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A House panel on Tuesday found Representative Charles B. Rangel guilty of 11 counts of ethical violations, ruling that his failure to pay taxes, improper solicitation of fund-raising donations and failure to accurately report his personal income had brought dishonor on the House. After a public hearing Monday that was truncated by Mr. Rangel walking out in protest, an adjudicatory subcommittee of the House ethics committee deliberated for four hours before finding him guilty of all but one of the 13 counts against him. (Two other counts, involving Mr. Rangel’s misuse of House franking privileges, were merged into one.)

...Prosecutors contend that the former House majority leader used his PAC to illegally funnel $190,000 in corporate donations into Texas legislative races eight years ago. DeLay, who was spending Election Day in court, is charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He has denied any wrongdoing. If convicted, Delay could face up to life in prison... Ceverha said corporate funds had been gathered to pay for the PAC's administrative costs and not for candidates. ...The money helped Republicans in 2002 take control of the Texas House. That majority allowed Republicans to push through a congressional redistricting plan...

Most voters think Congress’s ethics have gotten worse in the past two years, according to a new poll in key battleg

Many political observers were stunned by the new Gallup poll showing the Republican party with a 10-point advantage in the so-called "generic ballot" question. Now we have a better idea how that happened. According to new, more detailed Gallup numbers, Democratic advantages on issues like health care, the economy, and handling corruption in government have simply disappeared. Democratic leads that were enormous when the party took control of Congress in 2006 have dwindled to nothing or have now become Republican advantages. The most striking example is in health care. Back in October 2006, just before Democrats won control of Congress,...

AUSTIN — Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Monday put the 5-year-old federal investigation into his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff behind him and turned his attention to an impending trial on Texas ethics issues. DeLay said federal prosecutors told his attorneys last week that he had been "cleared" of any criminal violations in their investigation of Abramoff. The formerRepublican lawmaker, who represented Sugar Land from 1984 to 2006, also said he is ready for up to three days of pre-trial hearings slated to start Aug. 24 in Austin on a state money-laundering charge related to campaign...

A Democratic congressional candidate has told police he was assaulted near downtown Spokane after making sexual advances to another man. David R. Fox, who moved to Spokane from Port Angeles recently to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, told police he wasn't injured in Sunday's altercation. But he is pressing charges against the man. Fox is one of four Democrats in the Aug. 17 primary. The attorney entered the race at the last minute and has no known campaign office or website. He could not be reached for comment.

A House ethics report charges that Rep. Charles Rangel, an iconic New York powerbroker, broke the chamber's rules by abusing his office for personal gain, raising the possibility that he could be punished by — or even expelled from — the House. The panel's "statement of alleged violations" reports that there is "substantial reason to believe" that the 40-year House veteran violated a series of 13 ethics and federal regulations on public officials. "We must regain the public's trust," Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the lead Republican on the ethics subcommittee "jury" hearing the case. " The headliner allegations are that...

Congress: Charlie Rangel's world The AP takes a long look at the personal side of Charlie Rangel and his relationship with other members of Congress: "His wife, Alma, warns him not to be naive about the glad-handling. 'You know,' she tells him, 'they're putting you on.' ... 'She says it's unseemly,' Rangel says of his wife's advice. 'I say, 'Suppose it's not real. As long as they keep saying these things until I die, what difference does it make?' But he admits, 'It's still painful. It's times like this when I have to reinforce the facts: I'm alive, I'm well,...

BIDEN: "I think Americans will recognize that there aren’t body counts . . .that they got 95,000 people home." Vice President Joe, Joey Buttafuoco, "Bite-me", Biden says there are no body counts from the Iraq war! We all know he's an idiot, but this one perhaps takes the cake. WTH is he talking about? Remember all the Bush Death Counts the left kept when it was Bush's war?... Hey Joey, there are indeed body counts. There are thousands of lives that have been lost, and many more that have been changed forever due to the sacrifices those in our military...

Republicans were fired from their control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the election of 2006 for a number of reasons. Spending too much generally was one of them. Bloating appropriations bills with "earmarks" to reward friends and supporters was another. Iraq was certainly a major contributing factor. But, what weighed House Republicans down like an anchor around their collective necks was: Scandal. Duke Cunningham's written menu of acceptable bribe amounts. Jack Abramoff buying Members and staff like heads of romaine lettuce at Whole Foods. And the father of all the scandals, Mark Foley. I won't regurgitate the whole...

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Tex.) will be back in the spotlight this fall, but not because of political involvement. The conservative Texan will be a contestant on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars." ABC announced this season's cast today on Good Morning America. DeLay will join the likes of singer Macy Gray, former supermodel Kathy Ireland, former NFL star Michael Irvin, and Donny Osmond. This should be….weird.

Is Congressman Murtha About To Become the New Tom DeLay? By Bill Pascoe | May 13, 2009 9:13 AM Is Rep. John P. "The P is for Power" Murtha about to become the new Tom DeLay? He will if Rep. Pete Sessions and the National Republican Congressional Committee have anything to say about it. DeLay, of course, became the face of Republican congressional corruption in the 2006 cycle. Though DeLay himself has never been convicted of anything -- and continues to maintain his innocence as federal and state prosecutions against him move forward at a glacial pace -- several...

Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans? Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the...

By staying in office, Portland Mayor Sam Adams puts the city's interests well below his political ambitions Portland Mayor Sam Adams decided on Sunday to ride out his self-created debacle and remain in office, despite a looming investigation about possible sexual misconduct and abuse of power. He made his choice known in a manner befitting the occasion, by phoning a half-asleep city commissioner and leaving voice mails for two others. Adams doesn't get the final say, however. The community will decide his political fate, preferably through a recall election. The newly seated mayor admitted last week to lying repeatedly about...

You'd think, listening to Portland Mayor Sam Adams' apologies for his poor judgment in having sex with a teenager, that the whole thing was a passing mistake. A misjudgment, maybe, covered up by a pro forma lie in the heat of a campaign. When pressed, Adams on Monday reversed that long-standing lie about his 2005 relationship with a young man named Beau Breedlove and admitted that it was sexual, not platonic or mentoring. Adams apologized Tuesday for lying and for pressuring Breedlove into lying, too, when the rumors about them first arose in 2007, early in the mayoral campaign. Adams...

On Monday, NewsBusters wondered how much coverage the sex scandal involving Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fl.) -- the Democrat Congressman who in 2006 won the seat previously held by the disgraced Mark Foley -- would get. Early indications suggest that as far as the television news outlets are concerned, the answer is "not much." In fact, though all three broadcast network evening news programs covered the Foley sex scandal when it was first revealed on September 29, 2006, not one of them felt that the man who replaced him admitting to having an affair with a former campaign staffer was at...

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress Tim Mahoney Elected to Remove 'Ethical Cloud' of His Disgraced Predecessor, Mark Foley By EMMA SCHWARTZ, RHONDA SCHWARTZ, and VIC WALTER Oct. 13, 2008— West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen,...

Have you seen this delicious little quote from Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Paul Jankorski? Why it would seem that Mr. Jankorski is admitting that the Democrats lied about what was going on in Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections? Here's his quote: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we ... the Democrats ... that if we won the Congressional elections we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. "But you know ... the temptation to want to win back the Congress ......