Former Clinton White House aide and Arizona prosecutor Andrei Cherny announced his run for Congress in Arizona’s 9th Congressional District. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Andrei on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you live in Arizona get involved here.

In related news on Arizona and the House, “Ron Barber, an aide to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) who was wounded in the shooting spree that also injured Giffords, will run to replace her in the House.” Barber announced today he would run in the special election for Giffords seat, and said that she had asked him to run.

Brookline’s town clerk says the 31-year-old Kennedy came to town hall Tuesday and registered to vote as a Democrat, listing a Brookline address.

Kennedy had been living in Cambridge which is not in Frank’s district. A spokesman for Kennedy says he “is taking time to listen to families in the district.”

I just think it will be awesome to have Kennedy in Congress again, so my hope is he’ll run.

Donald Trump certainly enjoys keeping the media spinning. If he’s considering running for president on the independent ticket, as he has hinted at frequently of late, he’s hedging bets on whether to endorse Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. It’s a freakin’ endorsement circus…

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is reported to be in “serious disarray,” while the Las Vegas Review Journal reports today that a “new poll shows Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney headed for a blowout victory Saturday in Nevada’s GOP caucuses.”

Honestly this primary season has been like watching a very bad sitcom… And I don’t like to watch TV.

In a move that has instantly infuriated feminists, it was announced today that “Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.”

Planned Parenthood has been at the center of a lot of heated political battles lately. Most center on whether the group, as an abortion provider, should receive government funds for other services it provides, such as offering contraceptives and preventive screenings.

The move by the Komen fund was immediately decried as a cowardly attempt by the Komen fund to bow to conservative pressure.

Twitter has been aflutter with the news for a couple of hours now… Tweet of the Day on the topic:

@kelly_carlin Hey Susan G. Komen, we’ve shown you our tits, now show us your balls. #FightRWNJAgendas

It’s a sad day for womens rights and the cure for breast cancer. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said today, “We are alarmed and saddened that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation appears to have succumbed to political pressure. Our greatest desire is for Komen to reconsider this policy and recommit to the partnership on which so many women count.” 

Read more here, about how Planned Parenthood is fighting back and their new fund to keep breast exams covered at their facilities.

The Susan G Komen fund has been recently running TV advertisements to brings in participants and donors for upcoming 2012 3-day walks. It will be interesting to see how that pans out for Komen in the wake of today’s news.

In the midst of this economic recession (or depression) the F.T.C. has been cracking down on debt collectors who ”harass consumers for money they may not even be legally obligated to pay.” This is good news for consumers who have found themselves for whatever reason unable to pay their debts in this economy.

In the second-largest penalty ever levied on a debt collector, the F.T.C. said that Asset Acceptance, one of the nation’s largest debt collection companies, had agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty to settle charges that the company deceived consumers when trying to collect old debts.

The F.T.C. has ”pursued eight cases related to debt collection companies over the last two years.” The recent settlement with Asset Acceptance “is part of a broader effort to patrol the industry, agency officials said.”

Consumer complaints about debt collection companies consistently rank as the second-highest category among all complaints at the agency, behind identity theft. But in 2010, complaints jumped 17 percent to 140,036, which represented 11 percent of all complaints in the commission’s database, up from 119,540, or about 9 percent of complaints, in 2009.

It is noted in the NY Times article about this issue that “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the F.T.C. now share enforcement authority for debt collection companies, though the new bureau has a power that the F.T.C. did not: it can write new rules for debt collectors.”

If you are being harassed by debt collectors who use nefarious means do not hesitate to contact the F.T.C. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to file complaints. These debt collectors who strong arm consumers with financial problems will not be stopped unless complaints are filed.

Rep. Gabby Giffords was in the spotlight last night at the State of the Union address as President Obama stopped to hug her on his way to the podium to make his address.

Giffords cast her last vote in the House today, “for legislation she and Flake introduced this week, her office said in a statement.” The Christian Science Monitor reports, “The bill Giffords and Flake introduced would levy new penalties on people who use small, low-flying aircraft to smuggle drugs across the US. border with Mexico.”

