Weazl received a BA in Economics with an emphasis on developing countries from Yale University in the late 80's, then received his JD from Columbia Law School in the early 90's. He has practiced as both a corporate lawyer and as a criminal lawyer for nearly a decade, but currently tries to balance an interest in the esoteric with a need to decipher the moment, howling to the moon that the ship is sinking.
Congresswoman: Criminal Insiders Behind Bailout Bill
Rep. Kaptur: Normal legislative process has been shut down, high financial crimes committed, Republican Michael Burgess says “martial law” has been announced
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Monday, September 29, 2008
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur boldly slammed the bailout bill this past weekend as the work of criminal insiders who have shut down the normal legislative process to commit “high financial crimes” and defraud the American people, while Rep. Michael Burgess warns that “martial law” has been declared.
The two Congress members are part of a growing minority of representatives sounding the alarm about the dictatorial nature of the bailout bill, which is expected to be up for a vote in the House today, with most in Congress having not had the opportunity to even read the legislation.
The bill is expected to reach the Senate on Wednesday as a raft of outraged politicians cry foul about being strong-armed and accused of being unpatriotic for opposing the carte-blanche passage of a piece of legislation thatfundamentally centralizes control of the financial infrastructure of the countryinto the hands of the government and the Federal Reserve.
“We are Constitutionally sworn to protect and defend this Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. And my friends there are enemies,” Kaptur told the House floor.
“The people pushing this deal are the very ones who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then and they are fraudulent now.”
“My message to the American people don’t let Congress seal this deal. High financial crimes have been committed,” added the Democrat from Ohio.
“The normal legislative process has been shelved. Only a few insiders are doing the dealing, sounds like insider trading to me. These criminals have so much political power than can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body of this land,” Kaptur concluded.
Elsewhere, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said that the only information he had received about the bailout was what talking points to use on the American people and that he had been thrown out of meetings for not blindly supporting the bill.
Ominously, Burgess also comments,“Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night.”
Absent any proper hearings concerning the legislation, Burgess called for the legislation to at least be posted on the Internet for 24 hours so that the American people could “see what we have done in the dark of night.”
About a year after his release from a North Vietnamese prison camp, Cmdr. John S. McCain III sat down to address one of the most vexing questions confronting his fellow prisoners: Why did some choose to collaborate with the North Vietnamese?
Mr. McCain blamed American politics.
"The biggest factor in a man’s ability to perform credibly as a prisoner of war is a strong belief in the correctness of his nation’s foreign policy," Mr. McCain wrote in a 1974 essay submitted to the National War College and never released to the public. Prisoners who questioned "the legality of the war" were "extremely easy marks for Communist propaganda," he wrote.
Americans captured after 1968 had proven to be more susceptible to North Vietnamese pressure, he argued, because they "had been exposed to the divisive forces which had come into focus as a result of the antiwar movement in the United States."
To insulate against such doubts, he recommended that the military should teach its recruits not only how to fight but also the reasons for American foreign policies like the containment of Southeast Asian communism — even though, Mr. McCain acknowledged, "a program of this nature could be construed as ‘brainwashing’ or ‘thought control’ and could come in for a great deal of criticism."
Crystallizing views on conflicts Now a senator who is the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, Mr. McCain often points to his nine months at the War College as the time that crystallized his views toward foreign conflicts like the war in Iraq . He has talked about his studies as a tutorial in the hows-and-whys of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. But the 40-page final paper he produced was limited to an evaluation of the military code of conduct through the prism of his "narrow, but personal, viewpoint."
It was in many ways a first draft of his political autobiography, recounting the ennobling stories of resistance that he and his co-author, Mark Salter, would later retell in his 1999 memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."
Mr. McCain’s 1974 thesis, though, also revealed a welter of other emotions about his years as a prisoner of war, including a deep anger at those he considered collaborators, a tough-minded disdain for public hand-wringing about captives like himself, and a sharp impatience with the American government for failing to "explain to its people, young and old, some basic facts of its foreign policy." But at the same time, Mr. McCain also urged that any military survival training should include lessons in what he called "the necessity to forgive."
Mr. McCain’s paper sheds new light on the experience that first brought him national attention and remains a staple of his campaign commercials. His conclusions hint at themes of his career, like his habit of making peace with former enemies. And his arguments that the government and the military should have done more to convince the voters and the troops about the case for the war in Vietnam echo in current debates about Iraq as well.
Antiwar movement Asked if he still had those views, Mr. McCain said in an e-mail message that he still believed the antiwar movement had hurt the morale of some prisoners, although he added the vast majority "performed their duty with courage and resolve irrespective of how controversy about the war influenced their view of it."
Historians, though, say his assertion that the antiwar movement weakened the resistance of Americans captured late in the war is misleading, in part because almost all the most cooperative prisoners were captured early and in part because many other cultural shifts contributed to differences in the later war captives. And some of his fellow prisoners also question the connection between the war protests and the camp collaborators.
"Don’t connect those guys with the antiwar movement," said Orson Swindle, a prisoner who became a friend of Mr. McCain. "It was the guy in the next cell who was the reason we were trying so hard to uphold the code and our honor, and those guys just betrayed everything we stood for."
But others say it is easy to see how Mr. McCain’s dismay at prisoners’ propaganda statements could feed his current impatience with calls for a withdrawal from Iraq. In the crucible of the camps, it was easy to see the collaborators — broadcasting antiwar statements over prison loudspeakers, smiling for Jane Fonda and visiting peace activists, enjoying the rewards of better food and less torture — as embodiments of the war protesters that the North Vietnamese counted on to wear down the American war effort.
"Just like the ‘pull-out movement’ today, as I call it, the peace movement would give them something to hang their hats on," said Richard A. Stratton, another former prisoner incarcerated with Mr. McCain. "You are being tortured and all you have to do to get them to stop is say the same thing that Bobby Kennedy is saying. The same thing that George McGovern is saying. You don’t even have to make anything up."
