Republicans' Telling Sexual Fantasies

As numerous posts over the years have noted, the great majority of political sex scandals involve Republicans, including "family values" Republicans caught in same sex scandals (think GOP Senator Larry Craig or former Virginia 2nd district GOP Congressman Ed Schrock for starters).  At the same time, numerous reports find that the highest Internet porn usage is in the Bible Belt.  What's going on?  I've always believed that both phenomenon were a function of the repressive political and religious atmospheres in which the right wing types live: they are supposed to be monogamist who wouldn't even dare "lust in their hearts" over anyone but their spouse.  Yet, in reality, they want to have forbidden sex - seemingly lots of it.  A new study which looked at sexual fantasies of Republicans and Democrats seems to bear out this view of Republicans longing for "forbidden sex."  Less sexually repressed Democrats have far less longing for sex that involves infidelity.  A piece in Politico looks at the findings.  Here are some excerpts:

I surveyed 4,175 adult Americans from all 50 states about what turns them on and published the findings in a book entitled Tell Me What You Want. As part of this survey, participants were given a list of hundreds of different people, places and things that might be a turn-on. For each one, they reported on how frequently they fantasized about it.

I learned a lot about the nature of sexual desire in modern America, but one of the more intriguing things I uncovered was the political divide in our fantasy worlds.

While self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats reported fantasizing with the same average frequency—several times per week—I found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to fantasize about a range of activities that involve sex outside of marriage. Think things like infidelity, orgies and partner swapping, from 70s-style “key parties” to modern-day forms of swinging. Republicans also reported more fantasies with voyeuristic themes, including visiting strip clubs and practicing something known as “cuckolding,” which involves watching one’s partner have sex with someone else.

As I argue in Tell Me What You Want, the supersized sexual appeal that non-monogamous and voyeuristic acts hold for Republicans likely stems from the fact that sex outside of marriage and multi-partner sex are huge no-nos in a political party that continues to make “traditional marriage” one of the cornerstones of its official platform and regularly funnels federal funds toward abstinence-only sex education. Nothing makes us want to try something like being told you can’t do it. This is why taboos, no matter what they are, often become turn-ons.

The appeal of the taboo stems from a long-standing principle of psychology known as reactance—which stipulates that when our freedom is threatened and we’re told we can’t do something, we want to do it even more. Many a parent has discovered this principle and used it to their benefit in shaping their children’s behavior through reverse psychology: Frame the desired act as something your child isn’t allowed to do and you just might get what you want.

To be sure, sexual fantasies have complex origins. They aren’t just a product of our political affiliation and what we’re told we can’t or shouldn’t do—there are myriad other factors that contribute to why we develop the turn-ons that we do. But my research suggests that politics certainly seems to play some role.

Following [Sarah] Palin, the next most frequently mentioned politicians in Republicans’ fantasies were John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Nikki Haley. . . .  (Note that my data were collected in 2014 and 2015 before the Trump presidency began and only into the early days of his campaign. At that time, I only received one fantasy about Donald Trump in the entire dataset.)

Again, it was nice to see my analysis about sexually repressed Republicans - and by extension, Christofascists - borne out.

Missouri GOP Lawmakers Call On Embattled GOP Governor Amid Sex/Blackmail Scandal

"Family values" GOP Gov. Greitens accused of adultery and revenge porn blackmail

Time and time again over the years this blog has existed, there has been a cavalcade of "family values" Republicans caught in gay sex trysts (or in the case of former Speaker Dennis Hastert, sexual abuse), adultery scandals, and other sexual improprieties.  In the same interval, only a small handful of Democrats, if that number, have been swept up in sex scandals.  Now, the adultery and alleged blackmail scandal swirling around Missouri GOP governor Eric Greitens - he purportedly tied up his mistress naked and photographed her and then told her that he would spread the photos if she ever revealed their affair - is becoming so bad that his fellow Republicans are calling on him to resign from office. At least one episode of physical abuse is alleged to have occurred.  So much for true family values.  Here are highlights from Talking Points Memo:

Four Republican Missouri lawmakers have called for Gov. Eric Greitens (R) to step down over allegations that he attempted to blackmail a woman with whom he carried out a 2015 affair.

Reps. Kathy Conway, Marsha Haefner, Steve Cookson and Nate Walker separately issued statements Tuesday urging Greitens to leave office to avoid dragging his state into a protracted, messy scandal.

