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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Baltimore County police said U.S. Senate candidate Allan Lichtman was arrested Thursday night as he protested not being invited to a debate on Maryland Public Television.

As Paul noted last night, Democrats (and some Republicans) turned John McCain’s funeral into an orgy of Trump-bashing. Evidently they thought it made political sense. It reminds me of another politicized funeral, 16 years ago. In the fall of 2002, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone was running for re-election against Norm Coleman. Tim Pawlenty was running his first race for Governor. And, of course, it was the first midterm election of George W. Bush’s presidency. In the last days of the campaign, Wellstone’s campaign airplane crashed in northern Minnesota, killing Wellstone and a number of others. Former Vice-President Walter Mondale was...

After months of tacit approval, Vermont Democrats made it official: Bernie Sanders is one of them, at least for this election season. Despite the endorsement — and the campaign cash is likely to follow — Sanders still keeps the Democratic Party at arm’s length. “Congressman Sanders put it best when he said the Democrat Party is ‘ideologically bankrupt.’ Their endorsement of him proves it,” ... Attracting national Democratic support...Howard Dean, ...Harry Reid...Sen. Russ Feingold have backed Sanders’ Senate bid. Feingold...was in Vermont earlier this month to stump for Sanders. “Bernie is a true progressive,” said Feingold. While a top Sanders...

CNN reporting Senator Wellstone's plane has crashed in Minnesota. Not known if he is on board.

Political operatives at the Democratic National Committee in Washington developed the plan to turn the memorial service for Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone into a political rally, top party sources tell Capitol Hill Blue. The party also urged the Wellstone family to ask Vice President Dick Cheney to not attend the service and concocted the excuse that security for the VP would disrupt the event even though Secret Service security was required for former president Bill Clinton, who was invited and who did attend. Rick Kahn, the Wellstone campaign worker and friend, worked the highly partisan crowd into a frenzy with...

Apparently a picture is worth about a thousand words and $150,000. That's what it cost the Democrats to throw their memorial rally for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone at the University of Minnesota on the eve of the November elections. The next morning, a picture of Bill Clinton laughing with former Vice President Walter Mondale at the event ran in newspapers across the country and helped set off what many consider to be a turning point in the Republican drive to take back the Senate. In the end, Republican Norm Coleman defeated Mondale. The tab, which included tens of thousands...

[snip]  The manager of Mr. Wellstone's Senate campaign, Jeff Blodgett, apologized that one of the speakers at the memorial service, Rick Kahn, had turned his eulogy into a rousing call for Democratic votes."I deeply regret if anyone took offense or was taken by surprise at some of the content," Mr. Blodgett said outside the Wellstone headquarters, where a memorial shrine continues to grow and draw visitors. "I was as surprised as everyone else."Mr. Blodgett said the service was not "orchestrated or scripted" and that the family of each victim had asked individuals to "speak from the heart.""It would probably have...

<p>The pilot-in-command of the plane that carried Sen. Paul Wellstone to his death exaggerated his flying experience by telling managers at Executive Aviation that he had 400 to 500 hours of prime experience at a major commuter airline, American Eagle.</p>

July 27, 2004 Pg. 1 Senators Satisfied With Their 'No' Vote On Iraq ‘We were all firmly convinced we’d done the right thing’ By Lauren Shepherd By 1 a.m. that Friday morning, almost every senator had left the Capitol for home. Three Democrats, though, were still on the Senate floor, waiting for the final vote count on a resolution that would allow President Bush to launch a pre-emptive strike on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) — had voted against the resolution along with 18 other Democrats, one independent and one...

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - A plane carrying three U.S. senators bound for a campaign event in Missouri landed in Alabama after pilots reported problems with the landing gear, a Republican official said. Ann Wagner, co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and the Missouri Republican chairwoman, said late Monday that a plane carrying Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Sens. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., reported problems with its landing gear and landed at Mobile. A police report at Mobile Regional Airport indicated that a Challenger 250 landed safely Monday at 3:28 p.m. CST after reporting its landing...

SCARE: EDWARDS PLANE ABORTS TAKEOFF John Edwards almost followed in the footsteps of Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan when his plane aborted take-off. An old favorite of the Democrats trying to eliminate weak candidates from their ticket ... Let's see how the conspiracy theorists try to link this one to President Bush...

