But Now They Only Block The Sun...

Yesterday, McTurtle read his carefully crafted "both sides" response to Trump's racism to the press: "From the president, to the speaker to freshmen members of the House, all of us have a responsibility to elevate the public discourse. Our words do matter. We all know politics is a combat sport, but it’s about time we lowered the temperature all across the board."

You leave 'em laughing when you go... don't give yourself away.

Ole Kellyanne, though, didn't take him up on it, going on Fox News to spout her canned lies about AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. How does this stain on humanity look at herself in the mirror when she wakes up? "What the president is doing is, we are tired... sick and tired... of many people in this country. Forget these four. They represent a dark underbelly of people in this country of people who are not respecting our troops, are not giving them the resources and the respect that they deserve."

I don't know how closely Kellyanne worked with Jason Miller, a top Trump campaign staffer. After all, he was the top communications official on the campaign, so he must have responded-- when Kellyanne, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Mercer family, so when they were still backing Cruz and before they donated her (and Bannon) to Trump-- to this kind of stuff during the campaign:



But however close they got eventually, we all have to worry when she figured out how representative he always was of a dark underbelly. After all, as Caleb Ecarma reported for Mediaite yesterday, Miller testified "he hired numerous prostitutes and visited 'hand job' massage parlors as recently as a few months ago."

Miller made the admission while testifying on May 30 in Washington D.C. in connection to his lawsuit against the digital media company Gizmodo-- a case that is being litigated in Southern Florida’s District Court. Despite Miller’s counsel calling for a protective order to make the deposition confidential, a redacted version was made public on July 11.

The suit accuses Gizmodo of defaming Miller with a story citing an allegation he slipped an “abortion pill” to a Florida strip club dancer he impregnated. The story was based on a sealed court filing. Miller denies the allegation and claims the story is untrue. The lawsuit also names individual defendants Katherine Krueger, a reporter for Gizmodo’s political site Splinter, and Will Menaker, the host of the popular leftist podcast Chapo Trap House. (Menaker was dropped from the suit in the weeks after the deposition).

In a written transcript of the deposition obtained by Mediaite, Miller describes the occasions he paid women for sex since 2001. Soliciting prostitution was, and still is, a crime in the cities where Miller admitted to hiring escorts.

Miller said his most recent visit to a “happy ending” massage parlor came as recently as “a couple of months ago.” He said he recalled having sex with an escort as recently as the spring of 2017-- just a few months after quitting the Trump transition team, where he served as chief spokesman. Trump had named Miller communications director in his new administration, but Miller resigned from the job before the inauguration amid allegations of an affair. He went on to join CNN, where he worked as a commentator in the spring of 2017.

The May deposition details Miller’s multiple extramarital affairs, including his sexual relationships with two subordinates during the 2016 presidential campaign. His relationship with one of these women, former Trump campaign advisor A.J. Delgado, has been public knowledge since late 2016. But Miller provided new information on a second affair with Catherine Frazier, who worked as a press secretary for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign during Miller’s time leading the candidate’s communications operation. The affairs occurred while his wife, Kelly Miller, was pregnant and the two were not legally separated.

...“It’s not something I’m particularly proud of,” he said after being asked to mention which parlors he visited. “I don’t remember the names.”

He continued by detailing his encounters with what he called escorts: “In 2015, and then I believe again in 2017, I had sex with an escort.” Miller said the fall 2015 and spring 2017 incidents took place in D.C., with the 2017 encounter occurring after Miller’s wife, in the words of Gizmodo’s attorney, “had your daughter” and “after you and your wife decided to try and make things work.”

He then admitted to visiting a massage parlor “a couple of months ago” in New York.

“I’ve obviously made some serious mistakes in my marriage, and we had gotten things back to a really good place,” Miller said. “There wasn’t any of that in-- I remember in 2018. We got things back to a-- a good place-- and I screwed up again this spring.”

Despite significant protest from Miller’s legal counsel, Shane Vogt-- famous for representing Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit that took down Gawker-- Gizmodo’s attorney Bolger cornered Miller into revealing the specifics about his dalliances.

“The question is how much did you pay to have sex with an escort in the spring of 2017?” Bolger asked.

“I think it was something like $2[00] or $300, somewhere in the range,” Miller replied, explaining he “just Googled” for escort services and “initially set up a-- like a massage appointment and then we just went from there.”

Miller’s candid admissions teed up a hard swing from Gizmodo’s legal counsel: “You just testified that you had sex with an escort in the spring of 2017. Other than-- is that the last time you have been unfaithful to your wife?”

“Other than the massage parlor trip? Yes,” he replied.

Bolger’s questioning then turned to Miller’s attendance at strip clubs. The defamation suit is based on an allegation-- which Miller denies-- pertaining to his relationship with a Florida dancer. Miller was able to rattle off the names of numerous Sunshine State gentleman’s clubs he has visited, including Thee Dollhouse and 2001 Odyssey in Tampa; the Diamond Club in Orlando; Scarlett’s outside Miami; Rachel’s in Winter Park and Rachel’s in Orlando. Miller also said he went to Flash Dancers in New York in 2016.

Still, Miller insisted his affinity for strip clubs is behind him, stating, “I’m trying to be a better person, and that’s not something that I do anymore.” Most importantly, he denied having a relationship with any strippers.

He went on to note that then-top Trump campaign advisor Jared Kushner “rightfully chewed me out for some poor decision making” after he went to the Sapphire strip club in Las Vegas late in the 2016 election with members of the media and Trump campaign staffers, including Delgado and Jessica Ditto, who currently works as the White House deputy communications director.

As for Miller’s previously undisclosed affair with Cruz campaign staffer Catherine Frazier, he said the relationship began at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in April 2016 and lasted until roughly late August of that year-- all while his wife was pregnant with their second child, who was born in January 2017.

While direct mentions of Frazier, who now works for GOP strategist Jeff Roe’s consulting firm Axiom Strategies, were redacted from the public record, sources familiar with their relationship and who have seen the transcript, confirmed Frazier was the Cruz staffer involved with Miller. Frazier, who sources said was also married at the time, has not tweeted in more than two weeks; her disappearance from the social media site where she is normally active occurred a day after the first part of Miller’s deposition became public.

...Since declining the White House job, Miller’s career has been turbulent. He left his job as a CNN contributor in September amid what he called “false and defamatory accusations being made” against him. Splinter’s “abortion pill” story was released that month.

In May, Miller left his job at Teneo, a corporate advisory firm, after going on a wild Twitter tirade repeatedly calling Rep. Jerry Nadler a “fat fuck” and telling him to “take a long walk off a short pier.”

Despite this constant stream of controversies, Miller has kept up appearances of being in President Donald Trump’s orbit. As the 2020 election approaches, Miller has repeatedly given interviews to publications, such as the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post, discussing the president’s 2020 strategy and attacking Democratic presidential candidates. He has publicly advertised his connections to the campaign, telling Vanity Fair in March “spoke with” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale “this morning” while describing the president’s strategy to target voters.

Where have all the flowers gone... long time ago?

GOP Rapist Finally Resigns From His Butler County House Seat

Rapist Rep. Brian Ellis (R) with Annie Rosellini, Miss Pennsylvania 2013

After months of lies claiming he didn't rape anyone, Republican rapist Brian Ellis resigned from the Pennsylvania state House Monday. Ellis had represented part of Butler County (HD-11) since 2005. The 97% caucasian district is so red that the Democrats haven't put up an opponent there in over a decade.

