Archive for July, 2010
RESEARCH NEEDED: The Elizabeth K. Christie Foundation for the Cultivation and Protection of BoyToys, and its impact on the Illinois GOP
This weekend, we’ve booked two interviews about the growing scandal in the Illinois GOP, involving Cook County GOP Chair Lee Roupas and a coverup he was engaged in.
One reporter is from a national print magazine, and the other is a local Chicago paper. Both reporters are very interested in why the GOP has allowed one woman, multimillionaire cougar Beth Christie, to cause so much chaos in the state by dictating hiring and operations decisions for the Cook County Republican party.
One woman…limitless cash reserves…and possibly an intention to take down the GOP from within, by making sure inept, corrupt, time bombs waiting to explode are installed in key positions in the party.
That’s one theory we heard yesterday that’s worth looking into: could Beth Christie really be a Democrat in disguise, a Trojan donkey, doing the things she does to weaken the GOP by making sure people like Lee Roupas and “The Prophet” are retained in their positions, despite the damage they do to the party.
We doubt Christie’s a flavor of Evelyn Salt, and think she’s just a sad cougar who’s never heard of Craigslist or Rentboy, but it’s sure an interesting theory.
What IF Democrats decided to give the Republicans large donations, in states where Republicans are hurting for money…and what if the Democrats making those donations were then given de facto operational control of the GOP in those states, since the quid pro quo from their donations would allow them to staff those GOP offices with whomever they wanted. “I gave you all that money. Now, hire Cuddles, and no matter what Cuddles does, you can’t fire him. You can’t fire his friend Lee either, and if you do, then I’m gonna stop writing my checks, see? My lady cha-cha’s got a whole mess of zeroes after it, and if cha-cha’s not happy, then she talks to the hand and the hand says no more signatures on all those beautiful checks of mine”.
Reporters are generally very lazy.
If you think there’s really a Daily Planet office staffed with hundreds of people scurrying around to get all the backstory ready for Lois and Clark, you are dreaming. Most “journalists” work at home or from laptopsp these days. They have no staff. They do all of their own research, and if the research is boring or time-consuming, they just give up.
One reporter we talked to last night said he is “about 16 hours behind where I need to be on three stories”, which means he doesn’t have the time or energy to really dig deep enough.
That explainns JournoList to an extent as well: all of those Leftists on that site were lazy to a degree, and used each other’s ideas and bits of information to craft their own stories. The hive accomplished what each little hornet couldn’t on its own.
We want The Elizabeth K. Christie Foundation’s full influence and impact on the Illinois GOP documented and exposed — and Beth Christie’s days of calling the shots in Cook County to come to an abrupt and permanent end.
To achieve this, we need to do the research the “real reporters” out there can’t, or won’t do.
We need to pull the financial records for the following, using any access to LexisNexis or other search engines you may have:
(1) The Elizabeth K. Christie Foundation’s donations in the last two years
(2) The Illinois GOP’s revenue stream for the last two years
(3) The Cook County GOP’s revenue stream for the last two years
(4) The Chicago Young Republican social networking club’s revenue stream for the last two years
Once we have the data, we need those of you who are good at puzzle solving and chart-making to put together an easy-to-understand visiual representation of these relationships.
Who, besides Beth Christie, is a large donor to the Illinois GOP?
Are those people wielding cougar-grade influence on the party as well? If so, what games are they up to, and what are their agendas?
Could Beth Christie really be a Democrat operative/double agent working to take down the Illinois GOP from within by funding the cultivation and protection of incompentents the Democrats know will make terrible decisions throughout their political careers…and thus keep the GOP in Illinois mired in incompetence permanently?
Anything you could help dig up, and post in this thread, will help immensely in our meetings with reporters this weekend.
We have no intention of letting any of this go so long as Lee Roupas is Cook County GOP Chair and Beth Christie is allowed to buy her ticket to call the shots in the Republican party here in Illinois.
