Republican Culture of Corruption: 2007 So Far

cool video (0.00 / 0)

nice post.

Please refer to KT's signature.

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by: colin @ Fri Sep 07, 2007 at 21:02:23 PM UTC

Great work (0.00 / 0)

I added the link to the video to my blog.  Thank you.

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by: Libby Shaw @ Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 16:43:22 PM UTC

Wow what a sordid summary of the GOP (0.00 / 0)

My what family values they're really practicing huh?

Great job on the video.

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by: sonia @ Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 22:28:43 PM UTC

The GOP--Worse Than Corrupt (0.00 / 0)

from: patgobyebye at AmericaBlog
...it gets even more GOP-scandalous - it also ties into a male escort service/prostitution ring - shows it is begging for additional investigation by the MSM, but no one seems to want to touch it. Drama Queen notes:

 

In both Monday and Tuesday's posts, my point was that it's highly suspicious that the traditional media has basically ignored the Florida murder suicide: a sensational story that juicily combines fundamentalist Christian politicians and homosexual consultants, election software tampering and this potential tie to a gay porn-related murder in Pennsylvania.

This story is potentially wilder than anything Larry Craig's toe-tapping in an airport restroom. I have no idea what it all means since there are many still off-the-record sources.

snip

The events on the record are noteworthy enough for the MSM to investigate at this point, because the office of right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has gone on the record tying the pol to the shooting. Howie Klein, making a serious charge:

  As we mentioned yesterday, Drake, a former marine, also is alleged to have a strong relationship-- both intimate and business/political-- with right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC). When I spoke to McHenry's office about this they at first insisted they never heard of Drake then, confronted with specifics, admitted they know him. They refused to put Congressman McHenry on the phone. There is every indication that McHenry may have been one of the Republican elected officials who was using the services of the gay prostitution agency connected to Drake. Our pals over at the BradBlog points out the connections between Florida's ultra-corrupt, vote-tampering congressman, Tom Feeney, and Gonzalez and reports the threat to expose the list of Republican elected officials who were using the gay escort service.

Where will it go? Who knows, but with a story of this potential magnitude, the mainstream news media, which has the resources to investigate and uncover whether the thick smoke does or doesn't lead to fire....

http://downwithtyran...

REPUBLICAN PARTY MORALE LOWEST IN LIVING MEMORY-- AND FALLING

Gay GOP Consultants Murdered - Link to Gay GOP Prostitution?

by bernardpliers
http://www.dailykos....
Wed Aug 29, 2007

Wonkette has been tracking this story about three dead Republicans killed in an Orlando home.

http://wonkette.com/...
http://wonkette.com/...

At least two of them were gay. One was a political consultant and you can see a list of his GOP (political) clients at his  web site, including Tom Feeney (R FL-24).
His (not gay?) roommate was the former president of the Central Florida Young Republicans. So you know he's not gay.
Police say the killer is a gay Republican former Marine with links to gay escorts and gay porn.

The Brad Blog suggests that one of the victims was being blackmailed with the threat of exposing the prominent GOP clients of a gay escort service.

from bayareahouston http://bayareahousto...

from: http://www.bradblog....

  3 Found Dead in Home of Tom Feeney's 'Adviser and Strategist'

  Ralph Gonzalez, Whose Firm Created 'CrazyClintCurtis.com' Smear Website, Apparently Murdered

  Gonzalez's Strategum Group consulted for Feeney, Worked with Ralph Reed, GA Rep. Tom Price

  Posted By Steve Huff On 23rd August 2007 @ 19:28 In Florida, Tom Feeney, Clint Curtis, Georgia, Election 2006

  snip

  Police are investigating a possible double murder and suicide in an Orlando, Florida, residence owned by the former Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party.

  The Orange County Sheriff was called to 2420 Hickory Oak Blvd. in Orlando early Thursday. There they found three dead white men and two live dogs. The men may have been dead since Tuesday.

  The home where they were found dead was owned by a political consultant/strategist of Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), the one who worked on the Congressman's smear campaign against vote-rigging whistleblower Clint Curtis last year. More details on that campaign below.

  snip

  The address where this crime took place was also the Florida address [4] for The Strategum Group [5], a political consulting outfit run by Ralph Gonzalez [6]. A portion of Gonzalez's bio from The Strategum Group's website:

  Prior to founding the Strategum Group, Ralph served at the Republican Party of Florida's House Campaign Division, as Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party, and is a veteran of dozens of campaigns across Florida, from Mayoral Races to Congressional. He also has international political experience, helping to manage a campaign on the Island of St. Maarten.

  snip

  Ralph Gonzalez's career seems to have always put him one degree of separation away from infamous former lobbyist Jack Abramoff [15].