Ellis, who was chair of the House Consumer Affairs Committee, also served on the House Ethics Committee and was, predictably, the Pennsylvania State Leader for ALEC. He wrote a series of crackpot anti-Choice, anti-regulatory and pro-gun bills-- and lots of bills about alcohol. Which is as ironic as him serving on the Ethics Committee since a couple of years ago he slipped a knockout drug into a state legislative aide's drunk, dragged her back to his home and raped her while she was incapacitated-- and then refused to resign for almost 3 months after a formal investigation had begun. Governor Tom Wolf and the legislative leaders of both parties had demanded he resign after it became apparent that he is a rapist and posed a danger to the other women working for the state government.

A little about Butler County, which is just north of Pittsburgh. In the 2016 primary, Trump got more votes than Hilly and Bernie combined. In the general election, Trump swamped Hillary 61,388 (66.7%) to 26,834 (29.2%). In the Senate race that year, Republican incumbent Pat Toomey beat Democrat Katie McGinty by about the same margin. In last year's Senate race, far right Republican challenger Lou Barletta beat centrist Democrat Bob Casey (who won the state handily) 59-39%. And Governor Wolf, who was reelected with an even bigger margin than Casey, also lost Butler County-- 56.8% to 41.3%. Butler County is part of PA-15, PA-16 and PA-17 and solidly supported Republicans Glenn Thompson, Mike Kelly and Keith Rothfus this past cycle.

In his delusional resignation statement to the House Speaker, Ellis wrote "It is with immense gratitude to the sacrifices made by my family, the support of my constituents, and the friendship of my colleagues that I have concluded that it is in the best interests of my family, the residents of the 11th House District, and my own health that I resign from the General Assembly." His legal team insists that the charges are "just plain false" and an effort to "generate sensational press coverage." No comment from Trump so far. But Ellis' wife of twenty years has filed for divorce.

What Is Matt Gaetz's Role In The Republican Party Human Sex Slave Trafficking Market In Florida

Who will Saturday Night Live cast to play Li Yang? The Chinese-born pimp is already more famous than Schenectady-born presidential candidate, Obama's former Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurshi, Andrew Yang. She appears to be the new Jeffrey Epstein, whore monger to the Trumpist elite. As well as someone who has been helping to illegally funnel money from wealthy businessmen from China into Trump's campaign coffers. Just call her Cindy from Florida, where she owns a chain of whore houses disguised as massage parlors and a "consulting business"-- GY US Investments-- that introduces wealthy Chinese businessmen into the ultra-swampy Trumpanzee orbit.

After the Bob Kraft bust in one of her whore houses, I first read about Ms. Yang, a naturalized U.S. citizen and official of the Republican Party, in a Mother Jones article over the weekend by David Corn: A Florida Massage Parlor Owner Has Been Selling Chinese Execs Access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago-- The Strange Swampy Saga OfTrump Donor Li Yang. Ms. Yang is destined for a major-- if fleeting-- role in American pop culture. A punk band named Li Yang? An HBO docu-drama? Which U.S. Attorney will take this case on-- or has already taken this case on?

Corn and his team summarized what we know so far: "The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have 'gained a reputation for offering sexual services.' (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business-- which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach-- suggests she had some success in doing so." She's in trouble.

Yang, who goes by Cindy, and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017. The company describes itself on its website, which is mostly in Chinese, as an “international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace.” But the firm notes that its services also address clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce [Wilbur Ross, apparently] and other political figures.” The company boasts it has “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggests it can set up a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.” (The same day the Herald story about Yang broke, the website stopped functioning.)

...Her Facebook page, which was taken offline on Friday, was loaded with photos of her posing with GOP notables: Donald Trump Jr., Rep. Matt Gaetz or Florida, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others.

What does poor Matt Gaetz do after a long tough day of lusting after AOC?

The GY US Investments website lists upcoming events at Mar-a-Lago at which Yang’s clients presumably can mingle with Trump or members of his family. This includes something called the International Leaders Elite Forum, where Trump’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, will supposedly be the featured speaker. Attendees, the site says, will include “Chinese elites from various countries, including the US states, as well as elite leaders from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Australia, Europe and other countries and regions.” Another event for which Yang’s firm says it can provide access is Trump’s annual New Year’s celebration at Mar-a-Lago. Elsewhere on the website, the firm boasts that “GY Company arranged a number of guests to attend the 2019 New Year’s Eve dinner. All the guests took photos with” members of Trump’s family. This page displays photos of Chinese executives and a Chinese movie star with Donald Trump Jr., suggesting that these pics were arranged by the company, and also includes a photo of Yang with Elizabeth Trump Grau.

Among the Chinese executives who attended that New Year’s event was Huachu Tang, the owner of an electric car company. Tang told Yahoo Finance that he flew 17 hours from Xi’an, China, with his family and an assistant in hopes of meeting with Trump at the party. Though he reportedly speaks almost no English, Tang said he hoped to use a Trump connection to build up his company’s brand before eventually taking it public on the New York Stock Exchange. Trump, however, canceled his trip to Mar-a-Lago due to the government shutdown. Tang and his wife managed to pose for pictures with Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Trump Grau. Tang told Yahoo that he received admission to the New Year’s party through a package offered by a public relations agency-- perhaps Yang’s firm. According to Yahoo, the company Tang used declined to reveal the price of the package, citing the confidentiality of the contract.

The GY US Investments website also posted photos of Yang at a White House celebration of the “Asian New Year” in 2018 and at a Chinese New Year dinner celebration that purportedly included Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Transportation Secretary Chao. The firm says it invited 10 guests to the Chinese New Year event and the website shows several of them posing with Chao.

According to the website, the company has offices in Miami; Washington, DC; and Wuhan, China, and is preparing to open an office in Beijing. But the address of its office in the Washington area matches the location of a UPS store.

 ...The overall message conveyed by the GY US Investments website seems clear: hire Yang’s company and she can get you close to Trump and his government—at Mar-a-Lago and in Washington. If the posted photos are authentic, she has been able to get Chinese clients at least into the Trump circle for a quick pic. They are a sign that this Chinese immigrant and Trump donor has used her contacts to go from massaging clients to massaging influence.

Update: Yang has been active in Asian American Republican groups. Since 2017, she has participated in the Broward County, Florida Chapter of the Asian GOP, a national Republican group. The chapter’s web page touts the Mar-a-Lago “Safari Night” promoted by Yang’s company-- with Trump Grau listed as the host. Yang also visited the White House last year as part of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Initiative, an advisory group Trump formed by executive order.

Canoodling In Iowa-- Another Special Election Comin' Up

Bill Dix (55 years old) was first elected to the Iowa House in 1996, In 2010 he was elected to the state Senate and was reelected in 2014 with no opposition. Until yesterday Dix was the Republican Majority Leader. A couple hours after a month-old video of him making out-- or as the NY Post put it, canoodling in a Des Moines bar-- he announced his retirement. He resigned as Leader and as a senator, effective immediately.

Dix is married and has 3 kids. The lobbyist is a woman. Her job is to influence legislators on matters of policy and Dix, as Majority Leader, was deciding what bills get debated and voted and what bills get buried.