With Democrats so corrupt and hellbent on tanking this state, and the country, it’s time someone stood up to multimillionaire cougars and stopped whatever games they have been playing so grown-ups can lead the GOP here in Illinois again.
Since “real reporters” are too lazy, and actual GOP officials in the state don’t really seem to WANT to improve their chances of someday making this a red state, we guess all of this is for some reason up to us.
If you don’t want to post what you find in this thread, please email it to us at @gmail.com">HillBuzz@gmail.com
Come on get involved, there’s a mystery to solve.
Friday Open Thread: July 30th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Friday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
What are you going to do this weekend to drive the Left crazy?
NEED INPUT: Was there ever a time when you had to call out someone you liked very much for doing something very bad?
We sincerely mean this, when we ask all of you daily readers — including those that have never commented before, or who do so infrequently — to chime in on this thread and give us your input and advice on something that is literally making us sick to our stomachs.
All day yesterday, we realized that we need to confront someone here in Chicago that we like very much and have respected more than few others. This person is Illinois GOP Chair Pat Brady, whom we got to know well through the 2008 campaign, and whom we absolutely think the world of. We can’t think of a day we cheered LOUDER and LONGER than the day we heard Brady had replaced Andy McKenna as the IL GOP Chair.
FINALLY, we thought, we’ve got someone who will do the right thing, won’t play games, and will make it his mission to clean up the corruption in this state.
FINALLY, we’ve got a guy at the helm we believe in, who will kick Republicans into shape the way Sarah Palin did in Alaska, when she cracked skulls and went after the All Boys Club.
So, we hope you can appreciate the gut-wrenching chagrin we’ve felt in the last few days as it’s become increasingly clear that Pat Brady — a personal hero — has been protecting Lee Roupas in the Cook County GOP. Brady could fire him today if he wanted. IF he wanted.
We’re working on one of the hardest essays we’ve ever had to write, about everything we’ve gotten confirmed in terms of what Brady’s been hiding for Roupas, and how Brady’s been strategizing with other Romney and Kirk guys in the GOP higher-ups to make the current GOP scandal here in Chicago fade from the headlines for a while…let the dust settle…and then resume open war with the truthtellers in this matter after November.
We’re being told — and it’s being confirmed from independent sources — that the aim is to protect Lee Roupas at all costs, make sure he keeps his job, and also to give “The Prophet” a lucrative consulting gig (funded by multimillionaire cougar Beth Christie, of course) that will pay him as much, if not more, than he was making as the $4,000/month Cook County Executive Director.
If all of this is true, then Brady’s in on the corruption in this state — and that horrifies us.
He is either the most brilliant actor who never took to the stage, or we let this man cast one Hell of a spell on us, because we just can’t imagine he would knowingly enable someone like Lee Roupas to retain his high-paying position, representing Republicans, after all the things Roupas as done to disgrace the party.
We just can’t tolerate this Old/All Boys’ Club nonsense. In corporate America. In politics. Wherever.
Just because someone has a penis does not mean that person can lie, engage in coverups, and carry on any way he damn well pleases…and expect to be protected and rescued the way Lee Roupas does.
It’s not right.
It’s not how America should be.
It’s not what voters in Illinois want, after seeing Democrat corruption go unchecked for so long.
Lee Roupas is the Cook County Charlie Rangle…and if Pat Brady is protecting him, then Pat Brady needs to be taken to the woodshed too.
And that’s devastating for us to have to admit.
So, we need two things from you this morning:
(1) We need you to pray for us, so that we have the wisdom and the guidance and the strength to do what we need to do here, because we’ll be damned if we allow Lee Roupas to get away with lying, covering up scandal, and declaring open war on Eloise Gerson for attempting to launch an investigation into the bizarre dealings of the Illinois GOP
(2) We need you to PLEASE think about a time when you had to confront someone you had great respect for, and tell that person they disappointed you, that they were wrong, and that they needed to step back and look at things differently to avoid making a horrible mistake
We’ve had to confront friends with drinking and drug problems who were ruining their lives — and to intervene and make sure they saw just how bad what they were doing looked.
