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COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces 37 ethics charges he broke state laws limiting official use of airplanes and involving campaign money. The details were released Monday by the State Ethics Commission. They came five days after the panel charged the governor without offering any specifics. Sanford's lawyers have claimed the charges involve minor and technical aspects of the law. The charges followed a probe into whether Sanford used state aircraft for personal and political trips, used pricey airline seats despite low-cost travel requirements and reimbursed himself with campaign cash.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Sixty-one South Carolina House Republicans asked Gov. Mark Sanford to resign Wednesday, questioning his ability to lead the state since his unannounced summertime trip to see a mistress in Argentina and investigations of his state and private travel that followed. "Your decision to abandon our state for five days, with no defined order of succession and with no known way to contact you, is inexcusable,'' said a letter from the lawmakers signed by House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham.

The increasingly nasty fight between South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer escalated further this week with charges from a legislative ally of Bauer that Sanford and his supporters are spreading malicious rumors that Bauer — a Republican like Sanford — is gay. GOP state Sen. Jake Knotts made the charge in a letter to state legislators Wednesday that was obtained by POLITICO. In an interview in June with The State newspaper, Bauer voluntarily brought up the subject of his sexual orientation. Asked if he was gay, he responded: “One word, two letters. No.” But the rumor...

ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, stung by political attacks over his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, said in his first extended interview since June that he no longer wants to "crawl into a cave" and will fight to keep his job in the face of mounting public opposition. "I have a newfound level of humility, knowing how hard I work and how hard I push is not the ultimate driver of change," he said in the interview Monday. "Power resides with people." Mr. Sanford, whose once-high approval numbers have deteriorated, also acknowledged that his opponents "smell...

(If someone can get this to Gov. Sanford, thank you. Please add to it.) Dear Governor Sanford, You have the chance of a lifetime. When true love emerges in a life, when a soul-mate returns that knowledge, your life has began anew. To put aside preconceptions of what you "should be" to sacrifice what you are sorely requires too hard a price. The route seems simple. Your long time companion and wife and you are in a situation which will probably never heal. Your love for her and the children will live on. Yet your true love, Ms. Chapur, if...

Columbia, SC (AHN) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Wednesday declined the call by Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer for him to step down, saying he had owned up to the consequences of the extra-marital affair he revealed in June, a "moral failing" that the governor said was separate from the "pure politics" in the "sensational charges" against his administration's use of public resources. The 49-year-old governor currently faces possible impeachment proceedings and an ethics inquiry into his alleged use of the state aircraft for unofficial trips. The state GOP early July voted to censure him instead of asking him...

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are on the verge of calling a special legislative session that could impeach and remove embattled GOP Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year, The Washington Times has learned. GOP lawmakers will use a regularly scheduled annual retreat this weekend to discuss the fate of the governor, whose extramarital affair with an Argentine woman sparked an international scandal earlier this summer. Mr. Sanford has rejected calls to step down voluntarily, included one issued Wednesday by his own Republican lieutenant governor. House Republicans in the state will discuss how and when to initiate impeachment proceedings...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford rebuffed his lieutenant governor's call to resign Wednesday, two months after he admitted an affair, saying he will not be "railroaded" out of office. Sanford returned from a nearly weeklong disappearance in June to reveal he had been in Argentina to visit his mistress, a disclosure that led to questions about the legality of his travel on state, private and commercial planes. At a news conference hours after fellow Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer called for him to step down, Sanford said the people of South Carolina want to move past the...

Here is video of Gov. Mark Sanford refusing to resign after the lieutenant governor called for him to step aside. (Watch Video)

called for this a couple weeks back. Now, the top lietenant to Governor Sanford is calling for him to resign. South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer on Wednesday called for embattled Gov. Mark Sanford to step down, saying the state has been crippled by questions over the legality of the governor's travel, which included trips to visit his mistress.

My opinion of Mark Sanford is well-known. So is my repeated call for him to go away and quick. It’s taken too long, but South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has finally asked the lying liar to step down — and state House Republicans are meeting this weekend to discuss impeachment:

JENNY Sanford Googled the Argentine woman who was having an affair with her husband, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, to see what she looked like. "What woman wouldn't want to know what her husband's mistress looks like?" a friend of Jenny's asks in September's Vogue. "She's pretty," was Jenny's reported verdict. SNIP But Jenny said Mark was the last person anyone would guess was a philanderer. "It never occurred to me that he would do something like that," she told the magazine. "The person I married was centered on a core of morals. The person who did this is not...

Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, told Vogue magazine that finding out about her husband’s affair with an Argentine woman felt like “punches to the gut.” Sanford, 47, has remained relatively quiet since her husband’s infidelity became public in June, but in an in-depth interview in the magazine’s latest issue, she pulls no punches of her own about her feelings. Sanford and her four sons, ranging in age from 10 to 17, have moved out of the governor’s mansion and into the family’s home in Sullivan’s Island. She has been praised for her reaction to the...

It's a long and ignominious list. First there was Newt Gingrich. Then came Larry Craig, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Chip Pickering and Vito Fossella. Now starring John Ensign and Mark Sanford. Politically, sex scandals are equal-opportunity destroyers. For every David Vitter, there is an Eliot Spitzer. For every John Ensign there's a John Edwards. For every Bill Clinton there's ... well, there's only one Slick Willie. But you get the point: Sexual scandal knows no party. Yet, a common denominator linking many political sex scandals of the last few years is the involvement of conservative Christian politicians who, it seemed,...

IFE WITHOUT JENNY Not a good week for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who announced that his "political days are over" during a speech to local civic leaders in Batesburg on Thursday. But his missus is doing just fine. Jenny Sanford is taking care of business, even as her husband admits that the governor's mansion is lonely these days.

Introduction: I should mention that when Sanford first emerged as the standard bearer for the Conservative movement and some people's favorite to run for President I was skeptical. I had done a story now nearly two years ago about Dr. Blake Moore. Dr. Moore had exposed a nurse that acted as a self appointed Angel of Mercy and killed multiple terminally ill patients at the hospital he was the General Surgeon, Williamsburg Regional Hospital. After he blew the whistle on the nurse, the hospital administration retaliated against him. The case wound up in the hands of the Attorney General, Henry...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford should be impeached for allegedly not seeking the lowest airfares while conducting state business, a lawmaker says. Republican state Sen. David Thomas has accused Sanford of abusing his position of authority during two trips taken to London and China, charging $13,700 to the state could have been avoided if he had sought the most economical airfares as required by state law, CNN reported Tuesday. Sanford, 49, is already under fire for disappearing for nearly a week in June. The married governor eventually admitted he was visiting a mistress in Argentina. "The two flights by Gov....

First lady Jenny Sanford said she was moving to the family home on Sullivans Island, some 120 miles east, but will continue working on her marriage to Gov. Mark Sanford, who has admitted to a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman he's called his "soul mate." South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's wife and four sons are moving out of the official governor's residence, several weeks after Sanford admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman he called his "soul mate." Jenny Sanford announced Friday that she and her sons will move to Charleston for the upcoming school year and...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his family are heading to Europe for a long-planned family vacation. Sanford would not say Wednesday exactly where his family will go on the trip. But he says the State Law Enforcement Division knows his plans and he will be in touch with his office daily. Sanford leaves Thursday and will be back Aug. 5. The last time he left the country was a secret trip to Argentina to see his mistress in June. He told his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail and publicly confessed his yearlong affair...

The communications director for Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina announced on Friday that he is resigning in the wake of a scandal in which the governor admitted an extramarital affair. The communications director, Joel Sawyer, who acted as the governor’s spokesperson throughout the scandal that dominated national media coverage for several days last month, will pursue “other opportunities in the private sector,” according to a statement issued by the governor’s office.

With his admission of an affair with a reporter from Argentina, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford became the latest in a growing list of GOP lawmakers who have confessed to infidelity. His acknowledgment of the long distance relationship cast the Governor in a negative light and not surprisingly there have been increasing calls for his resignation. Not only did Sanford leave his wife and children on Father’s Day weekend, but he also jettisoned his gubernatorial responsibilities for five days and lied to his staff about his whereabouts. These behaviors will not soon be forgotten by South Carolina voters. While he...

(Video) National Review intern Lucy Morrow Caldwell tells Will Cain that SC Governor Mark Sanford "is acting like a 15-year-old teenybopper" and a "17-year-old girl". Watch here: http://tv.nationalreview.com/offthepage/post/?q=YTY3MDZmYmNlMzYyYzBlMGUzOWZkMGMwNGE3OWM5MzM=

Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young offer an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor regarding Mark Sanford. They examine past instances of affairs carried out by those on the right, and the subsequent political recoveries. They cite Newt Gingrich. They cite David Vitter. Convolutedly, they also cite Sarah Palin's handling of her daughter's pregnancy. To Hemmer and Young, it all comes down to repentance and faith. Unfortunately for Hemmer and Young, they have completely missed the political reality of the situation (not to mention having completely glossed over the facts).

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently revoked Gov. Mark Sanford's access to classified federal security information, then reinstated it after acknowledging that the suspension was made in error. It was unclear late Thursday whether the suspension was related to Sanford's secret trip last month to Argentina to meet his mistress....