His seat is for Senate District 25 which covers Butler, Grundy, Hardin, and Story counties right in the center of the state. Butler, Grundy and Hardin are red districts and Story, just north of Des Moines, votes Democratic. Last year Trump beat Hillary districtwide and she did poorly relative to other Democrats in all 4 counties:

• Butler-- Trumpanzee- 66%; Hillary- 29%
• Grundy-- Trumpanzee- 66.7%; Hillary- 27.3%
• Hardin-- Trumpanzee- 62.1%; Hillary- 32.9%
• Story-- 51.3%; Trumpanzee 39.1%

In the caucuses, though, Bernie beat Trump in all 4 counties. People wanted change, not more of the same status quo that has served them badly.

• Butler-- Bernie- 350; Trumpanzee- 220
• Grundy-- Bernie- 206; Trumpanzee- 198
• Hardin-- Bernie- 296; Trumpanzee- 295
• Story-- Bernie- 3,737; Trumpanzee- 1,152

When the Republicans won the state Senate in 2016, Dix became Majority Leader and, according to the Des Moines Register, led "a tidal wave of conservative legislation in the 2017 session that included dramatically limiting the state’s collective bargaining laws for public employees, restricting abortions, expanding the rights of gun owners, and pro-business policy measures that nullified minimum-wage increases for workers in five Iowa counties, limited medical malpractice lawsuits; limited nuisance lawsuits against livestock operators; and cut workers' compensation benefits. Dix returned in the 2018 session with a promise to write “Chapter 2” of the Republican agenda. That agenda has included passage of a Senate bill that would require steep cuts  in state taxes that would total $1.2 billion annually when fully enacted."

I read every story about this story-- both in Iowa and nationally. Not one brought up who the lobbyist is (Lindsey McCune) and who she worked for (the Iowa League) and what companies or entities she was kissing this freak for. Isn't that the real story here... beyond the reality show gossip? Which companies were paying her and what legislation was he monkeying with so he could monkey with her? Austin Frerick, the Blue America-endorsed candidate for the Dees-Moines area congressional seat said, "Another day, another Republican hypocrite. I look forward to keeping this blue wave going in Iowa by helping my friend Tracy Freese win that special election." Looks like Freese will have to get new t-shirts made though. And the special election will be next month.

Midnight Meme Of TheDay!

-by Noah

OK, let's talk about Stormy Daniels. For those of you who have been vacationing in Siberia or fishing for the rare Arapaima in the headwaters of the Amazon, Stormy is the porn star who slept with Señor Trumpanzee and got $130,000 for her troubles. Not only that, she slept with this sweaty, orange ball of slimy follicle-challenged ectoplasm for a year, a whole eff-ing year! Really, can you imagine 5 minutes? 2 minutes? 30 seconds? 5 seconds? The later is what it would be anyway, but, no matter what, $130,000 isn't enough. Talk about selling yourself cheap! $130 Billion wouldn't be enough. She's an idiot and so is the assclown who paid her to keep her silence. But, maybe he actually does know something about The Art Of The Deal. Nah, Stormy is the proverbial $10 whore that you can find on any afternoon on any street that runs from the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Lincoln Tunnel. She's enjoying her 15 minuets of fame. It is, however a second 15 minutes. She once explored running for the Senate in Louisiana against none other than Senator David "Diapers" Vitter. Her candidacy never got off the ground.

Stormy did earn her money of course. You'd have to pay me $130,000 just to be in the same room with Trump but it would have to be The Thunderdome, you know, that "2 go in 1 man leaves" place from one of the Road Warrior movies. One night, about 25 years ago, I was almost in the same room as Trumpanzee. I was sent to the wrong room at a famous New York recording studio, opened the door, and there was Trump on the control room couch, sitting there listening to something, a blonde on either side. I guess some actress, model, whatever thought she could sing, or someone told her she could. Anyway, nice guy that I am, I said excuse me, closed the door, and went and found the right room, the room, very ironically, where a fine band named Spread Eagle was recording their second album. To think, I could have changed history simply by going into that first room and jamming a live cable into Señor Trumpanzee's ear. I often think of that night. It haunts me. I think about what a service I could have performed for all humankind and every creature that walks, swims, or flies on this planet. Then, I stop myself when I realize, that all I would have done would have been to pave the way for Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, or some other total jerkoff to take his place.

So what is it that Stormy did for her $130,000? Did she use his tiny dick for dental floss? Did she "Oh baby, baby, you're the best I ever had!" Or, did she just smile and then run to the bathroom to throw up? Well, the details are coming out. Stormy says that one of the services she performed was that the man that is now the President Of The United States had her spank him with a rolled up copy of an issue of Forbes Magazine. I think it was the one from 2006 that had him and a couple of his insipid kids on the cover. Given his love of fake magazines with him on the cover, who knows whether the magazine of choice was all real or not, but just think of having to look at that blotchy orange cellulite farm of an ass as you beat it with a magazine. It makes me wonder what other magazines did Stormy have to bring to her "job." I've composed a list:

1. Any one of a number of fake Time Magazine issues with Trump's face on the cover.
2. That issue of Time from the 1930s that had Hitler on the cover.
3. Guns and Ammo.
4. A male gay porn magazine that caters strictly to overly chubby men?
5. A Miss Universe pageant program?
6. Better yet, a Teen Miss Universe pageant program?
7. A copy of the defunct Trump Magazine?
8. A copy of a New Jersey Generals yearbook, his failed pro football team?
9. Loser?
10. The American Journal of Proctology?

So, was it all "Donnie, you're a bad, bad boy!" Did he make her address him or his penis as "Mr. President?" Were there dirty emails? Let's see the emails! Calling wiki-leaks!

What if this news had come out before the election? Would it have made a difference? I seriously doubt it. His supporters hear stuff like this and say "That Trump, he's the man!" They love pedophiles, too, so if you support pedophile candidates, why wouldn't you support a wacko who pays porn stars to spank him? Meanwhile, they and their whole damn party will talk you to death about "Family Values."

What does Joan Didion's 1970 Gulf Coast road trip have to do with Tuesday's episode of "The Real O'Neals"?

On the day of KENNY's sister SHANNON's confirmation, boyfriend BRETT (Sean Grandillo) approaches KENNY (Noah Galvin) in the hallway of St. Barklay Church, carrying a small gift-wrapped box. (Watch the clip here.)

BRETT: Hey!
KENNY: Hey! [They kiss.]

BRETT: I brought a gift. Is that weird?
KENNY [smiling awkwardly]: No, great wrapping job! [Pause, turns serious] Uh, look, I have to talk to you.
BRETT: Okay.
KENNY: Yesterday, you said, 'I love you.' Which, which was so incredible to hear. And then I said it back. Which wasn't [hesitates] entirely true.
BRETT: Okay.
KENNY: Because, while I feel so many amazing things for you, love just isn't one of them, yet.
BRETT: I knew you were freaking out. I --
KENNY: No, that's -- You're my first boyfriend, and I don't know how I'm supposed to be feeling, or how fast I'm supposed to be feeling it. I, I don't want to screw this up. Can you forgive me?
BRETT: Yeah. Sure. [Pause] Then maybe we should hit the pause button.
KENNY: What? No, Brett that is not --
BRETT [handing gift to KENNY]: Tell Shannon I said congratulations. [Turns around and walks quickly off.]

-- from "The Real Confirmation," Episode 13
of Season 2 of ABC's The Real O'Neals

"Do you ever miss those times when we used to hide all our secrets and swallow our feelings?"