Now, we find ourselves in a position of having to criticize a person we have utmost respect for, whom we believe to be a very good man…but who is allowing multimillionaire cougar Beth Christie (and her neverending threats of cutting off her donation stream, should she ever stop getting what she wants) to force him to protect Lee Roupas, save his job, and make sure “The Prophet” scores a golden parachute that lets him maintain the presidency of the CYR organization, and command a large “consulting” fee from the GOP that will in fact be more than he’s making now as the Executive Director.
We don’t seem to have quite the right words to describe what we think of Beth Christie, and how she’s bringing down the GOP in Illinois with her demands and money games, so maybe YOU could help us by telling us what YOU think of a woman who uses her vast fortune to cause such chaos — seemingly for her own personal amusement.
It’s frustrating because Pat Brady made us believe that the Republican Party REALLY COULD ultimately become what it claims it wants to stand for. We thought he’d be cracking skulls and getting things done…but, pardon the French, all he seems to be doing is kissing Beth Christie’s sorry cougar ass.
It’s no secret Brady as GOP State Chair is desperate for donations…but surely other large donors could step forward and provide whatever Beth Christie’s been giving to cause the damage she’s been doing to the party.
SURELY one woman can’t tank the entire state, just because she thinks she’s Jennifer Coolidge in an American Pie movie, and she’s excellent at signing her name to checks with large numbers on them.
Please be frank about your experiences in similar situations to ours. This is one of the most difficult things we’ve ever faced, because loyalty is one of the most important things to us…but loyalty to this country trumps personal loyalty to individuals…even to people we like as much as Pat Brady.
SOMEONE at GOP national has to put a stop to Beth Christie’s chaos spree. SOMEONE at GOP national has to fire Lee Roupas and install a Cook County Chair who can clean up this mess and crack some skulls.
We want that someone to be Pat Brady, because we know he has it in him.
We need your help understanding a time when YOU personally had to push someone you respect towards the right decision, even if powerful forces (of the cougar or non-cougar variety) were pushing him in the opposite direction.
Please help…the future of Illinois largely depends on this.
Thursday Open Thread: July 29th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Thursday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
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Welcome to the program, already in progress: HuffingtonPost and CapitalFax are finally covering the Cook County GOP sex scandal and coverup
Huffington Post and CapitalFax are finally covering the Cook County GOP sex scandal and coverup. That puts them 16 days behind us, as we’ve been on the case since July 12th. Not that we’re keeping count or anything.
We’re just pleased they “get it”, in that this is not just about “The Prophet”, whom Huffington Post (not us) has identified as one Jeremy Rose, and what he did to women in the Chicago Young Republicans organization — this is about Lee Roupas, the Chair of the Cook County GOP, lying in a July 16th email to his committeemen, claiming he did not know about what Rose was up to until June 10th, 2010 (and trying to remove Eloise Gerson from her elected post after she blew the whistle on this whole thing on June 11th, 2010). As we all know, and as two important Chicago attorneys have come forward, on the record, and testified, Roupas was informed of what Rose did back in July of 2009…a FULL YEAR before he admitted having that knowledge.
The Huffington Post piece lifts large parts of this story directly from HillBuzz (but does not, in typical HuffPo style, give us credit…which could be because we make so many Ariana Huffington jokes about straight women who are too dense to know their husbands are gay).
Lee Roupas needs to be removed from his position this week.
There’s just no way the GOP can keep him: he has been proven dead-to-rights to be a liar.
Even if Rose didn’t do the things the complaint states he did, Roupas lied about having information the Committeemen under him asked him directly about. After he lied to them, they were forced to go to their constituents, and the media, and unknowingly lie about all of this as well.
Roupas doesn’t realize it yet, but he ended his political career on July 16th, 2010 with the lies in that email.
We will not drop this story until he is fired, and Eloise Gerson, truthteller, receives an apology from the Illinois GOP for what Roupas tried to do to her. In our opinion, Gerson should be made the Chair of the Cook County GOP…so she would be given Roupas’ position, and afforded the ability to clean house.
