Election 2014- A Red Tsunami From Sea to Shining Sea

From Maine to American Samoa, Tuesday night was a bad night for the Democrats.

The big story of the night was that the Democrats and Majority Leader Harry Reid lost their majority in the United States Senate on election day after Republicans picked up no fewer than seven seats, with some race still to be decided through a recount or runoff. Although some Democrats had distanced themselves from President Obama while campaigning, the President in an interview said that his policies were on the ballot and he could count on support from Democrat incumbents- even the ones who were keeping him at arm's length on the campaign trail.

Heading into Election Day, the GOP needed a net gain of six seats in the Senate to regain a majority they hadn't held since 2006. It was widely believed that West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana would be fairly easy pickups for the Republicans, with states like Virginia, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas and Colorado up for grabs in close races.

For veterans, one of the more noteworthy developments was that Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton became the first-ever Iraq war veteran elected to the US Senate after defeating incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor by a margin of nearly 10 points. Later on in the night, Cotton was joined by Joni Ernst, a fellow Iraq war veteran, Lieutenant Colonel in the Iowa National Guard and state senator who was campaigning against congressman Bruce Braley for Iowa's senate seat that was open after Democrat Tom Harkin announced his retirement.

In South Carolina, former Congressman Tim Scott became the first black US senator from the South since Reconstruction- and the first ever to be elected to both the House of Representatives and US Senate. Scott was technically the incumbent, since governor Nikki Haley appointed him to replace fellow Republican Jim DeMint who retired to become president of conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation in 2012.

Before Tuesday, Democrats took some solace in the projections out of Kansas that had Independent Greg Orman leading incumbent Republican Pat Roberts before election day. Orman, who declined to state whether he'd caucus with Democrats or Republicans if elected although Orman reportedly received donations from Democrat-supporting PACs and Vice President Biden predicted that Orman would end up caucusing with Democrats and narrowly preserve the party's majority in the Senate.

But perhaps the biggest prize for either party was Colorado. Over the last decade, Democrats had prided themselves on making Colorado a model on turning a red state blue [and boasted they were going to repeat the process in Texas, more on that a little later- NANESB!]. Incumbent Mark Udall ran on a campaign reminiscent of the Democrat's 2012 "War on Women", claiming that GOP challenger Corey Gardner would outlaw contraceptives and earning himself the nickname Mark Uterus.

In Louisiana, that race is heading to a December runoff since incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu failed to get more than 50% of the total vote. However, the DSCC reportedly yanked a proposed $1.5 million ad buy in certain Louisiana markets, indicating that donors are less than confident about Landrieu's chances against Cassidy in the runoff.

The 'wave' wasn't just limited to a pickup of seven seats in the US Senate for the GOP. In the House of Representatives, not only did beleaguered incumbents such as New York Rep Michael Grimm [R- Staten Island] survive, but the Republicans gained a total of 15 seats [with some races in California and Maryland so close they're awaiting absentee and provisional ballots to decide the campaign- NANESB!]. Some of these included retired Air Force colonel Martha McSally beating Democrat representative Ron Barber in Arizona's 2nd congressional district- which comprised much of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords' district that had been held by Democrats after a 2011 assassination attempt on Giffords and redistricting. In Utah, former Saratoga Springs, UT mayor Mia Love ran as a Republican against Democrat Doug Owens for Representative in Utah's 4th Congressional District for the House seat up for grabs when Democrat Jim Matheson announced his retirement after the 2014 elections. Love- the daughter of Haitian immigrants- is Utah's first female congresswoman and the GOP's first black congresswoman [the NAACP was remarkably silent on the results of her election- NANESB!].

Republican governors favored just as well as the Senate and House races as it turned out. In Wisconsin, incumbent Scott Walker was elected governor for the third time since 2010- after a protracted battle over public sector unions between Democrats and the first-terms governor, the Democrats and unions successfully launched a recall campaign against Walker in 2012. However, Walker ultimately prevailed despite a well-funded campaign from unions and wealthy Democrat donors and PACs.

Democrat state representative Wendy Davis made a name for herself with wealthy liberal donors and the pro-abortion crowd after a lengthy filibuster on the floor of the State House in Austin, TX last year that was meant to hold up legislation that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. Shortly after the filibuster made her a rising star with the Democrats, she announced her candidacy for governor against Texas attorney general Greg Abbott. Although Davis wasn't expected to win, her candidacy was a trial balloon by out-of-state liberal Super PACs to try and turn Texas into a blue state. Davis ended up losing to abbot by more than 20 points, which in turned siphoned Democrat donor money away from much more competitive races.

In Maine, incumbent Paul LePage carried all but two of the sixteen counties throughout the state. In Massachusetts, Democrat Martha Coakley- who lost the 2009 Massachusetts' special election for US Senate to challenger Scott Brown- lost to Republican challenger and businessman Charlie Baker on election day. In the Midwest, incumbent Michigan governor Rick Snyder won 51% of the voting after drawing the ire of unions by making the Wolverine state a right-to-work state in his first term as governor. In President Obama's home state of Illinois, incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn lost to republican businessman Bruce Rauner. Although Maryland's Democrat governor Martin O'Malley was term-limited, pundits both left and right believed that his Lieutenant Governor, Anothony G Brown, would coast to an easy election win over Republican challenger and Maryland businessman Larry Hogan but Hogan shocked the pollsters and pundits by getting just over 51% of the vote. Out west, someone forgot to tell incumbent GOP governors Brian Sandoval and Susana Martinez that their party has a problem with Latinos as the governors of Nevada and New Mexico coasted to an easy re-election. Sandoval received more than 70% of the vote just weeks after he had announced a deal that where Tesla Motors [NASDAQ- TSLA] announced they would open up a factory outside of Reno, NV in exchange for substantial tax breaks. Meanwhile, Susana Martinez won 57% of the ballots cast in New Mexico on election day.

