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ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

Ashland, Ky. (AP) -- Anti-tobacco lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs has reported to a federal prison in eastern Kentucky. . . .for conspiring to bribe a judge with $50,000.

Prominent attorney Brian Loncar was injured Thursday night when a fire engine collided with his Bentley in the Oak Lawn area, Dallas police said. Mr. Loncar, 47, was transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital. His condition was not immediately available. The accident happened shortly before 7 p.m. as a fire truck responding to an alarm headed northbound on Lemmon Avenue, police said. snip Dallas police Lt. Scott Bratcher said that the accident remains under investigation. But he said the accident will likely be ruled as Mr. Loncar's fault because he "failed to yield right of way to an emergency vehicle."

Oops! To cap off his four-year campaign to win Iowa's Democratic caucus Thursday night, John Edwards planned a 36-hour marathon bus tour through 15 of the crucial state's 99 counties with a whole series of policy announcements to garner publicity and caucus votes. But 12 hours into the political odyssey -- billed as Edwards' "Marathon for the Middle Class" -- his Main Street Express bus began making very disturbing noises in western Iowa. In darkness, the bus with the entire Edwards entourage pulled over at a service station and was abandoned. Oh, the awful symbolism for a political campaign struggling...

Bow, NH—No longer satisfied with having an upbeat tone, John Edwards is ready to draw blood on the campaign trail, flogging any opponent that gets in his way. During his campaign, he plans to punch harder, especially when addressing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, talk show radio host Rush Limbaugh, and big oil. "Hillary continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, and is corrupt," Edwards said. “And if you think I’m going to let an emasculating woman become President of the United States, then you’re out of your mind." Critics say that he...

BOW, N.H. (AP) -- Democrat John Edwards says his experience as a trial lawyer makes him the presidential contender best able to give voters hope — and to give the establishment grief. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has focused his campaign on pledges to change a government system he says is rigged against most voters. "While you shop (for candidates), I hope you will think about two key things: Who can you trust to tell you the truth about what's wrong in Washington, and who can you trust to fight like hell to make it right?" Edwards said...

TITLE: "Health Care." LENGTH: 30 seconds. AIRING: Iowa. SCRIPT: John Edwards: "When I'm president I'm going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my Cabinet: I'm glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009 — in six months — I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you. There's no excuse for politicians in Washington having health care when you don't have health care. I'm John Edwards and I approve...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is getting the endorsement of two unions, the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America, on Labor Day. Edwards is scheduled to be in Pittsburgh, home of the Steelworkers' international headquarters, for a Monday rally and will accept the endorsements there. "The members of the Steelworkers Union and the Mine Workers union are some of the country's hardest-working, bravest, most courageous workers," Edwards said. "It is their tireless hard work which has helped build a stronger America that benefits all of us. I honor what they do every day." The former senator from...

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....

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is moving staff out of Nevada to focus on other early voting states, a reflection of the uncertainty about the prominence of the first Western contest. Two Edwards campaign officials said Wednesday that the Nevada staffers were being relocated to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. They would not disclose how many staffers were being moved, but characterized it as a handful. The Democratic National Committee gave Nevada a new early role in the presidential nominating process for next year, allowing it to schedule its caucus on Jan. 19, between Iowa and...

Aiming to capitalize on a sluggish response from his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, John Edwards is hammering home his opposition to a proposed $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia... the former senator of North Carolina attacked the Saudi arms deal at the outset of his speech to a $15-a-head lunchtime fundraiser at a San Francisco nightclub. A short time later, Mr. Edwards again skewered the proposed arms sale, though no journalist asked about it. "This is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, including creating an arms race in one of the most volatile regions in...

MyDD flags an intense minute and a half from John Edwards in Creston, Iowa, yesterday in which he heatedly tells an audience that the attention to trivia (I assume the reference here is to his haircuts) is "not an accident" and that "they want to shut me up" to silence his message about ending the war and universalizing health care. He warns, in the video segment posted by his campaign, that if we don't beat back these unnamed oligarchs, "They're going to control the media. They're going to control what's being said." He doesn't go into detail about who "they"...

