Free Republic

Election 2010: The back-to-back Senate retirements of Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd may be just the beginning. The people have seen the future of health care reform and found it doesn't work. Apres moi, le deluge. We don't know what the Mayan calendar says about 2010, but it's starting to look like the end of the world for Democratic electoral prospects. Americans who watched in shock as government tried to step between them and their doctors, may have the last laugh. The tea party isn't over until the angry mob votes. As rage grew over the attempt to nationalize one-sixth...

Politics: Sen. Mary Landrieu was the new "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up his state's future Medicaid tab. Maybe we should just put Senate votes up on eBay. Nelson, the 60th vote in the middle-of-the-night Senate party line vote on health care reform, will go down in American political history as the inventor of the permanent earmark. His seemingly principled stand against including federal funding for abortion evaporated like the morning dew as he decided to take what was behind door No. 1. The deal for Nelson includes special Medicaid funding for Nebraska, along...

Homeland Security: Provisions of the law that spared New York another 9/11 are set to expire Dec. 31. So why do Democrats want to gut this law and remove the immunity telecom companies have for helping protect America? To borrow a British expression from World War II, it was a very near thing. The capture, arrest and indictment of 24-year-old Afghan immigrant Najubullah Zazi before he could set off bombs made from store-bought chemicals prevented a tragedy of potentially devastating proportions. It wouldn't have happened if the critics of Patriot Act had their way. The capture of Zazi was made...

Senate Smackdown: McMahon Running Against Dodd Chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. says she's seeking the Republican nomination to run against Dodd. AP Wednesday, September 16, 2009

As the old Irish toast goes, may your sins be judged by the Senate ethics committee. Actually that's not an Irish toast but it must be the fervent hope of every politician who received a "Friend of Angelo" loan from former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. Late last week the six Senators on the ethics panel dismissed complaints against Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd with a mere admonishment about the appearance of impropriety. The three Republican and three Democratic Senators say they conducted an exhaustive probe and inspected 18,000 pages of documents. They say they found "no substantial credible...

Boiled down, the Friends of Chris say it's OK for Chris to be a Friend of Angelo. Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd is claiming vindication now that the Senate Ethics Committee has said he didn't violate the Senate ethics code when he accepted sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Financial in 2003. Central to this Dodd scandal is that while he was being greased as a Friend of Angelo, he wielded coercive power over Countrywide as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which he now chairs. The Ethics Committee, six men and women who belong to the same exclusive go-along-to-get-along club as...

In the political surprise of the summer, Chris Dodd—cleared in the Countrywide scandal and fresh from cancer surgery—is on the verge of saving his career. An exclusive interview with Lloyd Grove. Ailing Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, who underwent successful prostate surgery Tuesday at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, appears to be on the mend politically as well. In what might be the political surprise of the summer, Dodd is on the verge of saving his career. “I think so—we’re getting them back,” the 65-year-old Dodd told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview the night before he went under...

POLITICO Breaking News: ----------------------------------------------------- Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has told the Hartford Courant that he has early-stage prostate cancer. For more information...http://www.politico.com

News conference 2PM Eastern.

TWO cut-rate mortgages from failed subprime giant Countrywide Financial continue to cost Sen. Christopher Dodd, shredding the Connecticut Democrat's credibility as he faces re-election next fall. This week, news of the secretive Senate Ethics Committee investigation into Dodd's unusual mortgage deals leaked to The Associated Press. AP reported that at least one witness, Robert Feinberg, starkly contradicted Dodd's account of what favors he knew he was getting from a company that, as a member of the Banking Committee, he helps regulate

Corruption: Chris Dodd's teetering re-election chances weren't helped by news that the senator may have lied about not knowing he got preferential treatment as one of Countrywide Financial's Friends of Angelo program.Can you foreclose on a house of cards? Dodd, D-Conn., may soon find out after the official who handled his mortgages testified before both the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the Senate Ethics Committee that Dodd did in fact know he got sweetheart deals from a company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. As the No. 1 recipient of...