Walker’s call for the governor’s resignation is particularly significant since he was one of Greitens’ earliest supporters. . . . Former Missouri GOP chairman Ed Martin also called for Greitens to step down on his talk radio show on AM 1380 Tuesday afternoon, saying “the people deserve better.”

A longtime GOP operative in the state told TPM that, based on his conversations with sources in the State House, he expects the number of Republicans calling for the governor to step down will be “up to 10 trickling in through the day.”

“I think people are believing that there’s more things to come out—that if he did tie her up, the likelihood of another incident or something, in their minds, is higher.”

Greitens is accused of tying the woman to a piece of exercise equipment in the basement of his home and taking a nude photograph of her, then threatening to leak the photo if she went public about the affair.

Greitens acknowledged last week that he engaged in an extramarital affair, but has denied the blackmail and slapping allegations.

“The current scandal is believable given all the other stuff that’s gone on, the way he treats the press, the way he treats other Republican lawmakers,” Dave Robertson, head of the political science department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told TPM.

The Missouri Republican operative told TPM that GOP members of the state’s House of Representatives will meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss next steps, and are leaning towards launching their own investigation into Greitens’ alleged behavior.

City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced last week that she had launched a criminal probe. Al Watkins, an attorney for the woman’s ex-husband, told TPM he’d been contacted by Gardner’s office and the FBI.

Greitens and his wife, Sheena, made a round of calls to GOP lawmakers last week insisting that no further allegations would come out.

The Flagrant Sexual Hypocrisy of Conservative Republican Males

I make a point in many of my posts of highlighting the hypocrisy of Republicans who find themselves embroiled in sex related scandals for several reasons.  First, to point out that with the exception of Anthony Weiner, the scandals almost always involve Republicans, not Democrats.  Second, to underscore the hypocrisy of both those caught in the scandals, but also of those who vote for them.  These voters feign piety yet display a level of hypocrisy that would make the biblical Pharisees blush (e.g., the highest. use of Internet porn is in the Bible Belt; evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rate, etc.).  In the wake of "family values", "pro-life" Republican Tim Murphy's decision to resign his seat in Congress after being caught in an abortion scandal, a column in the New York Times offers a welcomed compilation of a number of Republican hypocrites.  Here are excerpts:

The most recent culprit in the category of anti-abortion double-think is Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who on Thursday announced he would resign from his House seat this month. Two days before, Mr. Murphy had voted for a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks on the medically dubious grounds that, at that age, a fetus can experience pain. 

Then The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published texts revealing that when Mr. Murphy’s mistress thought she was pregnant, he urged her to consider an abortion.

Sound familiar? Perhaps Mr. Murphy’s story calls to mind the Tennessee congressman Scott DesJarlais, who is similarly pro-life in the streets, pro-choice in the sheets.

In 2015, Mr. DesJarlais voted in favor of a 20-week ban, and boasted of a “100 percent pro-life voting record” while in Congress. Meanwhile, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that he supported his ex-wife’s decision to have two abortions (no word on how far along she was) and encouraged a patient with whom he was having an affair to terminate her pregnancy as well. Like Mr. Murphy, he is a co-sponsor of the abortion bill that passed on Tuesday. It’s a child, not a choice, abortion opponents tell us. Unless the pregnancy is embarrassing and super-inconvenient and an impediment to your political future, in which case it’s merely a clump of cells.
 The double standards employed by some members of the “do as I say, not as I do” Christian right are nothing new. Show me a senator who votes against gay marriage, and, at least in one infamous case, I’ll show you a guy who’s soliciting same-sex encounters in the airport men’s room. (Hello there, Larry Craig!)

Show me another Republican senator who made his name as a “pro-family advocate” and I’ll show you a guy whose phone number showed up in a Washington madam’s little black book. (Howdy, David Vitter!)

Show me the far-right speaker of the House, a man with perfect scores from the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition, and I’ll show you a guy who, as a high-school wrestling coach, set up a chair in front of the boys’ shower the better to ogle his protégés, and who was eventually jailed as a serial child molester. (Dennis Hastert, come on down!)

We’ve been down this road of duplicity before. The televangelist who prayed, alongside his wife, for the return of traditional morals, admitted to having sex with — and was accused of rape by — a 21-year-old church secretary, and found to have paid her $279,000. The congressman who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act was sexting with his underage male pages.