A terrorist attack on presidential candidates could throw the US into unprecedented political turmoil. So why do so few people want to talk about it? WORST-CASE SCENARIO number one: It's the night before Election Day. Across America, voters turn on their televisions hoping to catch the final hours of the presidential campaign and instead hear the awful news. In coordinated attacks, terrorists have killed their favored candidates for both president and vice president. Now what?The answer in both cases -- and several equally unpleasant variants: Nobody knows.

Laramie Democrat running for House John Hanks said he thinks Bush is a suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks. By Jessica Lowell rep5@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - For John Hanks, his bid to run for Congress is David v. Goliath. He's David, and he's pretty sure Goliath is going to win. "Sometimes," he said, "you have to do the impractical." Hanks, a Laramie Democrat, identifies himself as both a thought criminal and a conspiracy theorist. "The main reason I am running is that I want the Democrats to take a stand on 9-11 and look for an...

Officials: New federal tests hurt students BY JUDY HOLLAND Hearst Newspapers WASHINGTON - Teachers, lawmakers and celebrities on Tuesday unveiled a book of letters that criticize the Bush administration's efforts to improve public schools by imposing federal testing. Critics of President Bush's centerpiece education program - known as "No Child Left Behind" - say it forces teachers to abandon more valuable academics in favor of preparing for federal tests. The program requires standardized testing for third through eighth grades in math and reading and identifies schools that don't pass muster as under-performing. The book, "Letters to the Next President: What...

By: Jackson Thoreau - 12/30/03 Shortly before he died in a mysterious airplane crash 11 days prior to the 2002 elections, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone met with Vice President Dick Cheney, probably the Bush administration's most evil public face. Cheney was rounding up Senate support for the October 2002 vote on giving the administration carte blanche to invade Iraq, with or without blessing from the United Nations. Cheney strong-armed opposing politicians like the most vindictive of mafioso leaders, and opponents usually gave in. But not Wellstone. Whatever you thought of his progressive brand of politics, he wasn't a wimp. And...

<p>Pilot error caused the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and seven others, investigators said yesterday.</p> <p>Investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board that the twin-propeller King Air A100 stalled when it slowed down too quickly while approaching Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport in northern Minnesota on Oct. 25, 2002. The plane lost altitude, veered sharply, sheared off treetops and crashed 2½ miles short of the runway.</p>

WASHINGTON - Pilot error caused the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and seven others, investigators said Tuesday. Investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board (news - web sites ) that the twin-propeller King Air A100 stalled when it slowed down too quickly while approaching Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport in northern Minnesota on Oct. 25, 2002. The plane lost altitude, veered sharply, sheared off treetops and crashed 2 1/2 miles short of the runway. "The flight crew did not monitor and maintain minimum speed," NTSB (news - web sites) Aircraft Performance Group Chairman Charlie Pereira told the board, which...

A makeshift memorial of fresh flowers and flickering candles lined a chain-link fence on University Avenue for days. A public service meant to heal instead ripped people apart. A beloved elder statesman, a vigorous up-and-comer, an ever-aggrieved governor and a president worried about weapons of mass destruction all played their parts. One year ago today, Minnesotans began an extraordinary chapter in the state's history, when the chartered plane carrying U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter, three campaign aides and two pilots crashed into a pine forest near Eveleth. By the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 6, Minnesota and the...

Politics Page: A Wellstone Tribute -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By E. Andrew Eccleston 10-24-03 As we come up on the one year anniversary of the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, I have reflected on his life and this passing year. To begin with it is only fair to point out that I never voted for Wellstone. His leftist ideology and populist rhetoric never appealed to me. The only thing I liked about the Senator was his energy and principled if misguided stands on the issues. Throughout the state of Minnesota where I hail from memorials for the fallen Senator are still everywhere. It...

It was supposed to be an open house, but it turned into something more because the Wellstone name was attached. For four hours Tuesday, a flood of people -- an estimated 1,000 or more -- filled the lawn of a corner office building on Raymond Av. in St. Paul. There were lines everywhere. There was a line to file up the two flights in the brick building to see the Wellstone Action offices, named in honor of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and his wife, Sheila, who died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota on Oct. 25, along with their...