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Senator John Edwards caught at LA Hotel with mistress and love child. Curing poverty one child at a time.

Another alleged Democrat Party felon is trying to hold on to any power he has left in Washington. New Orleans congressman William Jefferson(D-New Orleans) who is facing trial on federal corruption charges will seek re-election to a 10th term. In a news release on Tuesday, Democrat William Jefferson touted his experience and portrayed himself as a person who still has power in Congress despite his indictment in the corruption case.

WASHINGTON - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Saturday he is donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. Conrad said it appears that Countrywide waived 1 point on his mortgage for a Bethany Beach, Del., vacation home. He said he would donate the equivalent amount of money to Habitat for Humanity. "Although I did not ask for or know that I was receiving a discount, and even though I was offered a competitive loan from another lender, I do not want to...

The Obama camp hotly disputed a claim this week by Galveston County Democratic Chairman Lloyd Criss that on election night, Obama supporters took caucus sign-in sheets to their campaign headquarters and added names to them. Criss, a Clinton supporter, made the claim earlier this week. But he said that since it didn’t change how many delegates the candidates got, he wasn’t that concerned about it. But Aaron Schiller, who ran the Obama campaign in Galveston, insisted it didn’t happen. “He was taking a free shot at us,” Schiller said. On Friday, Criss said he wasn’t sure that Obama supporters took...

Barack Obama has already had a tough week, and it’s just about to get worse. With his campaign reeling from the videos of his pastor spewing race-baiting rhetoric, the Tony Rezko trial just produced a new nugget that makes Obama look more dishonest. For the second time, the amount of money Rezko raised for Obama has been significantly increased from Obama’s prior admissions: Indicted Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko was a more significant fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama’s earlier political campaigns than previously known. Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for the first three offices Obama sought, the senator...

Kimberly Strassell writes about how a fawning media enabled Eliot Spitzer: ...from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it. Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more. Time magazine bestowed upon Mr. Spitzer the title "Crusader of the Year," and likened him...

The Clintons are trying to steal the nomination from Barack Obama — and he can't let them. The Clintons' campaign attacks put Obama in a bind. If he doesn't answer in kind, he's toast. But if he does, they'll have forced him off his winning message of hope and change from the bitter politics of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eras. If they pull him off his game and onto theirs, they can wrest away the Democratic convention victory that he's earned. The solution for Obama is clear: Reply in kind, but do it through surrogates. Obama must...

WASHINGTON -- John Edwards' presidential campaign has donated to charity $4,600 in contributions from William Lerach, a top fundraiser and a well-known trial lawyer who pleaded guilty this week to a federal conspiracy charge. Lerach and members of his law firm, Lerach Coughlin of San Diego, contributed about $81,000 to Edwards' campaign during the first six months of the year, according to Federal Election commission records. Lerach raised money for Edwards while the lawyer was under indictment on charges that his former firm, Milberg Weiss, paid kickbacks to plaintiffs in class action lawsuits. The Edwards campaign denied any connection between...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used her clout to get lawmakers to back a San Francisco redevelopment project near her multimillion-dollar rental properties, disclosure documents reveal. Pelosi got House members to authorize $25 million to improve the Embarcadero port area, clearing the way for cruise-ship-dock development and other improvements to aid the neighborhood's comeback. [Snip] "The appearance is obviously not good, and she needs to be forthcoming about how this impacts her financial interest," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told The Post. [Snip] Pelosi is the ninth richest member of the House, according to last year's disclosure reports, with stocks and real-estate...

Congress may be on the brink of passing unexpectedly sweeping new rules on ethics, but any claim that the culture of corruption is in retreat is ludicrous. Consider that with the forced exits of former Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Bob Ney and Tom DeLay, the one lawmaker who most exemplifies this debased culture happens to be the new Senate majority leader – Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is now arguably the nation's most powerful politician after President Bush. It's bad enough that for decades Reid has dispensed favors to companies and institutions from his home state that employs some...

Voters looking for clues as to how — or, more to the point, whether — the Democrats are going to redeem their issue of honesty and integrity on Capitol Hill will be keeping an eye on the growing scandal around the majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. He is caught up in a corker of a controversy over a questionable land deal. One might think that after all the legal fees and energy the Clintons spent defending Whitewater, a top Democratic politician would know better than to get into a complicated, questionable land deal. But the message doesn't seem...

