Tag: Scandals

Dobson Quits Haggard Counseling Team

Jon Ponder

On Tuesday, while the media was focused its Election Day coverage, Rev. James Dobson, one of the leaders of the American homophobe movement, quietly removed himself from the team trying to cure Pastor Ted Haggard of his bisexuality and his drug habit:

“Emotionally and spiritually, I wanted to be of help – but the reality is I don’t have the time to devote to such a critical responsibility,” Dobson said.

The other two members of the team, Pastors Jack Hayford of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif., and Tommy Barnett of First Assembly of God in Phoenix, declined to comment…

The counseling process, called restoration, could take years, said H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family.

Yes, since changing a person’s innate sexual persona is like changing his left-handedness or eye color, it can take a very long time.

Borowitz: Same-Sex Massage Amendment

Trish

If you didn’t know he was kidding…

In one of the most stunning November surprises in recent memory, the Republican Party today declared its unequivocal support for a constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex massage…

“This constitutional amendment defines massage as a rub-down between a man and a man, one of whom may or may not be selling crystal meth,” Mr. Rove said.

The same-sex massage amendment was not the only Hail Mary pass thrown by a Republican on Election Day, as Virginia senate candidate George Allen attempted to close the gender gap in his race by announcing that he was a woman.

Mr. Allen, who did not know he was Jewish until earlier this year, said he made a similar discovery about his gender on the eve of the midterm election.

“When I discovered that I was a woman after all of these years of believing I was a man, all I could think was, ‘Oy,'” Mr. Allen said.

Haggard Told Gay Hooker He Used Meth With His Wife

Pensito Editors

Holy shit:

[Michelangelo Signorile]: Tell me about this: You’re having sexual encounters with [Pastor Ted Haggard] once a month. After about a year he just asks you about crystal meth?

[Mike Jones]: He just goes, “Hey Mike, I have a question. What do you know about crystal meth?” I was a little bit surprised. I said, “I don’t care for it. I’ve tried it but I don’t care for it. But I have friends who do it and they think it enhances their sexual pleasure.” He goes, “Do you think you can get me some?” I told him I’ll see what I can do.

MS: And you hooked him up with somebody who could get him this drug. Then what? He would do it in your presence when he had sex with you?

MJ: Yes, he agreed it enhanced his pleasure and said that he used it when he had sex with his wife too.

Evangelical: Pastors Turn to Gay Sex Because Their Wives Are ‘Dowdy’

Jon Ponder

One more about Haggard: One of Pastor Ted’s colleagues — Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hills megachurch — believes he knows why ministers seek sexual relations outside the home. It’s their wives’ fault:

“Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives.

At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness.

A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.”

Yeah, that must be it. Pastor Ted regularly bought sex from at least one male prostitute because his wife Gayle is a frump.

Kuo on Haggard: Jesus Never Mentioned Homosexuality

Jon Ponder

David Kuo has gone from the number two person in charge of President Bush’s faith-based initiative to the Republicans’ worst nightmare: One of their own who has seen the light. Here is his take on the Pastor Ted Haggard scandal:

“The evangelical obsession with homosexuality makes this especially ironic. For many evangelical leaders, anything related to homosexuality is this special, dark sin. But that’s not what the Bible says,” says Kuo. “Really it’s a sin like gossiping to your neighbor. Jesus doesn’t even mention it at all.”

And:

“At the end of the day, this comes down to bringing Jesus into politics,” he says. “Right now, it’s not Ted Haggard on trial. It’s Jesus. This is about the God he represents. When you make yourself a public figure and you fall, you bring the perception of your God with you.”

“Jim Dobson’s response was particularly telling,” Kuo says of leading evangelical James Dobson. “He basically blamed the controversy on gays and Democrats. When evangelical leaders can’t see beyond Tuesday on any question, what on earth is happening?”

Scandals Render Partisan Voting Key to Republican Victories

Trish

Never has it been more important for Republicans to vote partisan than this year. In race after race, Candidate A has resigned in shame and been replaced by Candidate B, but Candidate A’s name is still on the ballot.

Democrats tend to actually pay attention when voting so if a ballot read, say, “Mark Foley,” we might flinch from touching the corresponding grimy spot on the screen. But Republicans don’t read the names anyway.

If this were happening to Democrats, we’d have a problem. Democrats tend to actually pay attention when voting so if a ballot read, say, “Mark Foley,” we might flinch from touching the corresponding grimy spot on the screen. But Republicans don’t read the names anyway. They just look for the little “R” that follows, and viola!

This quality will be especially handy in these races:

    Texas U.S. House District 22 – Voters will need to overlook the “Tom DeLay” part and write in another Repug instead.

    Florida U.S House District 16 – Rebooblicans will need to steel themselves to ignore the name “Mark Foley,” relying on the “R” to supply them with Joe Negron.

    Ohio U.S. House District 18 – Remember Ohioans, it’s not really Bob Ney, who plead guilty to conspiracy charges in the Jack Abramoff case too recently to be replaced on the ballot. C’mon, you can do it! Vote Ney!

    Florida House Dist. 102 – Ralph Arza, though released from the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Facility in Miami on felony charges of interfering with a witness – specifically by calling his house in a drunken tirade and calling him a “nigger” and a “bitch” – won’t be up for re-election after all. It will be Arza’s name on the ballot but his votes will go to Eduardo Gonzalez.

Don’t let the names fool you, voters. Just look for the “R” on the label, and we can almost guarantee you’ll get exactly what you’re expecting.