Amid a confused array of accusations last week, Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) took to the podium to clarify the nature of his romantic life. With honesty that would make a pilgrim proud, he confirmed the media’s suspicion that his love had been divided between two parties: his Argentine paramour Maria Belen Chapur and – with recently compromised commitment – the hiking trail of the Appalachian Mountains. Sanford’s tearful, sniveling reference to Chapur as his “soul mate” made his attempted reconciliation with his wife a blanching display of equivocation; but there was one topic about which the governor was not conflicted—he...

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) -- After nearly four hours of deliberation and multiple rounds of balloting, the South Carolina Republican Party voted Monday night to censure Mark Sanford for traveling overseas to visit his mistress -- but stopped short of calling on the governor to resign.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – After spending the holiday weekend with his family in Florida, Mark Sanford is apparently intent on fighting off calls for his resignation and staying in office, according to one South Carolina Republican who spoke with the governor on Monday. Richard Yow, a member of the South Carolina Republican Party executive committee from Chesterfield County, received a phone call from Sanford on Monday afternoon. Yow said he spoke to the embattled governor for ten minutes, during which Sanford asked Yow for his forgiveness. Yow said he told Sanford he could forgive him, but he told the...

For a party that is supposed to be the American Hizballah (Party of God) the GOP sure seems to be incurring his wrath.Is Sarah Palin a lightweight, politically inept, or crazy like a fox? Only her hairdresser knows...Mark Sanford? Is that bum still around? Don't cry for me Argentina...Papa Bush wasted a 92% approval rating, falling victim to the Clinton smear machine. All George W wasted was a once-in-a-century opportunity and trillions of dollars. Of course, it was the Bush-Cheney gang versus the entire MSM smear machine by that point...Show me a conservative Democrat, and I'll show you a liberal...

And this is the woman that the State media would lead you to believe has no political future or credibility? Anyone who can so effectively return fire against Senator Horseface is o.k. with me. As an addendum to my recent post on Palin’s resignation, I offer this YouTube video of the governor at her best. And not a teleprompter to be seen. In 2004, Kerry was “swiftboated.” Has the Senator from Massachusetts just been “dogsledded” by a kooky hockey mom from Alaska? You betcha. VIDEO at original article.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu0-i0OxhME On April 3, 2008, Jenny Sanford spoke at the Robert Dole Institute where the topic of discussion was "First Spouses: Changing Roles & Expectations". In the Q&A section she was asked about the Eliot Spitzer case... here is the audio of that... You can watch the whole video of this by searching for "Sanford" on this page: http://www.doleinstitute.com/video/2008/index.shtml

A review of travel and financial records showed that Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina did not spend public money improperly while conducting an extramarital affair, the chief of the State Law Enforcement Division said Thursday. Since Monday, the governor’s continuing revelations about the affair, including his admission that he had seen his lover more times than he initially acknowledged, have stepped up calls for his resignation and heightened support for an investigation into his travel records. The chief of the State Law Enforcement Division, Reginald Lloyd, said that the review of Mr. Sanford’s records was not a criminal inquiry,...

As the source of media spectacle and late-night jokes, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has provided considerable distraction for the nation as his marital infidelity was made public. Despite the intrigue, character still counts among Americans. The majority of Americans say he should resign, and they also disapprove of his adulterous behavior, according to new opinion polls. A CNN-Opinion Research survey of 1,026 adults released Tuesday found that 54 percent of the respondents said Mr. Sanford should resign from office because of his brazen romantic affair with an Argentine woman, first revealed last week by a South Carolina newspaper -...

Gov. Mark Sanford will spend the long Fourth of July holiday weekend with his wife, Jenny, and their family in Florida, his office said today. Sanford will leave for Florida on Friday morning.

Look folks. Are we kidding with Mark Sanford? Is this some sort of sick joke, keeping this cad around? We’ve already gone over this, days ago. We don’t care how much “love” this man got from his foreign woman or what his financial records look like. The man is scum and needs to leave the South Carolina governor’s mansion right now.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – Former South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson is calling on Gov. Mark Sanford to cut a check from his campaign war chest to help repair the "serious damage" he has done to Republican fundraising efforts in the state. Sanford, a prodigious fundraiser, is sitting on nearly $1.69 million in his gubernatorial election account, and he still has roughly $128,000 in his congressional account, according to his most recent campaign finance reports. New financial reports are due later this month. But now that Sanford's political career has collapsed, his money is in limbo. Under South Carolina...

