CO2 emissions to 17 percent of their 2005 level by 2050; House Democrats hired a speed reader in case Republicans force the bill to be read aloud.
| Source 1:
Wall Street Journal
Source 2:
Houston Chronicle
Source 3:
Wall Street Journal
|
| May 16, 2009 | - U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to her during briefings on interrogation techniques in 2002, and claimed that her briefers expressly denied the use of waterboarding and that she first learned of its use several months later from a congressional aide. Pelosi's deputy, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he had “no idea” whether Pelosi's charges were accurate. “It's outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar,” said Republican Senator Kit Bond, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It seems the playbook is 'blame terror-fighters.'”
| Source:
ABC News
|
| May 14, 2009 | - Arkansas state Senator Kim Hendron apologized for calling New York Senator Chuck Schumer “that Jew” at a county Republican meeting. “I was attempting to explain that, unlike Senator Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on The Andy Griffith Show,” explained Hendron. “I made the mistake of referring to Senator Schumer as 'that Jew' and I should not have put it that way, as this took away from what I was trying to say.”
| Source:
Talking Points Memo
|
| March 20, 2009 | - Transcripts emerged from a March 6 radio appearance by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele in which he discussed climate change. “We are cooling,” explained Steele. “We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 16, 2009 | - The House of Representatives, reacting to a plan by AIG to pay its executives as much as $218 million in bonuses, voted 328 to 93 in favor of a 90-percent tax on executive bonuses at firms that receive $5 billion or more in federal funds. Eighty-five Republicans voted for the bill despite their party's traditional opposition to tax increases. “The American people,” explained Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), “are all watching here.” “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them,” said Senator Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) of the AIG executives, “if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow, and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things--resign, or go commit suicide.”
| Source 1:
Politico
Source 2:
CBCNews.ca
Source 3:
Politico
|
| March 16, 2009 | - Mauricio Funes, a member of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, was elected president of El Salvador, ending twenty years of rule by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance, with whom the FMNL fought a 12-year guerrilla war.
| Source 1:
ESPN
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 6, 2009 | - When asked about the state of the Republican party, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said, “It's kind of like asking whether the stock market has bottomed out.”
| Source:
Politico
|
| March 3, 2009 | - After Republican senators prevented the passage of a spending bill, Congress was forced to enact an emergency five-day stopgap to keep the government from shutting down. Senator John McCain criticized a $951,500 earmark for a “sustainable Las Vegas.” “So much for the promise of change,” he said.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| February 26, 2009 | - The White House released a $3.6 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010, calling for a $630 billion health-care fund. “This budget,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio), “makes clear that the era of big government is back.”
| Source:
MarketWatch
|
| February 21, 2009 | - President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and unveiled a $275 billion plan to help some of the 6 million homeowners facing foreclosure in the next three years. Some Republican governors said they would refuse stimulus aid that required their states to expand unemployment insurance. “If Republican governors do not want this money,” said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, “Democratic governors will put it to good use.”
| Source 1:
LAT
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
CNN
Source 4:
Bloomberg
Source 5:
CBS via CQ
Source 6:
Economist
Source 7:
Chicago Tribune
Source 8:
The Washington Post
Source 9:
The New York Times
Source 10:
The New York Times
Source 11:
The New York Times
|
| February 19, 2009 | -
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele announced an “off the hook” Republican publicity campaign, targeting “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” “We need to uptick our image with everyone,” he said, “including one-armed midgets.”
| Source:
Washington Times
|
| February 12, 2009 | - The House and Senate reached agreement on a $789 billion economic-stimulus plan, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law despite a lack of support from Republicans.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 9, 2009 | - The Senate passed an $827 billion stimulus package with the help of three Republicans who forced Democrats to cut billions of dollars that would have provided aid to states and education programs. Economists said the cuts were “outrageous” and “disastrous.” “The point is to keep lots of extra Americans from being unemployed for the next two years and have them, instead, do useful things for the country,” said Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong. “[Senators Ben] Nelson and [Susan] Collins, well, it's not clear what their objective is.” The House and the Senate were negotiating differences in their packages in the hopes of presenting President Barack Obama with a final bill by Friday. “If this is a harbinger of the future, God save us,” said Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “Here we are shoveling out the goodies and we can't agree on that. What happens when you have to shift the car in reverse, or deal with something like health reform or energy policy?”
| Source 1:
MSNBC
Source 2:
Alternet
|
| January 31, 2009 | - The Republican National Committee elected its first black chairman, Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, after six rounds of voting. “Obviously the winds of change are blowing,” said a rival candidate. “For those who wish to obstruct,” said Steele, “get ready to get knocked over.”
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| January 6, 2009 | - Six candidates for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee debated at the National Press Club, where they discussed ways to appeal to younger voters. “We have to do it in the Facebook,” said incumbent Chairman Mike Duncan, “with the Twittering.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| January 4, 2009 | -
Minnesota election officials announced that Al Franken had won a recount of ballots cast for one of the state's Senate seats, narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.
| Source:
CNN
|
| December 26, 2008 | - Chip Saltsman, a Tennessee Republican seeking the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, defended his decision to include the song “Barack the Magic Negro” on a holiday mix CD he sent to Committee members. “I think most people recognize political satire when they see it,” Saltsman said. “I think RNC members understand that.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| December 25, 2008 | -
President Bush signed, then withdrew, a pardon for a real estate developer whose family donated more than $40,000 to the Republican Party.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 12, 2008 | -
Republican
senators killed a plan to loan $14 billion to American automakers, and the White House said it would consider other options to save the industry and as many as three million auto-related jobs, such as diverting some of the $700 billion reserved for bailing out the finance industry.
