July 23 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation designed to shore up confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and stem the record surge in mortgage foreclosures, sending the bill to the Senate.House members voted 272-152 in favor of the measure, which lawmakers and administration officials expect will be passed in the Senate and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The bill gives Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson power to inject capital into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and provides for a federal agency to insure refinanced home loans.

Bloomberg

I’m not surprised this passed.  I expected it to.  This is an election year and God forbid the Republicans would show a unified front against reckless spending.  Then again, they were in charge of the most reckless spending in history so what was I thinking.  My anger is directed toward Bush who was set to veto this and has now changed his mind.  Of course, I should have expected this as well.  It’s another facet of his “compassionate conservatism” which has been such a big hit that over 70% of the American people thinks he sucks as a President, Yours Truly included.

This bill goes way farther than just bailing out homeowners.  The real infuriating part is that it bails out a few failed CEOs who will continue to make their millions as well as the suits on Wall Street, courtesy of you and me who are just barely getting by.

The Congressional Budget Office says this plan will cost $25 Billion.  A press release this afternoon from Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) has the figure set at $5 trillion over the long term.

If you haven’t read anything about this in the blogosphere, you surely will until this story is either proven or disproven.

Former Democratic VP candidate, Presidential candidate, and Senator John Edwards cornered with a mistress and a lovechild:

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer — met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn’t leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.

But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.

The NATIONAL ENQUIRER broke the story of Edwards’ love child scandal last year, when Rielle was still pregnant and Edwards was still considered a strong candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Both parties denied the NATIONAL ENQUIRER report and a close friend of Edwards’ came forward and said he was the father of Rielle’s baby. But sources told the NATIONAL ENQUIRER a far different story - they revealed that Edwards was engineering a massive cover up of his shocking infidelity.

Yes, it’s the National Enquirer. But it’s the same tabloid that broke the Rush Limbaugh prescription drug story, and a host of stories in the OJ murder case and the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Only time will tell… given how much of a smarmy know-it-all, holier-than-thou personality Edwards is, this wouldn’t surprise me in the least.