Scandals roll by so frequently that there is, by now, an expected script: the shocking revelation, the tearful confession, the up-from-the-ashes reinstatement plea or re-election campaign, garlanded with declarations of “God/my wife/Willie Robertson, star of ‘Duck Dynasty’ has forgiven me, why can’t you?” Perhaps the most shocking part of Mr. Murphy’s story is that he elected to quit, rather than scream “Fake news!” or sit back and wait for a new story to eclipse his hypocrisy, as Mr. DesJarlais did.

But what Mr. Murphy’s moral flexibility ultimately reveals is that, for these particular hard-line anti-abortion politicians, it’s not about fetal pain or the sanctity of life. It’s all about control — whether you’re telling a woman she can’t have an abortion, or forcing a woman to get one.

To this list we need to add former Virginia 2nd District Congressman Ed Schrock who voted anti-gay in Congress and meanwhile was seeking gay sex trysts.    Of course, there are even more than could be added to the list besides Schrock.

GOP "Family Values" Alabama Governor Resigns After Adulerous Affair Scandal

As I noted yesterday evening on Facebook, I lived in Alabama from 1977 through 1981 and since that time, the state has gone more or less insane. If one does the analysis, it becomes clear that the insanity tracks directly with the rise of the "Christian Right" as a political force in Alabama. Now former Alabama Governor, Robert Bentley represents the moral bankruptcy of this element of society.   Bentley campaigned as a "family values" Republican and, as seems to be always the case, the moral bankruptcy that defines the Christian Right has come into view as Bentley resigns from office to avoid felony convictions arising from Bentley's efforts to cover up his adulterous affair. If Alabama wants to prosper, the first thing it needs to do is vote all the "family values" Republicans out of office.  But I digress. Huffington Post looks at the much deserved fall of Robert Bentley.  Here are excerpts:

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) resigned from office Monday and pleaded guilty to two counts of violating campaign finance rules.

“I can no longer allow my family, my dear friends, my dedicated staff and cabinet to be subjected to consequences that my past actions have brought upon them,” he said at a Monday afternoon press conference.

Bentley’s resignation comes as the state’s House of Representatives begins hearings on his impeachment following allegations he abused his position as the state’s chief executive to cover up an affair with his former aide, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

A plea deal worked out Monday required Bentley to resign, serve one year of probation, perform 100 hours of community service as a doctor and forfeit the more than $36,000 in his campaign account. It also required him to repay nearly $9,000 his campaign spent on Mason’s legal fees.

Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) was sworn in to office shortly after Bentley’s resignation. Ivey, 72, will be the state’s second-ever female governor following Democrat Lurleen Wallace, who served a 15-month term between 1967 and 1968. 

Members of Alabama’s GOP have been calling for Bentley to step down in the year since news broke of a salacious phone call caught on tape between the governor, 74, and Mason, 45. During the recorded conversation, Bentley ― dubbed the “luv gov” by political commentators and bloggers ― is heard professing his love for Mason and describes putting his hands on her breasts.

The governor’s ex-wife, Dianne Bentley, who filed for divorce in 2015 after 50 years of marriage, recorded the phone call in 2014 to determine if her then-husband was having an affair. Text messages Bentley sent Mason on his state-issued iPhone also appeared on a synced, state-issued iPad he gave to his wife.

Details pointing to a physical affair emerged in a damning report released Friday by Alabama’s state House Judiciary Committee. The report included accounts from the governor’s ex-wife and staff, who described suspicious text messages and encounters between Bentley and Mason.

"Not Gay" Louisiana Republican Admits to Sexting, Kissing Teen Boy

Republican Mike Yenni admits to an illicit relationship with an underage boy

Republicans and their puppet masters at Christian "family values" hate groups continue to hyperventilate about the dangers of transgender individuals using restrooms that conform to their gender identity, but out of Louisiana we are seeing another example of the real danger to children and youths is Republican elected officials (conservative "Christian" pastors and Catholic priests, of course, lead the way in child molestation).  In this instance, the GOP elected official sent a 17-year-old boy sexually charged text messages and gave him a “graduation present” pair of racy designer underwear, but claims that nothing else happened and that he's "not gay."  Yeah, and I'm Queen Victoria too!  A piece in The Raw Story looks at this matter which sadly is so common among Republicans that it is almost becoming non-newsworthy since such situations - and arrest made during solicitations for sex in restrooms - seem to happen weekly, if not more frequently.  Here are article highlights:

A Louisiana parish president admits that he sent a then-17-year-old boy sexually charged text messages and gave him a “graduation present” pair of racy designer underwear, but insists that he was only “playing along” with the teen and that no sexual contact took place.

