Chris Kelly: Doug Hoffman lost his election last night. He was supported by a plurality of talk radio entertainers, and a majority of former half-term governors of Alaska, but it wasn't enough. An obscure quirk of constitutional law says you also need votes from voters. This is the same cruel hurdle that tripped up three of his other biggest supporters, Gary Bauer, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, all of whom ran for President of the United States, but failed the "getting votes" test, because everyone hates their guts.
On Monday night's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced that he will ask his loyal fans to donate money to the U.S. Speedskating team, whose largest commercial cash sponsor, Dutch bank DSB, just went belly-up. (Colbert snarkily referred to DSB as "Deposit Savings in Bong.") In exchange for the publicity and potential revenue, Colbert Nation logos will be stitched onto the suits of both long-track and short-track skaters during World Cup competitions before the Olympics.
After a courtship of about 20 years, the Walt Disney Company has won approval from the government of China to build a Disneyland-style theme park in Shanghai, Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, said Tuesday.
Conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010. "New York 23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party," said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative who is challenging Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for the Senate nomination. "They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don't want us to run for office." Read More
Starting this week, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is sponsoring 100 ads on Seattle buses that feature a picture of Santa Claus and the words, "Yes, Virginia... there is no God." This is a play on the famous "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" answer to 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon in the New York Sun newspaper in 1897.
Ukraine is battling an outbreak of flu that's sickened 478,400 people, killed 81, overwhelming its medical facilities. "Everyone is scared," said Dr. Hryhoriy Stasiv. "We don't have masks. We don't have medicines. We see on TV that drugs are on the way, but it's been a while and they're still not here."
The Maine State Prison chapter of the NAACP is one of its only predominantly white chapters. "Colored people come in all colors," said the group's president Benjamin Todd Jealous.
Florida's restrictions on where sex offenders can live might be both ineffective and endangering the public, legislative analyst Marti Harkness said Tuesday in state legislative testimony. "Research shows that to prevent a sex offender from living with their families or [to make them live] farther away from work or treatment because of residency restrictions, you may actually in fact diminish public safety." Read More
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Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was "absolutely confident" he'll be able to sign one by then. Read More
For years, scientists thought the fearsome sharks wandered the sea at random. We were wrong. Pacific white sharks spend months near the northern and central California coast between August and February foraging among elephant seals, sea lions and other prey, according to a new study
The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin.
An 83-year-old nun, a Catholic priest and three other peace protestors were arrested Monday after cutting through three security fences to reach an area where nuclear missiles are stored at the naval base in Kitsap, Maine. Carrying a sign that read "Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident: Illegal + Immoral," the group were members of Plowshares. "The manufacture and deployment of Trident II missiles, weapons of mass destruction, is immoral and criminal," they said in a statement.
A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple has resigned, the secretary of state's office said Tuesday. Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, was widely criticized after he refused to grant a marriage license to Beth McKay and Terence McKay, an interracial couple who ultimately got a marriage license from another justice of the peace in the same parish. Read More
Democrat Bill Owens defeated conservative independent Doug Hoffman in the race for New York's 23rd Congressional District, the first time since the 19th century that a Democrat holds the seat. Hoffman was endorsed by Sarah Palin and other national Republicans, who drove Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava from the race. Read More
Voters in Maine on Tuesday repealed the state's same sex marriage law. With 87 percent reporting, a Yes vote for repeal led 53 to 47 percent. Maine's gay marriage law passed the Legislature in the spring but was never allowed to take effect. "God has given us this victory," said the Rev. Bob Emrich. Read More