Fate, Hera, poetic justice, whatever you want to call it has a nice sense of humor with that outcome: Roupas tries to oust Gerson for bringing the truth to light, Roupas is ultimately destroyed by the truth, Roupas loses his job, and Gerson takes his place.
We like the sound of that turnout.
NOW, this next part is a bridge we didn’t want to come to, and hope we don’t have to cross.
BUT, Illinois State Chair Pat Brady can no longer protect Lee Roupas. Sending out that July 16th, 2010 email, chock full of lies, is a terminable offense for Roupas because it exposed every Committeeman who received it to potentially damaging blowback because Roupas provided them with false information that they then passed on to constituents and the press — making EVERYONE look like liars. That is conduct unbecoming of a County Chair, and Roupas must be relieved of his position because of it.
Pat Brady is one of the best men we have ever met in this world. We worked closely with him (and his wife, who was McCain’s #2 in command here in Illinois) and we think the absolute world of the both of them. If not for the Bradys, we would have never continued our involvement in politics after Hillary Clinton suspended her presidential campaign. We were hesitant to help Republicans, even though we had conservative tendencies, because before the Bradys every Republican we knew had been nasty to us…unapproachable…and pretty much the stereotype the DNC always drilled into us. The Bradys, however, went out of their way to build a connection with us…to rally everyone possible coast to coast to help defeat Obama…and in the process we realized just how much our thinking had in common with the Republican Party. While we’ll never be Republicans, because the corruption in the Cook County GOP is just as bad as in the Democrat ranks, so we feel more comfortable being independents at this point, HillBuzz has evolved into what it is today, with all of you as daily readers, because of the overtures the Bradys made to us way back in the spring of 2008.
We’d give kidneys to these people if they needed them. We love them, and are so grateful to them, and are so inspired by them.
BUT, Pat Brady needs to do the right thing regarding Lee Roupas. As nice of a man as Brady is, and much as Brady likes Roupas and tried to groom him for bigger things, Roupas has lost all credibility and has seriously damaged Republican chances in November.
Pat Brady needs to fire Lee Roupas.
If he won’t, then we need to cross the uncrossable bridge and start advocating for someone to fire Pat Brady and replace him with someone who WILL clean house in Cook County, get rid of Roupas and the other “Romney Guys” frat boys stinking up the place, and prove to the voters of Illinois that there really is a choice to be made in this state: either vote for the corrupt, revolting Democrat party or vote for a party that’s about cleaning up the mess in Illinois and doing the right thing.
If Pat Brady fails to act by the end of this week, then we know he’s not serious about giving voters that choice.
It will break our hearts, and highly disillusion us, but we’ll have to start calling for Brady’s removal at that point.
Here’s what needs to happen, if you have any clout or access to Republican leaders:
(1) Lee Roupas is fired immediately, for lying in that July 16th, 2010 email
(2) Profuse apology is given to Eloise Gerson for Roupas’ attack on her
(3) An investigation is immediately launched into the undue influence multimillionaire Chicago cougar Beth Christie has had on the daily operations and staffing decisions of the Cook County GOP
BREAKING: More proof obtained Lee Roupas lied about date he received complaint against "The Prophet"
Tonight we secured emails Lee Roupas sent out, from his Cook County GOP email address, that show him discussing the attempted date rape complaint lodged against the Cook County GOP employee and CYR Board Member known in Chicago circles as “The Prophet”.
These emails sent by Roupas are from July of 2009.
On Friday July 16th, 2010, Roupas sent an email to all 80 Cook County GOP Committeemen and other officials claiming he knew nothing about this complaint until some time after June 11th, 2010.
Last week, we secured an affidavit from a prominent Chicago attorney who swears under oath he telephoned Lee Roupas in July or early August 2009 to discuss the complaint. That contradicts Roupas’ 7/16/10 lie that he did not receive this complaint until the summer of 2010.
