Cornelius McGillicuddy IV Eyes His Old Ft. Myers House Seat; Stumbles Over Puerto Rico

Best dressed Connie and Mary

This is a post about what's been happening politically in FL-19, one of the 3 or 4 Florida congressional districts being most savagely impacted by global warming. The hurricane-ravaged district, where salt water is seeping into the groundwater as the Gulf rises, starts down south around Turtle Island, works its way up through Naples, past Bonita Bay to Fort Myers and Cape Coral. It includes most of Lee County and half of Collier County. At just 28%, it's the congressional district with the lowest share of registered Democrats. Obama lost to Romney 61-39%.

Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III won the seat in 1982 and held onto it until he ran, successfully, for the U.S. Senate in 1988. (In his 1994 reelection bid he defeated Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham in a massive 71-29% landslide, winning every single country in Florida!) He retired in 2000 and has been a sleazy Tallahassee lobbyist ever since. His not very bright son, Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, won the open seat in 2004 and served until 2012 when he ran for the Senate against Bill Nelson, the man who replaced McGillicuddy III. McGillicuddy IV was wiped out by over a million votes-- 55.2-42.2% Like his dad, he's also a sleazy Tallahassee lobbyist now.

When McGillicuddy IV gave up the House seat, Henry Jude "Trey" Radel III, a loud-mouthed Hate Talk Radio host who was both a teabagger and the owner of a network of hard-core porn web-sites. This is the kind of district FL-19 is: Radel won 62-36%. Caught selling cocaine to some colleagues in DC, he didn't serve out a full term and he was succeeded by another extreme right-wing lunatic and teabagger, Curt Clawson, who beat his Democratic opponent by an even greater margin, 67-29%. He spent $4,824,230 to win the seat, $4,017,543 of it (84%) self-funded. Thursday he unexpectedly announced he would be retiring after achieving nothing at all as a congressman.

Chauncey Goss, whose father was briefly the congressman for the district between McGillicuddy III and McGillicuddy IV, and who ran for the seat himself in 2012 but was beaten by the screaming coke-freak, is running. Ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who also ran for the seat unsuccessfully says she'll probably run again too. Same with State Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, who came in second to Clawson in the 2014 primary. And it looks like McGillicuddy IV wants back in too. Oops... I forgot to mention that McGillicuddy IV (like McGillicuddy III) is known as "Connie Mack" and that McGillicuddy IV was voted best-dressed man in Congress and his then-wife, Sonny Bono's not-Cher widow, Mary Bono, who lost her reelection the same night McGillicuddy IV lost his Senate race, was voted best-dressed woman in Congress. They were the best-dressed couple; they divorced just after they both lost their last elections. Adam Smith, the Tampa Bay Times political editor:

We haven't back from CM4, now a lobbyist, so don't know how seriously he is processing this. If he is interested, though, his would-be campaign is already off to a mighty rocky start, considering the number of folks he ticked off this week. Mack represents bondholders owed money by Puero Rico is lobbying against a fiscal rescue plan for Puerto Rico that would allow it to restructure some $70-billion in debt, and he sent a letter to Republican House members listing conservative groups and individuals opposed to the plan.

Unfortunately, a bunch of the people on Mack's list of opponents say they should not have been:

"...NTU has NOT registered opposition to H.R. 4900, nor has NTU announced that it will urge Members to vote against the next draft," Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union wrote House members, correcting the record after Mack's memo.

Politico found quite a few more people accusing Mack of incorrectly invoking their names, including Speaker Paul Ryan's office: “The deceptive efforts to mislead on Puerto Rico have backfired as members understand this is not a bailout,” AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, emailed POLITICO. Ryan has helped push for a deal to help Puerto Rico avert default. “We look forward to moving a solution to protect taxpayers and fulfill our constitutional duties.”

"He's going to come under a lot of fire from people he's misrepresenting," Javier Ortiz, executive director of the Puerto Rico Economic Recovery Initiative, which supports the legislation, said of Mack. "I'm quite dismayed, surprised, speechless that he would stoop so low just for however much money he's being paid."

Needless to say, the DCCC hasn't bothered recruiting a candidate; too busy misleading their donors how Trump is going to help them win back Congress.

Right Wing Crack Addicts Trey Radel And Rob Ford Believe They're Above The Law

Right wing slobs Rob Ford and Trey Radel

Manmohan Singh has been Prime Minister of India for a decade. This morning, he announced he would not run again in order to make way for young blood. I understand the feeling and it was certainly the way I felt when I decided to leave Warner Bros. The only way for people to move up is for people at the top to move on. Singh is backing Rahul Gandhi (age 43, son of Rajiv Gandhi) for the job. There is fear in India that the far right has a chance of taking over with neo-fascist bigot Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister. Modi is comparable to Ted Cruz, maybe worse.

You probably read already that delusional Republican Party crack addict Trey Radel, a former Hate Talk Radio host from Fort Myers, Florida, is running for Congress again. It was widely assumed he would have a strong primary challenge, and Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked him to resign, as has the Florida Republican Party. That he'll have a primary is no longer an assumption. With his phony-baloney "rehab" ending just in time for the congressional session starting up again Tuesday, he's already drawn one heavily financed challenger. The so-called Values are Vital PAC has two donors-- Ronald Firman, who ponied up $525,000, and Las Vegas lawyer Martin Burns, who contributed $485,000. They're backing ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who Radel beat in the 2012 primary. Paige is a male. So is Connie Mack, the former congressman from the district who left the job to run a disastrous Senate race against Bill Nelson. Connie Mack will probably run again this year too, in which case he would be the heavy favorite.

Even more bizarre is sometimes snowbird and all-the-time crackhead Rob Ford, another far right kook, this one mayor of Toronto. He filed for reelection Thursday. There are no reports that he was in a drunken and/or coked-up stupor when he showed up at City Hall and filed. Calling himself "the best mayor this city has ever had," he also promised "Ford more years." Progressives are backing MP Olivia Chow. Bizarrely, polling shows Ford with stable approval numbers just north of 40%. (Chow's numbers, though, approach 60%.)

What’s represented in the chart below is the percentage of people who have heard of the individual candidate who would vote for him or her. If all candidates were equally known, this would add up to 100 per cent. However, since name recognition is unequal, and that’s what we’re correcting for, it makes the totals in the below charts are greater than 100.) On November 14 Ipsos released a poll in which they asked people who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow, and also measured how familiar people were with each candidate. If we run the numbers, we wind up with this:

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.”