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BUT WILL THEY RESPECT HIM IN THE MORNING?July 23, 2008 Back before the Republican Party was saddled with John McCain as its nominee, The New York Times called him "the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe." The paper praised him for "working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation" and predicted that he would appeal to "a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field." At the same time, the Times denounced "the real" Rudy Giuliani as "a narrow, obsessively secretive,...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city's gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes. The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes. However, Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs told City Council members just hours before that host committee members were fueling up at the city pumps. The city does not...

Rep. Rangel Files Ethics Charges Against Himself Wednesday, July 23, 2008 WASHINGTON — House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., filed an ethics complaint against himself Wednesday with the House Ethics Committee. The move is believed to be unprecedented. The Washington Post recently ran articles and an editorial raising questions about Rangel's potential involvement in raising money for an academic center named in his honor at City College of New York.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

THE brainy English teacher who became the central figure in the quiz-show scandals of the late 1950s has broken his silence. Charles Van Doren, 82, is finally telling his side of the story in a first-person account published in this week's New Yorker magazine, which came out yesterday. Van Doren - who lives in Connecticut with his wife of 50 years and still teaches college-level English (most recently at the University of Connecticut in Torrington) - said he decided to go public with his version of the "Twenty-One" quiz-show story for the sake of his grandchildren. The New Yorker story...

LOS ANGELES - Local water director Xavier Alvarez was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $5,000 in federal court Monday morning for falsely claiming he was awarded the Medal of Honor. MP3 Audio: Alvarez Medal of Honor claimBefore he was sentenced, Alvarez told Judge R. Gary Klausner that he was "very remorseful" for his false claims of military valor. "I'd like to apologize to everyone in this whole nation," said Alvarez, who represents south Pomona Xavier Alvarez. (Staff photo) on the Three Valleys Municipal Water District board. As part of Alvarez's terms of probation, the court recommended he perform...

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia announced Monday that it has charged former CBS 3 anchor Larry Mendte with a felony count of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization. The government's case against Mendte, 51, is set out in an "Information" – the formal charging document. The Information charges Mendte with one count of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization and thereby obtaining information in furtherance of a tortious act. The Information says Mendte accessed the private e-mail accounts of former co-anchor Alycia Lane hundreds of times from from his Chestnut Hill home, his vacation home, KYW and...

The FBI is investigating state Sen. Don Perata's role in the hiring of a Washington lobbyist to push for a road project sought by a major Perata contributor, documents show. At the urging of the powerful Oakland Democrat, local agencies in 2000 hired former Georgia congressman Dawson Mathis to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration regarding a multimillion-dollar expressway that today links Oakland International Airport with the Harbor Bay Business Park in Alameda. The park's developer, Ron Cowan, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Perata and other politicians, and for years he had sought this access road. Mathis' hiring...

With scant weeks to go before the curtain rises on the $41 million Democratic National Convention in Denver, planners find themselves millions in the hole. It's not difficult to see why. Renovating the convention hall at the Pepsi Center already has cost $6 million more than they budgeted, and the work is far from done. In renting offices, the party took top-shelf space in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to discover it needed only half the space, and then filled the offices with rented furniture costing $50,000 a month. A small fortune was spent to make this a...

HARRISBURG -- As the pivotal 2006 legislative election season began, top Democratic House aides, using state resources, undertook a wide-ranging opposition research campaign into both Democratic and Republican office seekers, e-mails show. The project was spearheaded by Eric Webb, director of the Democratic Office of Member Services, who, on Jan. 31, sent e-mails to state employees advising them to begin digging up information on 35 declared and potential candidates for the state House. "We are mainly looking for bad things: liens, bankruptcies, homicides ... you get the picture," Mr. Webb advised a dozen House colleagues via their state e-mail accounts....

NASHVILLE -- A federal court jury convicted former state senator John Ford of all six charges in connection with his $850,000 in consulting work for two major TennCare contractors. Ford, 66, is already serving a 5 1/2 year sentence for a separate conviction on federal bribery charges in Memphis. He faces up to 20 years in the Nashville case but sentencing will not occur for several weeks, possibly months. The middle Tennessee jury deliberated a total of eight hours -- six on Thursday -- before returning to the courtroom where it sat since the trial began on July 1. The...

