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Cody Alicea, a 13-year-old Stanislaus County boy at the center of a flag controversy, is getting a big show of support today. Hundreds of American Legion Riders escorted Cody to school. by Brian Hickey/staff at 11/15/2010 6:17:35 PM12:17 PM Family, Friends, and complete strangers come out to support Cody and his right to ride with American flag on his bike. by Brian Hickey/staff at 11/15/2010 6:11:24 PM12:11 PM Cody Alicea said support from the public "means a lot to me." Watch video: www.kcra.com by Jason Montiel/KCRA Staff at 11/15/2010 5:56:05 PM11:56 AM Bikers turned out early Monday morning to support...

With Obama visiting Indonesia today, the New York Times has a story that is just chock-full of interesting tidbits about Obama's time living there as a child in the late 1960s. For example, the Times reports that back then Obama was "chubby" and that some of the locals referred to him as "the boy who walks like a duck." Then, of course, there's this: His nanny was an openly gay man who, in keeping with Indonesia's relaxed attitudes toward homosexuality, carried on an affair with a local butcher, longtime residents said. The nanny later joined a group of transvestites called...

The Olin Corp. announced Wednesday that it will suspend production of centerfire ammunition at its plant in East Alton and re-locate the manufacturing operation to Oxford, Miss. The move comes less than 24 hours after members of the union representing over Olin 800 workers rejected concessions that would have allowed them to keep their jobs. "Our focus always has been on ensuring that we continue producing high-quality products for our customers in an increasingly competitive market," president and CEO Joseph D. Rupp said in a prepared statement. "While I am disappointed that employees represented by the International Association of Machinists...

RENO, Nev. - If Harry Reid loses this election, it will be a crushing end to a storied political career. The majority leader of the United States Senate will have been defeated after four terms by an opponent he doesn't respect or even take seriously. He will be the victim, in his view, of an electorate gone mad, taken down in his prime after rising higher than anyone from his state ever has. Is this the twilight of the majority leader? Reid certainly doesn't think so. He refuses to acknowledge the possibility that he could lose on Tuesday and has...

As a new Congress looms, we suggest lawmakers travel to Washington by way of West Virginia and an obscure federal building called the National Tracing Center. There they can see workers laboring through unmanageably high backlogs of handwritten paper records submitted by the nation’s gun dealers. This is Congress’s handiwork — at the behest of the gun lobby and to the detriment of public safety. Each year the center receives 300,000 inquiries from police officers’ trying to track weapons from tens of thousands of gun deaths. But it is prohibited, by law, from collecting gun ownership records through a modern...

President Obama's post-partisan America has disappeared, replaced by the politics of polarization, resentment and division. In a Univision interview on Monday, the president, who campaigned in 2008 by referring not to a "Red America" or a "Blue America" but a United States of America, urged Hispanic listeners to vote in this spirit: "We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us." Recently, Obama suggested that if Republicans gain control of the House and/or Senate as forecast, he expects not reconciliation and unity but "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol...

Authorities are beefing up security for the Marine Corps Marathon as the FBI confirmed Thursday that the weapon used to shoot at a Marine Corps recruiting station this week was also used in the shootings of two other military facilities. Authorities said there will be a larger-than-normal police presence for Sunday's 26.2-mile race, which stretches across Arlington, Georgetown and the National Mall. Law enforcement agencies on hand will include members of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Park Police, Pentagon police, Capitol police and Arlington police. "Given the recent shootings, there is a heightened awareness for the event," said Pentagon...

If you take them at their Facebook word, at least 223,609 people plan to attend the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on the National Mall in Washington on Saturday. According to enthusiastic posters on the social network site, the rally is either a) "the start of a massive, powerful movement … to turn back the vehement, reactionary discourse in this country" or b) "very much like a music festival." But then, absurdity is certain to abound when thousands of Americans rally in the shadow of the Capitol dome — just four days before a hotly contested...

To the speaker, health-care reform was a hill worth letting her members die for. After ordering Pickett’s charge, Robert E. Lee reputedly mingled on the Gettysburg battlefield with his soldiers fortunate enough to have survived the debacle. “It’s all my fault,” he said. Will Nancy Pelosi have a similar moment of regret after next Tuesday, when — whether Republicans take the House or not — many of her troops won’t be coming back? For now, she maintains that “we haven’t really gotten credit for what we have done,” which is axiomatic as far as it goes. “Credit” is not typically...

Democrats know Barack Obama needs to reconcile with dispirited liberals. But some of them wonder whether televised couple’s therapy with Jon Stewart days before the midterms was the ideal way to do it. Obama, according to his aides, knew exactly what he was getting into when he descended into the surprisingly inhospitable “Daily Show” den Wednesday night. They say he actually welcomed Stewart’s at times uncomfortable public airing of Democratic family tensions – and the mutual expression of disappointment between Obama and his base, represented by the suddenly un-comedic Stewart. But while White House officials on Thursday described Obama’s appearance...

