Is Trey Radel Really America's Own Rob Ford?

By 39, most normal people stop using recreational drugs

Both are wealthy, opportunistic right-wing extremists who gravitated to politics for a myriad of reasons that did not include public service. And although the demeanor and boorish, loud-mouthed bullying that Rob Ford (and brother Doug) demonstrate on TV daily, reminds people more of Chris Christie, it looks like Trey Radel is what we're stuck with. Born wealthy and privileged, 37 year old Henry Jude Radel III (AKA, Trey) started his own business, Trey Enterprises, to buy and sell domain names.

Starting in 2005, his now-defunct company, Trey Enterprises, registered a number of sexually charged web addresses, many of them in Spanish, according to historical domain name ownership records. Among them is www.cojible.com, a slang term defined by Urban Dictionary as "a woman who doesn't look good, but is good enough to sleep with." There was also www.casadelasputas.com (whorehouse), www.mamadita.com (little blow job *), www.chicasderio.com (girls of Rio). And in English: www.sexguideonline.com.

If you're looking for a bright side of this-- like maybe a conservative who supports comprehensive immigration reform-- don't look towards Radel. A former Hate Talk Radio host, who calls himself a hip hop conservative, Radel is an anti-immigrant bigot when push comes to shove. He's a party-line GOP zombie with an astoundingly dismal ProgressivePunch crucial vote score that includes ZEROES in every major category from Aid to Less Advantaged People, Education, the Enviroment and Health Care to Human and Civil Rights and War and Peace. And, more to the point, in September, just weeks before being arrested in a coke bust, he voted to force food stamp recipients to pee into cups to prove they're not on drugs.

I used to work in radio. I did it for decades. I know how hard it is to talk into a microphone for hour after hour and hour, day after day after day. From Limbaugh and Beck all the way down the food chain, all these right-wing hate talk radio hosts are hopped up on drugs, usually speed or coke. They're all addicts and the drugs feed their ability to spout the kind of sociopathic nonsense that drives up the ratings. The station managers know they have a bunch of mentally unstable drug addicts working for them but… hey, the ratings, the ratings, the ratings.

Radel's politics and Radel's drug addiction-- like Ford, he calls it alcoholism-- go hand in hand. Strung out on coke like deranged Republican extremists Paul Broun (GA) and Steve Stockman (TX) admit they have also been, one's mind almost inevitably wanders into dark, ugly places. Rememeber, Jesus Christ had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Revelations, the book of the Bible Satan (through drug use) inserted and that extreme right "Christian" churches would rather dwell on than anything Jesus ever brought to mankind.

Back to Radel, for a moment. An actor and a comedian before he found Hate Talk Radio, at one time he performed improv at Second City in Chicago. This morning USA Today explained to the mostly elderly residents of FL-19, basically Lee County plus a chunk of Collier in southwest Florida, why their new congressman is all over the TV.

Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., was caught buying drugs as part of a federal investigation into a Washington, D.C., drug ring last month and is being charged with cocaine possession, according to a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said several federal agencies working as part of a task force arrested a dealer who told them one of his cocaine customers was a congressman. The dealer, working with federal agents, set up a buy on Oct. 29, and Radel, a freshman congressman first elected last year, purchased the cocaine, the official said.

FBI agents later went to Radel's apartment, where they detained him, the official said. Radel hired a defense attorney who negotiated charges with a prosecutor, the official said. Law enforcement agents never handcuffed Radel or took him to jail, the official said.

Radel will appear Wednesday in District of Columbia Superior Court to face the misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. Charging documents from the U.S. attorney's office say Radel "unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally" possessed "a quantity of cocaine."

The charge is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum of 180 days in prison and/or a fine of $1,000, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

"I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida," Radel said in a statement released Tuesday. "I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them."

Radel continued: "Believe me, I am disappointed in myself, and I stand ready to face the consequences of my actions. However, this unfortunate event does have a positive side. It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling. I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease."

...A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the incident is "between Rep. Radel, his family and his constituents."

"Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

I bet mainstream Republican Chauncey Goss, yes Porter's son who the tea partying Radel beat last year, is thinking about a do-over in a primary. All is another bizarre son of wealth and privilege, Cornelius McGillicuddy IV, defeated in a clownish Senate run last year, already thinking about getting his old job back? For the rest of us, though, we need to think how the justice system treats wealthy, privileged white folks caught with cocaine compared to how the lives of black kids caught with the same drug are utterly destroyed forever. He admitted he's a coke addict, agreed to go to "treatment: and got one year probation. That's it-- just probation, no jail time, no resigning from Congress, not even a fine. Joke's on justice!

UPDATE: Many People Not On Coke Are In Bed At 10:30 On A Week Night

Trey Radel called a dramatic press conference in Cape Coral and said he's taking a leave of absence from Congress so he could go into rehab. That works for some people. For others it doesn't.

“I’m sorry. I have no excuse for what I’ve done. ... I’ve let down our constituents, I’ve let down my family,” Radel said in an emotional 10:30 p.m. press conference from one of his offices in Florida. “I’ve let down my wife, and although he doesn’t know it, I’ve let down our two year-old son.”