In one of Senate candidate Al Franken’s literary efforts titled “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot,” he reveals his personal feelings about a topic important to many Minnesotans. In Chapter 12 of his book, I learned that candidate Franken is against private ownership of guns due to his belief that firearms in the home are “too dangerous.” I believe these views are more consistent with California or New York, where Mr. Franken still maintains corporate interests. His problem is Minnesota has always been a pro-gun state. Remember, a bipartisan majority passed “conceal and carry.” I called the National Rifle...

Two former officials with the Houston Police Officers' Union -- one a police officer, the other a recently retired officer -- were indicted this morning on charges accusing them of stealing more than $100,000 from the union. A Harris County grand jury indicted ex-board secretary Ronny Martin on charges of misapplication of fiduciary property and theft by a public servant. Former board treasurer Jeff Larson is charged with misapplication of fiduciary property. All of the charges allege that $100,000 to $200,000 was taken. Both men were relieved of duty in mid-January in the midst of an investigation, police union officials...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks. An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store. However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department's response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks. Garvin is accused of saying, "If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we...

San Francisco community organizer Julie Lee, whose questionable fundraising helped push former California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley out of politics, has pled guilty to state criminal charges just days after a jury found her guilty on federal charges. Lee, 62, pleaded guilty to all nine counts brought against her in state court, including grand theft, embezzlement and forgery. The charges relate to an alleged scheme to funnel part of a $500,000 state grant intended for a community center into Shelley's 2002 election campaign. The community center was never built.In a statement released today, The San Francisco District Attorney's office...

The most recent E-mail we received from the Obama campaign seems to contain the three elements that constitute a lottery. (Not legal advice, we are not attorneys.) 1. Payment of consideration (a donation of any size to the Obama campaign, with $25.00 being recommended) 2. An element of chance (lucky winners will be picked to meet with Obama in person) 3. A prize (a personal meeting with Barack Obama) WorldNetDaily reports (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69150), in fact, that the Obama campaign previously modified its donation Web page to remove the need to send any money because of exactly this issue but today, July...

Those ever-vigilant, ever-principled, non-partisan politicos known as Democrats were caught with their hands in the cookie jar in Pennsylvania. Twelve of them, to be exact. Philly Daily News: A SORDID TANGLE of corruption, cash and sex rocked the Statehouse yesterday in a political scandal that left one current and one former legislator and 10 current and former staff members facing criminal charges. Among the accusations leveled by two state grand juries: Former top legislative staffer Mike Manzo got his lover, a twenty-something former rural beauty queen, a $29,000 job and $7,000 bonus mostly for doing her schoolwork. State Attorney General...

A SORDID TANGLE of corruption, cash and sex rocked the Statehouse yesterday in a political scandal that left one current and one former legislator and 10 current and former staff members facing criminal charges. Among the accusations leveled by two state grand juries: Former top legislative staffer Mike Manzo got his lover, a twenty-something former rural beauty queen, a $29,000 job and $7,000 bonus mostly for doing her schoolwork. State Attorney General Tom Corbett announced the charges against the 12, all Democrats, in a news conference in Harrisburg. "It's a very sad day in Pennsylvania," Corbett said. The long-running investigation...

HARRISBURG -- Grand jurors here and in Pittsburgh cataloged what they described as a culture of corruption that allowed former state Rep. Michael Veon, current Rep. Sean Ramaley and 10 current and former Democratic staffers to divert millions of dollars in state resources, including more than $1 million in illegal pay bonuses. The jurors said Mr. Veon and the staff members conspired to arrange hefty year-end pay bonuses to House employees who worked on political campaigns over a three-year period, while Mr. Ramaley is accused of working full-time on his 2004 House campaign in Beaver County while drawing a taxpayer...

NEW YORK -- A Dutchess County special education teacher has been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old disabled student. Teacher Mandi Weeks, 27, was arrested on Monday in Queens. She admitted to having sex with her student at the Devereux Foundation NY Center for the past month, according to police. Weeks is being charged with two counts of rape with a child under the age of 21 and two acts of acting in a manner to injure a child under the age of 17. The student was in the school’s residential program and lived on campus. He had been...

