GOP Marital Infidelity and Cover Ups

I find it amazing that the freepers and wingnuts continue to be duped into voting for members of the GOP as the "party of family values" when media coverage suggests that such alleged family values warriors have more affairs and disingenuous cover ups of affairs than their allegedly ungodly Democrat opponents. One example of this ridiculous situation is Louisiana Senator David Vitter who has a penchant for prostitutes - both at home in New Orleans and in Washington, D.C. Another example that hopefully will get increased attention and media coverage is the marital infidelity of Senator John Ensign and his help mates in attempts to cover up the affair, Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Coburn. Several New York Times stories look at this sordid affair which displays GOP hypocrisy in stark terms. Here are highlights from some articles. First this:

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The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide, current and former officials said Friday.

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The complaint that initiated this inquiry focused on whether Mr. Ensign improperly used campaign money in April 2008 to make a $96,000 severance payment to Mr. Hampton and his wife, Cynthia Hampton, who once was treasurer of Mr. Ensign’s campaign. At that time, Mr. Hampton and his wife, who was still having an affair with the senator, were forced out of their jobs.

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So far, no evidence has surfaced that the money for this payment came from the government or from campaign money. But the new accusations, detailed in an article that appeared Friday in The New York Times, appear to be a more serious threat to Mr. Hampton and Mr. Ensign, ethics lawyers said.

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And then there is this about Ensign's helpmate, Coburn:

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In acknowledging the affair, Mr. Ensign cast it as a personal transgression, not a professional one. But an examination of his conduct shows that in trying to clean up the mess from the illicit relationship and distance himself from the Hamptons, he entangled political supporters, staff members and Senate colleagues, some of whom say they now feel he betrayed them.

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Mr. Ensign allowed Senator Tom Coburn, a friend and fellow conservative Christian, to serve as an intermediary with the Hamptons in May in discussing a large financial settlement, to help them rebuild their lives. “John got trapped doing something really stupid and then made a lot of other mistakes afterward,” Mr. Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said in an interview. “Judgment gets impaired by arrogance, and that’s what’s going on here.”

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Mr. Coburn, an ordained deacon, took the lead in questioning Mr. Ensign, who acknowledged that Mr. Hampton’s accusation was true. . . . Mr. Albregts said he believed the Hamptons might have a civil claim against Mr. Ensign over their dismissals from his staff and the consequences for their family. That began a series of intense, though ultimately futile conversations intended to reach a financial settlement. Mr. Hampton went back to Mr. Coburn, who offered to talk to Mr. Ensign about restitution for the Hamptons to help them relocate from Nevada. Mr. Coburn said he raised the issue with Mr. Ensign, who said, “I’ll listen.”

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With family values like these hypocrites, the Christianists are clearly being played for fools. When are the sheep going to wake up?

C Street and the Fellowship Foundation - Face of the Christian Mafia

Many liberal and progressive news sources and blogs have gone after the sex scandal plagued C Street fellowship house owned by the secretive, Fellowship Foundation. Now, the Christian magazine World Magazine is on the attack as well, citing huge sums of money, luxury and questionable theology. Admittedly, nothing is more fun than to watch a Christianist cat fight - especially when sex, large quantities of shadowy money, the peddling of undue influence and corruption all are part of the story line. Personally, it is worrisome when alleged "church" organizations are giving out discount lodging, lunches and dinners, and other perks to elected officials since only a fool would believe that no quid pro quo isn't expected in return. Stated differently, it looks a lot like bribery and unethical influence peddling to me. Here are some highlights from World Magazine (make sure to read the whole article or at least scroll down and check out the high end properties the organization owns):

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—The national press for the past two months has roasted "hypocritical" Christians who live in or meet in a ministry-owned house on C Street two blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Nevada Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, both talked about this spring as potential GOP presidential candidates in 2012, have acknowledged adulterous relationships. Last month a lawsuit in Jackson, Miss., served notice that former Rep. Chip Pickering, also a Republican, may have carried on in the C Street house an illicit affair with a former college love interest. . .

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Sustained media attention has focused on whether the C Street house conclaves had contributed to or condoned the breaking of marital vows: Just what was in the water at C Street to prompt the three—all GOP political and social conservatives who a decade ago called for former President Bill Clinton's resignation—to fall into similar scandals of their own?