-- Eileen O'Neal (Kenny's mom), in Tuesday's episode

by Ken

Funny how things connect. As I wrote Wednesday, the considerable pleasure I was taking in Tuesday night's episodes of The Middle and especially The Real O'Neals kind of slammed into the New York Review of Books review-essay by Nathaniel Rich, "Joan Didion in the Deep South" (in the March 9 issue; unfortunately only an abstract is available free to nonsubscribers), of a highly unusual new offering from one of the most important writers of our time.

I hadn't known anything about the new Didion book, South and West (scheduled for publication on March 7), which turns out to be different from anything she has published before. It is, if I've got this right, a direct look at her work process: the notes she partly wrote and partly assembled for two writing projects that never came to fruition.

The "South" part is the record of a month-long trip along the Gulf Coast that Didion took in summer 1970. By way of background, Nathaniel Rich notes:

Joan Didion explained her decision to visit the Gulf Coast in a 2006 interview in The Paris Review: “I had a theory that if I could understand the South, I would understand something about California, because a lot of the California settlers came from the Border South.”

Rich goes on to observe:

It is a counterintuitive theory, for the South and the West represent the poles of American experience—the South drowning in its past, the West looking ahead to distant frontiers in a spirit of earnest, eternal optimism. “The future always looks good in the golden land,” Didion wrote in “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” “because no one remembers the past.” In the South no one can forget it.

Understanding her native California has, of course, been a life-long preoccupation for Didion, and the notes that make up the "West" portion of the new book derive from a 1976 visit to San Francisco covering the Patty Hearst trial for Rolling Stone, when she "found that she wanted mainly to write about her own childhood and the West’s conception of history."


SO WHAT ARE THESE "NOTES" OF DIDION'S?

This requires a considerable effort of explanation, but the short answer, as Rich puts it, is that "South and West offers for the first time a glimpse inside the factory walls." Here's his more extended background:

Didion’s notes, which surpass in elegance and clarity the finished prose of most other writers, are a fascinating record of this time. But they are also something more unsettling. Readers today will recognize, with some dismay and even horror, how much is familiar in these long-lost American portraits. Didion saw her era more clearly than anyone else, which is another way of saying that she was able to see the future.

South and West is, in one regard, the most revealing of Didion’s books. This might seem a far-fetched claim to make about an author who has written about her ancestry, her marriage, her health, and, with painful candor, her grief -- Didion’s readers are, after all, on familiar terms with the personal details of her life. But the writing itself -- the cool majesty of her prose, written as if from a great, even empyreal distance, elevating personal experience into universal revelation -- has an immaculacy as intimidating as Chelsea porcelain. South and West offers for the first time a glimpse inside the factory walls.

For each piece she reported, Didion converted pages of loose-leaf notebooks into scrapbooks of material related to her theme. She inserted newspaper articles and other writers’ works, like C. Vann Woodward’s “The Search for Southern Identity,” biographical summaries, lists of suggested themes, and overheard dialogue, which often seems taken from one of her novels. (“I never been anyplace,” says a Biloxi woman, “I wanted to go.”) In her notes we learn of her “reporting tricks,” which are less tricks than an intuitive genius for locating the people in a given community who will best reveal its character: the director of the local College of Cosmetology, the white owner of the black radio station, the bridal consultant of the largest department store.

The notebooks also include transcriptions of her observations, which she typed at the end of each day. These notes represent an intermediate stage of writing, between shorthand and first draft, composed in an uncharacteristically casual, immediate style. There are sentences that are ideas for sentences, paragraphs that are ideas for scenes: “The land looks rich, and many people from Birmingham, etc. (rich people) maintain places here to hunt.” “The country way in which he gave me names.” “The resolutely ‘colorful,’ anecdotal quality of San Francisco history.” “The sense of sports being the opiate of the people.” “The sense of not being up to the landscape.” The effect can be jarring, like seeing Grace Kelly photographed with her hair in rollers or hearing the demo tapes in which Brian Wilson experiments with alternative arrangements of “Good Vibrations.”

"[E]ven in its most casual iteration," Rich notes, "Didion’s voice, with its sensitivity to the grotesqueries and vanities that dance beneath the skim of daily experience, is unmistakable." And he provides lots of description and example.


SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THOSE ABC SITCOMS?

Well, with The Middle, not so much. In this case it's just that, for a show that I like so much, as I've written here a number of times, I'm surprised to find myself even fonder and more impressed in Season 8, with all three of the Heck children showing fascinating signs of perhaps surprising and yet (for me) totally believable and rather inspirational growing up -- and now even the senior Hecks, Frankie (Patricia Heaton) and Mike (Neil Flynn) having to roust themselves to catch up. The process has been so smartly and humanly as well as entertainingly executed that I've found myself wondering whether the suits at Disney-ABC have even noticed what's going out over their airwaves. Hey, it is Season 8, after all. The Middle has always, in its wry way, thumbed its nose at the psychotic bullshit of America's own Family-Values Fascists, but in this late flowering it's articulating a vision of how people actually develop which would have the FVFs boycotting ABC if they weren't so savagely obtuse.

Which brings us to The Real O'Neals. You know the network suits are paying close attention here, because the subject matter is potentially so explosive for a sitcom. It's another show built around a family with a mom and dad, Eileen and Pat O'Neal (Martha Plimpton and Jay R. Ferguson), and three offspring (Matthew Shively as Jimmy, Noah Galvin as Kenny, and Bebe Wood as Shannon), all beautifully delineated and with the various interrelationships carefully characterized. But what everyone knows about it is that in last season's pilot episode Kenny O'Neal, then 16, came out to himself and his family as gay.

That by itself would have been sufficient to cause an uproar, and the Christian Right exploded on cue. Not least because the situation wasn't presented as a psychiatric emergency but as a natural development -- and almost the least of the O'Neal family's problems. In fact, as we entered the O'Neals' lives, Eileen and Pat were coming to the realization that the one thing most sorely lacking in their marriage was a divorce (a deficiency that has since been rectified). Even more subversively, in the O'Neals we met a family that -- as rigidly enforced by Eileen -- was so hilariously devoted to maintaining the image of a model Irish-American Catholic family that the family was in danger of falling apart when the image turned out to be just that.

I imagine there was more apoplexy on the Crackpot Right when, after a 13-episode first season, The Real O'Neals was rewarded with a second season. Yet here it is, maybe not the most significant but another of those things that just a few years ago would have been utterly unimaginable. Or maybe the fact that it's now possible to do such a light-hearted sitcom about such once-barely-touchable subject matter is one of the more significant markers of how much the culture has evolved, in some ways almost unrecognizably so.


AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH JOAN DIDION?

We have to go back to Nathaniel Rich, and his careful depiction of the play of values Didion encountered in the Deep South of 1970.

There is a long tradition of northern visitors seeing in the Gulf South an atmosphere of perpetual decline, in which “everything seems to go to seed.” Didion quotes Audubon’s line about “the dangerous nature of the ground, its oozing, spongy, and miry disposition,” though you could go back to 1720, when a visiting French official described the territory as “flooded, unhealthy, impracticable.” Didion is on narrower footing, however, when she describes her central thesis:

a sense which struck me now and then, and which I could not explain coherently, that for some years the South and particularly the Gulf Coast had been for America what people were still saying California was, and what California seemed to me not to be: the future, the secret source of malevolent and benevolent energy, the psychic center.

