Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan

The internet is in a furor this afternoon due to Hillary Clinton’s words about Nancy Reagan and AIDS. Via New Republic: Hillary Clinton is dead wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS. In an appearance on MSBC, Clinton praised the Reagans’ efforts to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. “Because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a …

Nancy Reagan’s casket has arrived at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, where the public may pay its respects today and tomorrow. President Obama will not attend Friday’s funeral, but the First Lady will be there in his place. NBC News reports: President Obama will not attend Nancy Reagan’s funeral on Friday, opting instead to speak at a …

“Let the record show: Nancy Reagan – Opposed the anti-gay Briggs Initiative (1978!) – Invited the first openly gay couple to stay overnight in the White House – Encouraged her husband to fight the AIDS epidemic to the tune of $5.727 billion that was spent by the federal government by the time President Reagan left office – Sent a special …

TMZ has the report: Nancy Reagan has died … TMZ has learned from a close family member. The former first lady was living in Bel Air and has been in failing health in recent years. Mrs. Reagan married Ronald in 1952 and went on to became a First Lady who at first was severely criticized for her fancy taste — …

From MoveOn: Senate Republicans just announced that they won’t even allow a committee hearing on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee—and they don’t even care who the nominee is. This is the most blatant partisan obstruction we’ve ever seen. Even Republican Senators Mark Kirk and Susan Collins—and former Republican Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—disagree with it. In fact, you know …

The Hill reports: Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on Wednesday said she disagrees with Republicans who want to wait to appoint a new justice until after the presidential election. “I don’t agree,” she said in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix of Republicans who want to delay the appointment. “I think we need somebody there now to do …

JMG reader Wyatt points us to the latest money beg by Ted Cruz, who would like a donation of $35 or more to “make the Reagan Revolution happen again.” The Cruz camp fails to mention that Reagan was shot by a mentally ill man whose gun purchase might be thwarted today under the very rules just announced by President Obama.

WATCH THIS. Vanity Fair has posted a short film titled When AIDS Was Funny. The film compiles audio tapes of the homophobic mocking and belittling of gay people and people with AIDS that took place between Ronald Reagan spokesman Larry Speakes and the White House press pool. They write: Using never-before-heard audio tapes from three separate press conferences, in 1982, …

Two days ago George Will wrote a Washington Post column attacking Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Reagan in which he denounces O’Reilly’s “slander” for claiming that the assassination attempt on Reagan triggered a mental decline so severe that his advisors considered using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Last night the fellow Fox News personalities tangled on-air about the …

Buzzfeed reporter Chris Geidner tonight revealed that official White House and Reagan documents show that Nancy Reagan rebuffed Rock Hudson’s plea for help in getting access to experimental treatment as he lay dying of AIDS in Paris. The request was made through publicists Yanou Collart and Dale Olson. Three days after Hudson’s collapse, he still lacked permission to go to …

“I think all the polls show if she does run, she’ll win the Democrat nomination. But I don’t think it’s for certain. It’s a very taxing undertaking to go through. It’s a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency.” – Sen Rand Paul, speaking to Politico. Even Fox News has slammed Paul for the …

“President Palling Around With Terrorists: Good God, Mr. President. To partner with Iran is to trust the enemy, which is insane. Iran has complicity in the rise of ISIS as it supports radical militias and arms Islamic terrorists. You’ve been the luckiest man in the world, in an un-American Democracy sort of way, to have had the liberal media in …

Via the New York Times: In his 1988 memoir, Donald T. Regan, a former chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan, revealed what he called the administration’s “most closely guarded secret.” He said an astrologer had set the time for summit meetings, presidential debates, Reagan’s 1985 cancer surgery, State of the Union addresses and much more. Without an O.K. from …

From last night’s Last Week Tonight.

“In the early Eighties, as a 22-year-old queer man living during the Reagan-Bush administration, I was afraid to get tested for HIV for fear of quarantine, the threat of internment camps and having my basic civil rights stripped away. I waited five years to get my first anonymous test. I am happy that attitudes have matured and changed, and I …

62% of Washington Times readers believe Ronald Reagan would have been a teabagger. Shocking! (Tipped by JMG reader Alan)

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled an hour of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1980s. Among the topics: hate crimes, housing rights, HIV/AIDS, immigration rights, pride parades, Barney Frank, Ronald Reagan, the 20th anniversary of Stonewall, the NAMES Project,  and rather interestingly, Houston’s 1985 battle for LGBT rights. PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Compilations of gay news in the 1970s …