| Source 1:
WSJ
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
AP via Yahoo
Source 4:
NPR
Source 5:
Kalamazoo Gazette
Source 6:
AP via Yahoo
|
| November 2, 2008 | -
Democrats were outvoting Republicans in all nine states that track the party affiliations of early voters, indicating a likely election victory for Barack Obama.
| Source:
George Mason University
|
| November 2, 2008 | - Appearing on “Saturday Night Live,” the Arizona Senator said, “I'm a true maverick, a Republican without money.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 30, 2008 | -
Republicans claimed that Democrats were coercing dementia patients to cast absentee ballots.
| Source:
Des Moines Register
|
| October 30, 2008 | - Kay Hagan, a Democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina, filed an application to sue her opponent, the incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, for an ad associating Hagan with the Godless Americans Political Action Committee. “Godless Americans and Kay Hagan,” says the ad. “She hid from cameras. Took ‘Godless' money. What did Kay Hagan promise in return?” The spot, which lawyers for Dole called “100 percent factually accurate and truthful,” concludes with an image of Hagan and a female voiceover that states, “There is no God.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| October 23, 2008 | - Financial records revealed that the Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000, or $2,500 per day, to clothe and accessorize vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. “She needed some clothes,” explained McCain.
| Source 1:
Huffington Post
Source 2:
Politico
|
| October 15, 2008 | - The Republican Party in Sacramento, California, removed the words “Waterboard Barack Obama” from their official website. “Some people find it offensive,” said county chairman Craig MacGlashan. “Others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things.”
| Source:
Sacramento Bee
|
| October 3, 2008 | - Vice-presidential candidates Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin debated in St. Louis. Commentators noted that during the debate Palin was successful in repeating Republican talking points, despite having appeared incoherent and ignorant of the basic principles of American government during interviews earlier in the week. “Oh, man,” said Palin, “it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider, and someone just not used to the way you guys operate.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 25, 2008 | - Senator John McCain announced that fixing the economy was more important than politicking, suspended his campaign, and attempted without success to postpone his first debate with Senator Barack Obama, although he continued to run campaign advertisements, including one that declared him the winner of the debate, and appeared on CBS with Katie Couric. McCain then joined congressional leaders, including Obama, at the White House to discuss the stimulus package. “I didn't see any sign,” said Representative Barney Frank, “of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever.” “All he has done,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of McCain, “is stand in front of the cameras.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
Politico
Source 5:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| September 23, 2008 | - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, visited New York City and met with world leaders from Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Colombia, as well as Henry Kissinger and Bono, and agreed to speak to the press. “It was great,” she said.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
MSNBC
|
| September 4, 2008 | - Senator John McCain accepted the Republican Party's nomination for the presidency.
| Source:
KTLA.com
|
| August 31, 2008 | - One million people fled New Orleans to avoid Hurricane Gustav, which landed in Louisiana as a weakened category-2 hurricane and caused relatively little damage. Mississippi officials ordered people still living in the FEMA trailers erected after Hurricane Katrina to evacuate, and John McCain canceled opening-day ceremonies for the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. “This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans,” said McCain. “Not as Republicans.”
| Source 1:
Guardian
Source 2:
IOL.co.za
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
USA Today
Source 5:
Yahoo!
|
| July 29, 2008 | - Senator “Uncle” Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate and “Alaskan of the Century,” was indicted for seven felonies related to unreported gifts worth $250,000 from an oil-services company. The alleged gifts included a Land Rover, a Viking gas grill, and construction that doubled the size of his home. “There is a lot of comity on our committee,” said an unnamed Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I don't think any of this is going to have an impact on his earmarks.”
| Source 1:
Anchorage Daily News
Source 2:
Politico
Source 3:
Anchorage Daily News
Source 4:
WP
|
| July 28, 2008 | -
Congress voted to adjourn for summer vacation, blocking a vote on a bill to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling. Several dozen Republicans refused to leave, speaking to tourists and a troop of visiting Boy Scouts even after the microphones and lights were turned off. “This is the people's house,” cried Rep. Thaddeus McCotter. “This is not Pelosi's politburo.”
| Source 1:
The Hill
Source 2:
WP
Source 3:
USA Today
Source 4:
The Hill
Source 5:
Politico
Source 6:
Politico
Source 7:
Politico
|
| July 20, 2008 | - Lieberman also said that, if asked, he would speak for McCain at the Republican National Convention.
| Source:
Politico
|
| July 17, 2008 | -
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch announced that his ballad “Headed Home,” written in tribute to his longtime friend Senator Edward Kennedy, who has a malignant tumor in his brain, will be performed at the Democratic National Convention. “The words 'headed home,'” said Hatch, “mean he is headed home to the Senate.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 10, 2008 | -
Republican strategist Karl Rove ignored a subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, citing “executive privilege.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| June 14, 2008 | -
Obama, who admitted to smoking cigarettes in recent months, told supporters that he anticipated a “brawl” with McCain and the Republican National Committee: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
| Source 1:
ABC
Source 2:
Politico
|
| May 21, 2008 | - The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, concerned about the risk of terrorist activity at the upcoming Twin Cities Republican National Convention, was recruiting spies to infiltrate vegan potluck dinners.