Determination redoubled Mr. McCain, then a Navy lieutenant commander, was by all accounts what the American prisoners called a "tough resister." He was nicknamed Crip for the severity of the injuries he sustained — a shoulder, both arms and his knee broken, with a bayonet wound near the groin — when his fighter plane was shot down in October 1967. Military rules only allowed P.O.W.’s to go home in the order of their capture, but some senior officers said his medical condition justified accepting an offer of release from the North Vietnamese. Mr. McCain, the son of a prominent admiral, did not want to be part of North Vietnamese propaganda, so he chose to endure years of torture instead.
At times, Mr. McCain seemed to court punishment, noisily cussing out his captors while giving "thumbs up" signs to his fellow prisoners. "No matter what he did, he always played to the bleachers," Robert Coram, a military historian, wrote in a book about the camps.
All of the prisoners acknowledged that everyone had a breaking point. Mr. McCain’s came 10 months after he arrived. With his father taking command of the Pacific Fleet, the North Vietnamese were determined to coerce the son into denouncing the war. For four days they tied him with ropes, beat him every few hours, re-broke his arm, and left him in a pool of his own blood and refuse. Finally, he signed and tape-recorded a war crimes confession.
His fellow prisoners say his capitulation only redoubled his determination to provoke his captors. "Acts of defiance felt so good that I felt they more than compensated for their repercussions," he wrote, "and they helped me keep at bay the unsettled feelings of guilt and self doubt my confession had aroused."
Others responded differently. Initially unable to feed or clean himself, Mr. McCain was nursed back to health by his cellmate, Maj. Norris Overly of the Air Force . Mr. McCain has often credited Mr. Overly with saving his life, calling him "a very fine man."
Returning from an interrogation in February 1968, however, Mr. Overly told his cellmates he was going home. He said, as he later testified to Congress, that he had given his captors nothing and could not explain their decision.
'I couldn't stand in judgment' Mr. McCain said in his e-mail message that he had never been angry with Mr. Overly. In his memoir, he recalls only a fear his friend was making a mistake. "I couldn’t stand in judgment of him," he wrote.
But his fellow prisoners say he felt betrayed. After a goodbye ceremony staged for North Vietnamese cameras — Mr. McCain arrived on a stretcher — he and the others began referring to the departures as the "fink release program" and "the slimies."
Mr. Overly declined to comment.
By the end of 1972, a dozen of the roughly 400 American prisoners of war in the North had accepted offers to be freed, only one with the permission of the senior American officers. All were required, at the very least, to sign letters requesting "amnesty" and thanking the North Vietnamese.
Some went further. As early as 1969, Mr. McCain began hearing three American officers denouncing the war over camp loudspeakers. The first two, Robert Schweitzer and Edison Miller, became known as "The Bob and Ed Show." Walter Eugene Wilber soon joined.
They were followed by as many as a dozen others: enlisted infantrymen captured in South Vietnam early in the war and later brought to the northern prisons. They had not received the same training in survival strategies and the code of conduct as the pilots who made up the rest of the prisons in the North. The cooperators called themselves the "peace committee" and enjoyed treats from their captors, including beer, ice cream, Vietnamese dinners, and front-row seats at a local circus. They lived in fear of retribution from the tough resisters.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilber, the officers, said in interviews that they considered it pointless to resist after they had surrendered. "I think our duty as senior officers is to get these men home as healthy emotionally and physically as we can, and I don’t intend to play politics," Mr. Miller, a Marine lieutenant colonel, said he told the others.
'We said what we had to say' Some members of the peace committee said that watching the destruction of Vietnamese villages had turned them against the war, arguing that the pilots did not see the carnage. Others said they were beaten down. "We said what we had to say to get through it," Michael Branch, one of the enlisted men, said in an interview.
Mr. McCain was as enraged as any of the tough resisters by what they considered the treason of the two officers and enlisted men, his friends said. "He thought this was ‘terrible, terrible, terrible,’ they should all be shot," said John Dramesi, a fellow prisoner.
In his memoirs, Mr. McCain addressed only briefly what he called "the camp rats." During a stint in solitary confinement, he had caught a glimpse of two other American officers acting friendly with their guards and enjoying delicacies like eggs and bananas, Mr. McCain and his co-author wrote. Assuming that contact with a fellow American would restore their nerve, Mr. McCain called out: "Hey, guys, my name’s McCain. Who are you?" They called the guards, who beat him again.
Those two were Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilber. They denied the exchange took place, but in his e-mail message Mr. McCain said, "I would have been astonished if they admitted it."
Willingness to forgive But Mr. Schweitzer, who died in a car crash soon after the war, became an example of what Mr. McCain later called "the necessity to forgive." Confronted by a senior officer, Mr. Schweitzer renounced his participation in the propaganda and resumed his place in the American ranks.
"It is neither American nor Christian to nag a repentant sinner to his grave," the senior Americans taught.
"John McCain has lived by that his whole life," Mr. Swindle said. Others have observed the pattern as Mr. McCain has embraced former adversaries from antiwar activists and North Vietnamese prison commanders to the critics who charged him with corruption in the Keating Five scandal.
Mr. McCain was one of about a half-dozen former prisoners of war who spent the year after their release at the National War College, an elite academy for future admirals or generals.
Some officers fresh from Vietnam questioned the premise of the war. "The vast majority of generals who had experience in Vietnam will tell you we should never have gone past the advisory level," said John H. Johns, a retired Army general and a student at the college that year. But in Mr. McCain’s paper, he instead focused on the failure to sustain public support for the fight. The paper was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and provided to The New York Times by Matt Welch, an author of a book about Mr. McCain.
He cast a cold eye on the public sympathy for prisoners like himself. "Two and a half million American fighting men served in the Vietnam conflict, and more importantly 46,000 sacrificed their lives," Mr. McCain wrote. "Yet in the latter stages of that war millions of people were more actively concerned about the plight of 565 P.O.W.’s in Hanoi than in any bigger issue of the war."
Myopic focus on prisoners? American elected officials, he argued, had fostered a myopic focus on the prisoners by forsaking the goal of unconditional surrender in favor of a negotiated peace, enabling the North Vietnamese to turn their hostages into a bargaining chip. "Many Congressional resolutions, favorable to the enemy, were based solely on the guaranteed return of Americans from North Vietnam," he wrote.
With prisoners returned, he argued, ambivalence about the war was protecting the minority of American prisoners "who did not keep faith with their country or their fellow prisoners."
