Republican Florida Governor Candidate Being Yanked From Closet
Do not vote in Florida until you see this video.
Tag: Scandals
More on the Story That a Crist Male Ex-Lover Spilled the Beans
A Palm Beach independent weekly has more on the story that a former Katherine Harris staffer was heard by multiple sources to say he is one of the ex-lovers of Florida Republican governor’s candidate Charlie Crist.
The GOP staffer, 21-year-old Jason Wetherington, told friends at separate social functions in August that he had sex with Crist, according to two credible and independent sources who heard Wetherington make the claim first-hand.
‘”He was like [Katherine] Harris’s gay valet,” the source said.Wetherington, who recently worked as a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris and currently works for state representative Ellyn Bodganoff’s reelection campaign, also named a man whom he said is Crist’s long-term partner, a convicted thief named Bruce Carlton Jordan who also recently worked for Harris in her long-shot Senate bid…
Jordan was charged in 2003 with stealing thousands of dollars from two organizations for whom he worked, including the Tallahassee-based Florida Funeral Directors Association, where he served as executive director. He completed a 60-day jail sentence in February and will be on probation until the year 2011, according to state records.
Sometimes, the very way someone denies something makes it hard to believe they could be telling the truth. This is one of those cases. Not only is Crist denying he and Jordan are long-time lovers, he says he can’t place the name or face.
When the [Miami] Herald questioned Crist about Jordan this past August, the frontrunner in the governor’s race told the newspaper that he doesn’t remember the man. “I don’t know who Bruce Jordan is,” he said at the time. “It doesn’t mean I haven’t met him. I don’t know who you are speaking about.”
I asked Crist during a phone interview on Monday morning if he had ever had sex with Jordan.
“No,” he said. “I don’t recall the name.”
That Crist doesn’t remember Jordan seemed incredible to me. Not only did the attorney general make a special appearance at the funeral directors’ conference, but former presidents of the association say Jordan was known to be pals with Crist.
Wetherington, a former Florida Senate page himself, publicly denies an affair with Crist. Privately it’s a different matter. […]
Wal-Mart Fires Producer of Racist Ad in Tenn. Senate Race
Who knew the producer of the anti-Harold Ford racist ad that was paid for by Ken Mehlman and the Republican National Committee was named Terry Nelson — or that he worked for Wal-Mart? We all know it now, thanks to the fact that Wal-Mart forced Nelson to resign late on Friday.
They fired him to keep in good standing with their African-American customers, obviously, so while it doesn’t make Wal-Mart any less evil, it does keep the story alive into the weekend news cycle, for whatever that is worth:
In submitting his [forced] resignation, Terry Nelson said Wal-Mart had “come under political pressure from liberal special interest groups” as well as labor unions. “It’s unfortunate that this pressure has had an impact on Wal-Mart.”
In an interview, he said of the commercial that critics deemed racist: “There was no intention to offend anybody and it’s unfortunate if people took offense. That was certainly not what people planned for or hoped for.”
Of course not, Terry. You accidentally cast a white woman as the hootchy-mama who pouts as she says, “Harold, call me.”
Wasserman: A Timid Media Dropped the Ball in the Foley Case
To out or not to out: I don’t always agree with Ed Wasserman’s media analyses. Indeed, I often think the Miami Herald columnist has brown eyes for a very good reason not related to genetics. However, his take on the Mark Foley scandal adds a new dimension to what has gotten to be a very old story. Here’s an excerpt, but to grok the nugget, read the whole column here.
[S]hould Foley have been outed?
If so, the argument has to rest on more than a visceral sense that nobody can be both gay and a conservative Republican. Why not? We all decide on our political allegiances based on a near fit, not a perfect fit. A gay man may well decide that the GOP, even with its recurring homophobia, still is more broadly to his liking than the alternative.
Foley’s sexuality had become the central issue in his career.But the Foley problem was different, as I’ve been slow to recognize. Here, the issue wasn’t that his public performance wasn’t consistent with his private life. It’s that for years, his public performance made no sense unless you knew about what was happening behind the scenes. After his infuriating 1994 vote he dramatically softened his position on gay rights to deter further efforts to out him. In turn, he sought out off-the-wall issues — clamoring, for instance, for a state crackdown on a central Florida nudist colony — to appease his family values base. It’s almost certain he pulled the plug on his Senate run because his gayness would come up.
As [on-line Huffington Post columnist Eric] Boehlert correctly writes, ”Foley’s sexuality had become the central issue in his career.” And yet it was kept not secret, but in the shadows, known to those in the know, hidden from the main body of his constituents.
This wasn’t a matter of deferring to a legitimate area of privacy. Foley’s public actions were unintelligible unless you knew this backstory. And in failing to tell it, the media failed the public, and endorsed a principle of timidity that’s sure to fail the public in the future as well.
WH Political Team Backs Newt in ’08
Run, Newt, Run!!
As regular readers know, I have endorsed Newt Gingrich to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008 — mainly as a reaction to having Hillary Clinton selected as the Dem nominee by the rightwing. I see Newt as being as polarizing on the left as Sen. Clinton is on the right.
Anyway, it is gratifying to learn that the geniuses in the White House political shop are supporting Gingrich, the notorious serial adulterer and former House speaker, as well:
The Newt Gingrich for president buzz is back, and we’re hearing it from a rather odd corner of Washington: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Top Bushies tell us that they think the former disgraced House speaker would make a great president. Gingrich thinks big, they say, and represents the old Reagan-style of smaller-government conservatism. As for his past marital infidelity, they think it’s a nothing-burger, especially if he faces Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose hubby had his own problems she’d rather forget.
