Claude Allen will have his law license suspended for 90 days.

The former White House adviser and Sen. Jesse Helms protege will have his license suspended over a series of thefts from Target stores, the Legal Times reports.

Allen pleaded guilty in 2006 to stealing from a Target store in Montgomery County, Md. Store video showed that Allen would buy items from Target or Hecht's, take the purchases to his car, then use the receipt to return a similar item off the store shelf.

A committee of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility said that Allen should receive a "modest sanction" because he internalized suffering of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Allen has been a member of the D.C. bar since 1992. He has already had his license suspended for similar amounts of time in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Hat Tip: David Ingram

A new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacks U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole on a number of votes.

What it says: The ad shows images of Dole and an Alaskan landscape, including a brown bear. Narrator: "Why is Elizabeth Dole ranked 93rd in effectiveness? She voted for millions in pork, including Alaska's bridge to nowhere. But for North Carolina? She voted with George Bush 92 percent. Against raising the minimum wage time after time. Against helping families struggling to keep their homes. For the largest cut ever in student loans. Elizabeth Dole, fighting for ... Alaska? Definitely out of touch with North Carolina. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."

The background: The ad makes several claims about Dole's voting record.

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens requested an earmark in the 2006 budget for the proposed $398 million Gravina Island Bridge, nicknamed the "Bridge to Nowhere" by detractors because it serves an island with just 50 residents.

In October of 2005, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn proposed an amendment to the bill that would have shifted $75 million from the bridge and another project in Alaska to the rebuilding of a bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The amendment failed, 15-82, with Dole voting against it.

Congress later stripped the earmark, but gave the state of Alaska an equivalent amount of money for any use it considered appropriate.

MINIMUM WAGE: Starting in 2005, Senate Democrats attempted to raise the federal minimum wage.

In March, Sen. Ted Kennedy proposed raising it by $2.10 over the following 26 months. As a counterproposal, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum proposed raising it by $1.10 over 18 months while exempting more businesses.

Either would have been the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1997.

The amendments both came on a bill overhauling bankruptcy regulations. Both proposals could have complicated efforts to pass the overhaul, since House leaders had said they would only consider the bill if the Senate did not add unrelated amendments.

The Kennedy amendment failed, 46-49, while the Santorum amendment failed, 38-61. Dole voted against the first amendment, but for the second.

In October, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to raise the minimum wage by $1.10 an hour over 18 months. Dole voted against that raise as well.

After Democrats gained control of the Senate in 2006, they pushed the minimum wage hike again. Dole voted for the first, which was never signed into law. The wage hike was later included in an emergency spending bill that Dole voted for as well.

ENERGY ASSISTANCE: The fine print on the section of the ad on struggling families cites a vote on home energy asistance.

In 2006, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine proposed spending an additional $1 billion in the 2007 budget for one-time assistance to people who need help paying their heating and cooling bills.

Dole voted against an amendment on the measure, which later passed by a voice vote.

Spokesman Dan McLagan said Dole objected to how the money would be spent.

"The vast majority of the package was aimed at cold-weather states," he said. "All this money was going to go to northern states for a winter that had been mild, versus southern states that had a hot summer."

In 2008, Dole successfully pushed another measure for more spending on the same energy assistance program. She received an award for her efforts from the National Fuel Funds Network, a nonprofit coalition of energy assistance providers.

CREDIT COUNSELING: In April, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray proposed spending another $100 million on foreclosure counseling this year.

At the time, Congress had already budgeted $180 million for credit counselors.

Murray argued that spending more to prevent homeowners from going into foreclosure was "a smart investment," although it would require suspending budget rules that require any new spending to be matched by an equal cut somewhere else.

Senate Republicans argued that they needed to investigate whether the money was being spent appropriately before budgeting more. If more was spent, they argued it should be done through the regular budget process, not an amendment.

The amendment failed 44-40, with Dole voting against it.

PREVIOUS CLAIMS: Washington-based news service Congressional Quarterly compiles yearly figures for how often senators vote with the stated position of the president. The 92 percent figure comes from an average of the yearly scores for Dole, though Congressional Quarterly researchers says that method is inaccurate. Based on its overall score through August, they say the correct figure for Dole is 88 percent. The effectiveness ranking comes from an annual study conducted by the data service Knowlegis.