Excerpt - NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and two other prominent Democrats have failed to disclose they are officers of family charities, in violation of a law requiring members of Congress to report non-profit leadership roles, USA Today reported in its Monday editions. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana also did not report they serve as family foundation directors, according to financial disclosure reports examined by USA TODAY. All three foundations are funded and controlled by the lawmakers and their spouses, and do not solicit donations from...

First Democrat to hold spot since '86 has said he plans no major overhaul DALLAS — The newly elected Dallas County district attorney fired eight of his top prosecutors, and at least nine others are resigning before he assumes the post on Monday. Craig Watkins, the county's first black district attorney and the first Democrat to hold the office since 1986, sent termination notices to the eight prosecutors Wednesday. Watkins' election in November was part of a Democratic resurgence in Dallas County that saw the party take 42 judicial races and six other countywide offices. Watkins, a longtime defense attorney,...

Remember how Nancy Pelosi exploited the female card before the midterm elections? "Maybe it will take a woman to clean up the House and a new speaker to restore civility," she bragged. Women, she implied, do a better job than men because we presumably know how to get down on our hands and knees and scrub the mold and mildew out of every corner and crevice of our own domiciles. But from the way she's acting, Nancy Pelosi doesn't know spic from span. She's conducting Beltway business as usual, just like the good old boys she demonized throughout the campaign....

A federal grand jury investigating the governor of Puerto Rico has subpoenaed records on dozens of Philadelphia-area companies and business executives who have contributed to his past campaigns or done business on the island. Robert M. Feldman, a longtime political associate of U.S. Sen.-elect Bob Casey Jr., and 10 of his companies are among those named on federal grand jury subpoenas being delivered across the Philadelphia region and in Puerto Rico.The subpoenas ask for all company documents relating to Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila. The FBI is investigating whether Vila steered government contracts to campaign contributors, or whether illegal...

After a year of trying to convince voters that all Republicans are corrupt because of the actions of a couple of rotten apples, the Democrats now find themselves with not one, but two senators under fire for crooked behavior. Minority Leader Harry Reid promised to amend disclosure reports after it became known that he earned $1.1 million on a real estate deal for property he hadn't owned for three years. Not a bad deal. While Reid was busy trying to sweep this questionable transaction under the rug, another "clerical error" was discovered. Apparently, Reid used $3,300 in campaign donations for...

EDITORIAL: Sen. Reid on the hot seat It didn't quite have the legs to knock the overhyped Foley scandal off the front pages, but another Washington controversy this week at least momentarily threatened the credibility of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The Associated Press on Wednesday reported that our own Sen. Reid may have violated Senate rules by failing to report the 2001 transfer of land he owned "to a partnership in which he maintained a personal stake." Advertisement Three years later, Sen. Reid made $700,000 when the partnership sold the real estate. To make matters worse for the senator,...

Jury note hints at convictions in tire-slashing In a possible sign one or more guilty verdicts could be coming this morning, the jury in the Election Day 2004 tire-slashing case sent a note to Circuit Judge Michael Brennan asking whether, when filling out their verdict forms for each of the five defendants, anything should be written in to indicate which of three possible theories of party to a crime a person was being found guilty under. The jury has now been deliberating for 4 ½ hours.

Reilly under fire for cover-up: Romney blasts AG as details of crash emergeBy Casey Ross Friday, January 6, 2006 - Updated: 01:24 AM EST Attorney General Tom Reilly scrambled yesterday to explain why he tried to cover up the role of alcohol in a fatal accident that killed two teens, but the secrecy crumbled within hours when new details involving vodka and drinking games were revealed by police.       The probe into Shauna and Meghan Murphy’s deaths concluded without criminal charges yesterday as Reilly — a friend of the girls’ father — was accused of intervening with Worcester District...

Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle's announcement yesterday that he was indicting House Majority Leader Tom DeLay came a little more than two weeks after Earle gave clear indications that the top Republican was off the hook. "I have never said that DeLay is a target of the investigation," Earle told the Dallas Morning News on Sept. 10. Sources familiar with Earle's investigation had agreed that, before yesterday, it didn't look like the top Republican would be indicted. On Sept. 19, for instance, ace Newsweek sleuth Michael Isikoff reported that it looked like DeLay was in the clear: "Travis County District...