Now, we can trace Roupas’ knowledge of this complaint back to July of 2009, slightly earlier than even the affidavit attests.
Therefore, the Chair of the Cook County GOP deliberately lied to his committeemen and engaged in the coverup of this complaint…against a Cook County GOP employee who was hired by Roupas in December of 2009, after Roupas was aware of the complaint against him…a complaint that Roupas did not investigate.
Despite the serious nature of what’s brought forward in the complaint, Roupas hired this man to represent the GOP in Illinois anyway, largely due to the continued pressure of multimillionaire Chicago cougar Beth Christie, who took a shine to “The Prophet” in 2009, fell under his spell, and used her checkbook to protect him and advance his career.
It’s time the Chair of the Illinois Republican Party, Pat Brady, addressed this matter and gave Republicans in Illinois, and nationwide, an explanation for why it’s allowable for the Cook County GOP Chair to deliberately lie about when he received information.
Why did he do this?
It’s not like he could have forgotten something as memorable as a complaint describing an attempted date rape a subordinate of his was involved in, which he deliberately chose not to investigate…or even bring up in his job interview before hiring him.
We’re just going to keep digging on this and building up the timeline of what Lee Roupas knew, when he knew it, and how he chose to ignore this problem. WHY he ignored it so far mainly focuses on one Cougar telling him to protect the object of her affections at all costs…but it also involves the Republican gubernatorial and Senate campaigns as well, because men who protect Roupas and “The Prophet” are highly placed in those circles too.
What should really concern Republicans is the fact that gay guys in Boystown, and their readership, are not the only ones working on this story. Actual, paid reporters are digging. The Democrat Machine in Chicago is digging.
Roupas should be removed because of his 7/16/10 lie, if for no other reason.
Unless someone out there can offer a valid and legitimate reason why a County Party Chair should be allowed to directly lie to his committeemen and other officials and maintain his paid position with the GOP.
We’d love to hear an answer for that.
Allen West Awesomeness Report Needed
We’ve had a lot of requests from many of you to take a close look at two people who are gaining an electric amount of support these days: Cedra Crenshaw here in Illinois (a Mom, accountant, and general dragon-slayer) and Allen West in Florida (who by all accounts, is nine shades of awesome).
We asked you to chime in on Crenshaw last week, and we’re working on a write-up of just how great a candidate, person, and mom she is (and also thinking about things we can do to help send her to Springfield to take on corrupt Democrats and Republicans alike).
We’d like to do the same thing for Allen West. A good friend of ours who lives in Florida has parents that are close friends of West’s, and they tell us he’s a future US president. There’s a really good chance he’ll be our historic and unprecedent first COMPETENT and PRO-AMERICAN black president.
Please use this thread to tell us everything you can about Allen West and why you support him. If you’re in the minority around here and don’t like West for some reason, tell us why.
Explain West’s appeal to people who have never heard of him before, or who have limited knowledge of him.
West and Crenshaw are interesting candidates for a great number of reasons…not least of which is a phenomenon we’ve never seen in Republicans — the fact that people we personally know are starting to think of them as presidential choices a few election cycles in the future.
Democrats ALWAYS plan their national candidates many years in advance. Republicans don’t bother strategizing for the most part, and end up left with whomever the corrupt state and county parties rig the primaries and caucuses for.
Crenshaw and West are both very young, and are just starting their national prominence…but Althea thinks Crenshaw will end up a US Senator in 2014 (defeating Dick Durbin), and could be the Republicans’ nominee in 2024. That would possibly make her our first black female president.
Althea’s thinking MIGHTY far ahead, but she’s genuinely excited about Crenshaw — a good woman, who takes no prisoners, and is prepared to punch Springfield in the face to audit the books and get this state back into solvent shape.
Sending West to Washington would be doing largely the same thing as putting Crenshaw in Springfield.
Then, we’d have Chris Christie in New Jersey, Jan Brewer in Arizona, Michele Bachmann in Minnesota, Jim DeMint in the Senate, and Governor Sarah Palin at large.
