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WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has decided on Eric Holder to be attorney general, Newsweek said Tuesday, citing two legal sources close to Obama's transition team.

The indictment of a Brooklyn assemblywoman, Diane Gordon, on bribery charges yesterday makes her the seventh member of the 80-person New York City delegation in Albany to face charges from prosecutors in the past three years. It's prompting some watchdogs to call for more policing of state lawmakers, who appear more likely than members of the general population to be criminals — or at least to be caught.

The other day when I was watching various DUmbocrat senators whining about the right wing taking down the Harriet Miers confirmation, something HIT ME!I can't EVER recall hearing anyone in the media referring to DUmmies like Kennedy, Durbin, Leahy, Reid, or any other DUmbocrat as a left winger! On the other hand, I ALWAYS hear right wing this and right wing that!I was just wondering if ANYONE here has ever heard the media call any Dem left wing? Maybe my ears have a left wing filter on them after years of being damaged by their CONSTANT BS!

As of 5:00 PM tonight, Rossi has gained 32 votes statewide in the hand recount. 36 counties have completed their 2nd recount. Rossi’s lead now stands at 74 votes. Rossi loses 44 in Snohomish. Only Spokane, Pierce and King left to count. Republicans to file suit in Pierce County asking for a temporary restraining order that will stop King County from processing or counting the 573 newly found disputed ballots. From the WSRP News Room: Chaos in King County: Elections Dept. changes its own rules to benefit GregoireSeattle, WA – Today the King County Elections Department continued its march toward...

King County's elections director conceded yesterday that major mistakes in the count of the governor's race have made voters suspicious and likely weakened some of what he's tried to do since coming in after the division's last poor showing. "I do think that this situation has shaken voter confidence in King County," Dean Logan said in an interview. "And that's disheartening to me because I think that not just myself, but organizationally, we've just worked extremely hard to rebuild that level of trust. "I just feel awful about that situation." Logan has been at the center of controversy through the...

SEATTLE (Dec. 15) - The King County Canvassing Board decided Wednesday to begin the process of verifying 573 newly discovered absentee ballots that could change the outcome of Washington's extremely close race for governor. The board has yet to decide whether any of those ballots will be counted, but its move was a victory for Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire, who trailed Republican Dino Rossi by 42 votes after a machine recount. King County, which includes Seattle, is a Democratic stronghold that is expected to be the last of the state's 39 counties to complete a hand recount of all ballots....

Iraq has protested against UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's decision to use $US30 million ($A38.2 million) in revenue from a UN oil-for-food program for Iraq to help pay for a corruption investigation in that humanitarian program. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Iraq's UN Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie argued that Security Council resolutions do not support the use of money from the oil-for-food program "for an investigation into the internal practices of the United Nations in carrying out its duties". "My government believes that the use of such funds has no legal basis," he said in a letter dated November...

Head of U.N. Program in Iraq Accused of Improperly Accepting Purchasing Rights. UNITED NATIONS -- Benon Sevan, the official accused of improperly receiving lucrative rights to purchase oil from Saddam Hussein's government while he was running the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, discouraged his staff from probing allegations of corruption and helped block efforts by the U.N. anti-corruption unit to assess where the program was vulnerable to abuse, according to senior U.N. officials. Sevan said that such an assessment would prove too costly and that U.N. member governments bore primary responsibility for policing the program, according to senior U.N. officials...