Court-martial charges were filed against two officers and seven enlisted men, he noted. "Probably more would have been charged if the Vietnam War had been like other wars in which this country has engaged," Mr. McCain wrote. (Top military leaders quickly quashed charges against those nine.)
Mr. McCain reserved his fiercest criticism for what he called "the evils of parole and amnesty," returning repeatedly to the importance of teaching recruits to reject such offers as he did. The prospect of early release had tempted and demoralized the other captives while providing the North Vietnamese "a maximum of favorable publicity and propaganda value from these ‘humane acts,’ " he wrote.
"Probably the greatest shock to great numbers of the P.O.W.’s was to find, on returning to the U.S., that P.O.W.’s who were released early had not been court-martialed but in fact had received choice assignments and early promotions," he added, calling their warm welcome "inexcusable."
On teaching foreign policy Mr. McCain’s proposal that the military teach U.S. foreign policy to its recruits may be his most notable recommendation. "Too many men in the armed forces of the United States do not understand what this nation’s foreign policy is," Mr. McCain wrote, adding he did not propose a Soviet-style "indoctrination," but "a simple, straightforward explanation of the foreign policy of the United States."
In his e-mail message, Mr. McCain stood by the idea. "It is important, not just for P.O.W.’s, but all Americans serving in combat to understand the purpose and reason for the sacrifices they are asked to make for our country," he said.
Such instruction, though, sounds close to heretical to some military officers because it risks instructing the troops in the foreign policy of either one president or another, a prospect that particularly troubles Mr. McCain’s contemporaries who came to opposite conclusions about the Vietnam War.
"It gets to be partisan political positioning and regime support," said Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force general and another War College classmate of Mr. McCain. (Both Mr. Johns and Mr. McPeak are supporting the Democratic presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama .)
But Prof. Richard H. Kohn, a historian of civil-military relations at the University of North Carolina who has taught at the War College, suggested that Mr. McCain’s recommendation was more of a "time warp" back to the 1950s, when he came of age at the Naval Academy. It was an era of staunchly anti-communist foreign policy consensus that was shattered by the debates over the Vietnam War while Mr. McCain was in prison, Professor Kohn said.
Mr. McCain’s public statements when he returned from the war suggested that he saw a similar consensus emerging again. "I see more of an appreciation of our way of life," he wrote in a 1973 article for U.S. News & World Report. "There is more patriotism. The flag is all over the place."
"Some of my fellow prisoners sang a different tune, but they were a very small minority," he added. "I ask myself if they should be prosecuted, and I don’t find that easy to answer. It might destroy the very fine image the great majority of us have brought back from that hellhole."
The Fox News Republican Presidential debate in Orlando Florida revealed that the GOP nomination is still up for grabs. According to Fox News Viewers text voting after the debate, Ron Paul won with 34%, Huckabee came in second with 27%, and Giuliani third with 11%.
The Republican debate also revealed that the Republican contenders think America is going bankrupt if spending policies are not changed.
Debate Highlights:
Fred Thompson touted his “100% pro life voting record” and said “Our basic rights come from God not government”. Thompson tagged Rudy Giuliani for supporting “Sanctuary Cities” and “federal funding for abortion” and he “sides with Hillary Clinton” when he was New York City Mayor.
Thompson hit on a theme that all of the Republicans seemed to agree on and that is that out of control spending is bankrupting America, ‘We’re spending the money of our grand kids and kids yet to be born”. Thompson said,
Warning about Democrats raising taxes Thompson joked, “To the Democrats, everybody that works for a living is rich”.
Thompson also promoted govt. indexing benefits to costs.
Giuliani accused Fred Thompson of being the “biggest obstacle to tort reform”. Giuliani touted his record as New York City Mayor, said, “I brought down crime 60%”, and called for school choice.
Giuliani took some shots at Hillary Clinton saying, “America can’t afford you”.
On Foreign policy, Giuliani said that we should engage Russia but consider expanding NATO to include Australia, Japan, and Eastern Europe.
Referring to Iran Giuliani said, “We will not allow hem to o nuclear”.
Mitt Romney said he “supports a constitutional defense of marriage amendment”. Romney promoted a market approach to healthcare, “I don’t want the guys that did the clean up for Katrina running healthcare”.
Romney said, “We’re not going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton”.
Regarding healthcare Ron Paul said that “managed care isn’t working” and that “drug companies lobby for managed care”. Paul said, “We could take care of these poor people if we weren’t trying to maintain an empire overseas”.
Ron Paul hit on his theme of military non-interventionism, “70% of Americans want war over with and are sick and tired of big government at home and overseas”. They want their “civil liberties and not allow government to spend endlessly and bankrupt us”.
Ron Paul said “the founders advised non interventionism, the war is spreading, the war is likely to spread into Iran. We don’t need to go looking for trouble; we don’t need another cold war”. Paul was referring to increased tensions with Russia.
Paul said that, “government is not very good at central economic planning”. Paul said he would allow young people to opt out of the social security system.
Ron Paul an opponent of the Federal Reserve said that “a dollar today is worth 4 cents compared to a dollar in 1913 when the Federal Reserve got in,” stating that was a main reason why the country is going bankrupt.
Paul said, “If we don’t believe in the Constitution and personal liberty we lose”.
Mike Huckabee defended the “sanctity of human life, it is one of the defining issues of our culture” and on healthcare promoted “personalization not privatization. We do not have healthcare system we have a maze. It’s a healthcare crisis”.
Huckabee also brought up sovereignty and the Law of the Sea Treaty, warning that Hillary Clinton is a danger to U.S. sovereignty.
Duncan Hunter pushed for a “mirror trade policy”, warned that there is an “800 billion dollar trade deficit”, and connected trade deficits to Social Security problems. Hunter pointed out that $75,000 a year jobs are being lost and replaced with $20,000 a year jobs where people pay much less into the Social Security system as a result.
John McCain spoke against wasteful spending and took issue with Mitt Romney saying, “You’ve been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record, I don’t want you to fool people aboutmine”.
McCain promoted his military experience and said, “I’ve been involved with every national crisis since Beirut”. When asked if the war in Iraq was a winning issue McCain answered, “I don’t know and I can’t be concerned. I would much rather lose a campaign than a war”. He continued, “I lead, I don’t manage for profit, I lead for patriotism.