The wife of embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called his affair with an Argentine woman "inexcusable" but said Thursday she is willing to forgive him. Jenny Sanford's e-mailed statement was her first public comment since her husband told The Associated Press earlier this week that his mistress is his soul mate but he is trying to fall back in love with his wife. "My forgiveness is essential for us both to move on with our lives, with peace, in whatever direction that may take us," Jenny Sanford said in the statement. "Mark has stated that his intent and determination...

Like most Americans, I have heard enough from the adulterers. John Ensign’s press conference was blissfully short. Mark Sanford’s is interminable. Every day brings a cringe-inducing new update. The bottom line is the same: men who should know better, out of an inflated sense of ego, blow up their careers and their families for transitory pleasures. We can’t learn much from them. But their spouses and the reaction to their spouses tell us something about where we are and where we are heading in the culture wars. Jenny Sanford is the new feminist icon. Defiant, brave, principled, and funny. When...

An emotional Gov. Mark Sanford continued his confessions today, saying he had more encounters with a mistress from Argentina than he disclosed last week, including a trip to New York City earlier this year to end the relationship under the supervision of a “trusted spiritual adviser” who accompanied him. Sanford has identified Warren “Cubby” Culbertson of Columbia, S.C., as one of his closest Christian advisers, but in an interview with me, Culbertson declined to comment when asked if he was the adviser who accompanied Sanford to New York. When the Associated Press asked Culbertson yesterday if he had met Sanford’s...

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Camp of Minneapolis-Saint Paul has made himself a wonderful career as a novelist under the pseudonym John Sandford. His best-selling Prey series features Minneapolis supercop Lucas Davenport. In one recent volume a character asks Davenport: "Why is it that Democrats are always having money scandals and Republicans are always caught in sex scandals?" Lucas replies: "My theory is that Democrats are guys who know how to get girls but not how to make money. Republicans are guys who know how to make money but not how to get girls. When they each encounter both readily...

S.C. politicians wavering on Sanford (USA Today cannot be posted on FR)

Sanford is willing to give up his career and family for his mistress.

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Gov. Mark Sanford called his tryst with a woman from Argentina a "whole lot more than a simple affair." He added it was a "love story" that was not only "forbidden" but "tragic" also.

Jackson, Sanford and weirdness Big government more or less guarantees rule by creeps and misfits In a lousy week, Mark Sanford had one stroke of luck: Michael Jackson chose the day after the governor's news conference to moonwalk into eternity, and thus gave the media's pop therapists a more rewarding subject to feast on – or at any rate one of the few stories whose salient points are weirder than Sanford's. Not that the governor didn't do his best to keep his end up on the pop culture allusions: "I've spent the last five days crying in Argentina," he revealed,...

THERE'S a huge difference between what South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford did, and what ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer did. "I didn't fall in love with any of them," Spitzer was overheard telling LMDC executive director Avi Schick the other day at Solo in the Sony Building on Madi son, where they had the $24 prix-fixe lunch. And Spitzer didn't use any taxpayer money on his trysts, while Sanford is reimbursing the state about $12,000 for travel expenses to Buenos Aires. Schick had Vietnamese beef spring rolls and a grilled chicken salad.

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party. For some reason, Meghan McCain, writing in The Daily Beast, seems to think adulterous politicians, like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, should be...

... but the way he did so may raise some eyebrows. Rep. Bob Inglis, an upstate South Carolina Republican, put it this way to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal's Jason Spencer: On Sanford's ability to govern while dealing with a personal crisis: I don’t think that’s a problem. We are all coping in our private lives with personal issues. That would be like saying Sarah Palin shouldn’t be governor of Alaska because she has a special needs child. Gov. Palin is coping with a special needs child. That’s a lot to put on somebody. That’s a lot to put on a marriage....

A reader in the most recent Mark Sanford combox thread voices a familiar complaint from the previous ones. The argument goes like this: 1. Mark Sanford is a social conservative who advocated against same-sex marriage rights. 2. But by having an adulterous affair, he dishonored his own marriage vows. 3. Therefore it is hypocritical for him -- and by extension, other social conservatives -- to argue against same-sex marriage. 4. Because some opponents of same-sex marriage are unfaithful to their spouses, there is no good reason to oppose same-sex marriage. It's an absurd argument, but that doesn't stop more than...

Bauer, 40, has made a career of running against South Carolina's establishment -- and winning. Elected to the state legislature at age 26, he became known as an ambitious politician, rising quickly and winning the state's No. 2 position in 2002. Yet as lieutenant governor, he has become known as much for his personal behavior as for his political record. In 2003, he was charged with driving 60 mph and running two red lights in downtown Columbia. When pulled over, Bauer was so aggressive that a police officer pulled a gun on him. In 2006, Bauer was stopped by a...