UPDATED again: Evolution of state legislative control in the Obama era: pic.twitter.com/DvK4s8eWi9

— David Freddoso (@freddoso) November 6, 2014

It wasn't just the governor's mansions that were going red in 2014. On the state level, Real Clear Politics reports that the Republicans control an unprecedented 68 out of 98 possible partisan legislative chambers on the state level.

UK's Guardian: US Government Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Subscribers

But fear not- we're in the very best of hands.

Britain's The Guardian released a report on Wednesday that the National Security Agency has been compiling call data from millions of Verizon subscribers in the USA thanks to a secret court order. A copy of the court order was also posted on The Guardian's website the same day.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

Despite the fact that the order came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the call records from millions of American citizens are included in the NSA's data logs. That basically means that despite the order originating from FISA, the NSA's PRISM program monitored the phone records and internet usage of millions of Americans who have not been accused of any crimes.

As recently as March, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied any knowledge of government agencies collecting electronic data of millions of Americans.

In March, DNI Clapper specifically told me #NSA does not wittingly collect any type of data on millions of Americans youtu.be/QwiUVUJmGjs?t=…
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) June 6, 2013

President Obama defended the NSA's surveillance program in public remarks on Friday. The President seemed pretty dismissive overall regarding any concerns about intrusive government snooping into citizens' phone calls and online browsing.

Interstingly, Verizon [NYSE: VZ] being ordered to turn over their subscriber's records activities to the government hasn't adversely affected their share prices. In fact, shares of Verizon gained nearly 4% since The Guardian broke the story. This may be due to the fact that the massive scope of the NSA's PRISM project alone would indicate that other communications companies are being ordered to turn over their records to the government.

New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenburg Passes Away At Age 89

New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg passed away from complications related to viral pneumonia on Monday. The consistently liberal Senator had championed stronger public health and environmental regulations while in office. The five term democrat was the last remaining WWII veteran in the US Senate.

Sen. Lautenberg had made a fortune building Automatic Data Processing, one of the world’s largest payroll-
services companies. A generous Democratic campaign donor, he entered politics after deciding he might as well bankroll his own ambitions.

“I supported Birch Bayh, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, John Glenn,” he told the Trenton Times in 1982. “I thought, ‘If I’m willing to support them, why shouldn’t I support myself?’ ”

First elected in 1982, he built a reputation as a scrappy politician who thought government had enabled his own rise to wealth and thus favored expansive federal programs.

As chair of the Senate’s Appropriations transportation subcommittee, the former two-pack-a-day smoker crusaded against the tobacco industry and in 1989 won a smoking ban on almost all domestic airline flights. That was credited with opening the way for restrictions on smoking in public buildings.

Sen. Lautenberg was instrumental in passing laws that raised the legal drinking age to 21, prohibited those convicted of domestic violence from buying guns and required companies to disclose the chemicals they release into the environment, an early “right-to-know” provision that became a model for others.

The son of Polish and Russian immigrants, Lautenburg was born in Paterson, NJ in 1924. After graduating from high school in the township of Nutley in 1941, Lautenburg served in the US Army Signal Corps in the European theater during WWII.

After the war, Lautenburg graduated from Columbia Business School with much of his tuition paid for by the GI Bill. After working as a salesman for Prudential Insurance, Lautenburg got a job as a salesman for payroll management firm Automatic Data Processing and rose through the company's ranks to become CEO by the 1970s.

Luatenburg briefly retired in 2000, only to successfully campaign back in 2002 with the sudden retirement of fellow New Jersey Democrat Robert Toricelli after Toricelli had been accused of accepting bribes and illegal campaign donations.

On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) announced that a special election to fill the Senate Seat is set to take place in October. The governor also said he would likely appoint a placeholder who would serve as Senator until the election was held, although Christie didn't name any specific individual.

Report: Head of Liberal Super PAC Accused of Bugging Sen McConnell's Campaign Office Visited White House

Shortly before a liberal Kentucky political action committee launched a social media campaign against incumbent Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (as well as his Taiwanese wife), the group's head had visited the White House and met with President Obama's chief fundraiser.
According to both White House visitor logs and the twitter account of one of the men accused of illegally recording a staff meeting at McConnell's newly opened campaign headquarters, Progress Kentucky head Shawn Reilly met with White House officials and a leftist think tank in Washington DC.

Reilly and Curtis Morrison are currently under investigation by the FBI for illicitly taping a campaign conversation between McConnell and a handful of his advisors. During the conversation McConnell and his aides discussed the potential candidacy of actress Ashley Judd — including using her mental health problems against her.

For days, Democrats in the state and nationally have sought to cast the duo as a pair of bungling amateurs who simply got in over their heads and made a series of bad decisions. But the White House visit suggests the distance from Reilly to his party's leaders may not have been quite that far.

The White House visitors log, showing Reilly met with administration officials Dec. 5th, appears to have been signed in by Victoria McCullough, a staff assistant to Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett.

According to Reilly's Twitter feed, his trip to Washington included stops at the White House to discuss the fiscal cliff and a meeting at the Center for American Progress.

Although its fairly unlikely the White House was coordinating the wiretapping of McConnell's office with Progress Kentucky from inside the beltway, Reilly's visit to the White House in and of itself undercuts any claims from the Democrats that Progress Kentucky was a pair of bungling amateurs who were in over their head.

According to the White House visitor logs, visitors that day also included Obama fundraiser Matthew Barzun and retired Louisville Courier-Journal editor Keith Runyon. Reilly was also a delegate for Kentucky to the 2012 Democrat National Convention in Charlotte, NC and has rubbed elbows with every major Democrat officeholder in the Bluegrass State.

Montana Senator Max Baucus Announces He Won't Seek Re-Election in 2014

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) announced that he planned on retiring rather than seek re-election next year. Baucus, who has represented Big Sky country in the Senate since 1978, making him one of the longest-serving Senators currently in office.