McCain said he supported a missile defense system.
Tom Tancredo said that he had the “highest conservative rating” among all the candidates running. He promoted market reforms in healthcare and said the Federal government should not be involved. Regarding Social Security benefits, Tancredo supported Health Savings accounts and said, “People should be able to control their own money like in a 401k”.
Tancredo lamented, “There’s a plan to give social security benefits to illegal aliens,” stating that illegal immigration is draining infrastructure. Tancredo said that he supported importing cheaper drugs from Canada.
Tancredo had harsh words for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He said the “Armenian genocide bill inflamed problems with Turkey” and Kurds in Iraq. Tancredo said that Pelosi was a terrible House speaker but would make a worse Secretary of state.
GOP Shakeup: Ron Paul Announces Wednesday Press Conference on Financial Reports Larry Fester
The Republican presidential primary may be about to be shaken up in a very big way. Ron Paul's campaign issued a press release that it is holding a news conference tomorrow at 10 AM in the Zenger Room, National Press Club, Washington, D.C.Ron Paul’s campaign apparently asserting its new found position in the top tier of the GOP race, issued the following statement:“In light of the information obtained from yesterday’s third-quarter filing with the Federal Election Commission, the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign will hold a press conference tomorrow to discuss the finances of Dr. Paul and the other three top-tier candidates.”
As reported earlier by USA Daily, Ron Paul's campaign is within striking distance of winning the GOP nomination. Ron Paul’s campaign has about half as much cash on hand as Giuliani does for the Republican primary after debts are subtracted. Paul’s campaign trails Fred Thompson by about 1.1 million cash on hand after Thompson’s debt is factored in. Even more startling, Ron Paul’s campaign has about triple the cash on hand as John McCain does after his debts are subtracted. Full reports can be viewed at the FEC.
According to an MSNBC online poll participated by over 16,000 people, Texas Congressman Ron Paul won the GOP Michigan debate in a landslide.
Sister-station, CNBC, who hosted the debate also had an online poll but they, like Pajamas Media, took it down when they saw that the most conservative congressman in office was winning by such a wide margin.
When asked who they thought was standing out from the pack, Paul, who favors the legalization of marijuana, the abolition of Income Tax, and for Presidents to be forced to declare war through Congress before bombing and invading other countries, received 83% of the online vote.
On the question of which candidate shows the most leadership qualities, the only GOP candidate who agrees with the majority of the US population in saying that the troops in Iraq should be brought home immediately, Paul got 81% of the vote.
Critics poo-poo the results claiming that Paul supporters "spam" these polls. Fox News host Sean Hannity, upon hearing that Paul had won the Fox News debate told his viewers that they were cheaters, despite the fact that it was a text poll meaning there could only be one vote per cell phone. But it was CBS who said that it's the millions of dollars he's raised that is making it harder for people to ignore him, but practice makes perfect!
Ron Paul has been winning these online polls and straw votes now for months. If he has this organized, underground cabal of Internet geeks - why have none of their scheming emails surfaced? If it's so easy that even Ron freakin Paul can do it, why have none of the other candidates been able to motivate and mobilize their alleged supporters to log on to the computer after one of these debates?
Fred Thompson has had months to prepare out of the spotlight and he can only get 505 votes on the MSNBC poll for Leadership Quality? Or is the next allegation going to be that Ron Paul supporters have figured out how to take votes away from other candidates.
CNBC should be ashamed of itself for opening up a poll and taking it down when the person who they want to win doesn't look very good on it. That website is a professional site, owned by a media giant. If months into a race, CNBC can't figure out how to run a fair, reliable, accurate poll, they shouldn't put it up in the first place.
Make people register for your dumb site if you don't trust em. Weed out duplicate IP addresses. Make them do something that takes several steps like a word verification followed by an email verification bounce back dealie. Sorry you're going to have to work a teensy bit on something as insignificant as to what your readers and viewers think would make the best GOP presidential candidate, but halfassing things isn't attractive.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
* Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
* Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor. we’re just getting started, kids.
* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted rape of a juvenile.
* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
* Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
* Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a juvenile.
* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
* Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican Congressman Donald “Buz” Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges.
* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
* Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a minor working as a congressional page.
* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
* Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28.
* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
* Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. “Republican Marty”), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a juvenile and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
* Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
* Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
* Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
* Republican anti-gay activist Earl “Butch” Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
* Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
* Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.
* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a child.
* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a “good military man” and “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
* Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
* Republican director of the “Young Republican Federation” Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
UPDATE: oooh, here’s an even better list (links at original post)
Edison Misla Aldarondo, Republican legislator, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for molestation of his daughter and her friend for eight-year period starting when they were 9. [1]
Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces 6 charges related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. [2] Also accused of sexually assaulting another girl. [3]
Jim Bakker, televangelist with Pat Robertson at Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting network. Committed adultery with Jessica Hahn [4] and then used charitable donations to pay her hush money[5]. Fellow televangelists say he’s gay. [6][7] Indicted on 23 federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering [8].
Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. [9]
Robert Bauman, Republican congressman and anti-gay activist, was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. [10]
Parker J. Bena, Republican activist and Bush Elector, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography (including children as young as 3 years old) on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. [11]
Louis Beres, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. 3 of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were pre-teens. [12]
Howard L. Brooks, Republican legislative aide and advisor to a California assemblyman, was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. [13]
John Bolton Bush’s appointee ambassador to United Nations, corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton’s first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department. [14]
Mike Bowers Former State Attorney General, prosecuted the famous Bowers vs. Hardwick case, based on Georgia anti-sodomy laws. Admitted to a 10-year adulterous affair. [15]
Andrew Buhr, Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy. [16]
Ted Bundy campaigned for the Republican Party. Infamous serial rapist who murdered 16 women. [17]
Jim Bunn Congressman of Oregon: With his success due in great part to support from the Christian Coalition, Bunn won his congressional seat, then left his wife (and mother of his five children), married a staffer, and put his new wife on the state payroll with a salary of $97,500. [18]
John Allen Burt, Republican anti-abortion activist, convicted of sexually molesting a 15 year old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran.[19]
Dan Burton, Republican Congressman who, while married, fathered a child by another woman. [20]
George W. Bush, Republican president, accused in a criminal complaint and lawsuit of raping Margie Schoedinger, who later committed suicide. Accused by Tammy Phillips, a former stripper quoted in the National Enquirer in 2000 saying she had an affair with Bush that had ended in 1999.[21][22]
John Butler, Republican activist, was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.[23]
Ken Calvert, Congressman (R-Ca), champion of the Christian Coalition and its “family values.” Sued as an alimony deadbeat by his ex-wife. Said “We can’t forgive what occurred between the President and Lewinsky.” In 1993 he was caught by police receiving oral sex from a prostitute and attempted to flee the scene.[24]
Helen Chenoweth, Congresswoman (R-Id.). Admitted to a six-year adulterous affair with a married associate. In 1995, Chenoweth had denied the affair when asked about it by The Spokane Spokesman-Review, but now she claims a pardon from a higher authority: “I’ve asked for God’s forgiveness, and I’ve received it,” she revealed. [25]
Keola Childs, Republican County Councilman, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.[26]
Kevin Coan, Republican St. Louis Election Board official, arrested and charged with trying to buy sex from a 14-year-old girl whom he met on the Internet.[27]
Dan Crane, Republican Congressman, married, father of six. Received a 100% “Morality Rating” from Christian Voice. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. [28] On July 20, the House voted for censure Crane, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct.[29]
Paul Crouch Televangelist, Former President of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Paid $425,000 in hush money in an attempt to cover up a gay affair.[30]
Richard A. Dasen Sr., Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, convicted of sexual abuse of children, promotion of prostitution and several counts of solicitation, enough to add up to a sentence of 126 years in prison. [31][32][33]
Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer, was found guilty of child porn charges. [34]
Peter Dibble, Republican legislator pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. [35]
Nicholas Elizondo, Director of the Young Republican Federation molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. [36]
Larry Dale Floyd, Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas Precinct Two. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8-year old child and was charged with 7 related offenses. Age 62 at time of arrest. [37][38]
John Fund, of the Wall Street Journal, a prominent anti-abortion columnist and GOP fund raiser. He lost his position after it was revealed that he impregnated the daughter of an old girlfriend and then encouraged her to abort his child. [39]
Jeff Gannon Partisan blogger with no journalism credentials and a fake name who got invited to Bush’s Press conferences. Is also a pimp and a gay prostitute.[40]
Jack W. Gardner, Republican Councilman, had been convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl. when the Republican Party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot.[41]
Richard Gardner, a Nevada State Representative (R), admitted to molesting his two daughters. [42]
Newt Gingrich, married three times. Gingrich campaign worker Anne Manning admitted that she gave Newt oral sex while he was still married to his first wife. Informed one wife he was filing for divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer treatments.[43]
Philip Giordano, Republican mayor sentenced to 37 years for forcing two 8 and 10 year old girls to perform oral sex on him in his City Hall office. [44][45]
Rudy Giuliani, had an adulterous affair.[46][47]
Matthew Glavin, president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in the Clinton Impeachment, and many anti-gay jihads, has been arrested multiple times for public indeceny, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him. [48]
Mark A. Grethen, Republican activist, convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.[49]
Jon Grunseth, Republican businessman and candidate for Minnesota governor, withdrew his candidacy after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter, and tried to grope one. [50]
Dr. W. David Hager Bush appointee, member of Focus on the Family’s Physician Resource Council, player in movement to ban the morning-after-pill. Had an adulterous affair, before divorcing his wife he sexually abused her, including sodomizing her in her sleep.[51]
Mark Harris, Republican city councilman who is described as a “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.[52]
John Hathaway, Republican Senate candidate, was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media. [53]
Howard Scott Heldreth, anti-abortion activist who gained fame during the Shiavo media-circus, was convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002. [54]
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, introduced by Bush on the campaign trail, and promoted his policies.[55] Says he supports Bush’s values. Two months later, this married father of four turned himself into police, charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. [56][57]
Neal Horsley has called for the arrest of all homosexuals. Admitted on the Fox News Radio’s The Alan Colmes Show, that he’s had sex with mules.[58][59]
Tim Hutchinson, divorced his wife of 29 years to marry a congressional aide he was having an affair with.[60]
Henry Hyde, Judge who oversaw Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, prominent opponent of reproductive rights, who had an extramarital affair with a woman who was married and had three children, during the course of which she and her husband were divorced. [61]
Don Haidl, Assistant Sheriff of Orange Country, in violation of California’s rape shield law, led a smear campaign against the child his son poisoned and then violently gang-raped on videotape, adding up to 24 felony counts. He said that his son “acted accordingly” because the child was a “slut”. [62]
Paul Ingram, Republican Party leader of Thurston County, Washington, pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.[63]
Earl Kimmerling, sentenced to 40 years in prison after he confessed to molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.[64]
Lewis Libby, former Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1996 published a novel containing bizaree sexual content, including beastiality and pedophillia. [65] Rush Limbaugh, triple-divorcee[66], 30-pill a day drug addict. [67]
Bob Livingston, former Congressman (R-La.) resigned from the House in the wake of revelations about his past adultery. Donald Lukens, Republican Congressman, was found guilty of having sex with a minor - a girl he was accused of sleeping with since she was 13. [68]
Pat McPherson, Douglas County Election Commissioner. Arrested for fondling a 17-year-old girl. [69]
Jon Matthews, Republican talk show host in Houston, was indicted for indecency with a child, including exposing his genitals to a girl under the age of 17. [70]
Jeff Miller, (R-Cleveland), Senate Republican Caucus Chairman in Tennessee and the sponsor of Tennessee’s Marriage Protection act, getting divorced (as of April 2005) because of an affair he was having with an office aid. Miller described the Tennessee Marriage Protection Act as a means of preserving the sanctity of marriage. He opposed an amendment, however, which stated that “Adultery is deemed to be a threat to the institution of marriage and contrary to public policy in Tennessee.†[71][72]
Nicholas Morency, Republican anti-abortion activist, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor [73].