The defense's case in the Sacramento trial of San Francisco political power broker Julie Lee was short and sensational Wednesday. The only witness called was Willie Brown, an icon of California politics, Assembly speaker longer than any other person and two-term mayor of San Francisco. Brown, nattily dressed as always in a gray suit and dark shirt and tie, had high praise for Lee as a grass-roots activist who shared his goal while mayor to build a community center for families and youths in the heavily Chinese American Sunset district on the city's west side. "It was something that everybody...

SPRINGFIELD -- The Greene County sheriff fired a correctional officer who was charged this week with misusing his position for personal gain. A detective says Steven Donovan used a computer system that he didn't have clearance to use -- to clear his name. Donovan is charged with misuse of official information by a public servant. That’s a misdemeanor that could get him up to a year in a county jail if he’s convicted or pleads guilty. The detective says Donovan admits he cleared a warrant for his own arrest from Phelps County on a statewide computer system known as MULES...

Tenn. won't reinstate Ophelia Ford's expired funeral permit

NASHVILLE -- Then-state senator John Ford filed state-required financial interest disclosure forms yearly for 2001 through 2004 without listing any consulting work or income -- and then sought to amend them in 2005 after media reports began surfacing about his consulting income and a formal ethics complaint had been lodged against him, according to testimony today in his federal court trial here. Earlier testimony has indicated that the consulting firm in which Ford was a 40 percent partner received about $1.2 million from a TennCare dental services provider during that time. But under questioning by prosecutors, Senate Chief Clerk Russell...

Chowdhury Got Angry When Garage Door Didn't Open Quickly. A state legislative candidate from Jefferson County accused of slapping and choking his 16-year-old daughter pleaded guilty Tuesday to third-degree assault. Vince Chowdhury, 48, got angry when his wife and daughter didn't open the garage door quickly enough when he honked his car horn in their driveway on June 17, according to an arrest affidavit. The document said Chowdhury, a Jefferson County school board member, sat in the driveway several minutes honking his horn. His wife and daughter apologized for making him wait but he thought the apology insincere so he...

Warning: The following contains extreme vulgarity by a candidate for the United States Senate. In the nationally important Senate race in Minnesota, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is presented with a unique political problem. Should he raise in his ads the issue of comedian Al Franken's offensive vulgarity? Or would this risk a backlash against Coleman for coarsening the public conversation? Remember that when Ken Starr detailed Bill Clinton's most repulsive antics -- stained dresses and such -- it was Starr who was accused of sexual obsessiveness. Franken's defenders explain that his edginess is the result of being a "satirist" --...

How does the pro-terrorist group Code Pink infiltrate closed events where the U.S. Secret Service is in charge of security? One way is with fake press credentials made by a diarist at the Daily Kos.Code Pink has made a habit of infiltrating events and getting close to officials under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service.Yesterday Code Pink member Desiree Farooz rushed the stage and came dangerously close to President Bush at Monticello. The weekend before she rushed John McCain. Last fall she got close enough to Condoleeza Rice to place her hands around the Secrtary of State's head.At the...

Barack Obama's campaign changed the rules of a highly publicized fundraiser Tuesday, after gambling regulators said the contest — a chance at one of 10 trips to the Democratic National Convention — was an illegal lottery. "We are happy to have resolved this issue working closely with state officials," said Nick Kimball, spokesman for the Obama campaign ... A spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State said Democrats would have to get a license if they were conducting "a standard raffle where they're buying tickets" in order to win. But under the new rules, supporters don't have to donate money...

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category. Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008. The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13%...

SODUS, NY--According to several police officers who wish to remain anonymous, it has become an unwritten policy of the Wayne County Sheriff's Office to not report illegal aliens to the U.S. Border Patrol when they are taken into custody. On April 27th of this year, Juan Casarubia-Rendon, age 24, was stopped by Wayne County Sheriff's Deputies for numerous traffic violations. He was found to be highly intoxicated, with a blood alcohol level of .32%, four times the State threshold for vehicle operation. Juan had no license and no vehicle insurance, something that would have normally called for an arraignment for...

For the first time in recent years Cameron County's Democratic Party may not have a candidate on the ballot for a constable's race in the November general election. Precinct 1 Constable Saul P. Ochoa was to represent the party in the election, but after pleading guilty last month to a charge of distributing marijuana, it knocks him out of the race. The Democratic Party has until Aug. 26 to nominate another candidate in his place. However, with Ochoa's sentencing on the drug charge not scheduled until Sept. 22, this leaves the party without a candidate in this election. "I don't...

