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Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress. Yesterday, the red-faced Democratic candidate vowed to remove from his portfolio any Fortress funds that have a stake in those lender units....

"Democratic presidential hopeful former Sen. John Edwards speaks to people in a crowded room at a house party in Nashua, N.H."

Couple Receives over $21 Million Dollars for "Wrongful Birth" of Handicapped Son Florida Right to Life says, "now we're holding doctors responsible to deliver a perfect baby" By Elizabeth O'Brien TAMPA, Florida, July 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A judge has awarded over $21 million dollars to a couple for the "wrongful birth" of their second handicapped son. The couple would have aborted the child if they had known about his disability, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports. Daniel and Amara Estrada have two sons who are both physically handicapped with the same genetic disorder, Smith-Lemli-Opitz, which does not allow them to...

After being called on the carpet for her misleading description of a trial lawyer as a “staunch Republican” — despite the fact that he had donated to Democrats over Republicans by a margin of nearly 8 to 1 — Jennifer Hunter first doubled down . . . and now doubles down again. Namely, she says today that it was a “truthful statement” that trial lawyer Jim Ronca is a “staunch Republican” who “was so fed up by the Bush White House that he was going to support and give money to Democrats.” Those who disagreed, based on his overwhelming pattern...

Here is a letter I received from Jim Ronca, the man I described as a staunch Republican in a news story I wrote about five Democratic presidential candidates last week. The Democrats spoke at a convention of the American Association for Justice (a group of trial lawyers). He told me he was a Republican but was so fed up by the Bush White House that he was going to support and give money to Democrats. This truthful statement caused a huge reaction from demagogic Republicans who seemingly couldn't bear one of their own turning to the Dems. He and I...

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday that he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty—and to make money too. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection but he has more to learn. Edwards has made eradicating poverty a focus of his second White House bid. Edwards, a multimillionaire after years as a trial lawyer, would not disclose how much he got paid for a year of consulting beginning in October...

During the lead-up to the 2004 Iowa Caucus, John Edwards was fond of saying that three tickets would be punched out of the state and he wanted to be one of those tickets. Come caucus night, Howard Dean sagged, John Kerry held on, and Edwards surged, prompting him to thank Iowa for punching his ticket. For Edwards, there has never been any doubt he would run again in 2008. So he kept his foot on caucus soil and spent four years devoting time, money and effort to Iowa. Would have been a great strategy, had the primary landscape not changed....

DES MOINES - John Edwards is in Iowa today laying out an energy "very much at the aggressive end of the scale," he said during a stop at the Statehouse. Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee who's campaigning to be at the top of the ticket in 2008, is calling for a cap on greenhouse gas, world leadership on reversing climate change -- including offering to share new clean energy technology with developing nations, meeting the demand for more electricity through efficiency rather than production and creating a new energy economy by investing at least $10 billion in support...

"...imagine that Ann Coulter is seated in Smith's place. Anything to say to her?"...... Edwards, his right fist curled, feigned a punch and said: "No, there's absolutely nothing. Grow up." AUSTIN -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards feigned a punch Thursday when asked what he'd like to say to Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator who seemingly characterized his sexual orientation in remarks at a political confab last week. Edwards, appearing on Texas Monthly Talks, was asked by host Evan Smith to momentarily imagine that Coulter was seated in Smith's place. Anything to say to her? Edwards, his right fist curled,...

The distributor of conservative pundit Ann Coulter’s column, Universal Press Syndicate, has no plans to drop her column despite the flap she created with her recent "faggot” comment. Coulter used the gay slur in reference to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards during a March 2 speech at the American Conservative Union’s Political Action Conference. So far three newspapers that carried her column have announced that they would stop running it, and the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign has launched a letter-writing effort demanding that Universal stop distributing the column. But in a statement, Universal’s president and editor Lee Salem...

Former Sen. John Edwards campaign announced that he will skip the Nevada Democratic Party's planned August presidential debate, the latest fallout from the party's decision to have the Fox Network host the event. The move sparked an outcry, particularly among liberals and activist bloggers, who accused Fox of being too sympathetic to Republicans and demanded that the Democratic candidates boycott the forum. MoveOn.org, one of the nation's leading progressive organizations, gathered more than 250,000 signatures asking the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox as a debate sponsor. The group also created a web site -- www.foxattacks.com -- to highlight the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein's trial on charges of genocide in connection with a crackdown on Kurds has begun. MORE...