In 2009 and 2010, Baucus played a key role in authoring Obamacare. Despite an opaque process and widespread opposition from the public, Obamacare narrowly passed a Democrat-held House and Senate in 2010. However, Baucus himself described the Affordable Care act as a "huge train wreck coming down" during a budgetary hearing with the Health and Human Services chief earlier this month.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., told Obama's health care chief during a routine budget hearing that suddenly turned tense.

Baucus is the first top Democrat to publicly voice fears about the rollout of the new health care law, designed to bring coverage to some 30 million uninsured Americans through a mix of government programs and tax credits for private insurance that start next year.

Normally low-key and supportive, Baucus challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Wednesday's hearing.

He said he's "very concerned" that new health insurance marketplaces for consumers and small businesses will not open on time in every state, and that if they do, they might just flop because residents don't have the information they need to make choices.

"The administration's public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade," he told Sebelius. "You need to fix this."

Responding to Baucus, Sebelius pointedly noted that Republicans in Congress last year blocked funding for carrying out the health care law, and she had to resort to raiding other departmental funds that were legally available to her.

The administration is asking for $1.5 billion in next year's budget, and Republicans don't seem willing to grant that either.

Last week, Baucus was one of five Democrat Sentaors to vote against legislation authored by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey that would mandate background checks for all private firearms transfers. The bill, which required 60 votes to pass, fell short by four votes in the Democrat-held senate earlier this month.

President Obama spent considerable political capital attempting to get any sort of gun control passed in the wake of the Newtown, CT school massacre. However, Baucus represents a state with a high number of gun owners and there were concerns from gun owner's rights groups that the Toomey-Manchin bill would establish the framework for a nationwide gun registry and criminalize hunters and relatives borrowing guns. The defeat in the Senate spurred a press conference by petulant Obama where he denounced the Senate's 'shameful' vote while flanked by families from Newtown. Veiled threats about ending the political careers came from gun-control groups after the vote, but an ad buy in Montana from Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns wouldn't have affected Baucus in Montana. The senior senator from Montana had an A+ rating from the NRA.

Montana Republicans have been bracing for a tough campaign against the entrenched Baucus in 2014. However, now the list of candidates for either side has been thrown into flux. One possible name for the Democrats is former governor Brian Schweizer, who unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in 2000.

Ricin Son- Mississippi Man In Custody After Allegedly Mailing Ricin to President Obama and US Senator

You know it's been a hell of a week when an Elvis-impersonating conspiracy theorist tries to poison the President of the United States and a US Senator was maybe the fourth or fifth most newsworthy item of the week.

An envelope addressed to Sen Ron Wicker (R- Mississippi) tested positive for the lethal poison ricin twice on Tuesday, according to the FBI. The fact that it came so soon after the Boston Marathon bombings heightened concerns over terrorism.

"This matter is part of an ongoing investigation by the United States Capitol Police and FBI," Wicker said. "I want to thank our law enforcement officials for their hard work and diligence in keeping those of us who work in the Capitol complex safe."

Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, said in an emailed message to Senate offices that the envelope to Wicker, a Republican, had no obviously suspicious outside markings and lacked a return address. It bore a postmark from Memphis, Tenn.

Mail from a broad swath of northern Mississippi, including the Memphis suburbs of DeSoto County, Miss., Tupelo, Oxford and the northern part of the Mississippi Delta region is processed and postmarked in Memphis, according to a Postal Service map. The Memphis center also processes mail for residents of western parts of Tennessee and eastern Arkansas.

Preliminary tests on a letter mailed to President Obama that was intercepted at an off-site facility later that day had also indicated traces of ricin. At a press conference in Tupelo, MS on Wednesday night, the Lee County Sherriff said that a local judge had also recieved a similar suspicious letter.

Authorities reportedly traced back the letters to a 45 year old Corinth, MS man named Paul Kevin Curtis who was arrested at his home by federal agents.

The letters to Obama and Wicker said: "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance." Both were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

Ricky Curtis, who said he was Kevin Curtis' cousin, said the family was shocked by the news of the arrest. He described his cousin as a "super entertainer" who impersonated Elvis and numerous other singers.

"We're all in shock. I don't think anybody had a clue that this kind of stuff was weighing on his mind," Ricky Curtis said in a telephone interview.

Ricky Curtis said his cousin had written about problems he had with a cleaning business and that he felt the government had not treated him well, but he said nobody in the family would have expected this. He said the writings were titled, "Missing Pieces."

In 2000, Curtis was fired from the North Mississippi Medical Center and since then has claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy by the hospital to harvest organs and body parts and sell them on the black market. Not surprisingly, NMMC denies the allegations made by the suspected ricin mailer.

According to The Hill Curtis once performed at a party attended by Wicker [who represented the district in the House at the time- NANESB!] and when Curtis' activites were less threatening.

Curtis- a registered Democrat- could face up to 15 years on charges of sending mail threatening the President and sending mail "containing threats to injure the person of others".

Liberal Super PAC Allegedly Records Private Meeting Between Senator McConnell And Campaign Staff

Left-wing publication Mother Jones released audio of Kentucky Senator and current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell discussing strategy and opposition research for the upcoming 2014 Senate campaign earlier this week. The clandestine recording dates back to February 2nd at McConnell's newly-opened Louisville campaign headquarters and catches McConnell and senior campaign workers discussing the background of liberal actress Ashley Judd, whose name was bandied about as a potential Democrat opponent against the incumbent.

The initial reaction from inside the Beltway was mostly to chastise McConnell for singling out Judd's mental problems that were publicized in her 2011 autobiography.  The media and pundit class seemed ready to anoint whoever recorded McConnell's meeting as the next Woodward and Bernstein, but the fact that the conversation may have been recorded without anybody's consent (which could constitute a felony in many jurisdictions) drew comparisons to the Nixon Administration.

