All Posts Tagged With: "payoff"
Edwards Hypocrisy Just Keeps on Giving
Admitting to Adulterous Relationship And Trying to Shut Her up; Now Staff Says There Are Payoffs Too.
Former Democrat Senator, VP candidate and presidential candidate John Edwards confessed to his adulterous relationship with a campaign aide and admitted to visiting her at the Beverly Hilton Hotel a week ago to convince her to shut-up, he said there was no pay off.
Turns out his campaign has been paying off the unemployed woman to the tune of $15,000 enabling her to rent a $3,000,000 home in an exclusive gated community in Santa Barbara but, Edwards “didn’t know about it.” Edwards now says he will take a paternity test.
In a further bizarre explanation on Saturday’s Good Morning America Edwards explained that he became a self-absorbed, narcissistic, nincompoop because of his success as a lawyer and politician. He says the sexual relationship with the aide ended in 2006 so he couldn’t possibly be the child’s father because the baby girl was born February 7, 2008 and the math doesn’t work. Edwards says he told his wife of 31 years in 2006 and she was furious which is about the only believable part of his fairy tale.
Obama’s Trade For Teamsters Support
The Wall Street journal said Monday Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption. The WSJ contend its conclusion is reached “according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.”
It’s an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union. Obama is reported to have said he thinks the ongoing effort has runs it course.
The ongoing probe has been a burr under the Teamster’s saddle blanket. Most observers think mob influence over the union has diminished in recent times. The Teamsters if the largest Union in the United States with about 1.4 million members with 32% in the Central state anchored in Obama’s hometown of Chicago; 26% in the West; 28% in the East, and 7% in the South. About 2% are in Canada.
Two-thirds of Teamsters members work in one of five divisions: Warehouse, Parcel, Freight, Public Employees and Industrial Trades. The Public Employees sector is the union’s fastest-growing division, and organizing more Federal employees is a lucative segment for the union, and some say a friendly person in the White House who would block Federal oversight would be pehaps the biggest coup possible for the union at this juncture
“Dickie” Joins Spitzer In Humiliation of Pillory
Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, 61, the so-called “King of Torts” pleaded guilty to Federal charges of trying to bribe a Mississippi judge for a favorably ruling on $26.5 million in attorney fees in connection with a lawsuit involving Hurricane Katrina victims whose insurance company’s denied their claims. He could go to jail and will lose his law license. Scruggs has extracted billion-dollar settlements from the tobacco and asbestos industries, among others. Scruggs and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer are both considered tormentors on Wall Street. Scruggs son and law partner Zach and apparently two others are also charged. Zach’s case, at least, will go to trial. Another attorney and the State Auditor are charged but cooperated, one wearing a wire, during the $50,000 payoff. What will happen to the Judge, with the unfortunate name of Lackey, is unclear.
Scruggs is politically wired and is brother-in-law of former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and a big political contributor to many others.