Day: October 18, 2007

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is planning to leave Congress before his current term expires.

About time.

Hastert, with his multiple chins spilling over his too-tight dress shirt collar and his expanding girth overflowing any seat that groaned under the weight, was the perfect symbol for the bloated excess of the Republican Congress.

Time for him to return to Illinois and fade into well-deserved obscurity.

Congress, an analysis shows, may be hurting U.S. diplomacy.

This is news? Saying Congress is hurting anything is like saying Britney Spears hurts the cause of sanity. Of course, the diplomatic sins of Congress are nothing when compared to the criminal acts of President George W. Bush.

Together they form a tag team that levels the image of a once-great nation called America.

The Senate has reached a deal with President Bush over his desire to spy at will on any American that he and the National Security Agency decides may or may not be a threat to whatever is or is not national security.

But don’t expect a vote just yet. The deal is not done and Congress needs more time before it caves in, as usual, to Bush.

Transgenders are leaning the hard way that new rights for gays doesn’t always extend to them.

And Congress hasn’t quite figured out how to fix the problem.

The newest cigarette made specifically for women comes wrapped in a shiny black package with borders in shades of pink and teal.

If the packaging alone doesn’t grab the attention of the fashion-conscious female, then perhaps the cigarette’s advertising campaign will.

In one magazine ad, the sleek boxes of smokes are framed by long-stemmed roses. “Light & luscious,” the text promises invitingly.