Miers pressed Bush to let court decide lawyer feesWASHINGTON -- President Bush praises Harriet Miers as an opponent of legislating from the judicial bench, but as a corporate lawyer she lobbied then-Gov. Bush to let the Texas high court rather than the Legislature decide if attorney fees should be limited. In the process, Miers unleashed a verbal assault on trial lawyers who typically file lawsuits and whose cases sometimes land in the U.S. Supreme Court, where Bush now has nominated her to serve. She suggested they were "greedy" and had "brought shame" on Texas. As a corporate attorney in 1995,...

ST. LOUIS (AP) - St. Louis circuit clerk office workers are struggling to keep pace with the rush of lawsuits being filed - personal injury cases, wrongful death and medical malpractice suits. The dog days of August are normally slow, but not this year. Sunday is the last day before a new state law severely limits lawsuits. Starting Monday, restrictions are placed on where suits can be filed and how much can be awarded. The so-called tort reform measure was passed by lawmakers and signed by the governor earlier this year. In St. Louis, a city with the reputation for...

He has tackled the question in public twice now, with more politeness and directness than such an invasive query deserves. Still, there is a lesson in watching Republican Gubernatorial Candidate and Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist deal openly with an issue that has dogged him covertly for years: Is he gay? It's an oddly uncomfortable episode that reflects Florida's own contradictory relationship with gay people, gay rights and the question of whether an openly gay person can, as a practical matter, hold a major office in this state. Crist first faced The Question publicly Jan. 15 during a meeting of...

SPRINGFIELD -- Black lawmakers lashed out Thursday against a deal struck earlier this week that would limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases, and warned Gov. Blagojevich not to count on their political support if he goes along with it. "Sooner or later, the black community is going to rise, and they're going to have to respond to us," said Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago). "I hope the governor thinks about that before signing this legislation. We've got an election next year, so the Black Caucus can be effective in that regard." A House committee approved the deal Thursday, and the...

John Edwards Speaks Up Don’t crown Hillary yet! Hillary Clinton may be all but declared the 2008 nominee here in New York, but don’t tell John Edwards that. “I think talking about a front-runner four years before an election is ridiculous,” he tells us. Edwards is coming to town this week to give a speech at the New School assailing Bush tax policies, and to visit his daughter, who works at Vanity Fair. Now at the University of North Carolina, his voting finger is clearly itchy. We ran through some talking points. The circus of legislative outrage surrounding Terri Schiavo?...

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS - Democrats and Republicans shouted at each other into an early shutdown of the Senate Thursday in Springfield over State Sen. Dave Luechtefeld's medical malpractice bill. Now, Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, fears the measure will be hopelessly lost in a committee backlog. Senate Bill 150 was postponed in a judiciary committee hearing Tuesday. The measure was never called for discussion, even though several physicians came to Springfield to testify on it. Luechtefeld said he suspected the committee, headed by State Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, was stalling and trying to keep the bill from getting to the Senate floor. When Senate...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Legislators delivered Gov. Matt Blunt the two pillars of his pro-business agenda Wednesday -- passing bills limiting injury claims in the state's courts and workers' compensation system. Business groups reveled in the victory -- the culmination of a three-year effort frustrated in the past by Democratic Gov. Bob Holden but embraced enthusiastically by Missouri's new Republican governor. "At long last!" declared a broadly smiling Dan Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "It truly means that Missouri is open for business again." But labor unions, plaintiffs attorneys and many Democrats predicted injured...

(Columbia) March 3, 2005 - The South Carolina House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of medical malpractice bill. It faces a third reading Friday before heading back to the Senate next week, where similar legislation has already been passed. The Tort Reform Act of 2005 Relating to Medical Malpractice limits the liability on non-economic damages to $350,000 per health care provider or institution up to $1.05 million for each plaintiff. Under the act physicians rendering care in life and death emergency cases and obstetricians who provide care in life and death emergency cases to patients who have had...