Sue Myrick, Congresswoman (R-NC), describes herself as a “devout Christian.” Committed adultery with a married man. Bill O’Reilly Right-wing conservative talk show host on Fox News, sued for sexual harrassment by his producer. Bob Packwood, Senator (R-Ore.), resigned in 1995 under a threat of public senate hearings related to 10 female ex-staffers accusing him of sexual harassment. Jeffrey Patti, Republican Committee Chairman, was arrested for distributing what experts call “some of the most offensive material in the child pornography world” - a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped. [74]
John Paulk, lied about prowling for gay sex while running a fundamentalist group to cure gays. Brent Parker Utah State Representetive. Arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer posing as a male prostitute. [75][76]
John E. Peterson, Congressman (R-Pa), accused of sexual harassment and creation of a hostile work environment by six women. Peterson has refused to admit a crime, saying only “I may have been an excessive hugger.” Harvey Pitt, SEC Chief under George W. Bush until he was forced to resign in 2002. Worked for New Frontier Media, a firm which distributed teen sex videos. Mark Pazuhanich, Republican judge, pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. [77]
George Roche III, carried on a 19 year affair with his son’s wife, while serving as president of , which “emphasizes the importance of the common moral truths that bind all Americans, while recognizing the importance of religion for the maintenance of a free society.” Beverly Russell, County Chairman of the Christian Coalition, sexually molested his step-daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her two children. [78][79]
Jack Ryan, 2004 Republican nominee for US Senate from Illinois, pressured his wive, actress Jeri Ryan, to have sex with other men. Tricked her into visiting sex clubs, where he asked her to have sex with him while others watched.[80]
Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman, currently a conservative talk show host. Resigned his congressional seat abruptly to spend more time with his family, amidst allegations of an affair. His intern, Lori Klausutis, was soon after found dead in his office. The medical examiner, who had his license revoked in for falsifying information in an autopsy report, and suspended in for six years, ruled the case an accident, after giving conflicting information about her injuries. He said he lied about them because “The last thing we wanted was 40 questions about a head injury.”
Ed Schrock, two-term republican congressman, with a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, consistently opposed gay rights. Married, with wife and kids. Withdrew his candidacy for a third term after tapes of him soliciting for gay sex were circulated.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, right wing conservative radio host. Promotes family values, estranged from her mother, opposes birth control, has had her tubes tied, espouses saving oneself for marriage, admits to having had sex before she was married, opposes adultery, has committed adultery while she was married, and has slept with a married man, opposes divorce, is divorced and remarried, has posed for nude photos which are available online.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican governor, had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28. John Scmitz, right-wing republican congressman, who had had his committee chairship taken away from him in the California State Senate after issuing a press release attacking Jews, feminists and gays. Forced out of office in 1982 for having an adulterous affair and fathering two children out of wedlock with one of his students. He was caught because his baby was admitted to hospital for having hair tied so tightly around his penis that it was almost severed. His daughter, Mary Kay LeTourneau, was convicted of having an adulterous affair with one of her students, and giving birth to two of his children. [81]
Larry Jack Schwarz, Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, fired after child pornography was found in his possession. [82] With his political career over, he went to work in the hard-core pornography industry for Platinum X Pictures, owned by his daughter, porn starlet Jewel De’Nyle (Stephany Schwarz).[83]
Jim Stelling, Seminole County Republican Party chairman who believes in “family values”, as he told a judge. Filed a defamation lawsuit againt Nancy Goettman, a former county GOP executive committee member, for falsely claiming he had been married six times. Stelling has been married 5 times. [84]
Don Sherwood, Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Eventually admitted to an affar with a woman 30 years younger than him, after she accused him of physical abuse and attempting to choke her. [85]
Tom Shortridge. Republican campaign consultant, was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl. [86]
Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr., Republican City Councilman, pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison. [87][88]
Craig J. Spence, Republican lobbyist, organized orgies with child prostitutes in the White House during the 1980s. [89][90]
Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist, said during a sermon “I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.” Had an affair with a prostitute.
David Swartz, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. [91]
Randall Terry, Right to Life activist, founder of Operation Rescue, involved in the Terri Schiavo protests. Once imprisoned for sending former President Bill Clinton an aborted fetus. His son Jamiel is gay; his daughter Tila had sex outside of marriage, became pregnant, had a miscarriage - she is no longer welcome in his home; his daughter Ebony had 2 children outside of wedlock and became Muslim. He has campaigned against infidelity and birth control, gays and unwed mothers. Terry himself was censured by his church after committing adultery.
Bill Thomas Republican congressman, had an affair with Deborah Steelman, a health care lobbyist who steered huge campaign gifts to Thomas’ war chest. Strom Thurmond, republican senator and racist, raped and impregnanted a 15-year old African American maid. [92]
Robin Vanderwall, Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate, director of Faith & Family Alliance, (a Christian Coalition spin off), former student of Pat Robertson’s Regent Universtity, member of Ralph Reed’s inner circle who funneled money to from lobbiest Jack Abromoff to Reed [93], convicted in Virginia for soliticing sex from a 13-year-old-boy[94] and on four other counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet. [95]
Jim Wesr, Spokane Mayor. Had a sexual affair with an 18 year old. Supported a bill, which failed, would have barred gays and lesbians from working in schools, day-care centers and some state agencies. Voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS. Proposed that “any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person†among teens be criminalized. boy.[96]
Keith Westmoreland, a state representative (R), was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children). [97]
Stephen White, Republican preacher. Was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Larry Craig Pervert Scandal Is Tip Of The Iceberg Media ignores lurid history of snuff style sex scandals
Paul Craig Watson
Revelations about Senator Larry Craig that have mired the Republicans in another sex scandal over the past few days continue to rumble across the media spectrum - but the true scale of perversion, organized child sex slavery rings and their connections to the elite is uniformly omitted from polite conversation.
Last year, Republican Rep. Mark Foley was investigated by the FBI after he sent sexually suggestive e mails to boys working as congressional pages. It later emerged that House leaders had known for months about Foley's lurid behavior yet chose to look the other way. Foley was co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus.
Larry Craig, albeit on a lesser scale, has now been exposed as a pervert and the media treadmill continues to afford this individual case blanket coverage - a deluge of attention not received by the thousands of missing children and victimized young men who were and continue to be the victims of gargantuan forced child prostitution rings that operate to service political, corporate and media elites all across the globe.
