The McGreevey debacle suggests why all Americans, gay and straight alike, have a stake in universalizing marriage. The greatest promise of same-sex marriage is not the tangible improvement it may bring to today's committed gay couples, but its potential to reinforce the message that marriage is the gold standard for human relationships: that adults and children and gays and straights and society and souls all flourish best when love, sex and marriage go together. Nothing will ever make the discovery of homosexual longings easy for a young person. But homosexuality need not mean growing up, as Jim McGreevey and I and many others did, torn between marriage and love. link
No bias at the Associated Press, nosirree: on the AP wire (and available at Yahoo News) is a photo of x42 flying over a flooded area in the summer of 1993, with the caption,
President Clinton looks at floodwaters of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers as he flies over the St. Louis area in Marine One in this July 17, 1993, file photo. Once Hurricane Charley is gone from Florida, it's a safe bet President Bush will sweep in. Natural calamities present political opportunity, and many crucial electoral votes are in the path of Charley's howling winds.
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Hillary Clinton is flying high within the Democratic Party as a marquee star that many hope will launch a presidential run in 2008 or 2012 or join up as a vice presidential contender. But previously unknown federal documents outlining potentially serious election law violations could spell trouble for the junior senator from New York and some high-fliers in the Democratic Party.
At the same time, according to legal and federal law enforcement sources who have spoken to Insight on condition of anonymity, the failure to pursue alleged wrongdoing by Clinton's senatorial campaign in 2000 and among a variety of party and White House officials involved in fundraising at the time raises questions about the integrity of the Justice Department which has failed to bring indictments against key players in Hollywood, Washington, New York and Florida despite mounting evidence.
At the center in much of this legal thicket is Peter Franklin Paul, a colorful figure and former international lawyer who spent time in jail in the 1970's for cocaine possession and an elaborate scheme that scammed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro out of $8 million. Paul subsequently became a successful businessman in Miami, Fla., and then in Los Angeles, Calif., where he co-founded along with legendary comic book creator Stan Lee the Stan Lee Media company (SLM).
Paul was indicted in 2001 on a variety of securities and bank fraud charges both in California and in New York stemming primarily from his borrowing money on margined SLM stocks that he used to pay for elaborate luncheons, dinners and an extravagant Hollywood tribute to President Bill Clinton that was tied to a major fundraising event for Hillary Clinton's senate campaign in the summer of 2000.
In all, according to Paul and extensive documents reviewed by Insight, he provided in-kind contributions in excess of $1.7 million to Clinton's campaign that never has been properly accounted for in her Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. Clinton and her campaign have denied receiving such large contributions from Paul. rest of story