The New Orleans Advocate reported Friday that Republican Mike Yenni characterized his relationship with the underage student at his alma mater Jesuit High School as a “lapse in judgment” and said that calls for his resignation are politically motivated.
 “I can’t explain why I did it,” the married, 40-year-old Yenni told New Orleans’ Fox 8 News. He maintained that many of the details revealed in a 2015 blog post by the boy about the affair were false and that he never had sexual contact with the teen beyond kissing, nor was he grooming the boy for a sexual relationship.
 Fox 8’s Lee Zurik asked Yenni what his intent was in exchanging erotic texts with a teen.

“I can’t…I really can’t answer it,” said Yenni. “I mean, it was just…it was a stupid action. It was a stupid action to even get into this form of text messaging. It was something…something that I can’t explain why I did it.”

Yenni met the boy at a Jesuit High School function. They began to exchange sexually charged messages. Yenni visited the boy at his job at a local mall and presented him with a pair of underwear. They kissed, but Yenni insists that was their only contact, which was not illegal because the age of consent for boys in Louisiana is 17.

A year after the liaison, the boy published an account of the affair, which was picked up by what Yenni calls a “tabloid.” He declined to address the accusations against him line by line . . .

“I’m not gay,” Yenni replied.

Just shy of three years ago I note as follows: "As noted often on this blog, why is it that it seems like 9 times out of 10 that it is the far right conservatives and the pastors and priests from anti-gay religious denominations who are the ones always getting arrested on sex crimes charges?  Oh, and lets not forget the "conservative" Republican officials who vote against gays even as they troll for gay sex on the sly."  The observation was prompted by the arrest of Christopher Allen  Simcox (pictured above), co- founder of the rabidly anti-immigrant Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, for child sex abuse.  Now, Simcox has been convicted and will face sentencing on July 5, 2016.   Once again we see the right wingers engaging in the behavior that they use to demonize others.  The hypocrisy, while shocking, is truly becoming the norm with such people.  Here are highlights from The Daily Mail:

An Arizona jury convicted the founder of the Minuteman border-watch group of molesting a five-year-old girl.

Christopher Allen Simcox, 55, was found guilty on charges that he molested the girl and showed her pornography on Wednesday.

But he escaped a mandatory life sentence after the jury acquitted him on of engaging in sexual conduct with a six-year-old girl.

A molestation conviction carries a sentence of 10 to 24 years in prison.

Simcox, who was convicted on two molestation counts, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 5.

An attorney who assisted him at trial said Simcox will still likely spend the rest of his life in prison, given Arizona's tough sentencing guidelines.

In closing arguments, a prosecutor scoffed at Simcox's claim that the girls were pressured by adults to bring the allegations.

His case was also noteworthy for Simcox's insistence that he should be allowed to personally question the girls on the witness stand.

Prosecutors argued that letting Simcox question the girls would cause them emotional distress. In the end, Simcox got an attorney to pose the questions.

Kerrie Droban, the lawyer who served as Simcox's adviser, said she was unsure whether Simcox would appeal the verdict.

‘The jury listened attentively,’ Droban said. ‘They gave him a fair trial.’

Simcox's arrest in 2013 came after his career as an advocate for tougher immigration policies had fizzled.

The Minuteman movement stepped into the spotlight in 2005 when illegal immigration heated up as a national political issue.  Minuteman volunteers fanned out along the nation's southern border to watch for illegal crossings and report them to federal agents.

It's not the transgender or immigrants that one needs to fear, rather it is the "godly folk" who obsess over the sex lives of others and the rabid racists that one really needs to fear.  Time and time again they are the ones that prove to be the predators. 

