John Edwards has a sex tape?

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In the story that will not die, we now learn that John Edwards, the former North Carolina Senator and VP running mate to John Kerry, now reportedly has a sex tape. According to Rush & Molloy, the gossip columnists of the New York Daily News, Edwards former aide Andrew Young just finished a book proposal that described first, that he is not the father of the child of Rielle Hunter, John Edwards mistress, second, that Young just happened to see a sexually-explicit videotape as he was unpacking after moving to California from the East Coast, where he lived with Rielle Hunter, Edwards' mistress, and Young's wife and family.

The story is known by now: in August of 2008, after the heat of the Democratic Primary had cleared and just before the Democratic National Convention, former Senator Edwards admitted he cheated on his wife Elizabeth starting in 2006, while she was battling breast cancer. The scandal was originally reported by the Enquirer as far back as November of 2007, and just a few blogs, including Zennie62, then called "Zennie's Zeitgeist" followed it.

Rielle Hunter was an amateur film-maker Edwards befriended in New York City in 2006, but the friendship turned into two things: a $200,000 video job for Hunter and an affair for Edwards. Then - aide Andrew Young told the media - or those new media types paying attention - that he was the person who had the affair with Hunter and evntually got her pregnant.

This video I created gives you a look at what Rielle Hunter did for Edwards on the campaign trail:



Now Young's changing his story, claiming there's a sex tape and he has it, stating that he's not the father of Hunter's child and that Edwards is, and throwing Edwards so far under the bus he's going to be ran over by it and have skid marks on his back.

Yikes.

The question is why, after all this time, would Andrew Young do this to his former boss? Loyalty can last forever, can't it? According to the Huffington Post, Young feels "betrayed" by the "once-friendly" Edwards family. That turnabout may have come at the hands of Elizabeth Edwards, as the NY Daily News claims it was she who blamed Young for being an "enabler" of Edwards affair with Hunter, even to the point of arranging cell phone calls between Edwards and Hunter. Reportedly, Ms. Edwards threatened to leak information about Young's criminal past.

Yikes.

And The Enquirer, which rose from tabloid obscurity to gain mainstream media attention by breaking this story, reports that Young expressed displeasure with Edwards after he visited Hunter just after the child was born last year. Then, just after Edwards admitted his affair in August of 2008, Fox News ran a post presenting Young's unfortunate past of arrests. Young, with his image damaged, felt backed into a corner and like any wounded animal, struck back with this new story. The real story.

(Some websites, like the Enquirer claim the story of Young's past came up in The Daily Beast, but that's not true. It was Fox News.)

That the Edwards matter has degenerated to this point is sad to say the least. A once-promising man and family have essentially reduced themselves to the point of slinging mud at former friends and vice versa and who knows who else is next, given that Elizabeth Edwards is writing a book too.

Yikes!

Mental Health of concern to Denver Convention attendees

Chatting with convention goers outside the Colorado Convention Center on Sunday August 25 I met Hope Turlington of Raleigh, North Carolina, who has abundant concerns over federal funding for mental health, both in terms of military veterans, and non-military citizens of the USA. She is distrubed by the prospects for returning Iraq vets dealing with mental stress and trauma as a result of service to this country.

Hope is deeply concerned about the effects of the scheduled "transition/closing" of the Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital. She pointed out that the great North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms has said that "our sick deserve a view from Dix Hill as much as anybody," yet developers are bidding to take that land away - to turn it into a money maker for a private entity at the expense of people suffering from various forms of acute and/or chronic mental illness. De-institutionalization is not a viable treatment protocol for many of the people who have been diagnosed and committed, yet the transition from John Umstead and Dorothea Dix Hospitals to Central Regional Hospital (CRH) began last month (July 2008.) The CRH-Dix Unit will be operational upon the closing of Dorothea Dix Hospital, but Hope fears a downscaling under the guise of the Olmstead decision that will force people out into society who are not able to cope without the support structures serving them today.

She was looking forward to the Health Care forum with Hillary Clinton later in the week, and hoping Elizabeth Edwards would be present as well. The looming upswing in U.S. citizens needing institutional care will place further pressures on the system - which is why any cutback in Raleigh is of overwhelming concern to Hope.

digg this story!

Brandon Keating Sr: Sen. John Edwards & Mistress!

YouTuber Brandon Keating Sr: really takes Senator John Edwards to the woodshed!

Rielle Hunter / John Edwards' Alleged Baby Photos Surface - DNC Convention Impact?