A Hillsborough sheriff's deputy who said he had always wanted to spend his life in law enforcement used a Taser on his wife then held his service pistol to her head before he was arrested and held for mental evaluation, deputies say. Carlos Thomas Tanner, 38, a 10-year veteran of the sheriff's office, was arrested at his Dover home about 1:45 a.m. Monday. He is charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor battery-domestic violence. Tanner was taken in under the state's Baker Act because he threatened to harm himself if he were arrested, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie...

It's "her time" to get into the family business. Caroline Kennedy's high-profile appointment to Barack Obama's vice-presidential search team was orchestrated in a deal brokered by her famous uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, in exchange for his endorsement, The Post has learned. It was the result of Carolina, a 50-year-old Harvard grad, indicating to her now-ailing uncle that it was "her time" to get into politics, insiders told The Post. JFK's daughter is looking to get her feet wet in political affairs, sources said, including the possibility she could one day run for office in some capacity or accept a...

Feds not yet ready to call probe finished - The long-running undercover FBI investigation known as Tennessee Waltz resulted in trials that took up much of the last few years. While the last convicted official recently began serving time, others already have been released or finished their probation. Former state senator John Ford, who has the longest sentence, is not expected to be released until 2013. Spawned from a 2002 low-level scandal in the Shelby County Juvenile Court Clerk's office, the case snowballed into a statewide public corruption probe that eventually led to criminal charges filed against a dozen elected...

Richard Blumenthal and Susan Bysiewicz marched to the VA, ready to break the door down to rescue veterans like Mike Onieal — but found out they may not have needed such a dramatic rescue. The event had all the makings of a perfect photo op: Two of Connecticut’s top Democrats defy President Bush, slam an unconstitutional policy statement and come to the aid of deprived veterans who sacrificed their limbs in the war only to be stripped of their basic rights. The VA, it turns out, does have a voting access problem, but not the one that the top Dems...

Californians will get a chance to make history this November, an opportunity to seize control of their government from the politicians, handlers and consultants who have rigged the game to serve their own interests. Proposition 11 would take from the Legislature its power to draw political boundaries and give that job to an independent bipartisan commission that would operate under strict guidelines designed to ensure fairness for all parties and protect the rights of minorities. The process now allows the politicians to choose their voters by drawing district lines almost guaranteed to preserve the jobs of incumbents and freeze in...

San Francisco -- Saying enough is enough, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums fired embattled City Administrator Deborah Edgerly on Tuesday, four days after he put her on paid leave amid allegations that she may have interfered in a police investigation involving her nephew. Dellums sent out a letter informing the City Council of his decision and another letter via messenger to Edgerly's home. "Basically he just had enough of the situation," said one City Hall source close to the situation. "He felt that he has no other choice." The last straw was a letter Edgerly sent Monday to the mayor, informing...

DURHAM, N.C., July 1 (UPI) -- A Durham, N.C., Democratic official and her husband face criminal charges in connection with alleged satanic rituals. Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting. Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for incidents in January and May, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Tuesday. Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney ...acknowledged that "part of the allegations are...

Satanic Ritual Sex Crime Leads to Arrest of North Carolina Democratic Activist... "She seemed to be a very open, reasonable, responsible person, but certainly, the allegations that have been made are shocking to everybody who has known her."

Sweetheart mortgage loans to Senators are much in the news of late, with calls for increased scrutiny of the solons' dealings with their mortgage lenders. In this spirit, I took a look at some of the publicly available information on Senator and Mrs. Obama's mortgage, obtained in 2005 when they purchased their mansion in Chicago's upscale Hyde Park district. The Obamas purchased their home with the help of his friend Tony Rezko, recently convicted of a felony. His wife Rita purchased the adjoining lot, the former side yard of the mansion, to seal the deal. According to the mortgage documents...

Republicans are saying Democratic strategist Paul Begala went “over the line” when, in a fundraising appeal, he called the attendees of a GOP fundraiser “dirtbags.” Begala, who worked for Bill Clinton in the White House, discussed the annual Republican President’s Dinner in an e-mail to supporters that seeks to raise funds for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “You should have seen the joint: wall to wall fat-cats. The limos were lined up around the block. If you’d stood in the middle of the ballroom and yelled, ‘Hey dirtbag!’ a thousand necks would have snapped around,” Begala wrote. The strategist...