The North Carolina GOP's Descent into Insanity is Now Complete

As a former Republican and party activist, never in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate that the party could/would ever descend into total insanity. In the nearly two decades since I resigned from the GOP over the party's increasing hostility to the concept of the separation of church and state, up until now, I never believed that the self-prostitution of GOP elected officials would become so blatant and disgusting that a tawdry whore would appear honest and virtuous compared to the average Republican elected official.  Now, however, the North Carolina GOP has taken the concept of self-prostitution to a heretofore unknown level.  Indeed, North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger (a Republican) says he absolutely will not repeal HB2,  Never mind that the state is facing a federal lawsuit that it cannot win in light of yesterday's 4th Circuit ruling on transgender rights, never mind that North Carolina could now lose billions in federal funding, never mind that  the state's tourism and convention business is getting slammed, never mind that the UK has issued a travel advisory against visiting North Carolina. No, the only thing that matters to the North Carolina GOP is prostituting its members to Christofascists who seek to impose a Christian version of Sharia law on America.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the insanity and swamp fever that now controls the North Carolina GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Republican Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger says he absolutely will not repeal HB2, North Carolina's anti-LGBT law that legal experts have labeled unconstitutional. The GOP state senator called it "the bathroom safety bill," at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

"My job is not to give into the demands of multi-millionaire celebrities pushing a pet social agenda, liberal newspapers like The New York Times, or big corporations who have every freedom to set whatever policies they wish under this law," Berger said, as the News & Observer reported. "My job is to listen to the people who elected us to represent them, and the vast majority of North Carolinians we've heard from understand and support this reasonable, common-sense law."

Sen. Berger claimed that "many are relying on the spin of far-left interest groups, instead of the facts," WRAL reported, despite the fact that Gov Pat McCrory has delivered comments on HB2 that fact-checkers rate some degree of "false."

In the latest news on the economic impact HB2 has had on North Carolina, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce announced a tech company has scrapped plans to move into the area, and with that the 1000 jobs it would have added. That follows a report last week that found HB2 has cost the Tar Heel State well over a half-billion in revenue.

I truly hope that the Obama administration will notify Berger and his fellow political whores that federal education funds are going to be forfeited and overnight school systems will be facing bankruptcy. Hopefully, the North Carolina populous will lay the blame for the economic disaster at the feet of the North Carolina GOP and take retribution on them at the polls in November and vote them out and return control of the legislature to the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before we hear that Mr. Berger has been caught in an extra-marital affair or has been arrested in a restroom sting after soliciting gay sex from an undercover officer.  Frankly, it cannot happen soon enough. 

 

Gossip Site: Ted Cruz Named in Late DC Madam's "Black Book"

Over the weekend I wrote about the efforts of Montgomery Blair Sibley, a former lawyer for so-called DC Madam, Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, to have the names of her clients in her "black book" released and the promise that it would cause turmoil in the 2016 presidential race.  While Sibley - with whom I corresponded back in 2009 - has not yet released to names of Palfrey's clients, Radaronline is reporting that it is believed that Ted Cruz's name is among those in the list of clients who sought $300/hour call girls.  Here are article highlights:

Embattled White House candidate Ted Cruz‘s cheating scandal is set to explode wide-open, with fresh — and blockbuster — allegations that the married conservative senator was named in the black book of a notorious Washington D.C. madam who mysteriously died, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Montgomery Blair Sibley, a former lawyer for madam Deborah Palfrey, has filed a dramatic appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for permission to publish her unconventional “black book,” which consists of some 15,000 pages of phone records and calls to clients, as well as their calls requesting the $300-an-hour services from her gaggle of beautiful hookers!

Sibley told The National ENQUIRER that “time is of the essence” to release the list because one or more of the phone numbers would provide bombshell information that is “relevant to voters before they cast their ballot.”He currently is barred by a lower court order from releasing the records or naming names.

But Radar has learned The National ENQUIRER will this week report its findings of yet another exhaustive and investigative probe that will quote journalist detectives who claim the mystery candidate almost certainly “has to be Cruz.”

Investigator Wayne Madsen, who was on a team of reporters hired by Hustler Magazine’s boisterous owner Larry Flynt to investigate the madam, told The ENQUIRER that Cruz should be concerned!

“If Montgomery Sibley has what he says he has, it has to be Cruz,” he said in an interview — an advance copy of which was provided to Radar.

“Going on what I know about the other male candidates still in the race, it isn’t any of them, and Palfrey didn’t provide call boys, so it wasn’t Hillary.”