On Thursday, an official with the Democrat Part of Jefferson County, KY claimed that two senior members from a liberal Super PAC called Progress Kentucky had bragged about recording the meeting from an elevator after an open house at the newly-opened campaign HQ.

Jacob Conway, who is with the Jefferson County Democratic Party, told Fox News that two leaders with the group Progress Kentucky told him at the time that they recorded the session. He said it wasn't a "Nixonian bugging," but could have been recorded with an iPhone.

Conway told Fox News they recorded the meeting from the hallway, and later told him about it.

"I don't know why they were at the grand opening of his campaign office. ... They overheard the conversation going on," he said. "To me it was an extremely tacky conversation ... but it was a private conversation nonetheless."

Conway did not specifically say the operatives gave the tape to Mother Jones, but said: "They told me they were there. They told me they were in the hallway. They have a recording. So you know, you can draw your own conclusions."

Conway, who said he used to be friends with the two individuals -- Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison -- said he came forward because he didn't want the situation tarnishing the Democratic Party.

The FBI has been interviewing both Reilly and Morrison as persons of interest in the case, sources tell Fox News, though it is too early to tell whether any law was broken.

At the national level, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said the party does not condone secret tapings.

"We would never condone anything like this -- a secret taping. We would never condone it," he said. Woodhouse said he knows nothing about the group in question.

"Our reaction is that we would like the investigation to take its course."

Progress Kentucky has not returned a request for comment, but Reilly denied any wrongdoing through an attorney, who told The Hill that he is "at most a witness, not a suspect." The lawyer said Reilly also is working with authorities to locate Morrison.

The FBI is investigating the alleged recording at McConnell's request. A law enforcement official told Fox News the investigation is "moving along," and there are some "people of interest."

The FBI is conducting interviews and visited McConnell's campaign headquarters on Wednesday. Fox News confirms the FBI also pulled video surveillance footage.

McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton told Fox News that there is a video camera in the lobby where anybody would have to pass through to get to the second floor, where the meeting in question took place.

"They certainly were not authorized to be there, if they were indeed there," Benton said of the Progress Kentucky operatives.

Progress Kentucky is the same organization that sent out a series of tweets claiming that McConnell was disproportionately influenced by China because his wife- former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao- was born in Taiwan. Some of the tweets were quickly deleted after they were sent out in late February, but not before bloggers and websites like Twitchy were able to capture them for posterity.

California Sen. Diane Feinstein- No "Assault Weapons" For Veterans, Refers to PTSD as "New"

Congratulations, California- you continue to pick some real winners there.

Feinstein said she wants to make sure that veterans “who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access” to semi-automatic weapons.

Feinstein, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday, was discussing an amendment to her gun control bill that would exempt retired military from the so-called “assault weapons” ban:

“The problem with expanding this (exemption) is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. So you know, I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to — if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.”

Perhaps even more alarming is Feinstein's claim that PTSD was a new phenomenon limited to the Iraq War [OMG! Bush's fault!- NANESB!]. However. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder- which was known as Soldier's Heart after the Civil War or Shell Shock after the first World War- was formally recognized by the Committee of Reactive Disorders in 1980.

Also, if Sen Feinstein has such reservations about veterans of the US Military arming themselves, she should perhaps concern herself with veterans not only armed with firearms, but also the power of arrest- as thousands of returning veterans from the Iraq war have found work in local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies nationwide over the past decade [Hmmm....interesting how she apparently left out Afghanistan- NANESB!].

And while nobody is advocating giving away guns to clearly disturbed individuals like Adam Lanza or Jared Loughner, one should also be careful in allowing the progressives in this nation to monopolize the narrative in regards to mental health. There have been serious "academic" attempts to get conservative opinions and outlooks classified as a mental disorder in recent years. In the latter days of the Soviet Union, government psychiatrists would have dissidents involuntarily committed to mental hospitals with vague diagnoses like 'sluggish schizophrenia' or 'philisophical intoxication' on a regular basis. The state-ordered confinement saved Communist Party officials the trouble of putting dissidents through a show trial that could potentially backfire on them- a practice that is seeing an ominous resurgence in Vladmir Putin's Russia.

Internal E-Mails Tell Feds to Make Sequester Cutbacks Painful to the General Public

According to an Animal & Plant Inspection Service internal e-mail, an agency official was specifically instructed not to do anything that would lessen or minimize impact to the public ahead of the sequester cuts this month.

In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of.

“We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be,” Mr. Brown, in the internal email, said his superiors told him.

Neither Mr. Brown nor the main APHIS office in Washington returned calls seeking comment, but Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, who oversees the agency, told Congress he is trying to give flexibility where he can.

“If we have flexibility, we’re going to try to use it to make sure we use sequester in the most equitable and least disruptive way,” the secretary told Rep. Kristi L. Noem, a South Dakota Republican who grilled Mr. Vilsack about the email. “There are some circumstances, and we’ve talked a lot about the meat inspection, where we do not have that flexibility because there are so few accounts.”

Ms. Noem told Mr. Vilsack that the email made it sound like the administration was sacrificing flexibility in order to justify its earlier dire predictions.

“I’m hopeful that isn’t an agenda that’s been put forward,” the congresswoman told Mr. Vilsack.

The content of the e-mail is similar to what US Park Ranger who chose to remain anonymous told Fox News. According to a March 9th article, the National Parks Service had overruled plans to deal with the sequester that would've had marginal impact on the public and was told instead to axe special events, talks, tours and other educational or information services.

"Apparently, they want the public to feel the pain," the ranger said.

The National Park Service is among many federal agencies warning of a major impact from the sequester cuts, which took effect last Friday. The agency has warned of delayed access to portions of Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks, closed campgrounds at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, reduced hours at the Grand Canyon visitor center and other ramifications.