President Barack Obama, with his party perhaps on the cusp of a major electoral defeat, also faces the burden of recalibrating his presidency while restocking the West Wing's depleted policy team. The National Economic Council has seen its influence wane with the announced resignation of Director Lawrence Summers and the difficult search for a successor, say former White House officials. The scope and scale of its economic proposals have shrunk drastically and gained little traction. The White House budget office remains without permanent leadership three months after the departure of former chief Peter Orszag, shifting responsibility to junior staff members...

Critical parts of the coalition that delivered President Obama to the White House in 2008 and gave Democrats control of Congress in 2006 are switching their allegiance to the Republicans in the final phase of the midterm Congressional elections, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents; all of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls. The poll...

MARTINSBURG, W.VA. -- Trucks filled with boxes of gun-sales records pull up almost daily to a one-story brick building nestled in the hills outside this blue-collar town. Inside, workers armed with Scotch tape and magnifying glasses huddle over their desks, trying to decipher pieces of paper to trace the paths of guns used in crimes. The National Tracing Center is the only place in the nation authorized to trace gun sales. Here, researchers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives make phone calls and pore over handwritten records from across the country to track down gun owners. In...

The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage in November sought "the most high-tech handgun" available and wanted maximum ammo capacity, a gun salesman testified. Maj. Nidal Hasan also bought extended ammunition magazines and extra bullets while recording a salesman's gun instructions on his cell phone, Fredrick Brannon, a former employee of Guns Galore in Killeen, Texas, told a military hearing Thursday. Brannon said Hasan also bought an expensive targeting laser and "wanted to know everything there was to know" about the sophisticated FN-Five-seveN semiautomatic pistol he purchased Aug. 1, 2009 - three months before the...

IN SEARCHLIGHT, NEV. The empty field on the edge of town tells the story of Harry Reid's life and the political troubles that could spell the end of his career. Across the way from Harry Reid Elementary - where the laptops were bought with federal money - and next to Harry Reid Road sits a giant plot of rocks and scrub that was supposed to be a development called Cottonwood Lake Homes. Instead of the trailers favored by most town residents, Cottonwood Lake was planned as a gated community of suburban dreamhouses, with "different floorplans to accommodate all homebuyers." Reid...

The question around Washington today is not whether Nov. 2 will be a difficult day for the Democrats who control Congress, but rather how bad it will be. Increasingly, it looks like the answer depends on which chamber of Congress you're following. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report now estimates that more than 90 Democratic House seats are potentially in play; on the Republican side of the aisle, it estimates that only nine appear in jeopardy. As a result, most leading forecasters say it is more likely that Republicans will win the 39 House seats they need to take control. On...

The rocker John Mellencamp is a longtime Democrat who refused to allow his songs to be used by Republican Sen. John McCain on the 2008 presidential campaign. But when it comes to McCain's 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin, Mellencamp may be changing his tune. Mellencamp told the Associated Press on Friday that he admires the former Alaska governor, and that people get the wrong idea about Palin, "just because she says things and winks." To achieve what Palin has accomplished thus far requires intelligence, and Mellencamp said Palin "knows exactly what's she doing." "She wouldn't be where she is today...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee isn’t the only one pulling out of the Show-Me State. POLITICO has learned that a day after announcing it was devoting $800,000 to Rep. Roy Blunt’s Senate campaign, American Crossroads is canceling its own advertising blitz in Missouri. Its reason? Blunt doesn’t appear to need the assistance. “The polls are good, the DSCC is out. As far as we’re concerned, this race is over,” said American Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio. Collegio said the conservative organization that has devoted more than $20 million to hotly contested Senate contests decided to cancel its television reservations from Oct....

A study of felony disenfranchisement laws has found that 800,000 former felons have been returned to the voter rolls in the past decade. A push by criminal justice advocates and civil rights groups to rewrite state laws that sometimes place lifetime voting bans on felons has resulted in 23 states amending their policies since 1997 to expand voter eligibility, according to a report out by the Sentencing Project. Nine states repealed or reduced their lifetime voting bans, and eight states made it easier for former felons to appeal to have their voting rights restored. Those changes were made despite "political...

Maybe he wants to help “restore sanity.” President Obama will make his first appearance as president on the comedy program “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” next week, days ahead of the midterm election, a White House spokesman said. The interview’s timing is also notable because it comes just before Mr. Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington, D.C. (Actually, the rally was renamed the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” last week because Mr. Stewart’s satiric colleague Stephen Colbert will also be there.) Mr. Stewart is bringing “The Daily Show” to D.C. next week, culminating in the rally on...