Before a restraining order was slapped on the records, Sibley said he supplied copies of the papers from three of the four boxes to Dan Moldea, another Washington investigative reporter who interviewed the madam for a possible book after she was busted for prostitution in 2006.

Sibley previously represented Palfrey when she was busted in 2006 for prostitution. During the investigation, U.S. Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, was outed as one her clients.

On May 2, 2008, 52-year-old Palfrey was found dead with braided twine around her neck in her mother’s shed in Tarpon Springs, Florida, according to the Medical Examiner’s report obtained by The ENQUIRER.

The report indicates that she had bruises on her lower legs, right knee, right forearm and upper arm — but her death was ruled a suicide. Sibley said he suspects foul play, however.  The ENQUIRER is due to hit newsstands nationwide on Wednesday, its publisher told Radar.

Personally, regardless of whether or not this story proves true, I can think of few thinks more repulsive than having Ted Cruz touch me, much less in a sexual context - $300/hour would not begin to be nearly enough money!   But I digress.  The bottom line is this: from all my years involved in politics, it is almost always the ones who talk the most about their Christian faith - typically "family values" Republicans - who turn out to be the ones having affairs or seeking gay sex on the down low. Does anyone remember former Virginia 2nd District Congressman Ed Schrock?

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s Exploding Sex Scandal

As I have noted before, it is almost ALWAYS the "family values" Republicans who find themselves being exposed (and deservedly so) in sex scandals.  Whether it is cheating on the spouse with same sex paramours or getting caught in gay sex scandals like former Virginia 2nd District Congressman Ed Schrock, it's always these who bloviate the most about so-called Christian and family values who prove themselves to be nothing more than despicable liars and hypocrites.  A case in point is viciously anti-gay Alabama GOP Governor Robert Bentley who finds himself in a sex scandal.  Having lived in Alabama years ago, I know first hand that other than perhaps Louisiana, no one does scandal better than Alabama.  The Washington Post looks at Bentley's hypocrisy and who the scandal assumed a life of its own.  Here are excerpts:

Anyone who has doubts about the importance of journalists in 2016 need be acquainted only with the reporting team at AL.com, the largest statewide news organization in Alabama. The group's reporters cracked open a scandal involving their governor's alleged infidelity last week and have been covering the unpredictable fallout aggressively ever since.

This scandal didn't come to them overnight; they've been hearing rumors of an affair between Gov. Robert Bentley (R) and his top political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, for months. The story finally broke open on March 22 when a fired top law enforcement official went on the record to AL.com's John Archibald about the alleged affair and offered proof. Faced with damning evidence of a taped phone conversation to a woman named Rebekah, Bentley has denied he had an affair, but few in a state accustomed to scandal believe him.

Alabama lawmakers, led by Republicans, are looking at ways to impeach him or set up a recall. An informal online AL.com poll found that 90 percent of about 30,000 respondents said Bentley should resign. Mason resigned Wednesday.

The story stretches far beyond sex, though. It's also connected to an ethics trial of the House speaker and a shadowy nonprofit that paid Mason's communications firm about $320,000 at the time of her resignation. As AL.com reporter Leada Gore said: "It's got every part of a scandal you could want."

[T]he speaker of the House, Mike Hubbard (R), is indicted on corruption charges. That has dragged on forever. So the governor has this old-time friend who was a legislator with him who he puts in charge of our state law enforcement agency. They get crossways -- which is an Alabama term you can use -- over the handling of an affidavit they are seeking related to the speaker's trial. The top cop says, 'I'm going to give this affidavit because I'm not going to lie to the grand jury about some of the things going on.' The governor supposedly told him not to. When Spencer Collier [the top cop] gave that affidavit, the governor fired him.

Then Spencer Collier became the first person willing to go on the record to say, 'Yes, there was an affair.' That's what happened last week that broke it all open.

Our state auditor has filed an ethics investigation, which in Alabama is extremely serious. There's also a state complaint saying he misused funds.

Mason has resigned her post. Her husband, who is a state employee -- of all things the director of the state faith-based initiative office -- is still there.

And then you get into all this crazy stuff. They all went to church together in Tuscaloosa. They've been asked to leave; he's no longer a deacon. We reported today her husband operated a separate communications company that was not on her ethics forms that received payments from the University of Alabama. And to make it even more of a tangled web, the chairman of the 501(c)(4) that the governor set up is the legal adviser to the board of trustees to the University of Alabama.   