The Obama administration says these cuts must be made in order to make the $85 billion in cuts from Congress' failure to avert the sequester. At the NPS, the agency was dealing with an across-the-board 5 percent cut.

At the Park Service, the alleged incident occurred in one region and it's unclear whether other divisions were given similar guidance.

Last week the White House announced that tours were being cancelled until further notice, blaming cuts related to the sequester, even though the tours cost an estimated $74,000 per week- a fraction of the cost of President Obama's recent trip to Hawaii and golf vacation in Florida.

Even before the March 1st Sequester went into effect, the Department of Homeland Security released illegal immigrants from detention centers across the country in late February.

Gillian Christensen, an ICE spokeswoman, said ICE has reviewed "several hundred cases" of immigrants being held in jails around the country and released them in the last week. They have been "placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release," she said.

Christensen said the agency's "priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety." She did not say how released immigrants were selected or what jails they were released from.

The release of thousands of illegal immigrants ahead of the sequester led to accusations that the Obama Administration and DHS was playing politics with public safety ahead of the sequestration deadline. Homeland security chief Napolitano claimed that the relase of such a large number of inmates wasn't out of the ordinary and that the decision was left to her subordinates in Homeland Security, not the White House.

Napolitano also claimed that lines at airports were "150% to 200% as long as what we wound normally expect" due to sequestration cuts to the TSA and US Customs, but media inquiries to the airports that Napolitano mentioned (Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago's O'Hare) found there were no significant delays.

Mr Paul Goes To Washington- Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) Launches 12 Hour Filibuster to Hold Up Nomination of Brennan to CIA

Aided by colleagues in the US Senate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul ended a nearly 13 hour filibuster in an attempt to hold up the nomination of John Brennan to the CIA Director's post in the early morning hours of Thursday. At issue was limits to the President's authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans. Earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder did not rule out using aerial drone strikes to kill American citizens on US soil during questioning before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday.

After Holder's testimony, Sen Paul vowed that he would do what we could to hold up Brennan's nomination until the Committee recieved clarity from the White House on their policy on using drone strikes against American nationals.

Business in the Senate ground to a halt Wednesday as Paul -- aided by colleagues from both parties -- launched into the filibuster as he tried to hold up the nomination over concerns about the president’s authority to kill Americans with drones.

Paul's filibuster was at least two hours longer than most in U.S. history, as most flame out around 10 hours. Paul finished speaking around 12:40 a.m. local time, and his filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes.

"My legs hurt. My feet hurt. Everything hurts right now," Paul told Fox News shortly after stepping off the Senate floor, saying he believes "we did the best that we could."

"I would be surprised if we didn’t hear back from the White House," Paul said.

In a show of support, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor and congratulated Paul for his "tenacity and for his conviction." McConnell also called Obama's choice of Brennan a "controversial nominee."

Paul is one of several lawmakers -- on both sides of the aisle -- who has raised concerns about the legal justification for launching drone strikes against Americans overseas. But Paul took to the floor after receiving a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder that creaked open the door to the possibility of using a drone to kill an American inside the United States.

“To allow one man to accuse you in secret -- you never get notified you've been accused,” Paul said on the floor. “Your notification is the buzz of propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you're killed. Is that what we really want from our government?”

Paul said he’d be raising the same complaints under a Republican president.

“No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country,” he said.

Neither Holder or Brennan would explicitly rule out drone strikes against American nationals on US soil in earlier questioning on the matter. Paul was eventually aided by other Senate colleagues including Ted Cruz, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR). At one point, Cruz was reading aloud tweets in support of the Kentucky Senator. Paul offered to end the filibuster in exchange for a nonbinding resolution regarding drone strikes on US citizens on American soil, but Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) objected to allowing a vote, so Paul continued. He eventually finished speaking at 12:40 ET on Thursday morning, with the filibuster lasting 12 hours and 52 minutes.

Rand Paul's filibuster was the first significant challenge to Obama by Senate Republicans since the president was being sworn in back in January 2009

The concerns over using drones against American civilians comes as the Department of Homeland Security announced the purchase of more than 21 million hollowpoint rounds on top of 2 billion rounds purchased in the last year. The government explained the purchase by saying that- like many other commodities- they got a better deal when they purchased ammunition in bulk [however, keep in mind that one doesn't merely target shoot with hollowpoints- NANESB!]. However, in addition to the bulk ammunition purchases the DHS also announced the acquisition of more than 2700 armored MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles over the weekend.

Also on Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report cautioning that membership in 'extremist' anti-government groups is approaching an all time high. However, like the Department of Homeland Security, the SPLC has a fairly broad definition of 'extremists', lumping pro-life groups, veterans, Tea Party chapters or pro-gun organizations in the same category as neo-nazis and Ku Klux Klan while omitting militant organizations like the New Black Panther Party from their dire warnings about domestic terrorism.

FBI Raids Florida Office of Democrat Donor Linked to Sen Menendez

Federal agents raided the West Palm Beach, FL office of an eye doctor and Democrat donor Wednesday morning who has been known to travel with New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez to the Dominican Republic for parties with prostitutes.



In addition to the fact that the arrest of one of Sen Menendez's unpaid interns was a country sex offender who was in the country illegally was delayed until after the 2012 elections, the New Jersey Democrat also allegedly didn't pay some of the prostitutes hired to entertain him and Dr. Solomon Melgen at Melgen's Dominican villa.

Now, allegations that Sen. Menendez and Dr Melgen used the services of underage prostitutes that federal agents have deemed credible have surfaced, reportedly prompting Wednesday's raid.

Stringing up crime scene tape and using a locksmith, the FBI on Tuesday and Wednesday raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez — who has denied what he calls the “fallacious allegations.”

Agents hauled away boxes and bags of evidence from the medical-office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a contributor to Menendez and other prominent politicians, to start hauling away potential evidence in several vans.