How could the hidebound South, in its perpetual disintegration and defiant decadence, at the same time represent the future? Didion admits the idea seems oxymoronic, but she is onto something. Part of the answer, she suspects, lies in the bluntness with which Southerners confront race, class, and heritage -- “distinctions which the frontier ethic teaches western children to deny and to leave deliberately unmentioned.” In the South such distinctions are visible, rigid, and the subject of frank conversation.

After looking a bit at the nature of that "frank conversation," Rich writes:

This kind of thinking seemed retrograde in the Seventies. From the vantage of New York, California, even New Orleans, it still seems so today. But this southern frame of mind has annexed territory in the last four decades, expanding across the Mason-Dixon Line into the rest of rural America. It has taken root among people -- or at least registered voters -- nostalgic for a more orderly past.

Do you see where Rich is heading? What in fact Joan Didion was already foreseeing in 1970? It's going to take us one more post to get there. That should happen Sunday.

#

Family values, Arkansas GOP-style -- we're not going to hold that exorcism against these good Christian folk, are we?

"[C]ounty DHS workers warned the Harrises not to foster and adopt any of [the three sisters they wanted to take in], because they weren't a good match for these little girls. But the Harrises pulled strings, got the head of DHS to overrule them, and got the girls anyway. It lasted 14 months, at the most."

-- from a DailyKos post by Buckeye BattleCry

by Ken

If you too are just coming to this horrifying story an Arkansas state representative, his wife, and three troubled girls who had the misfortune to come under their care, come on in! Even though there is a certain core of sort-of-established fact, it's an ongoing story that can therefore be joined at most any point. As DailyKos's Buckeye BattleCry notes:

The Arkansas Times is all over this story. Every couple of days some new information comes to light that directly contradicts the Harrises.

The basic story, if you haven't already encountered it, involves Arkansas state Rep. Justin Harris and his wife Marsha, who on the present evidence shouldn't be allowed to be in the same room with unprotected children, let alone have any sort of guardianship rights. And yet Representative Harris apparently strong-armed his way into taking three troubled young sisters into his home for foster care, subsequently adopting the two younger ones (now six and three), whom he proceeded to give away, not once but twice, in an insane practice that seems to have some sort of sanction in Arkansas called "rehoming" -- meaning that he simply dumped them off on other people, without the formality of, you know, paperwork of any kind, let alone any sort of approval of the new de facto custodians.

As you wade into this story, this "rehoming" business can begin to smack of the Seinfeld adventure in "regifting." Except that the objects of "rehoming" are human beings.

Now the Harrises aren't saying you should be able to return any kids you take in as long as you still have your receipt. That would be unfeeling. No, it's true that they returned the oldest of the three sisters they originally took into foster care, apparently before the issue came to adoption, apparently on the principle that a supplier always has to accept returns on defective goods. As for the two younger sisters, the ones they apparently actually did adopt, it's not as if the Harrises just dumped them in a doorway someplace, or a Dumpster. Apparentlyl they were told that if they simply dumped them on DHS's doorstep, they would be charged with abandonment. So they found a better way. They "rehomed" them -- not once, but twice.

Here the story turns really ugly, because, as a matter of fact, the older of the two remaining girls was raped in one of the homes to which she and her younger sister were "rehomed," that of an employee of a Christian day-care center, a preschool called Growing God's Kingdom, operated by none other than the Harrises! (Why sure, with their deep Christian values and their deep insight into the problems of child-rearing, these people seem naturals for a Christian day-care center.)

The rapist, rather awkwardly, was the very employee to whom Harris had, er, entrusted the two girls. Oh my!

This indeed created a furor of sorts, and the alleged rapist was fired, presumably amid much righteous indignation. Somehow, though, the Right Righteous Representative Harris managed not to mention that the two girls in question were in fact his own legally adopted daughters. My guess is it was just an oversight. Or maybe nobody asked.

I apologize for not having all the details down right; each account seems to differ slightly, but the overall shape of events seems pretty consistent, except as regards the very different accounts of the Harrises and DHS regarding their interactions. Anyway, I think it was the first "rehome" that the rape occurred, in which case the Harrises' response was simply to re-rehome the little troublemakers. But the sequence could be the opposite. Alarmingly, this wouldn't change the situation all that much.

When Harris finally felt obliged to comment publicly, he laid it all off on DHS, though the record seems pretty clear that the Harrises were warned by DHS about the three girls' serious emotional problems (including some prior sexual abuse of at least one of them). Rather amazingly, Harris claimed that he and his wife are the victims here. This was, as nearly all observers seem to have observed, a stupefyingly, revoltingly ill-framed claim -- even in the unlikely case that every word he said about DHS was true. Is there really any lack of clarity as to who the victims here are?

As noted above, it seems to be the case that the Harrises were not only apprised by DHS of these girls' emotional difficulties but were advised that they were not a good match for the girls even as prospective foster parents. The Arkansas Times reports, with corroboration as indicated from "a former DHS employee familiar with the proceedings:

Cheryl and Craig Hart, an experienced foster couple who housed Mary and Annie for a year and a half before their adoption by the Harrises, said they tried to talk the Harrises out of adopting the sisters. The Harts said that a local team working on the adoption — including themselves, DHS caseworkers, adoption specialists, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and therapists from Ozark Guidance, a mental health provider — made the Harrises fully aware of the girls' history of neglect and sexual abuse and cautioned them that they were unprepared to handle children from such a background, especially considering their home included young boys. The former DHS employee confirmed this account.

However, the Harrises seem to have had enough pull to bully and string-pull their way to what they wanted.

The Harts also said the adoption was allowed to proceed despite their objections because of the direct intervention of Cecile Blucker, head of the Division of Children and Family Services, the arm of DHS responsible for child welfare. They say Blucker exerted pressure on the Washington County DHS office on behalf of Justin Harris to facilitate the adoption. The former DHS employee confirmed this information as well.

At any rate, the adoption is what the Harrises wanted at that particular moment. Which was before they discovered that the girls were, well, devil-children.


"DEVIL-CHILDREN"??? YOU ASK IF I'M
BEING SOME KIND OF SICK SMART ALECK?

Okay, it's my term, but I think you'll agree that it accords well enough with the facts as we know them. And now we come to information the Times gathered from Chelsey Goldsborough, "who regularly babysat for the Harrises. According to Chelsea:

Mary was kept isolated from Annie and from the rest of the family. She was often confined for hours to her room, where she was monitored by a video camera. The reason: The Harrises believed the girls were possessed by demons and could communicate telepathically, Goldsborough said. Harris and his wife once hired specialists to perform an "exorcism" on the two sisters while she waited outside the house with the boys, she said.

Yikes!

The Harrises, we're told, deny the claims about demonic possession, but: "Multiple sources who interacted with the family confirmed Goldsborough's account that the Harrises believed the children were possessed, and another source close to the family said that Marsha Harris spoke openly about the supposed demonic possession."

Buckeye BattleCry provides likes for the whole Arkansas Times series, saying, "I think it's important to read all of these articles to have a good understanding of just what happened here," which I confess I haven't done. The quick understanding I've gotten is pretty horrible, though.

Buckeye BC makes an interesting and poignant near-final observation:

I'm having a hard time right this minute understanding people who deny their own belief system. If you're the type of Christian who believes in demonic possession and exorcism, why would you deny it publicly? Perhaps he has a good grasp on the fact that most people just aren't going to approve of exorcisms in children? I just don't get it.