Gabby Giffords offically resigned from Congress today in order to focus fully on her recovery from the  injuries she sustained when she was shot in the head at close range on Jan. 8, 2011. Watch the emotional resignation here:

She’s a true inspiration to us all…

Senator John Kerry tonight released a statement following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address:

“If Members of Congress are going to be honest about it, there was a lot of common sense and even more common ground in tonight’s address. We shouldn’t have to wait for another year or another election to act like it. Tax reform, energy security, infrastructure, and jobs matter to all of us and we’re so much closer on these issues than the shrillness of our politics pretends we are. We ought to prove peoples’ suspicions wrong and prove that Congress can actually get something done even in an election year. Dysfunction isn’t defensible.”

The full text of President Obama’s State of the Union is available here.

Senator Kerry was seen earlier today at an event at the White House, for the Boston Bruins,  sporting a couple of black eyes from a hockey game accident. Get well soon JK…

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has just announced plans to step down from Congress.

Giffords was the “victim of a gunshot wound to the head in an attack a year ago in her Arizona district.” She said her work toward recovery was her reason for stepping down.

Prior to the shooting Gabrielle Giffords “had been considered a rising Democratic star, and had been considering a bid for Senate this fall.” She has been absent from Capitol Hill over the course of her recovery, except for a very moving surprise return in August to vote on an agreement in the House, to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Watch her moving announcement here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE (2:32 pm): I first caught the breaking news on Twitter and them MSNBC. Since I first posted this, Gabby Giffords has already become a Trend on Twitter.

Via MSNBC:

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, capping off a remarkable comeback for his presidential bid that reshapes the trajectory of the battle for the GOP nomination…

[...] The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.

Mitt Romney indeed thought he had it in the bag… He didn’t. Newt Gingrich’s win in S.C. changes the game quite a bit for the GOP race for the presidential nomination. Stay tuned…

Blues, Jazz, R& B legend Etta James has passed away. She was 73.

According to her longtime manager and friend, Lupe De Leon, Etta James “died from complications from leukemia with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons by her side.”

Etta James was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010. She also suffered from hepatitis C and dementia.  James passed away at a hospital in Riverside, California. She would have turned 74 next Wednesday.

Her manager Lupe De Leon said, “This is a tremendous loss for the family, her friends and fans around the world. She was a true original who could sing it all — her music defied category.”

Etta James music did defy category. Throughout Etta James’ long career, she “overcame a heroin addiction, opened for the Rolling Stones, won six Grammys and was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

Despite her ups and downs — including a number of health problems — she maintained an optimistic attitude.

“Most of the songs I sing, they have that blue feeling to it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don’t know what I’m sorry about,” she told CNN’s Denise Quan in 2002. “I don’t!”

Etta might not have known what she was “sorry about,” but her music spoke to soul deep to her fans and admirers. From her iconic love song, At Last to her rocking version of I Just Wanna Make Love To You, Etta James struck a chord in the romantic and heart broken in us all.

Etta James was born on January 25, 1938, as Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles, California.

Her mother was a teenaged African-American. She never knew her father and liked to speculate he was the famous pool player Minnesota Fats. Mrs. James was reared by her grandparents and caregivers. She grew up and toured with the late Johnny “Guitar” Watson and was discovered in 1951 by West Coast bandleader Johnny Otis.

I think perhaps one of my all time favorite Etta James songs is this one:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Washington Post’s Adam Bernstein’s obituary calls James “a widely admired musical interpreter of love and pain and one of the first rhythm-and-blues singers with a large mainstream following”

Rest in peace Etta… You will be missed… Your music will live on to remind us all of your powerhouse voice, that soothed our weary heartbroken souls and rocked us to our core:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out “Etta James: A playlist and reviews from the Post archives” and “Etta James: Recommended listening.”

UPDATE: There’s more Etta James videos at PamelaLeavey.com.