On Wednesday, the FBI agents were joined by an inspector from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, indicating the search-and-seizure raid has ties to a possible Medicare fraud inquiry. Melgen has also been the subject of a parallel federal investigation into his relationship with Menendez, D-N.J., who was first accused of improprieties in the conservative Daily Caller website.

Melgen also owns a private CL-600 Challenger plane through one of his West Palm Beach-based companies, records show, and frequently flies between South Florida and Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, where he is from.

Menendez has flown on the plane at least once, when he was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2009 to 2011, when the Melgens contributed about $60,400 to the group.

Melgen was first linked to Menendez just before the November elections, when the Daily Caller website interviewed two alleged prostitutes who said they had relations with the New Jersey Democrat at Melgen’s Dominican Republic mansion in Casa de Campo.

After the election, the news died down.

But then, days before Menendez was about to start leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as chairman, reporters started receiving a 58-page dossier of emails between a Miami FBI agent and a tipster who claimed that some of the prostitutes had been underage.

Despite news of the prostitution scandal just days before the election, Sen. Menendez was re-elected by a substantial margin. For his part, Menendez denies any wrongdoing and fellow Democrats questioned the credibility of the Daily Caller.

The age of consent in the Dominican Republic, like most states in the USA, is eighteen.

One aspect of the story that's been overlooked in light of the underage prostitute allegations is that despite having an outstanding IRS lein of more than $11 million, Dr Melgen was able to donate more than $60,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee between 2009 and 2011 when menendez was chair and still has the private jet and Dominican villa.

Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye Passes Away At Age 88

US Senator and Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Inouye passed away from respiratory complications at George Washington University Hospital on Monday. The Hawaiian senator, who became the longest-serving US Senator after the 2010 death of West Virginia democrat Robert Byrd, had held the office since 1963 and has represented the Aloha State in the nation's capital for as long as Hawaii has been a state, having been elected to Hawaii's at-large Congressional district shortly after it was granted statehood in 1959.

Inouye was also a decorated US Army veteran  who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an Army unit made up of second generation Japanese immigrants from across the US mainland and Hawaii- many of whom had relatives in internment camps at the time.

In April of 1945, while fighting in German-occupied Italy, Inouye was shot multiple times and severely wounded while charging a trio of German machine-gun nests. Despite being shot in the stomach and leg as well as losing his right arm to a nazi rifle-grenade, a wounded Inouye was able to destroy the first two bunkers with grenades and clear out the third with a burst from his Thompson submachine gun. Inouye's actions would earn him the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Distinguished Cross. In 2000, President Clinton awarded Inouye and 19 other members of the 442nd Regimental Combat team the Medal of Honor. By 1947, Inouye was honorably discharged with the rank of captain and was said to have been convalescing at the same Michigan Army hospital as future Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

On Thursday, Inouye lay in state at the Capitol building for his Senate and House colleagues before being moved to the National Cathedral for a memorial service on Friday. Inouye's body will then be flown to Hawaii for a memorial service in Honolulu before his burial at the Cemetery of the Pacific.

A letter from the Senator's office has reportedly requested that Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie appoint Representative Colleen Hanabusa [D- HI 1] to the vacant senate seat once he passed away.

South Carolina Governor Appoints Congressman Tim Scott to US Senate

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has announced the appointment of congressman Tim Scott to replace outgoing senator Jim DeMint. Earlier this month, Sen. DeMint announced his plans to leave office in January to become President of conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation.

Scott, a Republican who recently won a second term, represents the Palmetto State's 1st Congressional District- which stretches along the coast north of Charleston. During the 2010 primaries, Scott ran against the son of segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond and won, going on to win convincingly in the general election against his Democrat opponent.

Once elected to office, Scott declined to join the Congressional Black Caucus. Early on he was assigned to the House Transportation Committee and House Small Business Committee before being appointed to the House Rules Committee. Prior to that, Scott had served on the Charleston County Council and South Carolina General Assembly in addition to owning his own insurance agency.

Scott will become black senator from the state of South Carolina, the first black senator from the South since 1881 and the only black senator during the 113th Congress [Interestingly, many of the media types who normally savor the ethnic head-counts were remarkably quiet after Gov. Haley's announcement on Monday- NANESB!].

According to South Carolina state law, Gov. Haley is also required to set a date for a special election for Scott's vacant Congressional seat. It's also worth pointing out that the boundaries for South Carolina's first congressional district had shifted significantly after the 2010 Census. While the district still encompasses much of the coast, the First District will be mostly between Charleston and Hilton Head Island, SC and much of Scott's former district is now part of the newly-formed 7th Congressional district which will be represented by Horry County Republican Tom Rice.

Pakistani Doctor Who Helped USA Confirm Bin Laden's Location Recieves 30+ Year Prison Sentence For Treason Against Pakistan

A Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA and US Navy SEAL commandos pinpoint the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden recieved a 33 year prison sentence for treason against the state of Pakistan on Wednesday.

Dr Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program in which he was able to collect DNA from the fugitive Al Qaeda leader and confirm that he was hiding at a compound in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbotabad. Bin Laden, his son and an al Qaeda courier were killed and three of his wives were captured along with a treasure trove of intelligence after President Obama authorized the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden's Abbotabad compound in May 2011.

The unilateral raid was considered an international embarrassment for Pakistan, since Bin Laden's compound was located less than a kilometer from the front enterance to Pakistan's military academy. While senior Pakistani officials claimed to not know of Bin Laden's whereabouts, many analyists speculate that the Pakistani Interservices Intelligence Directorate (ISI) aided in harboring the fugitive Al Qaeda leader.

Afridi's conviction comes at a sensitive time because the U.S. is already frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The supply routes were closed six months ago in retaliation for American air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Afridi was detained sometime after the May 2, 2011, raid, but the start of his trial was never publicized.