ONE FURTHER KINK IN THE "SYSTEM" OF
DO-IT-YOURSELF "REHOMING": THE $$$

There's the matter of the monthly payments DHS was making to the Harrises. In the clip up top we hear Justin say that he had legal advice to go right on depositing the checks to his own account and the same day write out a check to . . . well, to whoever was actually keeping the little girls. And if he says that's what he did (he does say that he actually did it, not just that he was so advised, doesn't he?), I believe him, don't you?

Justin also says that he was told by someone at DHS: "This is your money. You can do with it what you want."

I'm not going to say baldly that I don't believe this. What I do believe is that if someone actually described money intended for care of those children this way, he just surely have responded, "What are you, nuts? It's not my money."


WAIT! I DON'T THINK I MENTIONED THAT
REP. JUSTIN HARRIS IS A REPUBLICAN

Oh, you guessed?

#

"Surely a country that honors the devotion of family members to each other should want to make it at least a little easier for them to do their jobs" (E. J. Dionne Jr.)

"At a time when the political news is dominated by a debate between do-little conservatism and do-nothing conservatism -- which is to say, between a right-tilting Republican establishment and the radical tea party -- [Senator] Gillibrand's package includes building blocks for a broader counter-vision inspired by the idea of an Empowering Government."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his Washington Post column
"Family values hypocrisy"

by Ken

We talk a lot about families here -- but actual families and their actual hopes and needs, not the crap blithered about the phony-baloney avatars of "family values." Or as E. J. Dionne Jr. puts it in his latest Washington Post column, "Family values hypocrisy":

Politicians talk about family values but do almost nothing to help families. They talk about parental responsibility but do almost nothing to help parents. They talk about self-sufficiency but do precious little to make self-sufficiency a reality for those who must struggle hardest to achieve it.

How often can we hear that government should be more responsive to the problems Americans face now? But the vogue for simply assuming that government cannot -- or should not -- do much of anything about those problems leads to paralysis. This, in turn, further increases disaffection from government.

He amplifies the point later:

in light of Congress's dismal record since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, it would be revolutionary to see any law passed that empowered individuals and families to ease their everyday difficulties.

Our current discussion of what constitutes "freedom" is shaped far too much by a deeply flawed right-wing notion that every action by government is a threat to personal liberty and that the one and only priority of those who care about keeping people free is for government to do less than it does.

This perspective ignores the many ways over the course of our history in which government has expanded the autonomy of our citizens. Consider how much less freedom so many of us would have without civil rights or voting rights laws, without government student loans, without labor laws, without public schools and without Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. (And we don't take seriously enough the implications of a most basic fact of our national story: that it took big government in Washington to outlaw slavery.)

The occasion for these meditations on what government can do is the introduction last by NY Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and CT Rep. Rosa DeLauro of the FAMILY Act -- or, spelled out, the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which "would provide partial income for up to 12 weeks of leave for new parents and for other family demands, such as care for a sick family member, including a domestic partner."

E.J. points out that his Post colleague Amy Joyce cited --

a Harvard University study in 2004 noting that of 168 countries it examined, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave. We weren't one of the 163. Joyce observed that "the U.S. is on par with places like Papua New Guinea and Swaziland when it comes to paid family leave."

He explains that the FAMILY Act avoids the expected "excessive economic burden on employers" or on the federal government by setting it up as an insurance program.

There is nothing revolutionary about this proposal. It builds on the existing (and highly popular) Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires unpaid leave and was enacted two decades ago. It is modest in comparison with leave policies in other well-off countries.

Senator Gillibrand, E.J. notes,

has put forward five bills labeled as an "American Opportunity Agenda." All of them involve ideas that have won broad support over many years. Besides pressing for paid family leave, she is calling for a minimum wage increase, affordable child care, universal pre-kindergarten programs and equal pay for equal work.

At a time when the political news is dominated by a debate between do-little conservatism and do-nothing conservatism -- which is to say, between a right-tilting Republican establishment and the radical tea party -- Gillibrand's package includes building blocks for a broader counter-vision inspired by the idea of an Empowering Government.

Yes, we need to protect what the philosophers call "negative liberty." There are, indeed, many things that government should never be able to do to us. But we need to think more about "positive liberty," the ability to realize certain goals in our lives. Democratic government can create the framework in which we have more power to reach those ends.

And surely a country that honors the devotion of family members to each other should want to make it at least a little easier for them to do their jobs.

#

Are Family Values Republicans Rushing To Return Tainted Prostitution Cash From Sheldon Adelson?

Before Al Capone was finally convicted on income tax evasion America's #1 gangster was "an innocent man" and even palled around with corrupt politicians. Today the biggest organized crime figure-- and biggest single Mitt Romney donor-- is Vegas-based mobster Sheldon Adelson. He has a myriad of serious legal cases pending against him but he has the best legal minds money can buy keeping him out of prison. Adelson and his Israeli wife have pumped tens of millions of dollars into the Republican Party-- partly protection money and partly to move forward his very specific agenda (everything from war against Muslim states and American unions to low taxes for billionaires and a gambling casino in Manhattan). This week, though, it's been revealed that his $10 million to the Koch brothers, and $5 million each to Boehner's and Cantor's SuperPACs, he was getting the cash to funnel to the GOP by running a prostitution network in China.

The fired former chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Macau casinos alleges in court documents revealed Thursday that billionaire Sheldon Adelson personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company's properties in the Chinese enclave.

...In the lawsuit, he accuses the company and Adelson of breach of contract and of pushing him into illegal activity in Macau, a former Portuguese colony near Hong Kong where Sands has established a strong business presence. The company owns the Venetian Macao and Sands Macao casino resorts, the Plaza Macao hotel, restaurant and shopping complex and the newly opened Sands Cotai Central resort with three hotels and two casinos.

In documents revealed Thursday-- including a sworn seven-page declaration that Jacobs submitted along with a summary from his attorneys of problems obtaining documents from Sands-- Jacobs describes an effort he launched after arriving in Macau in May 2009 to rid the casino floor of "loan sharks and prostitution."

"This project was met with concern as (company) senior executives informed me that the prior prostitution strategy had been personally approved by Adelson," Jacobs said in the documents.

In his court filing, Jacobs alleges other documents that haven't been turned over include records of misuse of "blue card' work permits and the hiring of illegal workers in Macau; emails and records of Adelson controlling a "Chairman's Club" allowing favored members, including known or suspected organized crime figures, exclusive access to Sands China's most luxurious accommodations; and email requests from Adelson to a Macau lawmaker who Jacobs said was hired as outside counsel after Jacobs was fired.

...Jacobs' lawsuit has drawn interest from U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission investigator for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to a filing with the SEC. The law bars American companies from paying foreign officials to "affect or influence any act or decision" for commercial benefit. No charges have been filed.

The company and Adelson deny wrongdoing. They say the investigations stem from allegations by Jacobs. Sands also alleges that Jacobs stole confidential documents that might contain trade secrets.

Adelson's latest scandal comes "as no surprise, given the Chinese territory has long been known as a haven for gangs and corruption. In fact, in December 2010, police rounded up more than 100 suspected prostitutes at the Sands’ Venetian Macao casino-resort while Adelson was in town."