| Source:
City Pages
|
| May 16, 2008 | - A 19-year-old college freshman was elected mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma. “Right now I'm between girlfriends,” said John Tyler Hammons, who is president of both the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats at his university. “I'm looking to fill that position.”
| Source:
MSNBC.com
|
| May 16, 2008 | - The California Supreme Court struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage, surprising legal experts because six of the seven judges are Republican,.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| May 14, 2008 | - House Republicans began using a new slogan, “the change you deserve,” which turned out to be the slogan of the antidepressant Effexor.
| Source:
FoxNews.com
|
| May 9, 2008 | - John Goodyear, whom Senator John McCain had chosen to manage this year's Republican convention and who once managed public relations for the Myanmar junta, stepped down, and one in four Republicans voted against McCain in primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.
| Source 1:
Newsweek
Source 2:
Politico
|
| May 8, 2008 | - One hundred seventy-eight House Republicans voted against a resolution “celebrating the role of mothers in the United States,.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| May 1, 2008 | - At a town-hall meeting in Iowa, Baptist minister Marty Parrish asked Republican presidential nominee John McCain whether it was true that he had called his wife, Cindy, a “cunt” in 1992. “You know,” McCain replied, “that's the great thing about town-hall meetings, sir, but we really don't, there's people here who don't respect that kind of language. So I'll move on.” Parrish was then escorted from the meeting by the Secret Service and local police.
| Source:
The Huffington Post
|
| March 14, 2008 | - Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad, as did a U.S. congressional delegation that included presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who, earlier in the week, admitted to fears that Al Qaeda or another extremist group might increase their attacks in Iraq in an attempt to hurt his chances in the U.S. election.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
TPM
|
| March 8, 2008 | - After John McCain swept Republican contests in Ohio, Rhode Island,
Texas, and Vermont and secured by some counts the delegates required for his party's nomination, his rivals Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul withdrew from the presidential race. McCain visited the White House to eat a lunch of hot dogs with George W. Bush and accept the President's endorsement. “If my showing up and endorsing him helps him, or if I'm against him and it helps him, either way, I want him to win,” said Bush.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| February 7, 2008 | - In the G.O.P. primaries on Super Tuesday, John McCain emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee after winning California,
New York, New Jersey, and other “blue states”; Mike Huckabee won states in the South, and Mitt Romney won states in which he has owned a home. Romney later announced the end of his presidential campaign to an audience that moaned and cried “No, no!” “Size,” explained Romney, referring to the number of delegates pledged to McCain, “does matter.”
| Source 1:
Talking Points Memo
Source 2:
National Post
Source 3:
Breitbart
|
| February 3, 2008 | -
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Republican candidate John McCain, while Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, the niece of John F. Kennedy, endorsed Barack Obama.
| Source 1:
McCain Wins Schwarzenegger Nod
Source 2:
Maria Shriver endorses Obama
|
| January 20, 2008 | - John McCain won the South Carolina Republican primary, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton won in the Nevada caucuses.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| January 6, 2008 | - Defeated Republican Senator Norm Coleman filed a lawsuit contesting Al Franken's recount victory in Minnesota.
| Source:
The Star Tribune
|
| January 4, 2008 | -
Obama and Mike Huckabee were the surprise winners of the Iowa
caucuses. “None of this worries me,” said Rudy Giuliani, who came in sixth place in the Republican caucus. “September 11, there were times I was worried.”
| Source:
NYDailyNews.com
|
| December 8, 2007 | - A new National Intelligence Estimate by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran ended its secret nuclear weapons program in 2003, in contrast to a 2005 report that claimed with “high confidence” that such a program was still active. Former CIA officials explained that at the time the earlier report was written the agency's Iran Task Force had been reduced from nearly a hundred analysts and officers to fewer than a dozen, and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, attempting to explain why the earlier report was not “so wrong,” reminded reporters that Iran is “very good at this business of keeping secrets.” “It is all right,” responded Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “It is enough that you are confessing to your mistakes.” In Iowa,
Democratic candidates debated the Iranian nuclear threat as well as the safety of toys made in China. “My toys,” said Senator Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), “are coming from Iowa.” At a dinner in Des Moines, a reporter summarized the Iranian nuclear report for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who hadn't heard the news. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, also recalled that he was still learning about the AIDS virus in 1992, when he proposed putting AIDS patients in quarantine.
| Source 1:
WP
Source 2:
White House
Source 3:
LAT
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
WP
Source 6:
LAT
Source 7:
Politico
Source 8:
AP via Yahoo
|
| November 7, 2007 | -
Congress cheered a speech by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “You just heard a Ronald Reagan speech from a president of France,” said a Republican senator from Kentucky.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| November 7, 2007 | - Ted Klaudt, a former Republican South Dakota state legislator, was convicted of raping his teenage foster daughters. Klaudt convinced the girls that he was a licensed gynecologist and massaged their breasts (“to get the fibroids out”) and vaginas regularly to ascertain their capability for egg donation.
| Source:
Yahoonews
|
| November 2, 2007 | - Late President Gerald Ford was reported to have ascribed “unlimited ambition” to Hillary Clinton in a 2002 interview. “The Republicans will make a mistake if they think she is gonna be a pushover,” said Ford, although he didn't think the country was “ready for a lady president.” Clinton told reporters that the other Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination were not targeting her because she was a woman, but because she was winning, and Mitt Romney launched an ad impugning her leadership experience. “The idea that she could learn to be president as an internship,” says Romney, “just doesn't make any sense.”