Wow, this is getting deeper. After reports that the Enquirer did not have photos to go with their latest claim that the former Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards was visiting his rumored mistress Rielle Hunter, we now see photos.

If you recall, late last years, rumors and photos surfaced on and in The Clinton-Backer Owned National Enquirer that Edwards had a mistress who was pregnant but the campaign claims not by him but by Andrew Young, a campaign operative. Then Rielle Hunter had the baby and the Enquirer's two reporters caught Edwards at the hotel where she was staying, a visit confirmed by a security guard.

My video reports those details:



My question is how does this impact Edwards at the DNC Convention which is now just 18 days away? Will he be given a speaking role? Will he be shunned all together? An explosive topic that's not going away. At least Edwards didn't try to get Rielle Hunter to try for "Miss Buffalo Chip"!

John Edwards and Rielle Hunter "The Alleged Mistress" Caught In LA By Enquirer

This is a new story that is based on one I covered last fall. Former U.S. Senator John Edwards, who was also being considered for the VP slot next to Senator Barack Obama, was found at an LA hotel by two National Enquirer reporters as Edwards was visting new mom Rielle Hunter.

In January, this space reported that the Enquirer wrote that Hunter was pregnant.

This is what I added in this blog:

John Edwards' Alledged Lover Rielle Hunter Pregnant By Either "Edwards Operative" Or Edwards Himself

Friday, January 04, 2008

As John Edwards prepares to go negative on Barack Obama after Obama's big Iowa win, there's a looming spectre of a story that should be of concern to him and it seems to be.

This is a story that will not go away and it comes up again, as The National Enquirer and Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post first introduced a story asserting that former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards had an affair in 2006.

I wrote about it a while back , but focused on the Enquirer / Clinton angle. But I'm done with that as the story has massive legs.

Now, the Enquirer is reporting that the woman of interest as the supposed lover, Rielle Hunter is pregnant, and has a photo , shown here, to prove it. Now this is where the story gets even weirder...

Here is what I wrote in the original story:

This is one of those stories you aren't sure what to do with but figure you should cover to some extent. Apparently the National Enquirer is reporting that John Edwards had been cheating on his wife. It's all the more hurtful because his wife's battling breast cancer and doesn't need any more stress, even from the mere existence of the story itself.

Yikes.

The person who some are pointing fingers at is named Rielle Hunter. She's a video producer who was hired to cover Edwards for a period of time during the campaign and made a special set of videos. Here's one of them..



Hunter released the following statement through a spokesperson:

"The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the internet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous.
My video production company was hired by the Edwards camp on a 6 month contract, which we completed December 31, 2006.

When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional.

This concocted story is just dirty politics and I want no part of it."

But how in hell did this get started and generate 1,363 blog posts, according to Technorati? We'll get to that, but it appears the National Enquirer is part owned by Clinton backer and former staffer Roger Altman , according to Pat Dollard.

But A spokesman for American Media, Richard Valvo, said in an email that Altman has “no involvement in editorial, ever.” He said that Evercore owns 20% of the company through an investment fund. Altman didn’t respond to an email seeking comment or to a message left with his secretary.

American Media has also published terrible and negative stories about the Clintons since its acquisition, so that may just be coincidence.

But how did this get started?

According to Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post , the two met at a New York Bar (!) and the idea for a set of videos was hatched there. What Sam doesn't report, but does come from Rielle's own website, is that in 2004 she was flat broke. In 2006, just two years later, she scored a six-figure deal with Edwards. But how?

What appears possible is that Edwards got involved with helping a woman in her early 40s remake her life. Indeed, the production company that made the film, Midline Groove Productions, was brand new in 2006, according to its website.

"Midline Groove is a full-service production company committed to projects that reveal truth -- the authentic aspects of humanity that are right here and most often overlooked. Creating short and feature length documentaries for the web, broadcast, and big screen, the company was established in 2006 by producing partners Rielle Hunter and Mimi Hockman."

So it seems that the Edward project was Midline Groove Productions' first work, period. Thus it seems as if Edwards created a job for the new production company. It came at the right time for Hunter. Hunter's other website sends the constant message that Hunter was searching for a new self at the time. Check this out..

Back in bed the thought arises: Funny, I would ask Ramana for help and not Gangaji who is here in a body. Yes, that would be too intimate. Intimate intimate intimate. And because I have learned to move towards my fear, I have learned that under the fear is where all the great juice is hidden, it naturally occurs to me to ask her: Gangaji, PLEASE help me wake up from this dream.

There's a lot of text like that.

