Free Republic

With retirements abundant and destined to keep pouring in, it would seem that (some) Democrats have gained enough self-awareness to recognize that they’re losing. Jackie Speier has been a fixture of the California political scene for more than 40 years. So much so that in the three decades preceding her first election to Congress in a special race to replace the late Tom Lantos in 2008, there was seldom a cycle that didn’t feature Speier’s name on the ballot in the San Francisco/San Mateo County area. Before making a name for herself, though, Speier was an aide to Congressman Leo...

Congresswoman remembers day of horror Rep. Jackie Speier November 16, 2008 "I'm 28 years old, and I am about to die." I was curled up behind the wheel of an airplane on a jungle airstrip in Guyana, South America. This isn't what I expected when I signed on to work for a United States congressman. Our fact-finding trip to investigate the Peoples Temple in Jonestown had gone horribly wrong. I lay as still as I could, pretending to be dead, as an unknown gunman pumped five bullets into me at close range. Pop-pop. Pop. Pop-pop. When the shooting stopped, I...

WASHINGTON — On her first day in office, Rep. Jackie Speier criticized the Iraq war and John McCain, eliciting boos from Republicans. By her own count, three committee chairmen have chastised her for her questions during recent hearings. And her first bill won national attention with its effort to mandate lower speed limits to save gas. At 58, Speier, a San Mateo County Democrat who replaced the late Tom Lantos in April, is not your average new member of Congress. By speaking bluntly, rocking the boat and not shying away from controversy, she has established a higher profile in three...

Suquamish -- She left behind what she could -- a name, a city, a marriage. Other things -- the newspaper articles, photos and, oddly, a candle blessed by the man before he was a demon -- she neatly labeled and filed away. That's how a legal secretary defeats chaos. The rest of the baggage resisted abandonment. It wouldn't be organized and layered into boxes. Guilt is as tenacious as a shadow, as slowly corrosive as salt air. The former Joyce Shaw didn't know this when she fled Jim Jones' Peoples Temple in 1976. She's learned it since. Yesterday, on the...