| Source 1:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Source 2:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| October 9, 2007 | - The Republican candidates for president gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, for a debate on the economy. Mitt Romney, who was born in Detroit, bemoaned the “one-state recession“ gripping Michigan; Duncan Hunter repeatedly blamed the loss of American manufacturing jobs on free-trade policies with “communist China”; Ron Paul attributed the large profits of hedge-fund managers to a conspiracy among politicians, banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the military-industrial complex to inflate or destroy currencies and swindle the middle class; and John McCain advised Paul to read ”The Wealth of Nations." The candidates generally agreed that taxes are too high. “We’re taxed to the max,” said Sam Brownback. Mike Huckabee touted his Fair Tax proposal to abolish the IRS and to tax consumption as a way to shift the tax burden onto drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and illegal immigrants. Paul and Tom Tancredo refused to pledge to support the Republican nominee in the general election.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 7, 2007 | -
Republican Senator Larry Craig was selected for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame and announced that he would not resign from the Senate, despite being denied his request to withdraw his guilty plea of disorderly conduct resulting from a sex sting at an airport men's room.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
AP
|
| October 1, 2007 | - In Iowa,
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson continued to attest to the existence of WMDs in Iraq. “We can't forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, [Saddam Hussein] clearly had had WMD,” he said; Thompson ended his speech by asking for applause.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| September 16, 2007 | -
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, an outspoken advocate of Cuban sanctions, defended his large collection of Cuban cigars. “You know,” he said, “if it's good, I smoke it.”
| Source:
St. Petersberg Times
|
| September 1, 2007 | -
Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo marked the second anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster by suggesting that the “gravy train” of “so-called 'recovery'” should leave “the New Orleans station.”
| Source:
The Hill via Drudgereport.com
|
| August 12, 2007 | - A straw poll of Iowa
Republicans lent an aura of viability to the presidential candidacies of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee but caused Tommy Thompson to drop out of the race.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 3, 2007 | - Colorado Republican
Congressman Tom Tancredo said that, if elected president, he would respond to terrorism on U.S. soil by bombing the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
| Source:
Slate
|
| July 18, 2007 | - Former congressman Tom DeLay gave a speech about abortion to a gathering of college Republicans in Washington, D.C. “If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years,” said DeLay, “we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today.”
| Source:
Raw Story
|
| July 12, 2007 | -
John McCain, whose campaign was collapsing, was suspected of violating both Senate ethics rules and criminal law by making a fundraising call from the Republican cloakroom in the Senate.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
NYT
|
| June 12, 2007 | - Senate Democrats pushed for a “vote of no confidence” in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but were blocked by Republicans who reminded them that the U.S. government does not engage in no-confidence votes. “To paraphrase Shakespeare,” Senator Orrin Hatch said, “whether this debate amounts to sound and fury, it signifies nothing.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| June 8, 2007 | - Violence erupted in the Alabama state senate when a Democrat called Republican Charles Bishop a son of a bitch. “I responded to his comment with my right hand,” said Bishop.
| Source:
CNN
|
| June 6, 2007 | - The Republican presidential candidates met in New Hampshire to engage in “verbal combat” over immigration.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 3, 2007 | - The Republican candidates for the presidency debated at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said that the day Roe v. Wade was repealed would be “a glorious day of human liberty and freedom” and that the current tax system “ought to be taken behind a barn and killed with a dull ax”; Senator John McCain of Arizona claimed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell”; Texas
Congressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been “conservative,“ because ”it’s a Republican, it’s a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution.” California
Congressman Duncan Hunter took responsibility for the border fence in San Diego. “It’s a double fence,” he said. “It’s not that little straggly fence you see on CNN with everybody getting over it.” “No one on this stage,” said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, ”probably knows Hillary Clinton better than I do,” to which former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani replied: ”Oh my!” Collectively, the candidates invoked Reagan's name nearly 20 times.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| April 20, 2007 | - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the firing of federal prosecutors; Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) told Gonzales his ability to lead was in question, and Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) asked Gonzales to resign. One prominent Republican said the hearing was like “clubbing a baby seal.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Raw Story
|
| April 17, 2007 | -
Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson gave a speech at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “I'm earning money,” he said, referring to his life in the private sector. “You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that.”
| Source:
Haaretz
|
| April 13, 2007 | - It was reported that almost a year before seven U.S. attorneys were fired, an email from D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, proposed replacement candidates for them. Four years' worth of email from Karl Rove, sought by Democrats investigating Rove's role in the firings, was missing from the Republican National Committee server.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
WaPo
|
| March 24, 2007 | - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a timetable for ending the Iraq war by a six-vote margin. The bill mandates American withdrawal in September 2008 if the Bush Administration meets certain benchmarks, earlier if it does not. Several Democrats voted against the timetable because it was not sufficiently antiwar, and Republicans derided the inclusion of domestic provisions benefiting spinach growers, citrus farmers, salmon fishermen, and peanut storers. “What does throwing money at Bubba Gump, Popeye the sailor man, and Mr. Peanut have to do with winning a war?” asked Representative Sam Johnson of Texas. “I will veto it,” said President George W. Bush, "if it comes to my desk.”
| Source 1:
New Tork Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 21, 2007 | -
Al Gore returned to Capitol Hill to testify that global warming is a planetary emergency. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts called Gore a prophet, and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan addressed him as “Mr. President.” Joe Barton of Texas, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Gore he was “totally wrong” and that, if need be, Republican lawmakers would stay late for an “all-out cat fight” with Democrats. Ralph Hall, also of Texas, speculated that Gore's attack on the energy industry could result in war “when and if OPEC nations abandon the U.S.A.,” and Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md.) said that he thought it was “probably possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.”