Keith Olbermann sends up the Larry Craig pervert scandal.
On June 29 1989, the Washington Times' Paul M. Rodriguez and George Archibald reported on a Washington D.C. prostitution ring that had intimate connections with the White House all the way up to President George H.W. Bush. Male prostitutes had been given access to the White House and the article also cited evidence of "abduction and use of minors for sexual perversion."
In July 1990 a Nebraska Grand Jury was convened to hear allegations that Lawrence "Larry" King, then manager of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union and a rising Republican party star, along with Washington lobbyists, had set up a child prostitution ring in which minors were transported around the country and forced to have sex with King, other top officials, and according to victims who some allege were later harassed into recanting, then-Vice-President Bush.
Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) was identified by victims as having engaged in the abuse and in a bizarre twist of fate, appeared on Bill Maher's show last year and made jokes about the outing of Larry Craig as another homosexual Republican.
The Grand Jury dismissed the case as a hoax but former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp later investigated the claims and was horrified to learn that they were indeed legitimate.
Click on the enlargements to read the 1989 Washington Times expose.
The video which you can watch in full below, Conspiracy of Silence, was produced by British Yorkshire Television and was scheduled to air nationwide in the U.S. on the Discovery Channel on May 3, 1994. Despite appearing in TV guides, the documentary was pulled at the last minute. Key politicians implicated in the scandal intimidated Discovery into canning the program and it was never shown in the U.S.
The documentary team interviewed victims of the Franklin cover-up scandal and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Washington's political elite had been involved in Larry King's pedophile ring.
Connections between male prostitutes and the White House emerged again in early 2005, when James Dale Guckert, working under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon, was given privileged access to the White House despite his lack of suitable press credentials. Gannon first came under scrutiny when he repeatedly gave President Bush softball questions during press conferences - leading many to charge Gannon was a White House plant. Photos emerged of Bush embracing Gannon and appearing very affectionate towards him during meetings. It later came out that Gannon had previously placed ads on homosexual escort service websites.
In almost every case of human trafficking for child sex slavery, from Chile to Australia, to Bosnia, to Portugal, to Belgium, court proceedings get shut down or diverted when a clear connection to the elite arises.
In the mid 1990's, convicted child rapist Marc Dutroux built a secret prison cell in his Charleroi basement where he kept abducted young girls hostage at the behest of what he called "a big crime ring," which in the 2004 court case was thought by many to encompass some of Belgium's top politicians, judges and policemen. The reason why it took so long to apprehend Dutroux was that he was being legally protected by these same individuals.
Material witnesses at the trial described "child sex parties involving judges, politicians, bankers and members of the royal family." Victims that managed to survive (most were butchered snuff style after being raped) verified the claims.
Police actually visited Dutroux's home and heard the cries of help from children concealed in his basement yet believed Dutroux's explanation that the sounds were coming from kids playing in the street.
Dutroux was eventually convicted for his role in the pedophile ring but the involvement of the elite of the country was never properly investigated.
After Dyncorp and Halliburton contractors were exposed as having operated child prostitution rackets in the Balkans from the late 1990's onwards (and more recently in the case of Halliburton), Rep. Cynthia McKinney attempted to get answers as to why the U.S. government continued to do business with these corporations.
On March 11th 2005, McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the Dyncorp scandal and its protection by the U.S. government.
"Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, DynCorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, DynCorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it [the] policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?"
In late 2005, Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Dyncorp lobbyists worked in tandem with the Pentagon to stall legislation that would specifically ban trafficking in humans for forced labor and prostitution by U.S. contractors.
Where were the investigations and convictions in other cases of establishment orchestrated child slavery and prostitution? Like the NATO officials responsible for the mushrooming of child prostitution in Kosovo?
The U.S. media largely failed to even report many of these cases at the time yet Larry Craig's bathroom activities, which are without a doubt perverted, creepy and fully worthy of a disorderly conduct charge, are given a hundred times more press coverage than huge sex slavery scandals with ties to the elite that resulted in the abduction, abuse, rape and murder of thousands of children across the globe - many of which are still missing today.
In addition, Wikipedia allows the page detailing a list of such Republican sex scandals to be deleted by trolls as if no such scandals ever took place!
Senator pleaded guilty, reportedly after bathroom stall incident
(CNN) -- A Republican senator pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to state criminal records.
Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Roll Call newspaper reported Monday that Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was apprehended June 11 by a plainclothes police officer investigating complaints of lewd behavior in an airport men's room.
Roll Call reports on the U.S. legislature.
Craig denied any inappropriate conduct in a prepared statement, and said he now regrets his guilty plea.
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
Congress is currently in recess, and Craig's office said he was on vacation in Idaho with his family, with no public appearances scheduled.
Craig, 62, paid a $500 fine when he entered his guilty plea on August 8 in Hennepin County Municipal Court in Bloomington, Minnesota, according to state criminal records.
CNN confirmed that Craig was sentenced to 10 days in jail but that sentence was stayed.
Minnesota law defines disorderly conduct as brawling, disturbing a meeting or engaging in "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct."
According to Roll Call, the arresting officer alleged that Craig lingered outside a rest room stall where the officer was sitting, then entered the stall next door and blocked the door with his luggage.
According to the arrest report cited by Roll Call, Craig tapped his right foot, which the officer said he recognized "as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."
The report alleges Craig then touched the officer's foot with his foot and the senator "proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times," according to Roll Call.
At that point, the officer said he put his police identification down by the floor so Craig could see it and informed the senator that he was under arrest, before any sexual contact took place.
Idaho's senior senator is married with three grown children and nine grandchildren. A former rancher, Craig was first elected to the Senate in 1990, after serving a decade in the House. His seat is up for re-election in 2008.
Last fall, Craig's office publicly denied assertions by Internet blogger Mike Rogers that the senator is gay. Craig's office dismissed speculation about the senator's sexuality as "completely ridiculous."
In 1982, Craig denied rumors that he was under investigation as part of a federal probe into allegations that lawmakers on Capitol Hill had sexual relationships with congressional pages, saying the "false allegations" made him "mad as hell."
He was never implicated in that investigation, which eventually led to ethics charges against two other congressmen.
