William S. Lerach, Bill Clinton bud, trial lawyer, and big time Dem donor has bought his last politician. For a few years, anyway…

During the past two decades, Lerach and his family have contributed more than $1.6 million to federal candidates and hosted a fundraiser for President Clinton at his Rancho Santa Fe home.

He has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to state officials, including more than $200,000 to former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.

Lerach was so notorious among executives that Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren briefly made him a 1998 campaign issue.

Lungren claimed that Davis might appoint Lerach to the state Supreme Court, a claim that wasn’t taken seriously. For one thing, it would have forced Lerach to take a pay cut of many millions of dollars each year.

Last week, Lerach pleaded guilty to conspiracy while at his old firm of Milberg Weiss for participating in a scheme to pay kickbacks to recruit plaintiffs for 150 class-action lawsuits against U.S. companies.

He agreed to forfeit $7.75 million in unlawful gains, pay a $250,000 fine and accept a prison sentence ranging between one and two years. source

Lerach is definitely a clintonoid, but this time around, he was also very partial to a fellow ambulance chaser, the gorgeous John Edwards.

from the Post:

He not only swindled investors but strong-armed them into donating thousands of dollars to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign and to other Democratic candidates, authorities and lawsuits say.

He wowed one investor in Orange County, Calif., during a meeting in which he had Clinton join them “live” via videoconference. From a huge screen, the New York senator greeted Hsu warmly, and called him a “good friend and trusted associate.”

Updated and Bumped
Momentum is building. Google hits 1,680,000 entries for the phrase “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.” Hillary Rodham Clinton is now at the top of the heap. Keep it going folks!
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“the+greatest+campaign+finance+scandal+in+American+history”

“the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history”

Now that this phrase has been published by a respected member of the MSM, and, as such, is now in the LexusNexis search database, it seems appropriate to associate that phrase with the person to whom it refers: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I received a ping from FReeper “Spirit of Allegiance” this morning which pointed to an article which featured our pal, “Dougfromupland.”

The article was in the San Francisco Chronicle’s on line edition. Here is the introductory paragraph of the article about “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.”

In his other life, Douglas Cogan, 59, is a San Bernardino County commercial real estate broker. But for years, the conservative Republican has spent thousands of hours painstakingly researching what he calls “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history” by a woman he calls one of the most dangerous political figures the country has ever seen - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Since it appears that Google has enabled “google-bombing” again, I thought it might be interesting to get the phrase, “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history,” permanently associated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. That is the purpose of this post. And, if any of you bloggers out there want to join in, just copy+paste this post at your blog, or pass it along in the comments section of your favorite blogs. The more the merrier. I’m going to track-post it to Linkfests, and post it at FR and Hannity. I’ll also activate every tag I have ever used to associate it with this post. Heh.
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Murtha suit goes forward

WASHINGTON - A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a defamation case against Rep. John P. Murtha and ordered the Pennsylvania Democrat to give a sworn deposition in the case.

A Marine Corps sergeant is suing the 16-term congressman for alleging “cold-blooded murder and war crimes” by unnamed soldiers in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.

The deaths became known in May 2006 when Murtha, who opposes the Iraq war, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that a Pentagon war crimes investigation will show Marines killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians in the town in 2005.

Murtha’s office declined to comment on the ruling. He has said his intention was to draw attention to the pressure put on troops in Iraq and to cover-up the incident.

The Justice Department wanted the case dismissed because Murtha was acting in his official role as a lawmaker. Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Henault said the comments were made as part of the debate over the war in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said the congressman might be right, but said she won’t know for sure unless Murtha explains himself. She did not set a date for Murtha’s testimony but said she would also require him to turn over documents related to his comments.

“You’re writing a very wide road for members of Congress to go to their home districts and say anything they choose about private persons and be able to do so without any liability. Are you sure you want to do that?” Collyer said, adding later, “How far can a congressman go and still be protected?”

Abscam Jack had no comment.
Stay tuned.

Dick Morris has put forward a few questions for the Smartest Woman In The World.
Some of you with tech skills might want to make a video of any of these questions, and upload it to Youtube. Perhaps they can get picked up for one of the debates. The SWITW has some ’splainin to do….

•After all the bad experiences you had with Johnnie Chung and Charlie Trie and their campaign donations in the 1996 election cycle, why were you not more careful in vetting the donations generated by Norman Hsu? Didn’t you learn your lesson in 1996?

(As a follow-up to No. 2) After you found that you had to return almost a million dollars to the donors bundled by Hsu, you said you would be more vigilant in examining the backgrounds of donors. Why didn’t you come to that conclusion before the Hsu scandal, based on your 1996 experiences?

•Norman Hsu was no ordinary donor. He was the biggest bundler in your campaign; he gave funds to the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton School of Government in Arkansas and took Patti Solis Doyle, your campaign manager, and other aides on an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas. He also donated to Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, whose campaign debt you agreed to help repay. In view of his high profile in your campaign, why didn’t you check him out more thoroughly, and what does this say about your ability to make quality appointments?

•You base your healthcare proposal on the need to cover 47 million “uninsured Americans.” Since about a third of them are illegal immigrants and another third are eligible for Medicaid right now and just don’t apply for it, aren’t you overstating the problem?

(As a follow-up to No. 5) In 2005 you co-sponsored legislation to provide health insurance to the children of illegal immigrants who have lived in this country for five years. In other words, their children would get subsidized healthcare under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program as a reward for dodging the cops for five years. Do you still support that proposal?

•You say that your healthcare proposal will leave alone those who are happy with their current insurance. But if you provide health benefits for close to 50 million new people, thereby generating huge new demand for medical care without any increase in the supply of doctors, nurses or hospitals, it will drive up prices radically. Won’t that force you to institute cost controls by limiting the care those now on health insurance can receive?

•In Arkansas, you achieved fame by urging mandatory testing for teachers and demanded that those who failed the competency tests be dismissed. You and your husband did this and implemented this policy. As a result, he was denied the endorsement by the Arkansas Teachers Union during his time as governor. Do you still support your proposal of 1983 and 1984 for mandatory teacher competency tests for current teachers — not just for new ones?

•In Arkansas, you pioneered the idea of testing students to ascertain their progress and holding schools accountable for any shortcomings in their test scores. Now California Democratic Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Education Committee, wants to change the No Child Left Behind Act to substitute graduation rates for test scores as the measure of a school’s performance. Opponents say this is injecting a non-objective standard and undercuts the whole purpose of the legislation. Do you support Miller’s proposal?

Nice job Dick. Real nice.
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