From the “Department of What Was He Thinking?!” here comes South Carolina’s Republican governor and a GOP hopeful for president, admitting that his five-day off-the-radar escapade was to visit his Argentine lover–not to hike the Appalachian Trail, as aides said. Unbelievable. Or, well, all-too-believable in the world of right-wing, Bible-thumping, family values Republican politics these days.…

As part of the protests over Barack Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame, one alum, David DiFranco, launched a website to get ND pres Father John Jenkins fired and to tally donations withheld from the university as a way of quantifying the displeasure and pressuring the board to replace Jenkins. The site’s last public tally, on May…

Together again, for the first time, on July 10: VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI will welcome U.S. President Barack Obama to the Vatican July 10 for an audience scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. Obama will visit Italy July 8-10 to participate in the Group of Eight summit, a meeting of leaders of…

Well, sort of. Newly released tapes show that in the wake of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, Tricky Dick worried that legalized abortion would lead to “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw abortion as “necessary” in some cases: “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When…

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