House Republicans Have Another Problem-- Rampant Cocaine Abuse

Northeast Ohio's very own 2 Live Crew

Yesterday, according to Fox DC Bureau Chief Chad Pergram, Boehner was whining about how the House Republican conference is filled with "knuckleheads." He didn't name any and everyone-- including everyone here at DWT just assumed he was talking about the Members that don't get bought off by corruption, guys like Justin Amash and Walter Jones, who Boehner hates for their refusal to allow him to bioss them around. No one suspected he might be talking about the House Republicans' massive drug problem. The GOP conference is riddled with coke addicts, meth freaks and pill poppers. Now, I don't know if David Joyce is a still an alcoholic and a coke hound and it's unclear if he was one of Trey Radel's customers before Radel (R-FL) was busted as a coke distributor and forced to resign from Congress. But the FBI does know-- and won't spill the beans. They just sit on it-- in case they ever need any special leverage over Congressman Joyce (R-OH).

OK, here's the background. Most people think Joyce got turned down for a cush job as Northern Ohio's Federal Prosecutor because he's a sexist pig who was always being "inappropriate" with female employees, especially when he was drunk, which was frequently. But the sexism and his own little war against women isn't what caused Bush to kill the nomination. In 2001 two heavy-weight Ohio senators, Mike DeWine ® and George Voinovich ® recommended Joyce for the job and Bush nominated him. By mid-May Joyce was ready to move into his new gig-- “As a career prosecutor, I see it as a challenge that I look forward to. My job now is to make sure that people are treated fairly and that justice is done, and that’s what I hope to bring to the federal system.” But by the end of the year Bush withdrew the nomination. In fact, Bush tried saying that technically he had never even made the nomination. That was after 6 months of FBI vetting and scrutiny and a eye-popping report they gave Attorney General John Ashcroft who was appalled at what he saw. By December the Plain Dealer was reporting that "the Bush administration decided not to nominate Joyce as the U.S. attorney for Northern Ohio due to questions that came up about his past during an FBI background check." But the Plain Dealer didn't seem especially curious to find out what exactly was in that FBI background check, assuming, like everyone else, it had something to do with Joyce's inability to act like a gentleman when he was around women, especially women he could lord it over on some level. But they were wrong.

Joyce said he would "fight for" the job but by May, 2002, he suddenly ended the fight, telling the Plain Dealer "You just get sick of it. It’s been a year, and enough’s enough. I’m honored that I was considered for this job, but it’s time for me to let somebody else have this opportunity." A few years later, when rumors about his cocaine abuse started circulating in Ohio, he was still bitter but started presenting the story in a new light. He said he didn't get the job because he was "out-politicked." He said that Gregory White, who eventually got the job, had the backing of then Governor Bob Taft. "I can’t change what happened. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Joyce told the media. "I got beat at a game I didn’t understand all that well." He got "out-politicked?" WIth Mike DeWine and George Voinovich on his team? No one really believed that.

In 2005, Cleveland Scene Magazine reported that Joyce’s nomination for U.S. Attorney failed because defense attorneys accused him of withholding evidence during a murder case.

Joyce was cleared of accusations but the article reported that the White House did not want to risk nominating Joyce. More nonsense about something the Bush Administration didn't care a whit about. The cocaine rumors never went away entirely and "everybody" knows he gets high-- everybody, that is, except the voters in OH-14.

When Joyce was Geauga County Prosecutor, Steve LaTourette was Prosecutor in neighboring Lake County and the two of them became fast friends and political allies. The 2 of them worked on banning the multiplatinum 2 Live Crew album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be from local record stores. (They failed.) LaTourette went on to serve 9 terms in Congress from the area and when he decided to make a fortune as a lobbyist, he managed to secure his old seat for Joyce and voters weren't allowed to see the FBI report on Joyce's outrageous behavior. They still haven't been.

Funny that Joyce had such antipathy towards 2 Live Crew for their lifestyle instead of inviting them to his legendary Friday night poker games where white people did their version of exactly what he tried persecuting the 2 Live Crew guys for:

Republican Party Civil War Heats Up On A New Front: Meet The Congressional Grifters

Much to the chagrin of corporate whores who had infected the DEmocratic Party-- think Rahm Emanuel, Harold Ford, the Blue Dogs and New Dems-- Howard Dean coined and popularized the phrase, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Here at DWT we often talk about the corollary, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Over the weekend, former Ohio Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette, a mainstream conservative, sought to duplicate Dean's strategy by terming the now dominant right-wing extremists in his party as the Grifting Wing. In a post he did for Politico, The Grifting Wing v. The Governing Wing, LaTourette defends Boehner and attacks the Tea Party Republicans for being "busy lining their pockets."