With, hopefully plenty of mamma grizzlies on the ground coast to coast supporting them and giving them the ground teams they need to put this nation’s financial house back in order so we can end generational theft and get Big Government out of our pocketbooks, and out of our lives as much as possible.
So, tell us everything you can about West and what you want to see from him in the future.
Cook County GOP Scandal Update: Mitt Romney's people asking about what Lee Roupas knew and when he knew it
Today we were asked by someone working with the Mitt Romney 2012 campaign to provide everything we have on the Cook County GOP scandal, especially pertaining to what Lee Roupas knew and when he knew it.
If you have not been following this scandal, it involves “Romney Guy” Roupas deliberately lying about when he received a complaint filed against a fellow “Romney Guy” who is nicknamed “The Prophet” here in Chicago political circles.
Both “The Prophet” and Roupas met with Romney the last time Romney was in Chicago, which was in May or June of this year…and are afforded lots of face time with Mittens every time he comes to town.
Roupas and “The Prophet” both claim to have held high positions in Romney’s failed 2008 campaign, and both have been working towards laying the groundwork for Romney’s doomed 2012 run as well. ”The Prophet” turned the Chicago Young Republicans politically-flavored social networking club into a nascent Romney 2012 farm team, and Roupas has been using the Cook County GOP to advance Romney players in Chicago, in much the same way the DNC pushed Obama 2008 operatives into various positions in the leadup to the Democrat primaries.
Mittens is largely copying the Obama 2008 primary handbook, right down to the thugs and creeps he has representing him in the field.
When we refer to Lee Roupas and “The Prophet” as “Romney Guys”, we mean this literally. They are Romney’s guys in Chicago.
They are, also, typical of a breed of young Republican male we refer to as “Romney Guys”, or “Romney Republicans” in general. They of the blue blazer, khaki pants, do anything to advance Romney bent. You’ve seen what Romney aides have repeatedly been busted for in spreading the garbage against Sarah Palin, in an Obama-vs-Hillary backstabby way. This is going on at the city, county, and state level across the country, with “Romney Guys” largely controlling the levers and pulleys of the Republican party.
This is all part of the “It’s His Turn” rationale for Romney’s 2012 nomination.
But, there’s a deeper layer to this that we are only now understanding.
The reason Lee Roupas, “The Prophet”, and “Romney Guys” like them are so lockstep for Mittens is because they have invested their careers in him, and they stay focused on what Romney’s candidacy will bring them personally. They must know Romney would lose to Obama, and don’t really care. As long as they get to put “National Campaign Director for Illinois” on their resumes, or “Chicago Campaign Director, Operations” on their business cards, these “Romney Guys” will be happy…and will secure themselves lucrative consulting or lobbyist jobs post-Romney defeat. Should Romney actually win the election, these guys would then go to Washington and make asses of themselves like Jon Favreau and other young turks have done in the Obama Administration.
With “Romney Guys”, it’s not about what’s best for the country or the Republican Party. Instead, it’s about them having picked Romney in 2008, knowing they would lose their places in line if they’d jump ship and suddenly become “Pawlenty Pals” or “Thune Dudes” or whatever. They’d, of course, never in their lives back Sarah Palin, and quite frankly, Palin’s team would never have them.
This is all about entitlement, and the “we did our grunt work, we served our time in the field, now reward us” nonsense that keeps getting damaged Republican candidates their party’s nominations, because “it’s his turn” and “his guys” have taken control of the party’s city, county, and state operations centers…just like Obama did in 2008.
It’s shocking, but Mark Kirk’s people actually did this too, and that’s why he’s the Senate nominee. We’re stunned Miss Mary has this kind of support, from anyone, because he’s not only a closeted liar, but he’s amateurish and often quite rude in person. But, apparently Illinois GOP State Chair Pat Brady is a “Kirk Guy”, most of the Illinois Central Committee are “Kirk Guys”, and both Lee Roupas and “The Prophet” are also “Kirk Guys”.
