from the US News & World Report Washington Whispers blog: Jack Abramoff, the lobbying scandal figure, has become such a chatty rat that probe insiders say he’s been given a desk to work at in the FBI. We’re told he spends up to four hours a day detailing his shady business to agents eager to…
Democratic leaders are speaking out against former President Jimmy Carter’s controversial new book on Israel, titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” On Friday, DNC Chairman Howard Dean and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi both issued written statements, included below in their entirety. Dean: “While I have tremendous respect for former President Carter, I fundamentally disagree and…
With Election Day around corner, the gloves are coming off in television ads across the country. In Indiana’s third congressional district, Republican Rep. Anne Northrup is accusing Democratic challenger John Yarmuth of paying minimum wage at his family’s restaurant chain, Sonny’s Barbeque. Yarmuth told Louisville’s Wave3 TV that he belives the minium wage – $5.15…
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has backed off of his previous statements, made after the 2004 elections, that he would serve out his full six-year Senate term. On Sunday morning, he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he is considering a 2008 run, but will not make up his mind until after the November 7…
A Jewish representative of Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona said the lawmaker “is a more observant Jew” than the audience members at a candidates’ forum in Scottsdale on Tuesday night. Apparently, roughly 70% of the attendees then walked out jeering. According to Hannah Kaplan, the co-president of the National Council of Jewish Women, the…
Doris Gahler does not give up easily. Like many of you, she found that her first e-mail to me received no answer. There are good reasons for this when it happens. They include: 1) Laziness; 2) Procrastination; 3) Lack of space in my next columns; 4) Not knowing the answer to your question; 5) Having…
The head of the largest Jewish charitable federation in the country is taking right-wing groups to task for arguing that philanthropic dollars raised for Israel during the recent war with Hezbollah should not have been used to aid Arab citizens of the Jewish state. Controversy surrounding the issue erupted in recent weeks when the hawkish…
They’re sexy, and they know it. They wear tight jeans and high heels, and they’re more than happy to shake their booties for the camera. Meet the moms of America! On the morning of October 14, nearly 1,000 women turned up at a midtown Manhattan studio, each hoping to land a spot on “Hottest Mom…
Avigdor Lieberman, head of the rightwing Yisrael Beitenu party, wants Israel to have a chief executive with broad new powers. And there’s little doubt about whom the Russian-born lawmaker would like to see in that job. Achieving that goal may elude him. But in recent days, Lieberman has been wielding inordinate power over the country’s…
How, the joke goes, do you say “Putin” in Hebrew? Answer: “Lieberman.” That’s one implication emerging from the recent discussion in the Hebrew press of Avigdor Lieberman’s proposal for a change in Israel’s system of government. “Lieberman isn’t dreaming of the American model, but rather, the Putin model,” leading pundit Nahum Barnea wrote recently in…
The former dissident who became the symbol of the struggle for Soviet Jewry and whose ideas on democracy in the Middle East were hailed by President Bush is quitting Israeli politics. Natan Sharansky announced last week that he would resign his post in the Knesset after 10 years, a time period in which he went…