In recent years, Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
In 1996, Craig also voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages and prevents states from being forced to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples legally performed in other states.
Craig has also opposed expanding the federal hate crimes law to cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias and, in 1996, voted against a bill that would have outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by a single vote in the Senate.
Craig has endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race. The senator was named in February, along with Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, as Romney's liaison to build support among GOP senators.
Monday night, Romney's presidential campaign announced Craig was stepping down.
"He didn't want to be a distraction, and we accept his decision," the Romney campaign said in a statement. Access to a YouTube video in which Craig praised Romney was also blocked.
In the face of a critical Senate debate on future U.S. strategy in Iraq, neoconservatives and other hawks are trying to rally increasingly skeptical – and worried – Republicans behind continued support for President George W. Bush's five-month-old "surge" strategy.
They are arguing that the surge – the deployment of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to try to pacify Baghdad to encourage political compromise among the major groups in Iraq – has not been given sufficient time to work and that abandoning it now would amount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But the recent defection of several hitherto loyal, if privately critical, senior Republican senators has thrown the hawks – both inside and outside the administration – into something of a panic, if only because antiwar Democrats appear to be inching steadily toward the kind of majority that Bush can no longer simply ignore.
Indeed, the New York Times Monday reported that the administration is itself increasingly divided over what to do, with some officials, notably Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "quietly pressing" for beginning a gradual withdrawal of combat troops consistent with the recommendations last December of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), of which he was a member until his nomination last November.
While the White House, through the personal diplomacy of Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, has been spending an extraordinary amount of time "listening" to the skeptics in hopes of keeping them from crossing the aisle on key war-related measures due to be voted on over the next two weeks, neoconservatives allied outside the administration are taking a harsher tack.
"They are pre-9/11 Republicans," wrote William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, about Senators Richard Lugar, George Voinovich, Pete Domenici, and John Warner, the four most-senior Republicans who have called for a change of course in Iraq over the past week.
"They have been followers of conventional opinion [during their 20-plus-year Senate careers], not leaders," he went on. "Now they are following conventional wisdom again, in their stately way, in turning against the Iraq war."
"Republicans may think they can distance themselves from all this, but they'll get no credit from voters if they contribute to an ugly outcome in Iraq," argued the lead editorial in Monday's Wall Street Journal. "A divided Republican caucus that undercuts America's military efforts while chasing the mirage of bipartisan comity will only make their own election defeat [in November 2008] more likely."
Both warnings came as the Senate begins what is expected to be a debate that could stretch until Congress' August recess on the nearly $650-billion 2008 Defense Authorization bill to which Democrats hope to attach a series of Iraq-related amendments that are fiercely opposed by the hawks.
At least two Democratic amendments, both backed by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, will call for withdrawing all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by some time next spring or summer. They also more narrowly define the mission of the remaining troops – still likely to number in the tens of thousands – as training Iraqi forces, helping to secure international borders, striking al-Qaeda and other terrorist targets, and protecting U.S. facilities and personnel there.
Similar amendments were approved by the Senate earlier this year but ultimately failed due to parliamentary maneuvers or a Bush veto that could not be overcome by the small Democratic majority. (Two-thirds of each congressional chamber are needed to override a presidential veto.)
Another likely amendment, co-sponsored by Senators Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd, would repeal Congress' 2002 authorization for the use of force in Iraq and require Bush to seek a new authorization defining the specific mission and strategy of U.S. forces there before additional money could be spent on the war.
Yet another, sponsored by Sen. James Webb, would require that active-duty troops be given at least the same amount of time to rest at home as they are deployed to a war zone – a provision that would make continuation of the current of "surge" of a total of some 165,000 Army troops and Marines in Iraq impossible to sustain.
While the White House believes it can keep enough Republicans in line on these amendments to defeat their adoption, it is worried that one or two of them could attract as many as 60 votes and thus highlight the erosion in support for its strategy over the past month.
A strong antiwar showing would increase pressure to reverse course even before the mid-September report that Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander charged with implementing the surge, is expected to submit to Congress. Until last week's defections, the surge would not come under serious challenge until after Petraeus delivered his assessment.
The hawks, however, are also very concerned that another amendment, the product of several weeks' work by as many as a dozen centrist Democrats and Republicans, including several of the Republican defectors, may be approved by a veto-proof margin.
That amendment would declare the recommendations of the ISG, which was co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, to be official U.S. policy.
Those recommendations, which included a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces by the end of next March, U.S. diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran, and intensified efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are considered anathema by the hawks, especially pro-Likud neoconservatives who launched a major propaganda campaign against the ISG even before it released its study seven months ago.
Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explicitly endorsed key ISG recommendations in a major policy address two weeks ago in which he warned that failure to initiate a drawdown of U.S. combat forces in Iraq "very soon" could pose "extreme risks for U.S. national security [because] … it would greatly increase the chances for a poorly planned withdrawal from Iraq or possibly the broader Middle East region that could damage U.S. interests for decades."
Lugar's remarks were hailed at the time by Warner, who predicted that a number of other Republicans were likely to voice similar concerns in the upcoming debate over the defense bill. Warner, whose former chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee has made him particularly influential with on defense issues with his fellow-Republicans, has since become the subject of intense White House lobbying.
After his speech, Lugar became a focus of neoconservative wrath, with Kristol describing his address as a "case study in pseudo-thoughtfulness, full of cheek-puffing and chin-pulling" and Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) accusing him of "sound[ing] more like an investor rebalancing his portfolio, selling Iraq and buying Israel-Palestine, than a man thinking about strategy in war."
In their view, the surge has resulted in major military gains in recent weeks, even if the political reconciliation that it was supposed to promote has been nowhere in sight, a point made emphatically by Lugar, Warner, and other Republican critics.
"The tragedy of these efforts is we are on the cusp of potentially being successful in the next year in a way that we have failed in the three-plus preceding years," retired Gen. Jack Keane, one of the surge's architects who made much the same point at a special AEI forum on the surge here Monday, told the neoconservative New York Sun last week, "but because of this political pressure, it looks like we intend to pull out the rug from underneath that potential success."
In its own editorial Monday, the Sun called the possible approval of legislation setting a withdrawal timetable "the most astounding act of perfidy in the history of Congress."