State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma appears to have a very special interest in some special-interest legislation making the rounds both in Sacramento and in her hometown of San Francisco. At issue: legislation custom-tailored to give an outfit called Current Grid LLC a leg up in the emerging $5 billion energy-saving industry in California. Current Grid is an affiliate of the Current Group of Maryland, whose investors include Google, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Hearst Corp., which owns The Chronicle. Current Grid sells so-called smart meters - sophisticated electric meters for homes and businesses that allow utility companies to instantly monitor power...

SAN JUAN -- A Mission police officer has been suspended indefinitely after a Saturday morning arrest for allegedly driving an unmarked police car while drunk, officials said. This is at least the third arrest on suspicion of driving while intoxicated for Officer Martin Flores Villarreal, 40, of Mission, and at least his second while driving an unmarked Mission police car, according to court records and Trooper Johnny Hernandez, a local spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The first two charges, in 2004 and 2006, were both dismissed, court records indicate. Villarreal is suspended from the department indefinitely and...

He is incredibly compassionate.He is incredibly reticent when faced with making decisions. And as a result, his handling of the Deborah Edgerly affair was an incredible disaster.That's pretty much how Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' aides, past aides, city department heads, politicos and longtime friends explained his apparent inability to deal with Edgerly after it came to light that the city administrator had possibly injected herself into a police investigation of her nephew."You have to understand, he's never fired anyone - that's not his style," said one friend who has worked with Dellums since his days as a congressman. "He always...

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums put embattled City Administrator Deborah Edgerly on paid leave Friday amid growing criticism that he allowed her to work in City Hall while she was the subject of a law enforcement investigation. Edgerly, 56, agreed Tuesday to retire July 31. But her refusal to relinquish her authority over the Police Department, which is investigating her possible interference in a crackdown on a violent Oakland street gang, prompted outrage from city leaders and residents. On Friday afternoon, Dellums decided that she had to go after at least three members of the City Council fired off angry letters...

NEW YORK TIMES: "About that Mortgage, Senator . . ." It turns out that the chieftain of Countrywide -- which is smack in the middle of the mortgage mess -- extended privileged borrowing status to two Senators, Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota. Both Senators deny any ethical violations.   The disclosure of the V.I.P. arrangments by the political website Politico.com left constituents angry and suspicious -- particularly because the revelations came just as Congress was rousing itself to do something about the mortgage foreclosure crisis.   It would be nice to think that...

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has shown little in the way of leadership since taking office in 2007, but at least he could follow the advice of the experts he has surrounded himself with. He didn't even do that much this week when he ignored their recommendations to remove City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, who is under investigation for possibly intervening in a police probe of a violent street gang. Against the better wisdom of his own staff and legal advice from the city attorney's office, Dellums chose to allow Edgerly, 56, to work in City Hall for another month until her...

NY-24: Arcuri Tied to Spitzer Prostitution Scandal Former Fundraiser Under Federal Investigation By Bluey Posted in Congress | Freshman Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.) paid $44,000 to a political consultant who is under federal investigation as part of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. The story first broke on a blog in Arcuri's hometown of Utica, N.Y., and is now leading the news in the Upstate New York city.

Clout and corruption scandals that have plagued Chicago and Illinois politics in recent years have not laid a glove on Barack Obama, he told reporters here Wednesday. "You will recall that for my entire political career here, I was not the the endorsed candidate of any political organization here," the Democratic presidential hopeful said at the Westin Hotel downtown. "I didn't go around wielding a bunch of clout. My reputation in Springfield was as an independent. There is no doubt I had friends and continue to have friends who come out of the more traditional school of Chicago politics but...

ABC News has learned that on a conference call with his national finance team this afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, asked his top contributors to help Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, retire her more than $10 million in outstanding vendor debt. He did not specify an amount. Clinton's debt has been a major point of contention as the two former rivals attempt to reconcile. Clinton will appear at an Obama fundraiser Thursday night in Washington, D.C., and the two will campaign together in Unity, NH, on Friday.