Adelson and his wife give exclusively to Republicans-- and only to Republicans known for loose moral standards. Among the crooked Republican politicians who have partaken in the tens of millions of dollars in naked legalistic bribes the two have them have been sending out are Scott Brown (R-MA), Virginia Foxx (R-VA), and Eric Cantor (personally over and over and over and above and beyond the leadership PAC he controls). It's more than a little strange that all the Republicans who have gotten money from the Adelsons and from their corporate PAC claim to be "family values" Republicans but none are willing to return the prostitution money that's tied to Chinese organized crime. I guess family values mean different things to different people-- depending on how big the checks are. And they sure don't mean giving back the millions of dollars Cantor has received from Adelson and his wife. That will never happen. As Wayne Powell, the progressive Democrat running for the Virginia seat Cantor is occupying, told us this morning, "This is typical of Eric Cantor. He will take money from any source to perpetuate his ongoing sale of influence to the highest bidder, as long as it supports his political advancement."

Today's the last day of the congressional fundraising quarter. Feel like going up against Sheldon and Miriam Adelson? There's a special page dedicated to ending Eric Cantor's tragic political career: Eric Cantor.

Another Mangy Blue Dog Bites The Dust

I first came across South Carolina state Rep. Ted Vick when I was investigating right-wing Democrats who joined the Koch brother's and Murdoch's shady anti-democracy outfit ALEC. Vick was one of his state's ALEC leaders. I guess I wasn't the only one looking. The Blue Dogs found him too and backed his bid for Congress. Aside from endorsing him and getting "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel to add his race to the DCCC Red-to-Blue page-- a signal to wealthy donors who can't think for themselves that the DCCC wants contributions to flow in certain directions-- the Blue Dogs started sending him cash. Their corporately funded PAC sent two $5,000 checks on December 20. Individual Blue Dogs sent checks as well, like Heath Shuler who sent $1,000 on March 28. Even though there are far, far, far more fertile districts for the DCCC to contest in November, Israel went along with his Blue Dog buddies and added SC-7 to the Red-to-Blue "Emerging Districts" list. There's just something about a Blue Dog man that Steve Israel just can't ignore.

When I complained to the DCCC that Vick is an anti-Choice, anti-gay, ALEC reactionary, I was told he had just quit ALEC. And he had-- after years of loyal service. Why is the DCCC backing candidates with records like Vick's? Can you imagine them going to wealthy donors in California and New York are saying, "Look at these wonderful right-wing candidates we have for you to finance. They're as anti-Choice as any Republican. And they hate the LGBT community with the same fervor. And look at these voting records! No one will ever be able to say they're any less conservative than a Republican! Chip in." No, of course the DCCC doesn't do that. They just lard up their Red-to-Blue page with people who fit that description. It's almost come to the point where if someone is added to the Red-to-Blue list, you have to double check and triple check and see what's wrong with them.

Now in Vick's case, you don't have to check too far. They don't make Democrats much worse-- although the corrupt New Dems managed to connect to San Diego crook Juan Vargas-- than ole Ted, who calls himself a "pastor," by the way. And Pastor Ted, as pastors do, got caught in a scandal with a young woman this week. Friday morning-- damage control having failed-- he quit his race for Congress. The Blue Dog was arrested, driving drunk with a 21 year old drunken woman he had picked up in a bar in his car. No, I'm not talking about Ken Calvert; Calvert admits he's a Republican so, of course he behaves this way.

Democratic state representative and 7th Congressional District candidate Ted Vick was arrested Wednesday night in Columbia and faces multiple charges.

According to the Alivin S.Glenn Detention Center’s website Vick, D-Chesterfield, is charged with speeding, DUI, and a weapons charge.

A young woman, a student at USC who had several drinks with Vick, was also in the car at the time, according to a police report obtained by WLTX-TV.

That police report said Vick, who is listed as a pastor on his website, was taking the intoxicated 21-year-old woman home.

The two met at a Five Points bar, according to reports.

An employee with the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center says Vick is out of jail. The employee was not able to release bond information.

“I very much regret any embarrassment I’ve caused for my family, friends and supporters. My family comes first to me and I’m going to spend time with them and consult with my pastor. Politics will have to wait,” Vick said in a statement issued by his campaign manager Lachlan McIntosh.
 
Vick's website touts him as a married family man and a pastor and recently released a television advertisement highlighting his family values.

Well who ever heard of a political sex scandal that didn't involve some hypocrite championing "family values" (right-wing short hand for homophobia)? We haven't heard from Mrs. Vick yet but Pastor Ted has pulled his campaign ads off the air, withdrawn from the race and... issued a statement about his innocence. (Apparently he's still running for reelection as a state rep., which he was doing simultaneously with the congressional run. No word if he's rejoined ALEC yet.)

“After spending time with my family, my pastor and my friends, I have decided to end my campaign for the United States Congress.” Vick had apologized for his actions Thursday.

“I will humbly seek re-election to the State House in November,” his statement on Friday said. “If re-elected I will continue to work across party aisles to seek consensus and progress.”

Vick had been the Democrat’s fund-raising leader in the campaign for the largely coastal, Republican-leaning district.

...Vick is slated to run unopposed for S.C. House District 53 in the Democratic primary, after challenger Phil Powell was among candidates removed by the S.C. Supreme Court following a statewide ballot controversy.

Republican Richie Yow will appear on the ballot in November as the GOP House 53 nominee.

Vick, 39, was stopped by Columbia police at 1:12 a.m. Thursday on Devine Street in Columbia for driving 44 mph in a 30-mph zone, a police report shows.

The officer smelled alcohol, but Vick declined to take a field sobriety test or a breath analysis, the report states.

When Vick was taken to the county jail, a corrections officer discovered a Kel-Tec .380-caliber pistol in a front pants pocket.

Vick did not tell the arresting officer or the corrections officer that he was carrying a firearm. A state concealed weapons permit Vick had in his wallet had expired in 2007 – five years ago.

He is charged with DUI, speeding and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Great work, Steve Israel... the man who will go down in history as an even worse DCCC head than Rahm Emanuel, who planted the seeds for the John Boehner speakership. Time to send the DC Dems a message?

Coincidentally, porn star Jenna Jameson was also arrested for driving drunk. She's never been a member of ALEC and hasn't been embraced by the Blue Dogs or DCCC and isn't a family values hypocrite. She's not running for office either-- but I'd vote for her before I'd even consider someone like Ted Vick.

Ever Wonder What Happened To GOP Boy Wonder Tom Reynolds?

At one time he and Pataki pretty much ran the Republican Party in New York State. And in the 2006 election cycle he certainly ran the NRCC, the Republican version of the DCCC and was a big deal member of the Republican House leadership. In fact, in 2000, no less personages than Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay went to the New York state legislature and pressured them to give Reynolds a district so ridiculously safe that he could "vote like a Southern conservative" without ever having to fear being seriously challenged by a moderate-- from either party. It worked-- and he did.

But then the Mark Foley scandal broke and Reynolds' "Democratic" opponent, Jack Davis (a very rich right-wing Republican with a grudge who the Democrats allowed to run on their pretty worthless line), made sure everyone from Buffalo to Rochester was aware that Reynolds not only participated in the coverup-- while Foley was still actively raping texting young boys-- but that when Foley begged the House leadership let him retire before something disastrous happened, it was Reynolds who literally forced Foley to buck up and run again. And then something disastrous happened.

