Senate Candidate Indicted for Sex With Minor

Christian Wulff's exit a blow to Angela Merkel

(NEWSER) - Germany's president has stepped down after being hit with multiple corruption allegations. Though Christian Wulff's position is mostly ceremonial, his exit is nevertheless politically damaging to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bloomberg notes. The chancellor had chosen Wulff to replace the previous president, who also resigned—just shy of two years ago. Merkel canceled debt talks with Italy's prime minister today over Wulff's exit. More»

Study shows more convictions there than any other federal jurisdiction

(NEWSER) - Chicago really is the cesspit of corruption you think it is, according to a new study from the University of Illinois. It found that the Windy City and its environs had had more corruption convictions than any other federal jurisdiction in the last 36 years, with 1,531. Illinois had 1,828 overall, the third most of any state. More»

It's part of Roger Ailes' 'course correction'

(NEWSER) - Is Fox News shifting to the center, relatively speaking? Politico thinks so, tracing it back to a "course correction" ordered by Roger Ailes last fall. He wanted Fox to move away from Tea Party "cheerleading" and to tone down the far-right rhetoric, writes Politico's Keach Hagey. "A casual Fox viewer might barely notice the changes since the network remains critical of the Obama administration and reliably conservative opinion voices, like (Sean) Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, still anchor key spots in the Fox firmament. But the changes are there." More»

Allen West tells Obama, Democrats 'get the hell out of United States'

(NEWSER) - Strong conservative , Tea Party favorite, and rising star Allen West could find his congressional seat gerrymandered Democrat—by none other than the Republican Party. West's "sacrifice" at the hands of his own party smells like the latest example of the establishment fighting back against the Tea Party, according to Legal Insurrection . One Florida legislator, who happens to be working for the Mitt Romney campaign, "tried to hide behind a need to comply with [state and] federal law, but that’s obviously a dodge since there could have been many ways to comply yet not sacrifice West," writes William Jacobson. More»

Establishment, Tea Party, libertarians all negative in different ways

(NEWSER) - With the Republican Party so divided, it's no surprise that its response to President Obama's State of the Union address would also be divided, notes the Washington Post . In addition to an official response by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and a Tea Party response by Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and the other GOP candidates also weighed in:

• Cain's rebuttal focused on familiar Tea Party complaints—"Obamacare," "class warfare," and the "liberal media." Cain also addressed old sexual harassment allegations against him, noting that the "false attacks" derailed his campaign, but that accusations against Newt Gingrich failed because "the American people are waking up to dirty, gutter politics,” he said. “The American voters are saying, ‘We ain’t stupid.’"