He was tried under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, or FCR, the set of laws that govern Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region. Human rights organizations have criticized the FCR for not providing suspects due process of law. There is no right to legal representation, to present material evidence or cross-examine witnesses.

The verdict was handed down by a Khyber government official in consultation with a council of elders, according to Nasir Khan, a government official in the Khyber tribal area, where the doctor was arrested and tried.

A senior U.S. official with knowledge of counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan said the doctor was never asked to spy on Pakistan.

In addition to the lengthy prison term, Afridi was also fined the equivalent of $3500 and may get an additional three years added to his sentence if he is unable to pay his fine.

One can't help but come to the conclusion that the plight of Dr. Afridi serves as a powerful disincentive for foreign nationals to provide the CIA with critical intelligence now that he has been identified and imprisoned by his home country. I'm also wondering why the Obama Administration and the State Department weren't prepared to whisk Afridi and his family out of Pakistan at a moment's notice.

Faux-cohontas: Massachusetts Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren Claims of Native American Ancestry Under Scrutiny

Bay State Democrat Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren's campaign is facing questions over whether she had embellished claims of being of Cherokee ancesrty this week. At issue is whether or not the Harvard professor, one-time nominee by President Obama for the newly-formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and self-professed creator of 'Occupy Wall Street' leveraged claims of her native American background to get preferential treatment from school.

The Harvard Law professor is now claiming she knows she has American Indian blood because a female relative told her that her grandfather had “high cheek bones like all the Indians do.”

The Democratic candidate’s troubles began last week when it was revealed that Harvard once described Warren as a Native American minority. Warren doesn’t publicly refer to herself that way.

Warren listed herself as Native American in Harvard's law-school directories from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. Aside from the alleged family lore of high cheekbones, a noted genealogist found an Oklahoma marriage certificate from Warren's great-great-great grandmother that listed her as Cherokee- baiscally accounting for 1/32nd of her total ancestry. For Harvard's most recent diversity census report, the university listed only one Native American as a member of the faculty but delined to clarify whether or not it was Warren.

While numerous individuals were having fun attempting to come up with Indian names for Warren a spokeswoman from the Warren campaign took the opportunity to rip Sen Scott Brown for 'sexism' over the inevitable follow up questions posed by Warren's own fudging her ethnic background.

Although the most recent available polls were taken before the Warren flap was made public, polling showed both Warren and Brown in a virtual dead heat. The Massachusetts Senate race is shaping up to be the costliest US Senate Campaign in the USA this election year.

Counterfeit Parts From China Showing Up In US Military Aircraft

Sikorski SH 60-B Sea Hawk lifting off from carrier. A Defense Department audit found that the infared imaging systems in some of the Navy's fleet were using counterfeit components

Earlier this year, I came across a website called havocscope which supposedly tracks the value of black market, smuggled and contraband goods as though they were legitimate commodities traded on the open market. Instead of listing Counterfeit goods under one single category, they subdivided it into categories ranging from Counterfeit Aircraft Parts to Counterfeit Zippos. According to havocscope, the counterfeit aircraft parts trade is worth an estimated US$2 billion annually. And it seems as though some of that money, however unwittingly, comes from the Department of Defense and the US taxpayers.

The Senate Armed Services Committee announced earlier this month that it had learned counterfeit electronics which had made their way into the Department of Defense supply chain and into at least eight aircraft, some of which were deployed to Afghanistan.

The Senate Armed Services Committee found counterfeit parts -- usually from China -- on at least seven aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin Corp. [NYSE: LMT] C-130J transport plane, Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and L-3 27J Spartan transport.

“Suspect electronic parts from China were installed on military systems and subsystems that were manufactured by Raytheon Co., L-3 Communications and Boeing,” said a memo from the committee’s staff, released yesterday before a hearing today.

“There is a flood of counterfeits and it is putting our military men and risk and costing us a fortune,” committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said. None of the examples found by the committee were connected to lives lost or dramatic failures causing an aircraft crash, and the companies involved cooperated with the investigation, he said.

A seperate Pentagon audit has shown that cockpit displays on two new US Air Force C-27J Spartans from L-3 Electronics [NYSE: LLL] that were deployed to Afghanistan were found to be utilizing suspect parts.

L3’s Integrated Systems unit notified the Air Force on Sept. 19 that 38 suspect video memory chips were installed in the display units on eight of the first 11 aircraft delivered.

The L-3 unit that made the displays learned of the suspect memory chips in November 2010, the memo said. The committee traced the chips to Hong Dark Electronic Trade in Shenzhen, China, which also delivered an earlier counterfeit part L-3 discovered in October 2009, it said. The display units are made by L-3 Communications Display Systems and provide pilots with diagnostic data including engine status, fuel usage, location and warning messages.

The C-27J displays were among more than 500 containing suspect Chinese parts sold to the Air Force, Navy and defense contractors for installation also on C-130J and C-17 transport and Marine Corps CH-46 helicopters, the memo said.

“Failure of the memory chip could cause a display unit to show a degraded image, lose data or even go blank,” the memo said

The Senate Armed Services committee's investigative staff reportedly compiled a database with nearly 1800 cases of counterfeiting and suspect parts. Out of 100 cases given closer scrutiny, nearly 70% were traced back to Chinese firms. The origins of some of these parts are concealed by having them pass through three or four shell companies before finding their way into the Department of Defense supply chain.

Campaign Treasurer's Arrest Leaves California Democrats Scrambling

California Democrat officeholders and party officials have been left frantic and scrambling since the arrest of prominent Democrat campaign financier Kinde Durkee last month. [BREAKING: I can't seem to find my world's tiniest violin; I think it's in the shop for its 20,000 sad sad song tune-up- NANESB!]

Durkee was arrested at her Burbank, CA offices on September 3rd by the FBI on charges of mail fraud. Durkee allegedly used funds raised from Democrat party donors to pay her own mortgage, travel expenses and American Express credit card bill.