| Source 1:
AP vie Breitbart
Source 2:
Huffington Post
|
| March 19, 2007 | - Two Democratic
Congressmen were calling for renewed inquiry into why Frank Black, the former U.S. attorney in Guam, was removed from his position after he began investigating Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2002.
| Source:
Guam Pacific Daily News
|
| March 14, 2007 | - Dozens of Republican
Congressmen were turning against the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act,
| Source:
WP
|
| March 14, 2007 | - A Zogby poll found that 97 percent of Republicans believe that the media has a liberal bias, while two-thirds of Democrats believe there is a conservative bias.
| Source:
Zogby
|
| March 11, 2007 | - The scandal surrounding the firing of eight federal prosecutors continued to unfold as it became clearer from congressional testimony that the attorneys had resisted political pressure from the White House to subordinate law enforcement priorities to partisan politics. Karl Rove admitted that he had passed along complaints from the New Mexico
Republican Party chairman about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who had referred to the scandal as an “overblown personnel matter.” One day there will be a new attorney general,“ said Senator Arlen Specter. “Maybe sooner rather than later.”
| Source:
Baltimore Sun
|
| February 21, 2007 | - It was discovered that Abdul Tawala Ibn Alishtari, an indicted terrorist financier, gave more than $15,000 to the National Republican
Congressional Committee. “We need to be careful,” said the NRCC in a statement, “not to rush to judgment.”
| Source 1:
Talking Points Memo
Source 2:
ABC News
|
| February 8, 2007 | - Just 13 percent of Republican congressmen believed humans caused global warming.
| Source:
National Journal via Drudge Report
|
| January 31, 2007 | -
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer told Republican Assemblyman James Tedisco, “I am a fucking steamroller and I'll roll over you or anybody else.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 26, 2007 | -
Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, an expert on counterinsurgency, replaced Army Gen. George Casey as U.S. commander of troops in Iraq, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush's plan to increase the number of troops. Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia expressed hope that “wherever possible, the Iraqis should bear the brunt of the sectarian violence.”
| Source:
USA Today
|
| January 23, 2007 | -
Republican legislators in Georgia introduced a bill to allow a white suburb of Atlanta to secede from the city.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo
|
| December 7, 2006 | -
Democrats in Congress announced that beginning in January members of the House would work five days a week. “Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R., Georgia), who spends more than half his week at home. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families--that's what this says.” The Democrats were also trying to stop smoking on the Hill, and attempting to block a $3,300 congressional raise.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Washington Post
|
| December 7, 2006 | - Harry Reid, the new Senate majority leader, gave outgoing Republican leader Bill Frist a big bear hug.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 5, 2006 | - The Iraq Study Group report was released. “Truth of the matter is a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody,” said President Bush. “To show you how important this one is, I read it.” When asked how Bush responded to the report's suggestions that the United States drastically alter its strategy in Iraq, panelist Lawrence Eagleburger said, “His reaction was, 'Where's my drink?'” Former Republican senator and Iraq Study Group member Alan Simpson said about Bush, “A 100-percenter is a person you don't want to be around. They have gas, ulcers, heartburn, and B.O.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
White House
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
Washington Post
|
| December 1, 2006 | -
Republican
congressmen were attempting to define a twenty-week-old fetus as a “pain-capable unborn child.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| November 21, 2006 | - Former Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich announced that he would lead an effort to revitalize the Republican Party. “I am not 'running' for president,” said Gingrich. “I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”
| Source:
NewsMax.com
|
| November 19, 2006 | -
Senator Trent Lott was elected Minority Whip.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| November 16, 2006 | -
Economist
Milton Friedman died.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 9, 2006 | - Midterm elections were held in the United States; the Republican Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Six incumbent Republican senators, including Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, were defeated, and Santorum's daughter cried. Nancy Pelosi of California, who is expected to become the first female Speaker of the House, had lunch with President George W. Bush.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Yahoo!
Source 2:
MSNBC
Source 3:
Boston.com
|
| November 9, 2006 | -
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman resigned.
| Source:
CNN
|
| November 4, 2006 | -
Republicans were “glum” as the party prepared to lose at least fifteen seats in the House of Representatives.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 20, 2006 | - A Catholic priest acknowledged having had an intimate, two-year relationship with Mark Foley when the now-disgraced Republican
congressman was a twelve-year-old altar boy.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 5, 2006 | - Further allegations emerged regarding the behavior of recently-resigned Congressman Mark Foley (R., Fla.) with underage pages. “He didn't want to talk about politics,” said one former page. “He wanted to talk about sex or my penis.” Congressman Jim Kolbe (R., Ariz.) said that he had confronted Foley over inappropriate contact with pages as early as 2000, and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert vowed not to resign over the scandal.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| September 21, 2006 | - In Maryland, the National Black
Republican Association ran radio ads claiming that Martin Luther King was a Republican and that Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan.
| Source:
nbc4.com via google news
|
| August 19, 2006 | -
Republicans were, in general, neglecting their party's candidate in favor of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who said that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 25, 2006 | - Hillary Clinton described Republicans as negligent, irresponsible, and similar to monkeys.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| June 21, 2006 | - House Republicans declined to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it was unfair to Southerners.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 9, 2006 | - Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader who was forced to resign because he is corrupt, said farewell to the House of Representatives. Dozens of Democrats walked out during his speech. “I did a good job,” DeLay said. “I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years.”