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[A] larger story emerged of the group behind the C Street row house: a 60-year-old, globally reaching organization that has muddy theology and a disdain for the established church. The C Street house is one of many properties in the greater Washington area owned by the Fellowship Foundation, which sponsors the annual National Prayer Breakfast, Bible studies, social gatherings, and private retreats, and funds international development.

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"Associates" (employees) of the Fellowship say its mission is to show the love of Jesus to the world's leaders. But it has no website to publicize that work, and those affiliated are extremely reluctant—if not prohibited, say some—to talk about it.

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House members Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.; Bart Stupak, D-Mich.; Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and Heath Shuler, D-N.C., are reportedly current C Street residents. Senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; and John Ensign, R-Nev. reportedly also live there. All have been repeatedly contacted by WORLD in the wake of the scandals and have declined personally or through spokespersons to be interviewed on the record about the group. Others who regularly attend C Street house gatherings or other Fellowship studies reportedly include Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.; and Joe Pitts, R-Pa.; along with Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; and Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

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In fact, said Halverson, "they used to call themselves the Christian mafia—and they would laugh. Meaning one family is in strong power and then other families around that family have some power. . . . I would have been considered one of the families that have power."

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Silver tea sets, pink Italian marble, and overstuffed divans set the scene for elite gatherings. A banquet table serves weekly ambassadorial lunches, and another smaller sitting room allows for private, intimate meetings. Outside are tennis courts under tall oaks and a swimming pool that blends smoothly into the landscape.

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I think readers will get the drift. If this out fit is purportedly a "church" or some other tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity, it should not be giving out favors to elected legislators. The whole arrangement fails to pass the smell test at the very least.

The Secret GOP Sex Diary

I realize that I write about the hypocrisy of the GOP often - some might say too often, but sometimes the stuff that comes out of the misadventures of the "family values" crowd is just too outrageous to pass up. A case in point is the diary that former Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi (pictured at left) kept as he allegedly carried on an extramarital affair with Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd. As The Daily Beast is reporting, Pickering recorded details of his exploits in a secret diary, including the dates and locations of his adulterous encounters. To make the matter even more fun, Pickering's diary is getting sucked into what will likely be a wildly vicious divorce case. Not only is Pickering - a former resident of the C Street house I referenced yesterday - a major league hypocrite but also amazingly stupid to keep such a diary. That Pickering once was President of the Mississippi Baptist Convention just makes his hypocrisy all the more over the top. P.S. Local Congressman J. Randy Forbes belongs to the C Street "ministry." Here are some highlights from The Daily Beast:

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Pickering, a Republican, described several assignations he had with Creekmore Byrd inside the C Street House, a Capitol Hill townhouse inhabited by an all-male group of right-wing Republican congressmen belonging to The Fellowship, an evangelical group, according to a person familiar with the diary's contents.

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And according to a divorce filing by Pickering’s estranged wife, Leisha, the former congressman’s diary reveals the identities of several men who enabled his adulterous trysts and helped him cover his tracks.

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Thanks to heavily politicized local courts and an aggressive damage-control campaign waged by Pickering and his powerful Republican allies, the diary, which is said to contain the answers to these questions, is locked away in a courtroom in Mississippi. And if Pickering has his way, it will stay there indefinitely.

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Pickering was once considered one of the GOP’s brightest stars. An ardent social conservative and defender of “traditional marriage,” he was seen as a shoo-in for former Majority Leader Trent Lott’s Senate seat when Lott retired in 2007. Indeed, according to Leisha Pickering’s divorce filing, Mississippi Governor and former Washington super-lobbyist and Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour personally offered Pickering the seat. But according to the divorce filing, Creekmore Byrd “insisted that if Pickering accepted the position in the Senate that their relationship would not be able to continue.” In the end, Pickering chose his mistress over his congressional career and his wife.

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Chip Pickering is the scion of one of the most influential Republican families in Mississippi, son of retired federal appeals court Judge Charles Pickering, one of the founders of Mississippi’s post-civil rights GOP and past president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.

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Though Pickering is now out of Congress, the suppression of the diary is a high priority for Republican Party leaders from Washington to Mississippi. The GOP is reeling from sex scandals involving two men associated with the C Street House, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Senator John Ensign of Nevada. The revelation of private emails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress and the exposure of payments from Ensign’s casino-mogul parents to his mistress prolonged the back-to-back public-relations disasters for weeks beyond the first reports of the affairs.