He turns to Vocabulary.com to define Ted Cruz (R-TX), the likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, as a grifter and a con artist, "someone who swindles people out of money through fraud. If there’s one type of person you don’t want to trust, it’s a grifter: Someone who cheats someone out of money." He pretty much likened Ted Cruz to a snake oil salesman "who rolled into town promising a magical, cure-all elixir at a price. The grifter was long gone by the time people discovered the magical elixir was no more magical than water. They were the sideshow con men offering fantastic prizes in games that were rigged so that no one could actually win them. They were the Ponzi scheme operators who got rich promising fantastically high investment returns but returning nothing for those sorry investors at the bottom of the pyramid."

The most important battle being waged in Washington today, asserts the GOP congressman who was first elected in 1994 and served until he retired last year, "isn’t the one about which party controls the House or the Senate, it’s about who controls the Republican Party: the grifting wing or the governing wing."

Political grifting is a lucrative business. Groups like the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots are run by men and women who have made millions by playing on the fears and anger about the dysfunction in Washington. My former House colleague Chris Chocola is pocketing a half-million dollars a year heading the Club for Growth; same for Matt Kibbe heading up FreedomWorks (and I don’t think Kibbe’s salary includes the infamous craft beer bar that FreedomWorks donors ended up paying for). The Tea Party Patriots pay their head, Jenny Beth Martin, almost as much. These people have lined their pockets by promising that if you send them money, they will send men and women to Washington who can “fix it.” Of course, in the ultimate con, the always extreme and often amateurish candidates these groups back either end up losing to Democrats or they come to Washington and actually make the process even more dysfunctional.

Just look at what happened this past week, when hard-right House members with extensive ties to these outside groups, egged on by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, snarled up a sensible effort to pass a bill that would at least begin to address the crisis of undocumented children at the U.S.-Mexico border. It was an embarrassing display of congressional dysfunction, and it showed that the grifting wing has learned nothing from last fall’s shutdown fiasco.

The grifting wing of the party promises that you can have ideological purity-- that you don’t have to compromise-- and, of course, all you have to do is send them money to make it happen. The governing wing of the Republican Party knows that’s a damn lie. Our Founding Fathers set up a system of government that by its very nature excludes the possibility of one party or one ideological wing of one party getting everything it wants. Ted Cruz, who quotes the founders almost every chance he gets, ought to know this.

While the grifters hold a great deal of sway over the Republican Party for now, they are not the majority-- not by a long shot. As with any good Ponzi scheme, there are relatively few grifters; the challenge is exposing their scam.

Exposing the grifters is exactly what is happening in the Republican Party today. Groups like the organization that I head, groups like the Chamber of Commerce, business groups and traditional Republican organizations are working to run the political snake-oil salesman out of town-- or at least out of our party.

This isn’t about ideology. The Republican Party is a conservative party. This fight is about whether we will govern or continue to let the grifters profit off of the dysfunction in Washington.

Our beef isn’t with the rank and file Tea Party members, either. We understand their justifiable frustration with Washington. Our beef is with the grifters who run the organizations in Washington that are fleecing these hardworking men and women.

Except fro Cruz, LaTourette hasn't called out any of his former Republican colleagues in Congress as grifters. So we asked an aid to one of his closest friends still in the House. I wanted to know if he was talking about David Joyce, who took over for LaTourette in northeast Ohio when he retired. "Not at all," he told me. "David does what he's told-- always and without question. He feels the same way about these assholes that Steve does." So who, I asked?

"You know who," he insisted. "King, Bachmann…"

Don't stop there, who else? He didn't want to go any further. But he agreed to shake his head up and down if I hit on any names that he was certain LaTourette considers part of the grifters caucus. These are the ones I guessed right: Steve Scalise. Boehner's Chief Whip, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Matt Salmon (R-AZ), and the new kook, Curt Clawson (R-FL), who just took over for the GOP coke dealer who got busted.

Who's The Real Cancer On The Ass of The Republican Party These Days?

Neo-fascist Denver oil heir/billionaire Philip Anschutz owns 2 far right propaganda sheets in DC, the Weekly Standard and the Washington Examiner (which failed as a newspaper as of June 14 and is currently just a bizarre right-wing blog). Anschutz, who is being sued for his role in the death of Michael Jackson, is obsessed with homosexuality and pours countless millions of dollars into destroying the lives of gay men and women. Anschutz and his front groups have also poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into electoral campaigns on behalf of far right extremists like Mike Coffman (R-CO), Ken Buck (R-CO), Joe Coors (R-CO), Mike Lee (R-UT), Pat Toomey (R-PA), etc. This week he had one of his toadies, Timothy Carney do a hatchet job on mainstream conservative and former Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette.

LaTourette, who is working to drag the Republican Party back from its lunge towards extremism and irrelevancy, made the mistake-- in AnschutzWorld-- of challenging one of the crackpot right-wing fringe outfits, Club for Growth. LaTourette pointed out, very publicly, that the extremist Club is "a cancer on the Republican Party." Carney calls it "a Republican civil war" and backs the Club's attack against Boehner-ally Mike Simpson (R-ID).