| Source:
UPI
|
| May 18, 2006 | - It was revealed that in 2004 a group of Republican lawmakers wrote letters to the IRS calling for a probe of the NAACP.
| Source:
Guardian Unlimited
|
| April 3, 2006 | - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) announced that he would not run for reelection to Congress. "I've never done anything in my political career," said DeLay, "for my own personal gain."
| Source:
Time
|
| March 26, 2006 | - Both Democrat and Republican strategists agreed that if midterm elections were held now, the Democrats would gain control of the House of Representatives.
| Source:
Time
|
| March 8, 2006 | -
Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) won the Republican
primary for his congressional seat.
| Source:
Capitol Hill Blue
|
| February 8, 2006 | -
Karl Rove was threatening to cut off White House support for Republican Senate Judiciary members who criticize the Bush Administration's
warrantless-wiretapping program. "It's hardball," said a Republican aide, "all the way."
| Source:
Democracy Now!
|
| February 2, 2006 | - Representative John Boehner (R., Ohio), who belongs to a male-only golf club, whose political-action committee took money from Jack Abramoff but did not return it after Abramoff was indicted, and who in 1995 handed out checks from tobacco-company lobbyists on the House floor, was elected via instant runoff voting to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. The Republican Party, said Boehner, "must act swiftly to restore the trust between Congress and the American people." Boehner also said that he had "a very open relationship with lobbyists in town." "We are," said Representative Michael Oxley (R., Ohio), "somewhat tilting at windmills."
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Bloomberg.com
Source 3:
The Nation via Yahoo! News
Source 4:
Sign On San Diego
|
| January 29, 2006 | - The White House refused to release photographs of President Bush with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, despite requests from Senate and House
Republicans.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 24, 2006 | - A Senate committee investigating the government response to Hurricane Katrina criticized the Bush Administration for ignoring the findings of a hurricane-preparedness exercise called "Hurricane Pam," which had warned that New Orleans would be flooded. "It is apparent that a more appropriate name for Pam should have been 'Cassandra,'" said Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine).
| Source:
USA Today
|
| January 17, 2006 | -
New York
Senator
Hillary Clinton said that Republicans were running the House of Representatives "like a plantation." Republicans disagreed with Clinton, and Al Sharpton complained that she was stealing his material.
| Source:
The Duluth News Tribune
|
| November 28, 2005 | -
Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R., Calif.) confessed to taking $2.4 million in bribes and resigned from office.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| November 25, 2005 | - A Vermont teacher was in trouble for testing students with liberal vocabulary questions. “I wish Bush,” read one question, “would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes.”
| Source:
Boston.com
|
| November 25, 2005 | - It was revealed that the investigation into illegal payoffs made by lobbyist Jack Abramoff involves not only Representative
Tom DeLay (R., Texas), but Representative Bob Ney (R., Ohio), Representative John Doolittle (R., Calif.), Senator Conrad Burns (R., Mont.), 17 current and former Congressional aides, and two former Bush Administration officials.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 5, 2005 | - Vice President Dick Cheney was pressuring Republican senators to grant the CIA an exemption from a proposed ban on torturing terrorism suspects. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, suggested that Cheney was ultimately responsible for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere. “There was a visible audit trail,” he said, “from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field.”
| Source:
The Seattle Times
|
| October 20, 2005 | -
Republican groups were calling on the federal government to halt all funds to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which currently receives $400 million each year in federal funding. "That is enough money," said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, "to build 40 elementary schools."
| Source:
CBC.ca
|
| October 10, 2005 | - Both Democratic and Republican senators were questioning the qualifications of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who has never argued a case before the Supreme Court but has been often referred to as President Bush's “work wife.”
| Source 1:
The Seattle Times
Source 2:
Slate.com
|
| September 28, 2005 | -
Tom DeLay stepped down from his post as House Majority Leader after being indicted for criminal conspiracy related to campaign fundraising. "This is not going to detract from the Republican agenda," said DeLay's spokesman. DeLay was soon after indicted on a separate charge of money laundering.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| September 8, 2005 | -
Republicans promised to probe themselves over the federal response to Hurrican Katrina.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 28, 2005 | - The U.S. House of Representatives voted down CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, even though it was already approved by the Senate. House leaders then held the vote open for forty-seven minutes until they had changed enough Republican votes to approve the agreement.
| Source:
Democracy Now
|
| June 8, 2005 | -
Porn star and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey attended a Republican fundraiser where George W. Bush was speaking. “I was told that they had people ready to tackle me if I tried to get up close to him,” she said. “I was getting propositioned to have threesomes with wives or mistresses. I was offered money from oil tycoons.” Carey also said that she would one day like to become president. “I'm very friendly,” she offered.
| Source 1:
Jossip.com
Source 2:
WorldNetDaily
|
| April 22, 2005 | - Ken Ferree, the new president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said that he wanted to make PBS appealing to conservatives.
| Source:
Editor & Publisher
|
| April 10, 2005 | - Many conservative American pharmacists were refusing to dispense birth control.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 8, 2005 | -
Republicans held a conference to discuss ways to reform the federal judiciary, which they say has “run amok.” Senator Tom Coburn's chief of staff said that “mass impeachment” of judges might be necessary, and Tom DeLay, who is under investigation for illegal fundraising, gave a pre-recorded speech entitled “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 25, 2005 | - Ken Mehlman, chair of the Republican National Committee, once again avoided saying that he is gay.