Note the fact that the alleged adulteress' husband holds a "faith based" state office.   About the only thing more fun would be to find out that Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation is engaged in a torid lesbian affair. :)

Republican Legislators Larger Bathroom Threat than Transgender Individuals

One of the scare tactics used by Republican legislators in Georgia and North Carolina (as well as here in Virginia) to push for passage of anti-gay and anti-transgender laws is to depict transgender women as a threat in restrooms - seemingly, no thought was given to the consequences of forcing transgender men to use women's rooms.  The irony, however, is that there are ZERO cases of transgender individuals engaging in misconduct in restrooms.  The same cannot be said for Republican legislators themselves.  A piece in Gay Star News looks at this reality that it is Republicans legislators who are the most serious threat in restrooms.  Here are highlights (check out the link to a list of Republicans involved in sexual misconduct):

[S]tatistics show no trans person arrested for sexual misconduct in a public bathroom, BUT surprise, surprise (or not?), three Republicans lawmakers had been arrested for doing very naughty things in there. Who are they?

Well the guys at Newnownext didn’t have to dig too far into recent history to find these bathroom-seeking politicians:

Back in 1981, Mississippi congressman Jon Hinson was arrested for engaging in oral sex with a male staffer in the House of Representatives bathroom.

In 2007, Idaho Republican Larry Craig was arrested in the restroom of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

Also in 2007, Florida state Representative Bob Allen was arrested after he agreed to give an undercover police officer $20 for oral sex in the men’s room of a public park.

Evidently, some U.S. legislators have a whole lot of homework to do before they can make better decisions with regards to what rights should be given to the people, and what rights should be controlled.

Well, since we are on the topic of hypocrisy, here’s an extensive list of the biggest sex offenders coming from the U.S. Republican Party.

Oh, and one more person to add to the list: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley.

Anti-Gay Indiana GOP’s House Leader Resigns in Sex Scandal

Indiana GOP House Leader Jud McMillin has proven yet again that when it comes to hypocrisy and false religiosity it is almost always the "family values" Republicans who win the prize.  McMillin, who pushed Indiana's falsely named religious liberty bill has resigned after a sexually compromising video him cheating on his wife was sent to all of the people on his cell phone “Contacts” list.  I swear to God that one could not make up stuff this good if you tried!  Salon looks at McMillin's much deserved political death.  Here are highlights:

The controversial House Majority Leader in Indiana — he cosponsored the state’s “religious freedom” law — resigned suddenly on Tuesday after a sexually compromising video was sent to all of the people on his “Contacts” list, the Advocate’s Bil Browning reports.

After news of the mass-texting began to circulate, Representative Jud McMillin (R) claimed that his “phone was stolen in Canada and out of my control for about 24 hours. I have just been able to reactivate it under my control. Please disregard any messages you received recently. I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received.”

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But his “Canadian girlfriend stole my phone” defense apparently didn’t convince many of his “Contacts” — or at least, not the ones who mattered — and so Tuesday night he released a statement in which he said that the “time is right for me to pass the torch and spend more time with my family.”

During his five years in the legislature, McMillin has crusaded to “protect the integrity of the institution of marriage,” but the Advocate reported that the woman on the video he texted was not, in fact, his wife. According to his campaign website, he claimed that “the family has always been the foundation of our strength of community” and that “[i]n these times of turmoil the rest of the country could learn something from our example.”

It’s unclear what the rest of the country could learn from his example at this time, other than — perhaps — opposing LGBTQ rights across the board could have karmic implications for conservative Republicans with a proclivity for taking videos of themselves cheating on their wives.

Anti-Gay Republicans Having an Affair and Cheating on Spouses

As so often noted, the hypocrisy of anti-gay Republicans seems to know no boundaries.  They blather about "family values" and "protecting marriage" from us evil gays, and then they get caught with their pants down - both literally and figuratively.  The latest example is that of Michigan State Rep. Todd Courser and Rep. Cindy Gamrat.   Both have helped introduce a bill that would limit the ability of same sex couples to marry.  The Detroit News looks at the utter hypocrisy of these two douche bags.  Here are highlights:

State Rep. Todd Courser planned the distribution of a fictional email alleging he had sex with a male prostitute in a bid to conceal his relationship with Rep. Cindy Gamrat, according to audio recordings obtained by The Detroit News.