Did I miss one? Leave a comment if there’s a similar race in your area.

NRCC Held ‘Damage Control’ Meeting about Foley Two Days Before Scandal Broke

Jon Ponder

Rep. Tom Reynolds, who chairs the NRCC, may have known about Rep. Mark Foley’s emails to teen-aged pages earlier than he has said publicly.

NRCC staffers are on the record saying that they held a “damage control” meeting about Foley’s emails two days before Foley resigned — which is also two days before Reynolds has said he learned about the emails.

NRCC Communications Director Carl Forti and Reynolds then chief-of-staff Kirk Fordham both took part in the first call the evening of Wednesday, September 27, and one call the next day, Forti and other sources familiar with the call confirmed. Forti’s involvement and the NRCC’s role in the run-up to the Foley scandal add another link between the disgraced former congressman and Reynolds, who has said he knew only indirectly of questionable emails, and that he reported them to his House superiors. They also reflect another moment at which House GOP leadership was aware of concerns about Foley and pages…

The conference call, described by a Hill staffer familiar with its contents as focused on “damage control,” also included Foley’s Florida-based political consultant, Richard Johnston, and his communications director, Jason Kello, according to two people familiar with the call. The participants were unaware of the explicit instant messages that would force Foley’s resignation two days later…

Among NRCC staff, “I was the only one who participated in the conference calls,” Forti said, referring to the Wednesday night call and to another after the first ABCNews report Thursday but before the graphic instant messages surfaced Friday.

Forti said he couldn’t comment on whether either Reynolds himself or NRCC executive director Sally Vastola participated in the early discussions about the first Foley email because both testified before the ethics commission on the case and are forbidden from discussing their testimony. Reynolds’ campaign spokesman, L.D. Platt, declined even to ask the congressman about the issue, citing the ban on discussing testimony.

Foley consultant Richard Johnston and Foley communications director Jason Kello were also on the phone, according to two people familiar with the call.

Fordham, then Reynolds’ chief of staff, and formerly Foley’s chief of staff, played a central role throughout the affair.

“Kirk was involved before the resignation – in the days before – helping, advising Foley with respect to how this would be handled in the context of his reelection campaign,” said Fordham’s lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, referring to the earlier, less damning email. “There were NRCC people involved in that discussion.”

Florida Prosecutors Might Help Ann Coulter on Her Mission to Go to Jail

Trish

Ann Coulter must want go to jail. She’s cutting off any options for Florida prosecutors but to pursue a felony conviction for her voting fraud in a Palm Beach election earlier this year.

Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney’s office by Friday…

Anderson’s office received a complaint in February that Coulter allegedly voted in the wrong precinct during a Feb. 7 Palm Beach town council election. Since then, Anderson said he has made repeated attempts to resolve the matter with Coulter and her attorney but has been rebuffed.

Anderson, a Democrat, said an initial letter was sent to Coulter on March 27…

Three more letters were sent to Coulter and her attorney over the next several months, but she has yet to respond with the information requested, Anderson said.

As you may or may not recall, Coulter said at the time that she can’t reveal her true address for fear she’ll be killed by the people she tries to destroy in her books. “Should we get my stalkers on the line with my address and apartment number?” she asked on the Sean Hannity show.

The problem is that the law doesn’t actually make exceptions for hateful harpy skanks that need to be protected from their own hateful harpy skankiness. Covering up your address to vote in a different precinct, or more than once, or where you like best is still a third degree felony that’ll get you up to five years in prison.

Speaking of Chickenhawks, Where Is Mark Foley?

Jon Ponder

Mark Foley, the GOP chickenhawk of a different feather, checked into the Sierra Tucson Treatment Center in Arizona on Oct. 1, just two days after he resigned from Congress in disgrace.

His stay was to have been 30 days, which means he should have been out of there yesterday.

If former Rep. Foley has been released from rehab, can we assume that our Liberal Media will let us know?

UPDATE:

Thanks to Kewalo, who commented below, we now know that:

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley has extended his 30-day stay at a pricey rehab center in Arizona, according to acquaintances.

Reporting this new development tonight, Keith Olbermann wagered that Foley would leave rehab the day after the elections next week, Nov. 8.

Wouldn’t It Be Simpler to Drink a Shot?

Trish

Sometimes I see fellow editor Buck’s point about the emails from the Florida Democratic campaigns. This just in from governor’s candidate Jim Davis in regard to his debate tonight with Republican Charlie Crist:

Try playing this game, whether you’re attending a debate watch party, sitting around with your friends and family, or watching the debate by yourself at home. Grab a piece of paper and make a checkmark every time Charlie does one of the following:

* Each time Charlie calls for “more of the same,” “stay the course,” or any other reference to continuing the way things are going now
* Each time Charlie says “double the homestead exemption” – because it means Florida will have to wait four years for tax relief
* Each time Charlie mentions Jeb Bush
* Each time Charlie doesn’t answer the question (double it if Chris Matthews calls him on it)
* Each time Charlie gets visibly flustered or angry
* Each time Charlie expresses his love for Ronald Reagan
* Each time Charlie refers to himself as “the happy warrior”

At the end of the night, count all checkmarks and ask everyone to go online and contribute at least a dollar for each checkmark.

I think the chances of Charlie doing any of these things, now that he’s seen this email, are slim. If Davis really wanted to see Crist get “flustered or angry” he would have Matthews ask him why, as a gay man, he would be a Republican.