| Source:
Gay People's Chronicle
|
| February 13, 2005 | -
Alan Keyes disowned his daughter and threw her out of his house because she is a lesbian.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| February 9, 2005 | - Conservatives began considering Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty for the 2008 presidency.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| January 31, 2005 | - Howard Dean admitted that he hates Republicans.
| Source:
The Rush Limbaugh Show
|
| November 20, 2004 | -
Congress passed a $388 billion spending bill. The bill had $15.8 billion worth of “extras,” including $25,000 for the study of mariachi music and $2 million to buy back the presidential yacht, sold by Jimmy Carter in 1977. The yacht, the U.S.S. Sequoia, currently rents for $2,500 an hour. The bill also allows hospitals and HMOs to refuse to provide abortions, and gave two committee chairmen and their assistants access to income tax returns, without regard to privacy laws. Republicans acknowledged the mistake of the latter provision, and vowed to repeal it.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
USA Today
Source 3:
sequoiayacht.com
Source 4:
LA Times
Source 5:
AP
|
| November 17, 2004 | - The House Republican Conference changed its rules to allow majority leader Tom DeLay to maintain his leadership role if he is indicted.
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| October 8, 2004 | -
Republicans in Michigan were calling on authorities to prosecute Michael Moore for offering to give clean underwear to college students if they would promise to vote.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 7, 2004 | -
Republicans in Oklahoma were running television ads showing dark-skinned hands accepting welfare checks.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| September 3, 2004 | - About half a million people protested the Republican National Convention in New York City; the protests were said to be the largest ever at a U.S. political convention.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| July 21, 2004 | -
Republicans were trying to blame it all on Bill Clinton.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 15, 2004 | - Congressional Republicans were beginning to show signs of resistance to President Bush's spendthrift policies. "We have been out of control for the last three years," said Senator Trent Lott. "We kind of got a little carried away."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 28, 2004 | - Powerful Republicans were said to be urging President Bush to get rid of Dick Cheney, who continued to insist, contrary to all evidence, that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussein was allied with Al Qaeda. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" Cheney asked an interviewer. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."
| Source:
Asia Times
|
| February 22, 2004 | - Attorney General Bill Lockyer dismissed Governor Schwarzenegger's demand as "a statement designed for consumption at the Republican convention" and said that it was "preposterous," the kind of exaggerated rhetoric that inspires hate crimes.
| Source:
San Francisco Chronicle
|
| February 13, 2004 | -
Republican operatives were looking high and low for anyone who could remember serving in the National Guard with President George W. Bush between May 1972 and May 1973; one group of Vietnam veterans was offering a $1,000 reward for proof that the president met his military obligations.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 25, 2004 | - Conservatives denounced the USA Patriot Act and complained that "big-government Republicans," who seem to think government is the solution rather than the problem, have been too busy "baby-sitting the nanny state."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 11, 2004 | -
President George W. Bush nominated Michael Chertoff, a former aide to John Ashcroft and former Senate Republican counsel for the Whitewater investigation, to head the Department of Homeland Security.
| Source 1:
PBS
Source 2:
New York Timesimes
|
| February 5, 2002 | -
The World Economic Forum was held in New York instead of
Davos, Switzerland, and many
celebrities were feeling left out when they weren't invited to
swanky parties populated with economists, businessmen, and
sundry apologists of globalization. Panelists included Bono,
the pop star, who told the press that “the great thing about
hanging out with Republicans is that it's very unhip for both of
us. There's a parity of pain here.” About 1,000 people
demonstrated in front of a Gap store in Manhattan to protest the
company's use of overseas sweatshops. Media hopes for
Seattle-style violence were disappointed.
“Starbucks can rest easy for
another day,” one policeman
told a reporter.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - House Republicans insisted that some airports be given the option to hire private security companies after three years.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | -
Congress continued to debate whether to nationalize airport security; antigovernment Republicans, including President Bush, oppose the plan as an unwarranted expansion of federal power.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | -
Democrats and Republican moderates said they were more concerned about preventing terrorist
attacks.
| |
| October 16, 2001 | - House Republicans were opposing legislation that would federalize national airport security because they didn't want to see an increase in the federal payroll.
| |
| October 2, 2001 | -
Republicans were arguing that drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was now a matter of national security.
| |
| July 17, 2001 | - Conservative Republicans are three times more likely than liberal Democrats to have nightmares, a new study found.
| |
| June 12, 2001 | -
Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, perhaps seeking to demonstrate the true grit of his party, promised that Democrats would not block President Bush's judicial nominees—unlike the Republicans, who blocked almost half the judges appointed by Bill Clinton.
“I don't believe in it,” Daschle said.
“We have to break the cycle.”
| |
| June 12, 2001 | -
Trent Lott, the outgoing Senate majority leader, wrote a memo to his Republican colleagues declaring war on the Democrats.
| |
| June 5, 2001 | - Senator John McCain, a Republican, spent the weekend with Senator Tom Daschle, a Democrat; rumors of McCain's imminent defection were denied.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | - Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the Republican Party, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats, who promptly voted to confirm Theodore B. Olson as solicitor general, suggesting that the White House cabal had little to fear after all.
| |
| May 8, 2001 | - Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, was selected as chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
| |
| May 8, 2001 | -
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered that all routine contact with the Chinese military be suspended, then revoked the order after the White House got upset, which led to speculation of a power struggle within the Republican cabal. “We're going to review all opportunities to interface with the Chinese,” President Bush clarified.
| |
| March 20, 2001 | -
California's
Republican Party was trying to convince Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for governor.