  When Ralph Reed was elected chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in 2001 [link [16]], two of the party's executive directors were Todd Schnick and Ralph Gonzalez. When Gonzalez filed an annual report [17] for Strategum with the State of Florida Division of Corporations in January, 2007, Schnick was listed as one of his business partners.

  (Note: Todd Schnick is a name that you might remember [18] if you believe the 2000 presidential election was stolen, and that said theft occurred in Florida.)

  snip

  The Orlando Sentinel has reported [27] the names of the other two men found dead in the home at 2420 Hickory Oak Blvd.: Gonzalez's roommate David Abrami and a friend named Robert Drake.

  Central Florida News 13 suggested in this article [28] that Drake may have murdered Abrami and Gonzalez before committing suicide.

  Abrami, in 1992, was vice president of the Central Florida Young Republican Club. That group made the news in November that year because they'd planned a weekend turkey shoot

  snip

  In and of itself this wasn't news. The fact that they wanted to use enlarged photos of then incoming president Bill Clinton as targets was news. The Secret Service, naturally, vetoed the idea.

  snip

  UPDATE 4, 8:02 a.m. ET, 8/24/07

  Florida Today published an article this morning titled, "Lovers' fight may have sparked 3 deaths [33]."

  Who the "lovers" were is not clear. Quote:
  A Republican Party consultant is one of three men found dead in a Central Florida home Thursday in an apparent double murder-suicide possibly sparked by a lovers' quarrel, according to detectives.

  If said lovers were among the three dead men, no one will miss the irony of Abrami and Gonzalez having ties to conservative Republican campaigns for the last 15 years or more.

  UPDATE 5, 1:24pm ET, 8/24/07

  Towleroad is now reporting [34] that "All language about a 'lovers' fight' has since mysteriously disappeared from the report." at Florida Today. They have grabbed a screen shot of the original headline and story, however.

  UPDATE 6, 2:23pm ET, 8/24/07 by Brad Friedman

  [35]Gonzalez' Strategum Group was apparently behind all of Feeney's 2006 mailings as part of his smear campaign against Clint Curtis. One such mailing which included doctored photos of Curtis and referenced an article I had written [36] for Hustler concerning the still-unexplained mysterious death [37] --- in Georgia --- of Ray Lemme of the Florida Inspector General's office. Lemme had been investigating Curtis' complaints about Feeney and Yang Enterprises Inc. where both men worked in 2000, and where Feeney alleged asked Curtis to create vote rigging software.

  .........

  http://www.bradblog....

  A summary of the key points in the story so far…
  Based on the Reporting of Brad Friedman
  (For a list of key articles in this series, see http://www.BradBlog....)
  Last Updated: 08/29/2006 02:43 PM

  ...OVERVIEW...

  On December 6th, 2004 , The BRAD BLOG (www.bradblog.com) published a sworn affidavit [PDF] by Florida software programmer Clint Curtis. In his affidavit and videotaped sworn testimony presented before members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee, Curtis claims to have been asked by U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to design a "vote-rigging software prototype". This request took place in October 2000 during a meeting at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), a computer consulting firm in Oviedo, Florida.

  Curtis, a life-long Republican up until then, had been a programmer at YEI, which had several top-secret clearance contracts with the state, NASA and other government agencies. Curtis' understanding at the time was that the prototype he was being asked to create (built to the very precise specifications of Feeney) was to address Feeney's concerns that the Democrats might attempt to electronically rig the election and Feeney wanted to know what to look out for in that event. After informing YEI CEO Mrs. Li-Woan Yang that he would not be able to hide the vote-flipping routines in the software source-code as Feeney had requested, Curtis testified that Mrs. Yang informed him that the program was needed to "rig the vote in South Florida ".

  At the time of the alleged meeting, Feeney was the incoming Speaker of the Florida House, and also a registered lobbyist and the general corporate counsel for YEI. Previously, he had been the running mate of Jeb Bush during his 1994 unsuccessful first bid for Florida Governor. In November 2000, Feeney gained national notoriety after declaring open defiance of the Florida Supreme Court by vowing to choose Presidential electors for George W. Bush regardless of whether a court-ordered recount showed that Gore won Florida . He eventually ascended to the U.S. Congress and today sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Although he was outspent two to one by his Democratic opponent in 2002, Feeney beat him handily at the polls and then ran unopposed for the same seat in 2004.