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The release of Pickering’s diary would likely have an electrifying effect, reigniting media interest in his dalliance and drawing renewed attention to the C Street evangelical men’s group to which he and other Republican lawmakers have belonged.

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A source close the case told me the judge presiding over the lawsuit could rule to make the Pickering diary public, thereby voiding Brewer’s decision in the divorce court. So long as the judge’s decision is pending, the diary represents a ticking time bomb—with the potential to rock corridors of conservative power from Jackson, Mississippi, to C Street in Washington.

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Personally, I hope that time bomb explodes and exposes just what hypocrites so many of today's GOP "family values" politicians are in fact.

Republican Sex Scandals and the C Street "Ministries"

At first blush one of the strangest stories to come from the recent wave of Republican sex scandals is that all of the adulterers are allegedly "family values" conservatives and many lived at a $1.8 million townhouse in Washington, D.C., owned by purported Christian non-profit entities. On a closer look, none of this should be surprising: (1) it's the sexually repressed Christian Right ass kissing politicians who most want illicit sex - the forbidden fruit if you will and (2) many of the Christianist non-profits organizations give all kinds of in kind gifts to their GOP water carriers in ways that ought to cause them to lose their non-profit status. Hypocrites and liars flocking together so to speak. As for The Fellowship" that owns the C Street townhouse, it represents, in my view, just a small part of the Christian Right political mafia that afflicts politics in this country. Politico has a story that ought to be read by those who have not seen up front how the Christianists funnel money and gifts to GOP elected officials and thereby buy influence. Here are some highlights:

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Lawmakers flock to 133 C St. SE for cheap rent, weekly dinners, Bible studies and spirituality sessions that serve as a sort of group therapy for some of the country’s most powerful men. But now the stately brick house is becoming known for something else: It’s ground zero for Republican sex scandals. In February, Nevada Sen. John Ensign — who lives at the house — was confronted at C Street by colleagues who wanted him to end his affair with a staffer.

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Earlier this month, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — who lived at C Street when he served in the House — said C Street was where he’d been asked the “hard questions” that were “very, very important” in his decision to admit an affair with an Argentine woman. And last week, the estranged wife of former Rep. Chip Pickering said he carried on a long-term extramarital affair while living at the “well-known C Street Complex.” The trifecta of trysts has made C Street an easy target for charges of “family values” hypocrisy . . . .

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Although titles may not be important, there are plenty of them at C Street. In addition to DeMint and Ensign, C Street residents include Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.). Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) lived in the house before moving to his own condo, and he still attends events there. Former Reps. Steve Largent (R-Okla.), Jim Ryun (R-Kan.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have also studied at C Street.

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The large townhouse, valued at more than $1.8 million, is run by Christian network of nonprofits and ministries known as “The Fellowship.” Headquartered in Arlington, Va., . . . By ministering to the most powerful, The Fellowship believes, it can bring Christian beliefs to the larger culture. Jeff Sharlet, who wrote a book about his time in The Fellowship's Virginia headquarters, said the group believes that lawmakers have been "chosen" to lead by Jesus Christ.

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“When you operate in secret in Washington you raise an immediate red flag and then it gets redder when it gets mixed with any ideological agenda,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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Because of the secrecy, it’s hard to know exactly how frank the various prayer sessions are — although it’s clear that Ensign’s affair was a topic of conversation at C Street. Coburn and others confronted Ensign about the affair there last year, and Wamp said that Ensign recently apologized to fellow C Streeters for his indiscretion.

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I'm sorry, but I have a problem with elected officials receiving living accommodations and meals subsidized by far right Christian organizations. To expect there not to be a "pay back" somewhere in return for what amounts to non-monetary gifts is naive. Not to mention the hypocrisy of the adulterer set enjoying the subsidized fruits offered by The Fellowship. Last weekend Maureen Dowd had a great column in the New York Times that looked at the C Street hypocrisy. Here are a few highlights:

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Like cats that have lost their whiskers, the Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy. . . . Who can forget the glory years, when the Gipper invoked God but never went to church? When Arlen Specter accused Anita Hill of perjury to distract from Clarence Thomas’s false witness? When Newt Gingrich and other conservatives indulged in affairs with young Washington peaches as they pushed to impeach Bill Clinton?

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The religious boardinghouse in Washington where Sanford sought succor from fellow conservatives, where he agonized to pals about his tango with the enticing María, is also back in the news. Affiliated with a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship — which also sponsored Bible study and prayer circles attended by Hillary Clinton when she was a senator — the pious dwelling is becoming a tourist attraction, a monument to Republican hypocrisy.