Courser, a Lapeer Republican, said on one recording the email was designed to create “a complete smear campaign” of exaggerated, false claims about him and Gamrat so a public revelation about the legislators’ relationship would seem “mild by comparison.”

Interviews with former House employees and the recordings show freshman lawmakers Courser and Gamrat, R-Plainwell, used their taxpayer-funded offices to maintain and cover up their relationship. Courser, 43, and Gamrat, 42, rose from the ranks of tea party activism, battled establishment Republicans to win seats in the House last year and formed their own legislative coalition.

A now-former House aide recorded Courser in mid-May directing him to send Republican activists and operatives an email that would appear to be from an anonymous political enemy that said Courser had been “caught behind a Lansing nightclub” having sex with a man.

During the May 19 meeting, Courser instructed Graham to send rank-and-file Republicans across Michigan what he called “an over-the-top story that’s obscene about me.” It was designed, Courser said on the recording, to “inoculate the herd” — an apparent reference to Courser and Gamrat’s followers in the tea party movement.   “It will make anything else that comes out after that — that isn’t a video — mundane, tame by comparison,” Courser, a married father of four, told Graham.

The pair are socially conservative legislators who often invoke their Christian faith in pursuit of new legislation governing gun rights, abortion and marriage. Their political alliance dates back to Courser’s unsuccessful 2013 race for Michigan Republican Party chairman when Gamrat ran as his vice chairwoman.

Read the full piece for all of the sordid details.  Underscoring their hypocrisy, Courser and Gamrat  introduced legislation that would make marriage in Michigan require a clergy signature.  Similarly, they have introduced  legislation defining life at conception. Not surprisingly, they are closely allied with Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Quote of the Day: The GOP's Tawdry Sex Scandals

As noted frequently on this blog, today's Republican Party claims to be the party of "family values" yet when one looks at political sex scandals, its the GOP that leads the way at least three to one against Democrats.  A short quip in the Washington Post s sums it up well in the wake of Dennis Hastert's indictment:

If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy. 

You can't make stuff up this good!

Anti-Gay Missouri GOP Representative Caught in Sex Scandal With Barely Legal Intern

As I have noted over and over again, it seems that it is always "family values," anti-gay Republicans (most of whom seem to be fat and singularly unattractive) who are the ones caught in titillating sex scandals.   The latest hypocrite to get caught is Missouri House Speaker John Diehl who has been linked to a college freshman in a Missouri Capitol internship program.  Diehl - who has been married to a woman for 23 years and  has three children - in true "Christian" fashion at first tried to lie about the inappropriate relationship.  In the past, Diehl sponsored a bill to ban gay-straight alliance clubs in public schools. He also filed an anti-gay marriage amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit much to the praise of hate group Family Research Council.   The Kansas City Star has details on Diehl's conduct and the scandal.  Here are highlights: 

Text messages obtained by The Star reveal a sexually charged relationship between House Speaker John Diehl and a college freshman in a Missouri Capitol internship program that shut down abruptly last month.

The conversations unveil a flirty rapport and suggest an intimacy between arguably the state’s most influential lawmaker and a young woman taking some pleasure in a secret association.

Diehl initially declined to comment. But about six hours after the story was posted online Wednesday morning, he issued a statement admitting the relationship.

“I take full responsibility for my actions and am truly sorry to those I let down,” Diehl’s statement said. “I apologize for the poor judgment I displayed that put me and those closest to me in this situation. I also regret that the woman has been dragged into this situation. The buck stops here. I ask for forgiveness. I will begin immediately working to restore the trust of those closest to me, and getting back to the important work that is required in the final days of session.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article20822424.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article20822424.html#storylink=cpy

The discovery of the text messages between Diehl and the intern follows a decision by Missouri Southern State University to end its Capitol internship program more than a month prematurely.

Richard Miller, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Missouri Southern, told The Star that the school pulled its four interns out of the state Capitol this spring after an unspecified incident. Yet Miller, citing student privacy laws, declined to be more specific about what led the university to end the internships.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article20822424.html#storylink=cpy

I suspect that Diehl's apology isn't worth a damn.  He obviously cares nothing about "the sanctity of marriage" and is only sorry that he got caught.