That’s Reason Numero Uno why Lee Roupas and “The Prophet” still have their jobs with the Cook County GOP. They are “Kirk Guys”, and other “Kirk Guys” higher up are protecting the two of them, with Mark Kirk’s personal blessing. The Kirk campaign has known about the coverup and lies Roupas has been engaged in for some time, and the decision was made to just ignore this problem because no one wanted to speak out against this and risk giving an opening to a potential “Senator Giannoulias” in November.
As absolutely revolting as the concept of “Senator Giannoulias” is, we do not agree with those of you who keep writing us the bullying emails insisting we, too, stop talking about what Lee Roupas did, “for the good of the party” and to prevent Giannoulias from winning.
First of, we’re not Republicans. We’re not Democrats anymore either. We’re Americans. We want what’s best for this country, and that includes what’s best for the state of Illinois. There are days when we wonder if actually having Giannoulias as Senator would be preferable to sending blackmail candidate Mark Kirk to Washington. Because he’s closeted, and Democrats hold all of his secrets like those rainbow colored Draw Two, Skip, and Wild cards in Uno, Kirk’s going to vote the way Democrats want him to more or less as often as Giannoulias would vote how Democrats want him to. Which is, pretty much always, and Kirk proved that with his Cap & Tax vote in the House. Just like Senator Lindsey Graham, because Kirk is military reserves he can’t come out of the closet, since DADT prevents that. There’s a host of problems Democrats could cause this man should they play all the cards they have against him, so sending him to Washington means Democrats get to control another ostensibly Republican Senator whose loyalty will never be to the Republican Party or the country at large — but instead to whomever is blackmailing him that day.
But, having a Republican win Obama’s old seat would be choice. And it would put the GOP one seat closer to taking back the Senate. Even if Kirk ends up being worse than the Weird Sisters of Maine whenever push comes to shove, having the Senate majority is ideal, since it means Democrats would be less able to do anything crazy for the last two years of Obama’s term. It’s just a damn shame the “Kirk Guys” somehow took control of the state and guaranteed his nomination.
In much the same way it’s a shame the “Romney Guys”, which overlap almost exactly with the “Kirk Guys” in most cases, are working hard to secure the 2012 nomination for Mittens.
The problem Republicans seem to consistently phase is a new crop of these “Guys”, in their blazers and khakis and blind ambition, forming behind whatever current crop of them controls the city, county, and state parties. After the current crop loses or wins that last election, and moves on to big, high-paying, private sector jobs to cash in their chits, the new crop replaces them and carries on exactly the way the last crop operated. The only thing they change is the guy’s name designating which “guy” they are. If Kirk loses in the fall, some new, terrible candidate will emerge and there will be “Smith Guys” or “Jones Guys” in the future. When Romney fails, again, they’ll be “Schock Guys” or “Kazookawitcz Guys” or whatever to replace them.
Someone needs to break the cycle on all of this.
And conservatives nationwide need to look closely at the GOP and realize what keeps happening.
This “protect our guys at all costs” mentality leads to serious lapses in judgment, as Lee Roupas has proved in Cook County.
Whether Romney Central appreciates how big this problem really is, and will work to do something about Roupas in Cook County remains to be seen.
Will they protect their “guy”, or will they demand consequences for Roupas deliberately lying about when he received that complaint, engineering an attempt to silence whistle-blower Eloise Gerson, and maintaining the coverup of serious accusations against a current Cook County GOP employee because a very wealthy, youth-seeking Chicago cougar commanded his protection.
What will Mittens do, and how will this decision play into the Romney 2012 ground game and what’s left of Kirk 2010 here in Illinois?
QUESTION: When do women come forward about sexual assaults and what do they typically do about it?
Here’s another article on ManBearPig, which makes us think PIG part should be all CAPS from now on. It’s just a report on the Portland, Oregon police interviewing the Pope of the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming, with nothing new revealed.
The comments are very interesting though, and show a gross ignorance of what most women (and men too) go through in the aftermath of a sexual assault.