Since the arrest, donors and candidates are trying to assess the full extent of the losses while attempting to raise money to replenish funds misappropriated by Kinder or frozen by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission. Complicating matters is that Durkee co-mingled money from the nearly 400 different accounts she controlled at First California Bank, making it difficult to determine exactly how much funding each campaign had available.

In late September, multimillionaire Senator Dianne Feinstein filed suit against both Durkee and First California Bank, alleging fraud and estimating her campaign's losses to be in the neighborhood of $5 million (much of that self-funded). In the meantime, much to the chagrin of statewide Democrat Party officials, First California has reportedly turned over the accounts under Durkee's control to a California court to determine who exactly has claim to what.

The bank angered clients when it handed over control of the 398 bank accounts associated with Durkee to a California state court on September 23, recusing itself from sorting out how much of the recovered money should be doled out to whom.

"In yet another attempt to escape liability for the fiasco that they helped create, First California Bank has turned most of the accounts that Durkee controlled over to the courts," the Los Angeles County Democratic Party said.

Hmm....Perhaps we touched on another reason why Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D- CA18) announced that he had decided not to run for another term this week.

Let me be honest- I can't say that this story makes me sad, because it doesn't. Not in the least. I grew up in a very blue state controlled by Democrats and aside from a stint in the US Army, I've spent the majority of my adult life in another dark blue state largely controlled by Democrats. The way the democrats have engaged in class warfare and the politics of envy and avarice while simultaneously representing the wealthiest ZIP codes in the United States would be laughable at face value if they didn't keep getting elected by the same cadre of vapid, wealthy elitists who whine endlessly that wealthy people like Rupert Murdoch or the Koch Brothers are bad for America.

All of a sudden, this Durkee decides to help herself to their millions and out come the lawyers and sob stories when in reality, Durkee pretty much personified the end result of what passes for economic policy from the Democrat party these days- find an entity with lots and money and help yourself to it while convincing them you're doing them some sort of service.

Taiwan's Bid for Large F-16 Purchase Thwarted by Obama Administration

Legislation requiring the Obama Administration to follow through on the sale of 66 Lockheed-Martin [NYSE: LMT] F16 fighter aircraft to Taiwan was blocked by the US Senate earlier this week.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected a bid to require President Barack Obama to sell 66 new F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan in addition to a $5.3 billion upgrade of its existing fleet he just approved.

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, pushed for the sale, saying the United States had a responsibility under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to provide its ally with the weapons it needs to defend itself against an attack from China.

Taiwan has been seeking to upgrade its inventory in the face of a military buildup on mainland China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province and has objected to arms sales to Taiwan.

An alternative proposal would see the bulk of Taiwan's already-existing F16 fleet upgraded as a part of a $5.8 billion military aid package. This is widely viewed as a stopgap and Taiwan is expected to continue pressing the USA to acquire additional new F16s.

In June 2011, the US State Department blocked a petition to submit a formal letter of request from Taiwan's Defense Ministry requesting the aircraft.

As the Obama Administration repeatedly blocked Taiwan's request for additional F16s, the People's Republic of China has introduced their latest generation stealth fighter and begun sea trials of their first aircraft carrier.

Blue State Graft Watch: Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Guilty on 17 of 20 Corruption Charges in Second Trial

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on 17 of 20 counts of corruption at the Federal Courthouse in Chicago Monday afternoon.

This was the former governor's second trial. In 2010, Blagojevich was found not guilty on 23 of 24 charges faced, with the jury finding that the former Land of Lincoln governor guilty of lying to the FBI.

CHICAGO—A federal jury on Monday found former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich guilty of 17 counts of corruption, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

The jury found Mr. Blagojevich not guilty on one of 20 corruption counts in his second trial and deadlocked on two other counts. The verdicts came more than two years after Mr. Blagojevich, 54 years old, was arrested by federal agents.

The verdict was a victory for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who initiated "Operation Board Games" just a few months after Mr. Blagojevich took office. In the hours after the then-governor's arrest, Mr. Fitzgerald said he had "interrupted a political corruption crime spree" and that Mr. Blagojevich had "put a for-sale sign on the naming of a United States Senator."

Mr. Blagojevich is the second consecutive Illinois governor to be convicted of corruption. Gov. George Ryan is currently serving a 6½-year sentence.

Unlike his first trial, in which the former Chicago congressman escaped conviction on 20 of 21 counts, Mr. Blagojevich testified for seven days at his second trial. He said his intent was to use the seat as leverage to pass legislation that would have benefited the residents of Illinois.

Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to fill President Obama's then vacant senate seat in late 2008- an appointment that came after federal investigators recorded a call between the two where Burris was offering to raise funds for the governor in exchange for the Senate seat.

Senator John Ensign (R-NV) Stepping Down

In a statement dated Friday, embattled Republican Senator John Ensign announced that he would be resigning from office effective May 5th. Ensign had been plagued by scandal since 2009 stemming from an affair he had with the wife of a senior aide as well as his parents attempting to pay the mistress and her husband $96,000 in hush money.

Earlier, Ensign had announced that he wouldn't run for re-election in 2012 when his seat came up. Congressman Dean Heller (R, NV-2), Tea Party-backed Sharron Angle and Democrat Shelley Berkely have all expressed an interest in running for Ensign's senate seat next year.

Nevada law calls for Gov. Brian Sandoval to appoint a placeholder to fill out the remainder of Ensign's term in the Senate. Speculation has been that Sandoval will name Congressman Heller to Ensign's vacant seat. If that is the case, that would mean that he would also have to call for a special election for the Congressional seat vacated by a Heller appointment to Senate.

Unlike New York state, special Congressional elections are unheard of in the Silver State- no prior appointment by the governor has left an opening in the state's national delegation.