What a great example of inside-the-Beltway rationalization: Hillary was a victim, if you will, of Bill’s adultery. Newt has been involved in at least three adulterous relationships that went public. Therefore, if Hillary runs against Newt, Bill’s adultery would somehow cancel out Newt’s as a campaign issue. Riiiight…
Kolbe Charges Smell Like a Witch Hunt
Is the GOP Trying to Discredit Kolbe Because He Says He Acted on a Complaint about Foley in 2000?
The alleged victim told NBC News that “he had a ‘blast’ on the trip and did not report anything improper to his parents or any House officials after the trip. He said he has a favorable impression of the page program to this day and likes Kolbe.”
The FBI has launched an investigation into the behavior of retiring GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who is openly gay, toward a teenaged boy on a camping trip in 1996.
Details are sketchy but based on the news accounts so far, the allegations seem a bit suspicious. For one thing, and this is crucial, the former page who was the alleged victim denies that anything untoward happened.
While I am completely unsympathetic toward gay Republicans, even those who are out — as Stephen Kriz put it in these pages yesterday, “a gay person being a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders” — we cannot allow the Foley scandal to escalate into a witch hunt in which people are accused of improper behavior simply because they are gay.
Why would someone level false charges against Kolbe? Last week, Kolbe inserted himself into the Foley scandal when he announced that he had received a complaint in 2000 from a page about improper behavior from Rep. Mark Foley, and that he took steps that led to “corrective action” against Foley then. This addition to the timeline of the Foley scandal runs counter to the GOP House leadership’s narrative that they were only informed about Foley’s penchant for teenaged boys within the last year.
It is possible — even likely — that someone in the GOP had these charges brought against Kolbe in order to shut him up.
Here are the facts that are available today:
Bush and Hastert
President Bush was in Illinois yesterday to campaign for scandal-tainted Speaker Hastert.
So the speaker let a predator of teenage boys run loose in the House and then very clumsily tried to cover it up, the president still believes Denny is a good man.
Embarrassed, Not Broke: Foley Gets to Keep His Federal Pension
Congressional crime pays: It must be a comfort to know that once one is elected to Congress one would have to engage in treason or espionage against the United States of America to lose one’s pension. Run-of-the-mill bribery, blackmail, influence peddling, vehicular homicide or any of various sex crimes would not jeopardize one’s post-jail retirement income. Must be a comfort to ex-Rep. Mark Foley, who stands to receive a cool half-million simoleans in bennies if he waits 10 years to start drawing on his pension and lives to the actuarial average age of 78.
When he turns 62, Foley, who turned 52 last month, will start getting a pension of $32,000 a year, according to the National Taxpayers Union.
If he can’t wait until 2016, he could begin collecting a “deferred reduced retirement” plan in 2010, when he turns 56. But he would then be able to collect only about $22,400 a year, depending on cost of living adjustments.
Foley also participated in the Federal Thrift Savings Plan, a program he frequently touted as an alternative to Social Security because it works like a private 401(k) plan. If Foley contributed 5 percent of each paycheck to the plan, the government — using taxpayer money — would have matched his 5 percent.
That means Foley — who earned $165,200 as a lawmaker this year — could have easily accrued more than $150,000 in assets since taking office in 1994, Sepp said.
Earlier this year, in his financial disclosure report, Foley reported assets ranging between $237,000 and $1.2 million. Those reports indicated that the former congressman from Fort Pierce invested between $1,000 and $15,000 in companies such as BellSouth, Coca Cola and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
Oh, and don’t forget — Foley can use his re-election campaign funds to pay for his legal bills.
Republican Congressman Pleads Guilty to Bribery – But Remains in Office
Republicans have been trying to shift blame in the Foley scandal by pointing to former Rep. Gerry Studds, a Democrat who had an affair with a congressional page, but who did not resign after he was censured by the Democratic-controlled House — and in fact went on to be reelected five times after the affair was disclosed.
Today, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, a Republican, pleaded guilty to bribery and other charges, and although he has resigned, he has not given up his seat and will remain in office until January. O! The hypocrisy:
Congressman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) pleaded guilty today to corruption charges arising from the influence-peddling investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first elected official caught up in a scandal that may damage his party’s chances in next month’s midterm elections.
Ney emerged from a month in alcohol rehabilitation to appear in federal court in Washington, where he admitted he performed official acts in Congress for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel and skybox sports tickets.
Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist at the center of a wide-ranging public corruption investigation, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison on March 29, after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that required him to provide evidence about members of Congress.
Ney also admitted to taking thousands of dollars in gambling chips from an international businessman who sought his help with the U.S. State Department.
House Republican leaders immediately vowed to expel Ney in a post-election session if he has not resigned by then
Was It Good for You Too? Foley Said Bush Gave Him the Shaft
Then-U.S. Rep. Mark Foley complained in an e-mail to Gov. Jeb Bush in 2004 that he was being ignored by President Bush on his trips to Florida after several hurricanes.
“I know it is nothing you have done,” Jeb assured Foley.…Foley complained that U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam accompanied President Bush on a visit into Putnam’s central Florida congressional district and noted that state Rep. Joe Negron was on another trip.
“I can’t quite figure what I have done, but this is a continuing pattern of slights,” Foley complained in a Sept. 29, 2004, e-mail to the governor, obtained by The Palm Beach Post in a public records request.
“Sorry to trouble you . . . and I wouldn’t if this wasn’t so frequent,” Foley wrote. “Have I done something to offend the White House? I am always getting the shaft.”
The governor responded less than three hours later that he thought it was because the president was spending a lot of time in debate preparation in his 2004 re-election campaign.
“I know it is nothing you have done,” he assured Foley.