It was disastrous for Reynolds too. He was on the defensive from the day the scandal broke and not only never left his district to campaign for other Republicans-- part of his job as NRCC chair-- but he syphoned a couple of million dollars from money meant to protect marginal GOP seats to his own super-safe (vote like a Southern conservative) district. The Republicans lost dozens of those marginal seats and Reynolds... well he lost his sheen. And almost lost his seat. An early snowstorm saved him but Cheney and DeLay didn't help create the district they did so Reynolds could spend millions of dollars and nearly lose anyway.

He soldiered on-- for a while. And then the shit really hit the fan... except no one outside of Buffalo political junkies ever heard about this part. Ever hear of Judge Ronald H. Tills? Of course not-- but he was Reynolds' mentor. In fact Reynolds gave ole Judge Tills quite the greatest-man-since-Jesus-walked-the-eath encomium in the Congressional Record at the very end of 2005. The occasion was Tills' retirement from the bench and Reynolds went beyond just calling him "a valued mentor." He brought up how crucial to Tills were the Masons and the Shriners and a much lesser known organization that flows out of being high up in both those secret societies, the Royal Order of Jesters.

One of his great loves is the largest and oldest fraternal organization in the world. As a Mason, Ron Tills has held numerous responsibilities within the Masons and the organizations within it, including Proctor of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, Potentate of the Ismalia Shrine Temple, Director and President of the Shrine Oasis and Director of the Buffalo Court 22 of Jesters.

Never heard of the Jesters? I hadn't either. They're not the kind of group Members of Congress should be talking about too loudly. A month before Judge Tills was arrested-- he went to prison-- and a month before Reynolds suddenly announced his retirement from that super-safe seat DeLay and Cheney helped create for him (not a coincidence, as you'll soon see), the Dallas Morning News ran a story about "death threats, drug use, cutthroat competition and middle-age Americans paying 13-year-old Brazilian villagers for sex." The Jesters weren't clowning around when it came to sex tourism.

The Jesters, an offshoot of the Shriners and the Masons, is a fraternal organization devoted to having fun. Their slogan is "Mirth is King."

With chapters nationwide, the group is headquartered in Indiana but registered as a not-for-profit corporation in Texas.

Poking through federal court filings, Marsteller learned that in September 2008, a New York state judge who was also a Jester agreed to plead guilty to procuring prostitutes for Jesters' parties in Kentucky.

Nothing in the records made any connection between the New York case and the alleged activities in Brazil. However, the judge's lawyer said in a pre-sentence memorandum that partying with prostitutes "was pervasive throughout the organization" and "was reported to have occurred at Jester meetings across the country."

The lawyer added: "The group's practice of inviting women, called 'Jester girls,' to meetings for sexual activities was ... a long-standing tradition."

Garcia da Silva, in his deposition for the slander suit, said Wet-A-Line clients from "the mason group" had been involved in orgies on their trips to Brazil.

Alex Rogers, business administrator at the Jesters national office, told The News that the New York case was not indicative of normal Jester behavior. "This organization doesn't partake of any of that activity," Rogers said.

And that brings us back to Reynolds' mentor, Judge Tills, the Jester. Tills plea agreement-- they let him off easy-- was a doozy: "The defendant agrees to waive indictment and to plead guilty to 1 count Information charging a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2421 (transportation of an individual in interstate commerce with intent that the individual engage in prostitution), for which the maximum possible sentence is a term of imprisonment of 10 years, a fine of $250,000..." Tills was procuring prostitutes and bringing them for Jester parties in Kentucky-- over state lines. He wasn't just Reynolds' mentor; they owned property together as well.

This story got covered up with a story about how hundreds of thousands of dollars were embezzled from the NRCC while Reynolds was in charge. That looked like something the GOP could handle more easily than the Jesters' and Tills' human trafficking and prostitution scandal coming right on top of Reynolds' connection to Foley and his boy pages. Within 2 weeks of Tills' arrest, Reynolds hoisted the white flag and said it was time to take up new challenges. He's a K Street lobbyist, one of the slimiest out there.

This is about the retired Erie County Deputy Sheriff who recently pleaded guilty to knowing about the felony of transporting prostitutes from the Buffalo International Airport to a national Royal Order of Jesters (ROJ) national convention in Ontario, Canada and hiding the crimes by not reporting them.

This is part of the case involving three Jesters who got caught in an FBI human trafficking sting out of Buffalo, NY. These include a retired police captain, a former New York State Supreme Court judge and his law clerk. All three pleaded guilty to violating the Mann Act after confessing to driving an illegal alien prostitute from Buffalo to a weekend Jester party in Ashland, Kentucky.

The ROJ is a secret sub-group of the Shriners, best known for operating a network of 22 hospitals that used to provide free care to burned and crippled children but now takes insurance. One must first be a Master Mason before joining groups like the Scottish Rite, the Knights Templar and the Shriners... Ronald Tills is the former New York State Supreme Court Judge who was caught w/his law clerk, Michael Stebick and retired police captain John Trowbridge in an FBI human trafficking sting last October, 2007.

...“The Royal Order of Jesters (ROJ) is a world wide fraternal organization whose membership is limited to individuals invited to join by other members. The motto of the ROJ is ‘mirth is king.’ The ROJ has local chapters or ‘courts.’ On occasion, a local court or group of local courts in the same geographical location sponsor social gatherings known as ‘books of the play’ or ‘books.' The sponsoring courts organize the ‘books’ and arrange for food, lodging, and entertainment at the ‘book.’ Jesters from all over the country may attend the local ‘books.’ The ROJ also sponsors a yearly national ‘book,’ the equivalent of a national convention. In April, 2005, the Jester's national ‘book’ was held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. As set forth below, a typical feature of a ‘book of the play’ is the presence of prostitutes (‘Jester Girls’) who engage in commercial sex acts with members of the ROJ. Arrangements for the prostitutes are generally made by the organizer of the ‘books,’ or the region hosting the national ‘book.’ On occasion, individual Jesters may make arrangements to transport prostitutes to ‘books.’”

...Tills was in charge of getting the prostitutes to the Jesters’ national “book” across the border in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. According to his plea agreement, Tills admitted to coordinating the prostitutes’ travel with national Jester officers, in or about spring, 2006.

Trowbridge then stated that Tills asked Michael Lesinski, a deputy sheriff with the Erie County Sheriff’s Department, to take care of it. Trowbridge then disclosed that Lesinski rented a limousine to transport about a dozen prostitutes from Buffalo to Canada.
The complaint then includes co-conspirator Michael Stebick’s description of how Jester “books” are typically held in hotel hospitality rooms where members can pick from a list of Jester Girls.

It continues that in April, 2008, Trowbridge provided investigators with contact information for the 13 prostitutes as he’d spoken with each of them as they gathered at the Buffalo airport though there were other prostitutes he’d not spoken with.
In June 2008 Tills told investigators that there were about 30 women at the national book and “described a network of members who had the ability to supply such women.” It was then that he identified Lesinski’s renting of two limousines that took the prostitutes to Canada.

Tills got off very light-- 18 months in prison. And his lovely encomium by Reynolds still stands in the Congressional Record. Anyway, that's why-- unless you're a DC insider (or a fracker) who engages Nixon Peabody LLP for their lobbying activities-- you never hear about former up-and-comer Thomas Reynolds any longer.