Democratic National Committee:Press

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement on Senator Ted Kennedy:

"Senator Kennedy is a true American hero and a leader in the Democratic Party, having spent a lifetime standing up for the values of fairness, justice and equality. On behalf of the Democratic Party, we extend our prayers and well wishes to Senator Kennedy, his wife Vicki, and the entire Kennedy family."

URL: Democratic National Committee:Press

Democratic National Committee:Research

The GOP era of corruption and ethics problems continues with the report that disgraced former GOP Congressman Mark Foley sent shocking and sexually explicit messages to former under-aged Congressional pages. As a result, the Republican leadership is crumbling with calls for Hastert to resign and questions of why other members of the leadership failed to take action-including from their own allies. Many Republican supporters, conservative groups, have spoken out and are furious at the GOP leadership. The Foley scandal is just one more example of the House Republicans' failed leadership.

GOP IN DISARRAY

Buchanan: Hastert Is Gone As Of January. In an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball" Buchanan said, "I think Hastert is gone as of January, but I disagree with some of my conservative friends. I don't believe, Chris, you throw somebody under the bus until you know he's guilty. Now I think Hastert clearly has got the explaining to do. The burden of proof is with him. What did you know, if all you knew was the guy asked for a picture from somebody who's gone in Louisiana, I can understand how they might say -- because two newspapers felt it would be gay bashing to ...   more »

Democratic National Committee:Research

Fred Thompson, in a Project Vote Smart survey he filled out in 1994 that has recently come to light, stated that he favored decreasing funding for AIDS research (via NY Sun).

I couldn't believe it until I checked it out for myself; he actually said he wanted to cut funding. This, by the way, was right around the time that the US death rate (per 100,000 population) was near its peak. Yet somehow that didn't cause him to change his mind.

He can't claim that it was a different time. The nation already understood the seriousness of the issue and the great harm it had already caused so many families. President Clinton had already taken steps to make federal funding of research a priority, as an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education back in 1994 pointed out:

A sharp increase in support for AIDS research for fiscal year 1994. After remaining on a plateau for the last three years of the Bush Administration, federal support for AIDS research in the Public Health Service went up by about 18 per cent, to $1.5-billion for 1994. The NIH will receive about $1.3-billion of that total. ...   more »

Democratic National Committee:Press

Editorial pages around the country are weighing on the McCain campaign's hypocrisy on tax returns and transparency. Despite his efforts to craft an image as a champion of transparency in government, Senator McCain refuses to apply those standards of accountability and openness to himself. In addition to releasing just two years of his own tax returns--far less than any party nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1980--the McCain campaign is refusing to release Mrs. McCain's tax returns, even if she becomes First Lady.

The following are excerpts of editorials from around the country calling for openness and transparency from the McCain campaign:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Need for Openness Now Even More Urgent. "Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, apparently thinks she lives in her own world. But with her husband now the GOP's presumed nominee for the White House, she needs to realize, finally, that she lives in the public world. The world in which public officials open their tax returns for public viewing. Cindy McCain contends that she won't do that, that she and her husband always have filed separate returns and that her money -- a considerable sum -- is her own. Maybe if she ...   more »

Democratic National Committee:Press

While John McCain was campaigning and raising money in California today, the Senate voted on a bipartisan to bill to support our brave men and women in uniform by helping them pay for college when they complete their service. Unlike both Democratic presidential candidates, who took time off the campaign trail to support our troops by voting for the 21st Century GI Bill, Senator McCain refused.

Senator McCain might not have voted, but he has made his views perfectly clear. Instead of joining the 75 senators from both parties who voted for the bill and just about every major veterans group--all of which supported it--Senator McCain chose to echo the Bush Administration's opposition. Senator McCain claimed the bill would provide too much incentive for the brave men and women who volunteered to serve after 9/11 to leave the armed forces, even though a Congressional Budget Office study found that the bill's impact on retention would be offset by a matching increase in recruitment. Senator McCain offered a watered down version of the bill that would have offered a reduced benefit and required many veterans to pay out of their own pockets to receive it.

Democratic National Committee ...   more »

Democratic National Committee:Press

When rejecting John Hagee's endorsement yesterday, John McCain said he found certain remarks made by Hagee "deeply offensive and indefensible" and that he did not know of them before actively pursuing Reverend Hagee's endorsement. Yet the comments that finally spurred McCain's rejection of Hagee, where Hagee "suggested that Hitler as a hunter, and as a result of the Holocaust, Jews had been brought back to the land God gave unto their fathers," were readily available on the Internet. And once the controversy over Hagee's endorsement heated up this year, The Jewish Week, a well-read Jewish publication, reported months ago that Hagee had made statements "that seem to blame the Jews for their own persecution over the centuries." [New York Times, 5/23/08; ABC News Blog, 5/22/08; The Jewish Week, 3/12/08]

John McCain's disregard for Hagee's controversial and offensive comments even when actively seeking his endorsement shows that McCain is willing do or say anything to win, no matter who it offends.

McCain Rejects Hagee Endorsement, Claiming He Had No Idea About Hagee's Comments… "'Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and ...   more »