  ...CONFIRMED LINKS TO CHINESE ESPIONAGE...

  Curtis also reported in his affidavit and to the Florida State Inspector General that YEI was employing an illegal Chinese alien by the name of Hai Lin "Henry" Nee who was inserting "wire-tapping modules" into sensitive database programs which YEI had built for NASA and other companies. Curtis also alleged that the brother of Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, the YEI CEO, had been a deported Chinese spy.

............

  from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog....
  URL to article: http://www.bradblog....

  Another 'Hole' Plugged in the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney Vote-Rigging Scandal via Dan Rather Report on Sequoia's Gaming of Florida Punchcards in 2000

  ALSO: More Feeney Lies, Ethical Problems Revealed as Florida 'Vote-Rigging' Software Firm Owner Contributes $5000 to the Corrupt Congressman's Abramoff Legal Defense Fund...

  By Brad Friedman

  [1]The recent Dan Rather report (complete video here http://www.bradblog.... [2]) (Transcript at http://www.hd.net/tr...) on the gaming of the paper punchcard ballots by Sequoia Voting Systems in Florida, just prior to the 2000 election, plugs up at least one important "hole" in the Clint Curtis story. We first broke Curtis's story back in late 2004 [3] and have been reporting on it ever since [4].

  You'll recall that Curtis alleged --- in sworn affidavit [PDF] [5], live video-taped testimony [6] before a U.S. House Judiciary delegation, and via polygraph test [7] --- that he was asked by Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) to create a touch-screen vote-rigging prototype program, just months prior to the 2000 election when they both worked at the same Florida software firm.

  One of the main criticisms of Curtis's striking allegations was that "nobody was even thinking about touch-screen voting systems in Florida prior to the 2000 Presidential Election debacle."

  Dan Rather's remarkable investigative report, however, would seem to indicate otherwise: seven Sequoia company whistleblowers reveal on camera that, despite their objections, they were forced to use poor quality paper for the punchcards to be used in Florida in 2000. They also revealed that they had been instructed to deliberately misalign the chads for ballots going to Palm Beach County, FL, only.

  As well, another recent revelation puts the lie to Feeney's claim, made years ago, that he no longer had anything to do with the owners of the Oviedo, Florida, firm where he was the general counsel and registered lobbyist in 2000 (even as he served as Speaker of the FL House at the same time). Curtis was employed as a computer programmer for the company, which had multi-million dollar contracts with both the state and NASA, where Feeney's wife has worked for several years.

  New information reveals that the owners of the company remain personal friends with Feeney, and continue to funnel money to him even while they hope for further contracts from the U.S. House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics [8], in which Feeney has recently been promoted to ranking member.

  TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING SYSTEMS AND PRE-2000 FLORIDA

  Connecting a few dots here... Sequoia had already deployed its new touch-screen voting systems in several precincts in Riverside County, CA, back in 1999. In 2000 the systems were to be used county-wide for the first time. Sequoia knew damned well that they stood to make millions from the use of touch-screen voting systems long before the 2000 election, even as their paper ballot shop was preparing the flawed paper ballots for use in Florida's election that same year.

  As reported by Rather, the company made just pennies per ballot on the punchcards and only a few hundred dollars on punchcard counting machines. But millions stood to be made on their newer technology, which sold for thousands of dollars per touch-screen machine. The stunning on-camera testimony from the seven company whistleblowers suggests that the company --- and/or someone else --- may have had a plan in place to speed the transition to touch-screens prior to the 2000 election in Florida. That, of course, is precisely the same moment in time that Curtis alleges Feeney asked him to create touch-screen vote-rigging software, when they both worked for Yang Enterprises, Inc....

http://www.bradblog....
The Clint Curtis/ Tom Feeney Yang Enterprises, Inc./Vote-Rigging Scandal

http://bluenc.com/fl...

http://bluenc.com/ga...

and another

http://wonkette.com/...

Nobody is mourning the suicide of St. Petersburg City Council Chairman John Bryan - "a staunch Republican and former finance chairman for U.S. Sen. Connie Mack" - who sucked a tailpipe Friday afternoon after the story broke that he had sexually molested his adopted daughters and another little girl.

worse than corrupt...GOP

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by: ProveOurDemocracy @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:57:16 AM UTC

corrected link and reference (0.00 / 0)

at the top:
http://www.americabl...
by Pam Spaulding

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by: ProveOurDemocracy @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 11:18:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]