Day: June 23, 2005

The Republican-run Congress has now twice rebuffed President Bush on U.N. issues, raising questions about White House relations with Capitol Hill in the second term.

After decades of trying to dodge, deflect and denigrate questions about his KKK past, Byrd has now had to bring it up himself. Because he has written an autobiography. But new and excellent reporting by Washington Post correspondent Eric Pianin revealed this week that Byrd’s 770-page book still minimizes the duration and depth of his role in the Klan and his pursuit of the bigotry for which it stands.

Women helped President Bush win re-election last year, but a national survey finds many have turned against him and the Republican Party – more so than men voters – as they have grown displeased with the war in Iraq, plans to change Social Security, and what they see as inappropriate political intervention in personal or family decisions.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff laundered money from a Mississippi tribal client, using it to set up bogus Christian anti-gambling groups and fund other right-wing projects, including gear for a “sniper school” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, The Washington Post reports in today’s editions. E-mails and testimony before Senate Indian Affairs Committee show an incredible trail of lies, fraud and deceit by Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, public relations executive and former spokesman for scandal-ridden House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

The White House on Wednesday rejected Democratic calls to fire the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who is accused by critics of trying to politicize public television and radio programming.

More than a quarter of voters, and more than half of black voters, experienced problems at Ohio polling places during the 2004 presidential vote, a Democratic Party report said on Wednesday.

A proposed constitutional amendment to ban burning of the American flag won the approval of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and was sent to the Senate where it may finally succeed after years of rejection.