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The C Street house, as the flag-flying brick rowhouse near the Capitol is known, serves as a residence and Bible study retreat for many Christian conservative lawmakers. But it looks as if what these guys were praying for was a chance to get lucky. John Ensign, the Promise Keeper who broke all his promises, resides there.

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Why anyone who is mentally stable and has more than a minimal education believes a word that "family values" Republicans have to say is baffling to me. How do you know when these GOP fat cats are lying? When their lips move.

40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans

Frank Rich is one of my favorite columnists - he can write such hard hitting and sarcastic columns that cut to the heart of issues. Today his column looks at the status of LGBT rights forty (40) years after the Stonewall Riots (the Stonewall Inn is pictured at left). Yes, much has improved for LGBT Americans, but in many states such as Virginia, we remain second or third class citizens due to ignorance and most importantly religious based bigotry. That gays continue to be treated as second class citizens due to our non-conformity with the religious views of others makes a mockery of the freedom of religion that the USA and states like Virginia claim to grant to all citizens. The fact that gays face religious based discrimination daily shows this promise of religious freedom to be a lie. As long as such discrimination continues and gays are legally inferior and abused by homophobic judges, etc., the image that America like to project of itself to the world is false and also a lie. Here are some column highlights from the New York Times:

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LIKE all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protestors in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today. Then again, I didn’t know a single person, student or teacher, male or female, in my entire Ivy League university who was openly identified as gay. And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really.

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But if we had read them, would we have cared? It was typical of my generation, like others before and after, that the issue of gay civil rights wasn’t on our radar screen. Not least because gay people, fearful of harassment, violence and arrest, were often forced into the shadows. As David Carter writes in his book “Stonewall,” at the end of the 1960s homosexual sex was still illegal in every state but Illinois. It was a crime punishable by castration in seven states. No laws — federal, state or local — protected gay people from being denied jobs or housing. If a homosexual character appeared in a movie, his life ended with either murder or suicide.

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On Monday, President Obama will commemorate Stonewall with an East Room reception for gay leaders. Some of the invitees have been fiercely critical of what they see as his failure, thus far, to redeem his promise to be a “fierce advocate” for their still unfulfilled cause. The rancor increased this month, after the Department of Justice filed a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the most ignominious civil rights betrayal under the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. . . . The White House has also asserted that its Stonewall ceremony was “long planned” — even though it sure looks like damage control.

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But the most prevalent theory is that Obama, surrounded by Clinton White House alumni with painful memories, doesn’t want to risk gay issues upending his presidency, as they did his predecessor’s in 1993. . . . The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now, roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing “family values” trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter.

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No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness. The Justice Department brief defending DOMA has spoken louder for this president than any of his own words on the subject. Chrisler noted that he has given major speeches on race, on abortion and to the Muslim world. “People are waiting for that passionate speech from him on equal rights,” she said, “and the time is now.”

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Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.

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LGBT Americans are citizens just as much as the hate-filled Christianists who seek to continue to make our lives a living hell. If Obama truly believes in equality for all Americans, he will heed Rich's advise.

Another GOP Hypocrisy Erruption

What is it about "family values" Republicans who whine about the need to "protect marriage" by forbidding us gays to have it while they go out and cheat on their spouses either in affairs like that of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign, the use of prostitutes like Louisiana Senator David Vitter, or gay sex trysts like former Congressman Ed Schrock? One almost begins to wonder whether there are any GOP politicians who are not seeking sex on the side outside of their marriages. The hypocrisy factor is off the charts. If these blowhards are so worried about the "sanctity of marriage, why don't they begin by honoring their own marriage vows. Here a peak at CNN's coverage on Sanford:

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South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, just back from a secret trip to Argentina unknown to his staff or his wife, admitted Wednesday he has carried on an extramarital affair with a woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina. "I've been unfaithful to my wife," Sanford told a news conference in Columbia, South Carolina. "I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina."

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The affair began in the last year and was discovered five months ago, Sanford said without elaborating. He added that he and his wife were trying to work through it. In a statement issued later Wednesday, Sanford's wife, Jenny, said she asked him to move out two weeks earlier but was still open to a reconciliation for the benefit of their children.