Why does the elegant senator from North Carolina continue his run for the presidency? Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott reports: POOR John Edwards. He follows Barack Obama on the podium at a conference of mostly anti-war Democrats and it's like watching air whistle out of a balloon. Obama, a charismatic candidate for change in the mould of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, has just worked the crowd brilliantly. Then Edwards walks in, a little later than scheduled at the Take Back America conference, thanks to an impromptu grab-and-grip show from Obama. Cameras are being pocketed again and seats resumed for...

Edwards to announce poverty tour Can JRE pull off a JFK, or an RFK (asks Politico chief political writer Mike Allen, who is sharing guestblogging duties while Ben is on vacation)? John Edwards plans to announce Monday that he’ll take a break from fund-raising and campaigning in early-voting states next week for a three-day, eight-state, 12-city “Road to One America” tour aimed at calling attention to poverty in the deep South, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Rust Belt. The campaign points out that none of the states he’ll visit has an early 2008 primary, and says Edwards won’t be...

For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, including Marlon Brando and Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help. The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times. At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign...

Chris Matthews bushwacks Ann Coulter by setting up a call from Elizabeth Edwards during his full hour with Coulter on Hardball last night.Video Here Mrs. Edwards gets owned by Ann Coulter when it is brought up the sleezy tactics that Edwards (A Democrat candidate for President of the United States of America) has used in his profession as an Attorney that exploits doctors and children for his own enrichment.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is bemoaning the growing divide between rich and poor as he returns to the signature theme of "Two Americas" from his unsuccessful 2004 White House bid. Looking to break out from under two leading rivals, Edwards planned to focus on the economic gap that he argues has widened since his last run. "Our tax system has been rewritten by George Bush to favor the wealthy and shift the burden to working families. That is simply wrong," Edwards said, according to text provided by his campaign. "There are still Two Americas." He planned...

This is about a week old now, but if you haven't seen it, watch until the very end when Edwards answers the question "right or privilege?" Here's the full transcript of the "Right or Privilege" portion: Question: A college education? Edwards: Right. Q: Health care? E: Right. Q: A livable wage? E: Right. Q: Owning a handgun? E: Privilege. Q: American citizenship for someone not born here but has worked here for one year? E: Working for one year? That's a hard one, because I think people have to earn citizenship. I think I would have a period be longer...

Democrat John Edwards has eloquently established his credentials as an advocate for the poor with a presidential campaign focused on the devastating effects of poverty in America. But the former North Carolina senator's populist drive has hit a series of troubling land mines: a pair of $400 haircuts, a $500,000 paycheck from a hedge fund, and now a $55,000 payday for a speech on poverty to students at UC Davis. The problem now facing the Democratic presidential candidate is whether the pileup of headlines, including the latest regarding hefty fees from university speeches reported Monday by The Chronicle, threatens to...

Let us say right up front that it's terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity. We're also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator's spokesman, "John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he's had." While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just...

SAN DIEGO -- Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said yesterday raising taxes for higher-income families back to their levels under the Clinton administration is a floor, not a ceiling, and he would consider even higher tax increases. "What I believe is the starting place is to go back to the Clinton levels," Mr. Edwards told reporters after addressing the 2,000 delegates to California's state Democratic Party convention.

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....

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- A lawsuit alleges Wal-Mart sold ammunition to an unstable man accused of fatally shooting another man six hours later in Las Cruces. Kenneth Rauch, 49, of Las Cruces has been charged with first-degree murder in the April 25, 2005, killing of Eusebio Escobedo, 27, of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in state district court, lists the plaintiffs as Escobedo's children, fiancée and estranged wife. Their attorney, Ken Egan of Las Cruces, said Wal-Mart has a policy governing the sale of firearms, including background checks. The lawsuit alleges employees at a Wal-Mart in Las...

MIKE BAKER Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. - Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home - and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor. Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, particularly recalls the time neighbor Monty Johnson brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way off his property. The Edwards family has yet to meet Johnson in person. "I wouldn't be nice to him anyway," Edwards said in an interview. "I don't want my kids anywhere...

RALEIGH -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants the Internal Revenue Service to calculate and complete the income tax returns of up to 50 million Americans annually.In a podcast the campaign will post on its Web site today, Edwards says the U.S. tax code is unnecessarily complicated and full of loopholes that favor the wealthy over the working class.Under his plan, the IRS would gather tax information for 50 million Americans with relatively simple returns. The IRS would calculate their tax bill or refund, and mail a final report to the taxpayer, who would be able to just sign and...

