But enough about rule-makers.  All the rule-breakers, in DC and beyond, are after the jump.

• As countless politicians have proven, adultery is not an excuse to give up your elected office.  John Ensign agrees, regardless of his parents' $96,000 payoff of his mistress - he plans to seek reelection when his term runs out in 2012.  Could he still be holding out for the White House?  Only time will tell.

• The judge hearing the Banita Jacks case was treated to an earful during the second day of listening to her eight-hour police interrogation.  During the recording, Jacks admitted that she believed her three daughters were possessed by demons but would rise from the dead when the demons left their bodies.  She also contends that all four of her daughters died in their sleep, as a result of the demons, a fact that is inconsistent with the evidence gathered at the crime scene.

• A House panel investigating the Red Line crash heard testimony yesterday, with the majority of witnesses asking for money to fix the flawed transit system.  John Catoe, Metro's General Manager detailed the precautions he has taken since the crash but admits he still does not know what to do about the malfunctioning circuit between Takoma and Fort Totten that presumably caused the collision.

• Violent crimes are being reported with more frequency, in what are thought to be safe areas of the city.  The Borderstan blog reports an armed assault and a robbery in the 1400 blocks of Corcoran and S Streets NW, respectively, in addition to the armed robbery and several burglaries that occurred in the first week of July.  Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young woman was sexually assaulted in her home, less than two blocks from the main gates of the university.  Neighbors and students are concerned, not only for their safety, but because very few people have been informed about the attack.

So keep your eyes and ears open, City Desk readers.  Rules and laws are for following, not breaking.

Drug recalls, crime bills, and a double dose of foreign policy after the jump.

• The FDA issued a press release advising citizens to stop using certain Zicam products.  Why?  Because this supposed cure for the common cold can cause the loss of one's ability to smell.  The press release also reminds concerned consumers that "the loss of sense of smell can adversely affect a person’s quality of life, and can limit the ability to detect the smell of gas or smoke or other signs of danger in the environment."  So stop using Zicam or else you might go smell-blind and die in a fire.

Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign has told colleagues that he plans to admit an extramarital affair, a senior Republican source tells POLITICO.

WaPo's Chris Cillizza has more: 'The affair, which was with a woman who worked for both Ensign's re-election campaign and his Battle Born leadership political action committee, began in December 2007 and ended in August 2008. Ensign's wife, Darlene, said that the couple's "marriage has become stronger" and added: "I love my husband."'

Gee---couldn't be happening to a nicer guy bigger dick!

UPDATE, 7:15 P.M.: Politico has their big story up: Ensign forced to reveal because he was being blackmailed by the jealous cuckolded husband!

Like legalized prostitution.

That would be the thinking of At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown, who has penned a letter asking Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and House majority leader Steny Hoyer to introduce something called the "Roses" amendment.

"The 'Roses Amendment,'" Brown writes, "would revise the Mann Act by prohibiting US citizens from crossing state borders to solicit sex in states where prostitution is legal. The amendment would further prohibit these states from using the Internet as a portal to advertise or solicit prostitution. Furthermore, the amendment would make it illegal to complete financial transactions where electronic data or information is shared with any entity located outside of the state for which prostitution is legalized."

Talk about hitting him where it hurts.

Brown explains his reasoning thusly: "If elected officials from states, namely Nevada, can introduce legislation that alters the local laws of the District, I believe the District should offer an amendment that imposes our moral values on such states where prostitution is legal."

As for the name of the bill? "I believe we should fight guns with roses," he writes.

Wow. Wonder what Axl would do?

These days, Nevada Sen. John Ensign's playing the role pretty well.

Ensign's the guy who introduced the amendment to D.C. House Voting Rights Act last week that gutted that gun laws passed by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor. It looks like his legislative maneuver has the potential to derail the larger bill, which would leave Ensign pleased as punch.

The senator strolled up to the Senate daily press gallery this afternoon to talk guns, voting rights and vouchers with a gaggle of reporters. LL was not present, but frequent City Desk commenter Ryan Grim was, and he passes on audio of the discussion.

The recording starts with a question about whether Ensign would be OK with separating the gun language from the D.C. House Voting Rights Act.

"It's best to keep it on the bill simply because if it's taken off the bill, there's no guarantee that it won't just get shoved someplace in the dark, and they can't guarantee that. We've seen that too many times."

Then things turned to vouchers. Ensign lamented the fact that it looked unlikely that the Senate would have the opportunity to strip language threatening voucher reauthorization from spending bills: "They know they can pass the reauthorization and this program dies anyway because the D.C. city council will vote to kill this bill....The problem that I have with that is that people are voting with their feet; they are saying---these families, these poor kids are saying that they want...their kids to have a better education than what the D.C. public schools are allowing."

Then a reporter raised the fact that in the rest of the country, Congress doesn't get to meddle in local educational affairs.

Responded the senator, "First of all, under the Constitution we absolutely have the constitutional authority to regulate Washington, D.C. We have that guarantee under the constitution. Now, having said that, also one of the reasons that D.C. was chosen [for vouchers] was because of the constitutional authority and to prove whether the system works."

A reporter then raised the fact that Eleanor Holmes Norton is having a civil-rights group "score" a House rules committee vote on the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, much as the National Rifle Association is threatening to.

"Well, first of all, the D.C. voting rights bill all by itself is completely unconstitutional...and if she wants to change it then she needs to change the constitution, that would be the proper forum to address it."

Would you support an amendment? asked another reporter.

"I would not support that simply because I believe that the founders wanted to see the District as not controlled by any of the states. There were a lot of political reasons that they did that and I believe that they had a lot of wisdom in doing that, and that has nothing to do in my mind with civil rights."

Ensign went on to point out that the District gets a whole lot of federal funds. To which a reporter pointed out that it can't say how much of it gets spent---"Isn't there a bit of a conflict there?"

"I go back to the constitution. The constitution didn't want the politics of the city that housed the seat of government---that was the whole compromise: Let's have a District of Columbia that was not part of the states. There was a lot of wisdom in that because they would be disproportionately powerful."

After speaking about the omnibus spending bill now wending its way through the Hill, Ensign fielded a simply question: "Is the gun amendment designed to move forward or to implode the D.C. vote legislation?"

"The gun amendment is to, figuring that the D.C. bill was moving forward and there was no way to stop it---we didn't think we could stop it---so on a bill that was moving forward, to restore the 2nd Amendment rights to people in Washington, D.C."

Then one reporter asked Ensign if he'd rather see the House Voting Rights Act defeated or see his gun legislation enacted into law.

Said Ensign, "I'd rather see the legislation go down and my legislation passed."

Any room for compromise with D.C. folks on the gun language? a reporter then asked.

"I dunno. They haven't offered it," Ensign said before expounding on the District's gun laws: "What they've done now is just made the burdens too great on gun ownership---way too burdensome, much more burdensome then anywhere....Matter of fact, I think they are more burdensome than any place in the country. and when you have the highest murder rate of anyplace in the country for decades and the strictest gun control laws, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense."

Later another reporter asked, "Do you oppose the idea of District residents having a vote in Congress?"

"Yes," Ensign replied, "because of the constitution."

He then expressed some extremely measured support for retrocession to Maryland though he did have some awareness of reality: "I understand Maryland doesn't want it."

LL's old colleague Grim then asked Ensign his opinion, given all of his meddling in District affairs, of home rule.

"I mean, there is nothing wrong with giving them some say-so over what they do," Ensign said, "but you still have to have the federal government oversight."