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As for the larger implications for the GOP - which is fast becoming the party of non-stop sex scandals - here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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Mark Sanford's summer adventure to Argentina -- no, he was not hiking the Appalachian Trail, as his aides incorrectly told reporters -- is now a full-fledged personal and family embarrassment, a story of infidelity followed by a public confession of the kind that has become all too familiar from political leaders.

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But Sanford's story is more than personal. For a Republican Party down on its luck, the governor's disappearance and subsequent rambling apology to his wife, his family, his close friends and all the people of South Carolina draw more unwelcome publicity to a party that needs but cannot seem to get any good news.

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Coming a week after Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted to an extramarital affair, the scandal will impact the Republicans in several ways. First, it further damages the GOP brand, potentially driving away more voters or at least making it more difficult to win back some of those who abandoned the party in the past two elections. Second, it could disillusion social and religious conservatives -- a critically important part of the Republican coalition -- who may now wonder whether those who share the Republican label truly share their values. Third, the Sanford saga removes one more new-generation GOP leader from the field of prospective 2012 candidates, adding to doubts about the strength of the party's bench.

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One has to wonder when the so-called "values voters" are going to wake up to the fact that the GOP plays them for suckers since its elected officials seem unable to keep their zippers zipped up when outside of their own homes?

GOP Silence on Ensign's Affair

In typical hypocritical fashion, members of the self-styled "party of family values" have remained pretty much silent about the confession of one of their U.S. Senators - John Ensign pictured at left - who was doing one of his staff members for the better part of a year. What is particularly telling is that the latest GOP adulterer in the past condemned Bill Clinton for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Ensign joins the ranks of family values frauds like David "I love Prostitutes" Vitter. Imagine the GOP (and Christianist) outcry if the adulterer had been a Democrat. Dana Milbank has a column in the Washington Post that looks at this typical GOP conduct. Here are some highlights:

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As newly confessed adulterer John Ensign went to ground in Las Vegas yesterday, his Senate Republican colleagues here in Washington reprised a familiar ritual: averting their gaze.

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"It would be intellectually dishonest for me to comment on it," declared Chuck Grassley of Iowa, pausing on his way to lunch with GOP colleagues. "I'm late," announced David Vitter of Louisiana, brushing past a knot of reporters. "I'm not going to say anything," vowed Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Senate Republican, pausing briefly beneath a portrait of John C. Calhoun. "Byyye!" he called, waving back at his questioners as he walked into lunch.

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It was, as Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas artfully put it, "a no-comment day." Members of the Senate GOP caucus are becoming quite expert at the procedure, having had practice tamping down previous indiscretions by Vitter (D.C. Madam), Ted Stevens (shiatsu massage lounger) and Larry Craig (Minneapolis airport). Ensign faces an additional hurdle: His moral politics (he led the push to drum Craig out of the chamber, calling his behavior "embarrassing for the Senate") left him open to charges of hypocrisy.

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Ensign's affair dealt a double blow to Republicans: He wouldn't be around to lead the party in the annual Congressional Baseball Game, scheduled for last night, and he wouldn't be able to serve as a member of Senate GOP leadership anymore. "He's already resigned from leadership," Jim Bunning of Kentucky growled as he walked into the lunch meeting. This turned out to be a scoop: An official announcement followed a few minutes later.

Another "Family Values" Republican Admits to Sexual Affair

I am continually baffled by the way some of the loudest anti-gay members of the GOP either are secretly seeking gay sex on the side like Ed Schrock or having affairs and cheating on their wives with other women. The latest case in point is Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada (pictured at left) who wants to protect marriage from us gays, but has no problem trashing his marital vows for another women. No doubt he will make a tearful act of contrition and the sheeple of the Christianist far right will give him a free pass. The hypocrisy is simply mind boggling and note how the cuckolded wife takes the guy back. Here are some highlights from CNN:

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Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada Tuesday admitted an extramarital affair with a woman who had worked for him. Ensign would not identify the woman, but said both she and her husband had been "close friends." Her husband, he said, also worked for him. "Last year I had an affair," the senator told reporters outside his office in Las Vegas. "I violated the vows of marriage. It's absolutely the worse thing I've done in my life."

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The senator's office also released a statement from Ensign's wife, saying, "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger. I love my husband."

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Ensign's spokesman, Tory Mazzola, told CNN that Ensign and a campaign staff member carried on the affair from December 2007 through August 2008. Her husband was an official Senate staff member for the senator.