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It was just another night in the living room of a suburban Boston home in 2021. Thirty-five-year-old Ashley Randele, along with her parents Tom and Kathy, was watching an episode of “NCIS.” Tom laid on the couch, which had become his domain following a recent lung cancer diagnosis. Doctors had told the 71-year-old he was probably six weeks away from death. “When I moved here, I had to change my name,” he said mid-show, as casually as if asking his daughter to pass the remote control. “And the authorities are probably still looking for me.” Stunned, his family absorbed the...

Actor Robert Conrad has died at the age of 84, according to a report. The exact cause and location of his death were not immediately confirmed.

Robert Conrad, the athletic, two-fisted actor who starred as Secret Service agent James West and did his own spectacular stunts on the 1960s futuristic CBS Western The Wild Wild West, has died. He was 84. "He lived a wonderfully long life and while the family is saddened by his passing, he will live forever in their hearts," family spokesman Jeff Ballard told People magazine. No other details of his death were immediately available.

The heartbroken father of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee analyst murdered near his Washington, DC, apartment on July 10, says he has been left with a hole in his life forever and begged for those with information on the killer to come forward to the police. In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online, Joel Rich said: 'We want to get this solved, that's the number one thing. 'We can't bring Seth back but we can try to make the city safer and take away the person who wanted to go after someone just for a cellphone. 'We don't...

It is time to look more seriously at the Donald Trump presidential candidacy. He continues to lead the polls among Republicans; his closest rivals seem now to be Senators Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz, easing ahead of Dr. Ben Carson. There does not seem to have been much effort to see the Trump candidacy in any sort of historic context. For the first time in its history, the United States has had four, and arguably five, consecutive terms of unsuccessful federal government, from administrations and Congresses of both parties. The last Clinton term under-reacted to the original terrorist incidents at...

When asked about the roots of political partisanship in Washington, retiring Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) traces the issue to Newt Gingrich. “I can see it very directly going back to 1994 and Newt Gingrich,” Conrad told C-Span in an interview. “He had a view, to take over the House of Representatives one had to bring down the institution and things have never been the same since.” …

  The once moribund Senate “Gang of Six” regained new life Tuesday after Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn unexpectedly rejoined the group — and more senators are now coalescing around a new proposal that would cut the debt by as much as $3.7 trillion over the next decade. Other top senators are also getting behind the plan, including Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the No. 3 Senate Republican, who told a group of senators Tuesday he would back the Gang of Six’s proposal, sources say. The fast-moving developments mean that elements of the proposal could influence the stalled talks to raise the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Time running short to raise the government's borrowing limit, President Barack Obama on Tuesday hailed a plan by a bipartisan senators' group on deficit reduction as the kind of "balanced approach" the nation is looking for. He said it's time for Congress as a whole to rally around such a proposal. "We don't have any more time to engage in symbolic gestures, we don't have any more time to posture. It's time to get down to the business of actually solving this problem," the president said. Obama spoke even as House Republicans pushed toward a vote on...

Senator Kent Conrad, the allegedly “pragmatic” and “common sense” budget leader (according to his sycophants at the Fargo Forum) was upset recently when a Republican dared showed up to a meeting about one of Conrad’s many budget proposals. Because how dare the opposition party think they get a say in the budgeting. ... “Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is steadily emerging as the voice of pragmatism and common sense in the overheated federal budget debate in Washington,” wrote the Fargo Forum in an editorial. That doesn’t mesh with the reality of Kent Conrad’s actions on the budget, which has been to...

Gang of Six negotiators are close to striking a deal on a deficit-reduction package, according to Senate sources.  White House officials and Democrats are pressing for the six negotiators to wrap up their talks by the Easter recess beginning on April 16. There is no deal yet, however, and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has made clear that he will not be held to an arbitrary timeline.  Coburn has also insisted that a broad deficit reduction package include Social Security reform, something that Democratic negotiators such as Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) argue should be handled separately.  The...

Dumb ideas never die in Washington, DC. They just get stuck in committee. Proving that once again is outgoing Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), attempting to revive an idea for a new tax that was so intrusive and unwieldy that even Barack Obama had to disavow it two years ago when his Transportation Secretary starting pushing the notion. Conrad points to a new CBO study saying that taxing Americans on their car mileage will provide a windfall for the federal government: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they...

Angelo Mozilo, former boss of Countrywide Financial, has been charged with civil fraud and insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is the highest profile executive to face charges relating to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007. --snip-- Mr Mozilo has denied doing anything wrong. Two other former executives have also been charged with civil fraud. --snip -- The SEC published extracts from e-mails sent by Mr Mozilo. "The bottom line is that we are flying blind on how these loans will perform in a stressed environment of higher unemployment, reduced values and slowing home sales," he...

House Democrats Lock GOP Out of Committee Room A bitter divide over Countrywide mortgage scandal. By JAMES FREEMAN Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee's hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal. As we reported last week, the committee...

Countrywide’s VIP program is the first subpoena target for House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said a committee aide. The “Friends of Angelo” program, named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, has been under committee investigation since 2008 for allegedly granting generous mortgage deals to influential government officials, lawmakers and employees at Fannie Mae. “Countrywide orchestrated a deliberate and calculated effort to use relationships with people in high places in order to manipulate public policy and further their bottom line to the detriment of the American taxpayers even at the expense of its own lending standards,”...

Issa demands details on Countrywide's VIP loan programBy Peter Schroeder - 02/16/11 06:31 PM ET Bank of America will have to turn over all documents and records tied to Countrywide Financial's VIP lending program after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued a subpoena for them Wednesday. Issa announced the far-reaching subpoena, his first as chairman of the panel, and made clear that he wanted to know specifically what public employees or elected officials may have benefited from the program. Issa is looking for all documents about the program, and is particularly interested in what "covered borrowers" were involved...

Congressman Darrell Issa, the new oversight cop in Washington, will announce his first hearing tomorrow, and Politico's Mike Allen has reported that it will focus on the mortgage crisis. We won't know what the scope of this hearing will be until witnesses and a narrower topic is announced, and we won't know whether it will turn into a full-blown investigation until Issa's Oversight and Government Reform Committee receives testimony and documents and decides whether or not it's interested in pursuing further study. It's possible, however, that this will turn quite political. If committee Republicans choose to investigate the preferential loans...

Snip~ Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman — deeply unpopular with voters in his home state — is unlikely to seek reelection, a knowledgeable source tells POLITICO ahead of the senator’s announcement on Wednesday… “After many thoughtful conversations with family and friends over the last several months, Sen. Lieberman made a decision about his future over the holidays which he plans to announce on Wednesday,” said Erika Masonhall, a Lieberman spokeswoman who declined to comment further… Snip~ Lieberman’s announcement comes on the heels of Tuesday’s declaration by Susan Bysiewicz, the former Connecticut secretary of state, that she plans to enter the 2012...

North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad plans to announce his retirement today, according to two informed Democratic sources, creating a potentially prime pickup opportunity for Republicans in a GOP-leaning state. Conrad, who currently chairs the Senate Budget Committee, has been in office since 1986 and risen to become one of the most influential -- and intellectual -- policy makers operating in the nation's capital. Conrad had been open about his ambivalence about running for another term and those doubts almost certainly increased following a 2010 election that decimated the Democratic party. Former Sen. Byron Dorgan retired in the face of...

North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad announced today that he will not seek reelection, creating a potentially prime pickup opportunity for Republicans in a GOP-leaning state.

Paul Conrad, the political cartoonist who won three Pulitzer Prizes and used his pencil to poke at politicians for more than 50 years, has died. He was 86.