This is where former congressman LaTourette and his group, Mainstreet Advocacy, jumped in. LaTourette announced his group would match the Club, dollar-for-dollar in any GOP primary. In this fight, the Mainstreet group holds itself up as the defenders of "pragmatism instead of social dogma."

Mainstreet Advocacy also describes itself as battling "special interests" and "political patronage." But here's the awkward truth: Republican "centrists" are more likely than GOP ideologues to be in bed with special interests. And the closer to the middle you are, the more susceptible you to patronage.

As exhibit A, let's look at Mainstreet Advocacy's point man.

The Washington Post's report on his recent comments described LaTourette only as a "former congressman." Here's a tip: Every time you read the words "former congressman," you should ask if he's now a lobbyist-- unless he's a "moderate" working towards "bipartisan solutions." Then you don't even need to ask.

For instance, Harvard's Center for Ethics pointed out that the Bipartisan Policy Center is a hotbed of K Street lobbyists. "The BPC was founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, who all cashed in on their government experience by working for Beltway law and lobbying firms, and advising major corporations."

So it is with Mainstreet's LaTourette:

One day last decade, LaTourette called his wife Susan and told her that "he had a girlfriend and wanted a divorce," as she reported it. The girlfriend was LaTourette's chief of staff Jennifer Laptook, whom he soon married.

Jennifer then cashed out to K Street lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates. That website won clients by touting "As chief of staff, Laptook was responsible for advising on all legislative issues, particularly those that came before the committees on which Congressman LaTourette serves. Laptook worked intimately with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee staff, on which the congressman is a senior member."

Rep. LaTourette left Congress in January and today, of course, he is a lobbyist. He launched the lobbying arm of the McDonald Hopkins law firm, and hired his wife. So LaTourette lobbies on behalf of hospitals, alternative-energy interests, and other major companies and industries.

On the side, LaTourette champions compromise-minded Republicans for Congress. Because how else are you supposed to get bailouts and subsidies for your clients, except by getting some "pragmatic" Republicans in Congress. Ideological flexibility is what corporate lobbyists look for. Free-market dogma is a major turnoff to lobbyists seeking handouts.

Many folks in this town think ideological purity is the enemy of good government. Those folks have corporate lobbyists like Steve and Jennifer LaTourette on their side.

Aaron Blake, whose newspaper, the Washington Post, hasn't folded, reported that Maine's very wealthy former senator, Olympia Snowe-- a mainstream conservative-- will be working with LaTourette to raise the $8 million to combat the negative ads Anschutz and the Club are planning to run against anyone who doesn't toe the radical right line. Snowe: “The Club for Growth is homogenizing the Republican Party... The Republican Party is going to have to mature.” LaTourette has been pointing out that "the Club has crafted a fraudulent reputation as a grassroots organization."

“If this was some broad-based populist movement, I get that,” LaTourette said. “But if you peel back the onion, the Club for Growth is really five or six guys that have a lot of money and bigfoot the Republican primaries.”

The Club on Tuesday hit back at LaTourette, pointing out the amount of money Simpson has raised from another small group of influential players-- political action committees.

“It’s a joke for Mike Simpson and his allies to cry foul on outside groups supporting his conservative challenger; 64 percent of Mike Simpson’s campaign contributions have come from Washington PACs, not the people of Idaho,” said Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller. “Mike Simpson is the same congressman who rakes in millions from special interests that he regulates, all while voting to raise his own pay nine times and spending thousands on lavish events at Washington D.C. social clubs.”

LaTourette said his group will seek to play in a limited number of races where it can have a bigger influence. He mentioned potential Club for Growth targets including Senate candidate Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)-- who has been involved with the group-- and Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), along with Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and David Joyce (R-Ohio). Joyce holds the seat LaTourette retired from last year.

LaTourette acknowledged his group has to walk a fine line in some of these races, as its involvement could lead candidates to be tagged as RINOs-- Republicans In Name Only. Another recently launched group seeking more electable GOP candidates, Karl Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, has dealt with similar accusations that it is anti-conservative.

“Some members might have the opinion, ‘Gosh, if these guys get involved I’ll be known as a friend of the RINOs,’” LaTourette said. “That’s something we’ll have to engage on a race-by-race basis.”

...LaTourette said Republicans need to focus on expanding their appeal rather than closing ranks around conservatives and having litmus tests for their congressional incumbents.

“You can’t wake up and go into an election and say, ‘Okay, let’s see who’s voting for us? Angry white guys in their 50s are voting for us. Who’s not voting for us? African-Americans, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, women.’” LaTourette said. “It makes it pretty tough to win a national election if you’re writing off that chunk of the electorate.”

He forgot to mention people under 35. And people who don't get their news from Hate Talk Radio and that echo chamber.