Cunningham story gets better every day

The circle of sleaze around Republican representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham keeps growing:

A defense contractor who took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of Rep. Randy Cunningham's Del Mar residence in 2003, and provided a yacht for his use in the nation's capital, forced his employees to make political contributions that benefited the San Diego Republican and other members of Congress, according to three former senior officials of the company.

The former employees of the defense contractor, MZM, Inc., said separately that its founder, Mitchell Wade, routinely forced employees to give political donations.

"By the spring of '02, Mitch was twisting employees' arms to donate to his MZM PAC," said one senior former employee. "We were called in and told basically either donate to the MZM PAC or we would be fired."

Guess what: that's illegal.