NYMag has a great timeline which I've reproduced here:

January 2007. John Edwards's One America campaign debuts a series of Web videos about him, made by relatively unknown documentarian Rielle Hunter. The pair met at a bar, where she sold the future candidate on the idea. Hunter subsequently followed Edwards around the country, filming. Newsweek reporter Jonathan Darman, upon watching the final cuts, notes that "in the midst of a short theme sequence that begins each Webisode, the camera lingers over the former senator's behind as he tucks a starched white shirt into his pants."

August 27, 2007. The Post's "Page Six" runs the following blind item: "WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he'll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture." This is later reprinted by commenters on the Huffington Post blog.

September 26, 2007. Young Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein writes about his efforts to track down the Web videos, which have disappeared from Edwards's Website. Stein writes an oddly detailed account of his chase of the videos and points out that both the Edwards campaign and Hunter's production company blame one another for their vanishing act. Stein even checks with the Screen Actor's Guild to get more information and tracks down production assistants on the project, none of whom will say much. Finally, Edwards's people let him see the videos while accompanied by a campaign minder and Stein sees nothing sinister in them.

September 27, 2007. Daily Kos contributor Ben Bang links to Stein's post and viciously berates the reporter. "Are we supposed to infer something from this non-ending, douchebag?" Ben Bang asks, going on to call him a him a "no-article-finishing, character-assassinating hack fuck."

October 10, 2007. The National Enquirer reports that Edwards is having an affair with a mystery woman who had traveled with the campaign and met the candidate at a bar. An Edwards rep calls the allegations "false, absolute nonsense."

October 10, 2007. That same day, Stein posts a follow-up to his original Huffington Post piece. He questions why the filmmaker, Rielle Hunter, was paid upwards of $100,000 for her work and points out that she used to be a party girl who dated writer Jay McInerney in the eighties and inspired the main character in his book Story of My Life.

October 10, 2007. Ann Coulter, late in the day, mentions the Enquirer story on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC talk show. Daily Kos once again picks up on it and lists the reasons why Stein and the Huffington Post are irresponsible journalists for digging into it.

October 11, 2007. Mickey Kaus on Slate writes a post headlined "Emerging Edwards Scandal?" in which he notes the previous coverage, mulls what would happen to Edwards's campaign if the story were true, especially since he's been "tacitly and effectively used Elizabeth and her struggle" with cancer (the struggle with cancer no doubt being a large part of why the "mainstream media seems to be strenuously trying to not report it"), and wonders who might benefit. Obama?

October 11, 2007. Jezebel.com doesn't mince words, with a headline that screams, "Is John Edwards Cheating on His Cancer-Stricken Wife?" "Who the fuck sleeps with a married man whose wife has terminal cancer and THE ENTIRE WORLD FUCKING KNOWS ABOUT IT?"

October 11, 2007. Washington, D.C., gossip blog Wonkette.com picks up on the Enquirer story, too. After Ann Coulter (who once called John Edwards a gay slur) mentions it, they query: "But, um, Ann? Why would Edwards have a lady-affair when he's a 'faggot'?"

October 11, 2007. New York Magazine's Daily Intelligencer dutifully compiles all of the coverage of the rumor, without adding any information or making conclusions of any kind.

The AP Picks Up The Story

The Associated Press just picked up the story as did the LA Times. In total, 70 news outlets are running with the yarn. Let's see where this takes us as it's not going away.

Back to The Present

John Edwards tried to elude the Enquirer reporters Monday night and according to the Enquirer he did call hotel security. But the overall damage was done.

In this video I talk about Edwards committment to the poor and how that should be allowed to remain in our thoughts about Edwards as he faces this tough issue.

What I call for is us to "circle the wagons" and wish Edwards and his wife the best as they go through what has to be a terrible period.

There are many questions.

For example, why were the videos that Hunter made taken down from the Edwards site last year? And who is behind making the YouTube channel "MissingVideos"? That channel has this wording:

Sometimes things go missing from the internet.

Usually they pop back up.

What Edwards will do now is anyone's guess. Also how will this impact his speaking at the DNC Convention? Stay tuned.

Tim Russert at NH Primary House Party January 2008

Tim Russert on the primary trail in NH, 2008, originally uploaded by headshotsphoto.

I found this photo on Flickr, with this explaination:

Tim Russert died on June 13, at the age of 58. He was photographed while covering a house party for presidential primary candidate, John Edwards, in Bedford NH on the eve of the NH primary in January 2008. Elizabeth Edwards speaks to Tim Russert. Also pictured are Matt Lauer, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

He really enjoyed getting out there it seems. Russert will be missed.