You have probably heard by now about this “John Edwards” character, who constructed his own vulgarian Monticello out of dirt, mirrors, and his own crippling self-regard out in a mud-patch in North Carolina. He also ran for president, twice, but nobody wanted to elect him because he was such an awful reptilian phony. THEN it came out he was fucking some dreadful hippie on the 2008 campaign trail, which made his wife vomit when she heard about it, and the reason you haven’t seen that last bit mentioned on your Wonkette is that we honestly find the whole episode just that distasteful. But this we can get behind: possible misappropriation of campaign funds! MORE »

• RNC WANTS TO END ALL MAVERICK REFORMS NOW: Nine days have passed since the defeat of John McCain — whose name your editor has just typed for the first time all week, huzzah — and the RNC already is suing to overturn the ban on soft money donations to political parties, a.k.a. “John McCain’s thing.” It really must have been torture for these guys, having to pretend for many months that they didn’t hate WALNUTS! (Oh gosh, that felt so good to type.) [Marc Ambinder]

Barack Obama raised $150,000,000 (pronounced “eleventy billion dollars”) in September from ACORN, William Ayers, radical leftists with an extreme pro-abortion agenda, and a smattering of overseas hooligans. In fact, over 3.1 million radical leftist traitors have now contributed to Obama’s campaign! Now that the Democratic candidate is flush with cash he can advertise whenever he wants to, buy a few extra planes, and cast the withered husk of John McCain’s lifelong dreams in bronze. MORE »

Wonkette Fundraising Operative “Neville” sends us this sad screencap from CNN.com that reveals the true state of Barack Obama’s finances. He has officially raised enough money to buy one gallon of gas and a pack of Old Golds.

Now that Barack Obama has killed Comedy, America’s last best hope for political laffs is a McCain-Romney ticket. And it looks like Mitt Romney may oblige, given the latest development in his years-long quest to be humiliated by, with, and on behalf of John McCain. He has forgiven the $45 million in loans he made to himself so that he could eke out a few more weeks in terrible debates with the cranky old war vet during primary season! And this means he probably wants to be vice president. MORE »

Hip young Democratic newcomers like Hillary Clinton have mastered the art of fundraising over the Internets, while Republicans continue to raise campaign contributions in gold dubloons via Pony Express. Massive citizen participation in their hopeful quests has allowed Democrats to forever unshackle themselves from The Special Interests, big business, and The Lobbyists. How long will it take Republicans to catch up with these innovative fundraising techmologies? MORE »

The makers of Hillary the Movie, a conservative advocacy group called Citizens United, failed today in their efforts to convince a panel of three federal judges to allow them to advertise their hit-job movie during primary season or in the sixty days prior to the general election. According to the judges, the trailers constitute political speech that runs afoul of campaign finance laws. While the filmmakers fully admit that it’s more or less intended to tell their version of the “truth” about Hillary because they don’t want to see her elected, it’s noteworthy to point out that the Federal Election Commission would’ve pursued a similar case against Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 (brought by Citizens United) if he’d intended to advertise it during election season in 2004. So, it’s sort of a good news/bad news kind of scenario: they can’t say what they want, but neither can liberals. [Yahoo News]

Just about the time that former Speaker Denny Hastert was promising not to run for reelection, recently revealed documents show he was also settling a case with the FEC. See, he sorta kinda maybe spent $150K of his reelection campaign money on legal bills in the whole didn’t-prevent-Foley-from-molesting-boys thingie — which is itself perfectly legal, go campaign finance “reform”! — but he forgot to tell anyone in his FEC filings because he probably didn’t want all his donors to know that he was spending the money defending his incompetence instead of getting reelected. Total cost to Hastert for disobeying the disclosure law: $1,000. He didn’t face anything harsher than an Ethics Committee rebuke for not stopping Foley, though. Justice is so sweet, isn’t it? [Washington Post]

John Edwards is a plaintiff’s lawyer and a politician and so, frankly, we distrust much of what comes out of his pretty, pretty mouth because, hello, politicians tell you what you want to hear. But, Johnny’s been saying how much he abhors those 527 groups created by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform because they can just spend money willy-nilly and run ads against candidates. Of course, like the Alliance for a New America, (run by a local SEIU chapter) they could also run ads for a candidate, like they are for Edwards who would totally like for them to stop, he swears. Of course, the union leaders mighta sorta discussed the 527 when they were discussing what kinds of support they could offer with Edwards’ staff, but everyone swears that they totally wouldn’t've mentioned the 527 they were starting in order to advertise in support of him when talking about how to support him. Luckily, the laws that define impermissible coordination are so lenient that, according to D.C. lawyer Ken Gross “I don’t know if my wife and I met the standard for coordination before we decided to have a child.” Lawyers are funny. [NY Times]

* Gonzo makes it through almost three minutes of questions from the press today. [The Swamp]
* John McCain still proud of McCain-Feingold, can’t remember back any further. [Captain's Quarters]
* National ballistic missile defense made out of sugar cubes. [C&L]
* Al Qaeda’s intellectual property is safe with Google. [Jawa Report]
* Duncan Hunter has someone write a blawg post for him. [Blogs for Bush]
* Jim Webb “was BORN FIGHTING and will CHOKE A BITCH if need be.” [DCeiver]

Every week, our Anonymous Lobbyist answers your questions about how laws get made and why they probably shouldn’t. If you have a question about the dirty business of doing business in Washington, ask her.

This week: Constructive criticism! And vodka.

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