| |
| February 20, 2001 | -
Republican governors such as Tommy Thompson and Christie Whitman, both of whom are now Bush cabinet members, were embarrassed by revelations that they, too, had made a number of apparently corrupt pardons.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | -
President Clinton signed the 1998 Rome Treaty on the International Criminal Court over the objections of the Pentagon and many Republicans, who on this subject do perhaps protest too much.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | - Spokesmen for the Republican cabal denounced the recount as an attempt to “rewrite history”; Christine Todd Whitman suggested sealing the ballots for ten years.
| |
| 0, 2000 | - In New York City, a Nissan Pathfinder filled with gasoline, propane, dud firecrackers, alarm clocks, and eight bags of fertilizer failed to explode in Times Square. Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of homeland security, characterized the attempted car bombing as a “one-off,” not indicative of an organized terrorist plot, while New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly called it a “sober reminder” that “people want to come here and do us harm.” A “furtive” man in a red shirt was being sought in connection with the bombing, and in Albany, Kevin Parker, an African-American state senator, claimed that he was “fighting the forces of evil,” by which he meant “these long-term, white-supremacist, you know, Republican senators.”
| Source 1:
NY Times
Source 2:
NBC
Source 3:
CBS via Drudge
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Congressman Duncan Hunter, a California
Republican, advocated amending the Constitution so that American-born children of illegal immigrants would not be citizens and could be deported along with their parents. “You can look and say, 'You’re a mean guy, that’s a mean thing to do',” Duncan said. "[But] it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen.”
| Source:
NBC
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Florida independent senatorial candidate Charlie Crist was considering whether he should accept Republican money, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rendered Manuel Noriega to France so that he could be tried on drug-trafficking crimes related to his presidency in Panama.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| December 26, 2000 | -
Republicans were upset about Senator-elect Hillary Clinton's $8 million book deal; concerns were expressed about the potential conflict of interest created by accepting money from a major media company with an aggressive legislative agenda.
| |
| December 19, 2000 | - General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for an increase in military spending to stop the “fraying of our force.” Virginia Lamp Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was working for the rightist Heritage Foundation, vetting résumés of courtiers seeking places at the Republican banquet.
| |
| November 21, 2000 | - New Jersey Republicans accused Democrats of providing crazy people in mental hospitals with absentee ballots; it was suggested that the crazy vote may have decided a close congressional race.
| |
| November 21, 2000 | -
Republicans accused Democratic vote counters in Florida of eating chads they had secretly and illegally punched for Al Gore.
| |
| November 7, 2000 | - Irish republican
terrorists put a bomb in a traffic cone that blew the leg off a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer when he picked it up.
| |
| October 31, 2000 | -
Republican partisans were running a knock-off of the famous “Daisy” commercial used by LBJ against Barry Goldwater in 1964; the ad claimed that Clinton and Gore sold the nation's security to the Red Chinese.
| |
| September 12, 2000 | - In a Spanish article posted to Voter.com, Texas
Republican representative Henry Bonilla said that Governor George W. Bush was “extending the monkey” to Hispanic voters.
| |
| September 12, 2000 | - Two Florida state representatives, both Republicans, had a fistfight in the parking lot of Radio Mambi, a talk-radio station in Miami.
| |
| August 22, 2000 | -
Democrats received higher overall Nielsen ratings for their convention than did Republicans; journalists noted that ratings were higher in 1996.
| |
| August 15, 2000 | -
New York
Republican Governor George Pataki signed the nation's strictest gun control law.
| |
| August 8, 2000 | -
Republicans formally nominated George W. Bush as presidential candidate at their convention in Philadelphia; a display of dark-skinned speakers elicited much comment from journalists who noticed the contrast with rank-and-file Republicans on the convention floor.
| |
| August 8, 2000 | -
Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, made a brief appearance, much to the delight of bored journalists, before he was removed by Republican officials.
| |
| August 8, 2000 | - The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service naturalized 180,000 immigrants without performing proper background checks, according to a Justice Department report; the report failed to support the Republican charge that the Clinton administration rushed the approvals in hopes of acquiring additional Democratic voters in the 1996 election.
| |
| August 8, 2000 | -
Voters in the Kansas Republican primary selected pro-evolution candidates for the state school board, ensuring thereby that the state's current science standards, which for the last three years have required the teaching of creationism in the schools, will be overturned.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | -
Republican Presidential Candidate George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney, his father's secretary of defense during the Gulf War, to be his running mate.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - Reform Party leaders voted to remove right-wing columnist Pat Buchanan from the presidential ballot; Buchanan said the vote was “of no consequence.” George W. Bush killed an attempt to make the Republican primary more democratic using what he called “an iron fist rule” to keep divisive politics off the stage at the Republican National Convention.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - The Pentagon mounted an arms show in Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention that will cost at least $100,000.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - Speaker of the House Dennis J. Hastert took several members of the Republican party's “Regents,” some 100 campaign contributors who have given $250,000 apiece to the party since January 1999, on a fishing trip.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - The Republican Platform committee defeated attempts to moderate the party's anti-abortion stance.
| |
| April 0, 2000 | -
Pennsylvania
Senator Arlen Specter rejoined the Democratic Party after more than 40 years as a Republican. “There's more than being reelected here,” he insisted. “There's the factor of principle.”
| Source:
Politico
|
| February 0, 2000 | -
Republicans launched an organization called National Council for a New America. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush urged his party to “listen a little bit, learn a little bit”; former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney called the Democrats “the party of the monarchists.”
| Source:
CNN
|
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