John Edwards: March 13th Bennett College Rally at Bennett College with Presidential Candidate John Edwards, March 13th 2007. Edwards on Skipping Fox News Debate: 'I saw absolutely no reason to give Fox a special platform especially given their history on how they treat Democrats and Democrat Presidential candidates' Edwards on Global Warming: 'This is an emergency' 'It's a frightening thing' 'It'll make world war look like heaven'

Rally at Bennett College with Presidential Candidate John Edwards, March 13th 2007. Edwards on Skipping Fox News Debate: 'I saw absolutely no reason to give Fox a special platform especially given their history on how they treat Democrats and Democrat Presidential candidates' Edwards on Global Warming: 'This is an emergency' 'It's a frightening thing' 'It'll make world war look like heaven'

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was skeptical about voting for the Iraq war resolution and was pushed into it by advisers looking out for his political future, according to an upcoming book by one of his former consultants. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum writes in his memoir to be published in June that he regrets advising Edwards to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. He said if Edwards had followed his instincts instead of the advice of political professionals, he would have been a stronger presidential candidate in 2004. Edwards spokesman David Ginsberg...

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...

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards won't participate in a debate co-hosted by Fox News Channel and the Nevada Democratic Party, his campaign said Wednesday, as party officials tried to settle a dust-up over their partnership with the conservative cable network. Edwards' campaign said Fox News' participation was part of the decision to pass on the Aug. 14 debate in Reno, but it also cited scheduling conflicts. Online activists and bloggers quickly hailed the decision as a victory in their campaign to urge Nevada Democrats to drop Fox News as a partner. MoveOn.org Civic Action says it...

Starting soon.

Self explanatory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AE847UXu3Q

John Edwards Says He's Running for President in 2008 Wednesday, December 27, 2006 E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION WASHINGTON — Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards' campaign says he's running for president for a second time.

First there was John Edwards the book. Now there is John Edwards the movie.Last week, Edwards began posting scenes from the campaign trail on his One America Committee Web site and on YouTube.The camera catches him on planes and in cars, in jeans, and tucking in his shirt as he heads to a teachers' conference in Iowa and a union-sponsored anti-Wal-Mart rally in Pittsburgh."I've come to the conclusion I just want the country to see who I really am -- not based on some plastic Ken Doll you put up in front of audiences."During his 2004 campaign for the vice...

Against the storm-ravaged backdrop of a New Orleans district, John Edwards will this week become the first Democrat heavyweight to announce his 2008 White House run.The declaration by Mr Edwards, a former senator and his party's vice-presidential candidate in 2004, will kick off a season of official announcements in coming weeks by the major contenders for the Democrat and Republican nominations. The choice of New Orleans, where life is barely back to normal 16 months after Hurricane Katrina, is a clear signal that some Democrats will seek to tar rival Republicans with what many see as the Bush administration's inept...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Rep. David Bonior, a one-time leader in Congress who has close ties to labor unions, has signed on to manage a future John Edwards presidential campaign. Edwards hasn't announced a repeat of his 2004 presidential bid yet, but an Edwards adviser said Thursday that Bonior will run the effort if Edwards decides to run. In the meantime, Bonior has signed on as a senior adviser to Edwards' leadership PAC, the One America Committee. Bonior represented Detroit's northern suburbs for 26 years in the House, rising to be the No. 2 Democrat before stepping down in 2002...

A man playing golf at a Lemont, Ill., country club claims he received a concussion from a ball hit by a prominent personal-injury lawyer. Edigio "Gino" Berni claims in a lawsuit filed against Chicago attorney Michael Goldberg he was struck in the temple by a ball hit by the lawyer in August, the Chicago Daily Southtown reported Friday. Berni's attorney, Mario Palermo, said his client saw Goldberg hit the ball, which the suit claims bore the name of the attorney's law firm, Goldberg, Weisman and Cairo. "(Goldberg) has a reputation for helping people like Gino," Palermo said. "He hasn't taken...

A Manhattan lawyer won $310,000 from Starbucks because of a cup of hot decaf spilled on her foot. The jury's verdict was handed down in April and upheld yesterday by State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman. The 42-year-old attorney, Alice Grifffin, says she bought a large decaf on February 10, 2004 from a Starbucks on Seventh Avenue. She says the clerk did not put an insulating sleeve on the cup, and slid the coffee on the counter so it fell on her foot. Griffin testified the hot coffee scalded her toes leaving her with nerve damage to her foot....

Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards said today that the United States should begin pulling troops out of Iraq immediately. Edwards, who may run again for the Democratic presidential nomination, was in Moultonboro (New Hampshire), campaigning for state Senator David Gottesman. Edwards says the U.S. should make it clear to the Iraqis that the Americans are leaving and the best way to do that is to begin removing troops. He called for a complete withdrawal within a year to 18 months. Edwards also said Israel had the right to defend itself against the Hezbollah but said there needs to be...

Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who is considering another run for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Saturday the United States should start pulling troops out of Iraq immediately. The former senator from North Carolina told reporters America should "make it clear (to Iraqis) we are leaving, and the best way is to start leaving. We should take 40,000 combat troops out now." Edwards, who has said he regretted his vote as a U.S. senator authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq, said he would ask the country's military leaders for a strategy "to have the (rest of the) troops out...

A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming that it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators. The lawsuit claims that the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective." "MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online," said Adam Loewy, who is representing the girl and her mother in the lawsuit against MySpace, parent...

Writing on behalf of his One America political action committee, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards sent an email Saturday seeking signatories in an effort to expand the powers of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate President Bush’s role in the strategic leaking of information related to Iraq. In the form letter on Edwards’ site, he writes, "I urge you to extend Mr. Fitzgerald’s charter to include the behavior of the President in this disgraceful affair." The letter to supporters, while unlikely to influence the investigation, signals that Edwards continues to remain active on the political scene, and could...

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is among the top 10 most popular people in national politics -- along with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to a national poll released Monday by Quinnipiac University. Giuliani, a Republican who is considered a possible candidate for president in 2008, edged out U.Obama, D-Ill., U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rice. The Quinnipiac poll asked voters to rate politicians on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher numbers representing more favorable opinions. Giuliani's mean score was 63.5, according to...

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.We might also add, it was the same information that you were hearing from the same sources the President had. We might also add that the British Intelligence, French Intelligence, Russian Intelligence, Italian Intelligence, and Israeli Intelligence all believed exactly the same...

John Edwards says the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina underscores the "two Americas" theme of his presidential campaign last year. "We see the poor and working class of New Orleans who don't own a car and couldn't evacuate to hotels or families far from the target of Katrina," Edwards said in e-mail messages to supporters Friday "We see the suffering of families who lived from paycheck to paycheck and who followed the advice of officials and went to shelters at the Civic Center or the Superdome or stayed home to protect their possessions." Edwards added, "We have been too slow to...

BELLEVILLE -- Dr. Donald I. Serot, one of the metro-east's busiest and most celebrated orthopedic surgeons, will officially hang up his scalpel Aug. 31. Serot, 58, made the decision to retire less than two weeks ago, catching colleagues at Memorial Hospital, as well as hundreds of patients, by surprise. The driving factor, Serot said, was his realization he needed to spend more time with his family, especially his wife Geri, who is suffering from a "debilitating" illness. "My wife has some significant health problems. She cannot drive anymore," said Serot, who lives in suburban St. Louis. "I love my job,...

Democrats Joseph Biden and John Edwards are criticizing party chairman Howard Dean, saying his rhetorical attacks on Republicans have gone too far. Dean has said Republicans never made an honest living in their lives and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence. DeLay has not been accused of any crime. Dean ''doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats,'' Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on ABC's ''This Week.'' While discussing...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A man who lost part of his finger in a workplace accident was the source of the fingertip used in an alleged scam against Wendy's restaurants, and gave it away to settle a debt, his mother said. "My son is the victim in this," Brenda Shouey said in an interview published in Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle. "I believe he got caught in something, and he didn't understand what was going on." Anna Ayala, 39, was arrested April 21 at her Las Vegas home on suspicion of attempted grand theft for allegedly costing Wendy's millions of dollars...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The finger that a woman claimed she found in a bowl of Wendy's chili was severed in the tailgate of a truck during a work accident, an employee of an asphalt company said. Pat Hogue, an estimator with a Las Vegas asphalt maintenance company, told the San Francisco Chronicle for a story in Sunday's editions that a man he was working with lost the tip of his finger on a job five months ago. Both men were working with James Plascencia, the husband of Anna Ayala - the Las Vegas woman who claimed she found the...