Is it accurate? Some of the claims are true: Dole voted against a measure to strip funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere," her effectiveness ranking was 93rd, and she voted against more credit counseling for families facing foreclosure. Two other claims are missing context: She voted against raising the minimum wage and providing more energy assistance, though she later voted for both. In addition, the vote on energy assistance had little to do with foreclosure. The figure for her votes with President Bush is off by a few percentage points.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole voted against an attempt to take money from the "Bridge to Nowhere."

An earmark for the proposed $398 million Gravina Island Bridge was included in a 2006 Appropriations bill at the request of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. The bridge has been criticized as wasteful spending because it serves an island with just 50 residents.

On Oct. 20, 2005, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn proposed an amendment to the bill that would have shifted $75 million from the Gravina Island Bridge and another project to the rebuilding of the Interstate 10 twin span destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The amendment failed, 15-82, with Dole voting against it.

Congress later stripped the specific earmark but gave the state of Alaska an equivalent amount of money for any use it considered appropriate. 

A recent ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes Dole for her vote.

"She voted for millions in pork, including Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere," a narrator says as Dole is shown in front of an image of a brown bear. "Elizabeth Dole, fighting for ... Alaska? Definitely out of touch with North Carolina."

John Edwards said that he will return to New Orleans.

In his concession speech today, he said that he will work on a Habitat for Humanity today and return to the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged city in the future.

"One day, the trumpets will sound in Musicians Village," he said.

Edwards called for universal health care, an end to the Iraq war and a return to fighting poverty. He said that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have told him they will make ending poverty central to their presidencies.

"This is the cause of my life," he said, "And I now have their commitment to this cause."

He said that things will work out for him.

"This son of a millworker is going to be just fine," he said. "Our job now is to make sure that America is fine."

John Edwards' second presidential run lasted for 399 days.

After the jump, a timeline of his campaign.

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A small group of protesters targeted U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's Raleigh office today.

Led by the Institute for Southern Studies, 15 protesters said that a Senate committee has held up a bill that would provide housing assistance in New Orleans.

Nana Nantambu, a former resident of New Orleans, said she will not return because of exploitative rents charged by landlords and poor housing stock.

"It is a violation of our human rights," she said.

In the video above, Ajamu Dillahunt with the N.C. Justice Center says he will deliver a letter to Dole asking her to help pass Senate Bill 1668.

"New Orleans needs homes for the holidays," read one sign.

Victims of Hurricane Katrina will protest at U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's office today.

Displaced New Orleans residents and local housing advocates will gather outside Dole's Raleigh office on New Bern Avenue to protest inaction on a housing bill. 

A bill to help homeowners, renters and public housing residents hurt by Katrina passed the House, but a companion bill has not yet passed the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, on which Dole sits.

The protest will begin at 12:45 p.m. 

Five Tar Heels went from D.C. to overseas during the recess.

According to a story in the Winston-Salem Journal, U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry spent six days in Israel, Rep. Mel Watt went to the Gulf Coast and Rep. Virginia Foxx went to Taiwan.

Sen. Richard Burr also went overseas, but his office would only say that it was related to his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

McHenry's trip was paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which promotes stronger ties with Israel.

Watt and 13 other Democrats met with local officials during a three-day government-sponsored trip to see damage still left from Hurricane Katrina.

Foxx's office would not say how her trip was paid.

As previously noted, Rep. Brad Miller also took an 11-day trip to Africa with six other Congressional Democrats during the recess.

Dan Gearino says John Edwards is in trouble.

The former N&O columnist and blogger writes that Edwards' presidential campaign is having problems because of his positions on poverty and his own personal history.

Gearino calls a recent story about a former Edwards employer foreclosing on Hurricane Katrina victims a "squirm-inducing bit of news."

Poor Johnny. He's become the Democratic equivalent to those family-values conservative Republicans who get rolled up in sex scandals.

Gearino says even Edwards' response brings to mind another type of scandal, with him saying it's "an innocent misunderstanding" and that he will never do it again.

There were no Pat Robertson-like comments from John Edwards during Sunday's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa.

The Dems were asked whether they believed the power of prayer could alter disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge.

Edwards had a very personal answer:

I pray daily now. It’s enormously important to me but the answer to the question is, no, I don’t. I prayed before my 16-year-old son died. I prayed before Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. I think there’s some things that are beyond our control and I think it is enormously important to look to God and in my case Christ for guidance and for wisdom, but I don’t think you can prevent bad things from happening through prayer.