We’ve known several rape survivors in our lives, and none of them chose to prosecute the men involved, for various reasons. All of these people were date-raped, and the circumstances in their lives at the time kept them from pursuing charges with the police.
That seems to be incredibly hard for some people to grasp, but if you’ve ever dealt with the police and the justice system in this country, you’d know that the former can be intimidating and the latter maddening. In the case of the courts, a woman raped can be victimized all over again, maybe even more brutally, by the grilling she’d get by the defense team.
We mentioned a few months ago that our friend Jess testified against a shoplifter in the Chicago court system; this was an instance where she was just out shopping, minding her own business, and observed someone stealing. When he was caught, the police asked her to testify against this man, since she saw him stealing the items. The man had a long criminal record and was out on parole, so Jess’ testimony would help send him back to jail for several more years. Some of his previous crimes involved sexual assault, so Jess took the day off work and spent several hours in a scary part of town, waiting to have her turn in front of the judge to identify the shoplifter and tell the court what she saw.
The defense attorney assigned to the shoplifter was brutal to Jess, and tried to imply she was lying, incompetent, seeing things, or delusional. The case was cut-and-dry, with surveillance footage, and the police actually pulled the stolen items out of the man’s coat and bag, but still for that two minutes the defense attorney was grilling Jess, it was very intimidating for her. She’d asked us to accompany her for moral support, because just going to the court building was scary, considering the part of town it was in and how difficult it was to get there.
And this was an emotionally taxing day for someone who was just a witness to a shoplifting.
We can’t imagine how traumatic it would be to have to go through what’s needed to report and prosecute a sexual assault.
These cases seem to take years, during which the women (and men) victimized during the rape seem to feel like they are raped over and over again every time they have to relive what happened for a police report, deposition, testimony, or cross-examination. It seems like a great many people choose to internalize the event, shut it down emotionally, and take to a shell and try to heal as best they can without pressing charges.
You can judge that all you want, and we’re certainly not experts in the psychology of all this, but this is what we gather happens a good deal of the time.
The comments in the article above ask questions like “Why are these women coming forward after all this time?”. Well, one answer off the top of our heads is that perhaps these women feel safer speaking out against ManBearPIG now that they know other women out there have similar stories. When it was just them, by themselves, perhaps they were too afraid to speak out against a powerful and monstrously wealthy man…who was the pontiff of a cult on top of everything else. Beloved by the Left, protected by the Media, maybe these women felt something horrible would happen to them if they reported what Gore did.
Maybe because of his fame, these women thought no one would believe them, or that they’d be accused of just making this up to get at his vast fortune. Men have a knack for claiming women wanted whatever they got, so perhaps they thought Gore would say it was consensual, and that these women changed their minds opportunistically after the fact.
We’re sure there are some of you out there who have had much more experience dealing with this issue than we have, so we’d really appreciate you chiming in on this thread, and giving us some insight into what happens in the minds of someone who is assaulted this way. Maybe you could read the article and shoot down some of the comments you see, and explain to us just how wrong the commenters are in that thread.
Things are even more complicated when an actual assault doesn’t occur, and is only attempted. What evidence is left in the wake of that which a woman can go to the police with? It becomes just a He Said/She Said story. These masseuses are saying that ManBearPIG kept trying to force himself on them, that he wanted to have sex with them when they didn’t want to, that he tried to keep them from leaving, and that he touched them in ways they didn’t want to be touched or otherwise made them feel very uncomfortable…like something bad was going to happen if they didn’t get out of there.
What sort of evidence is left by behavior like that?
It’s easy for us to see why someone would not want to expose herself to the grilling she’d get from a high-powered AGW cult lawyer for speaking out against Gore. And we also see how others stepping forward remove some of the obstacles to coming forward, because a pattern is being established that Gore has done this more than once, and will keep doing it in the future unless authorities step in.
What think you?
BIZARRE: "Experts" can't find where the oil went in the Gulf. Did it just get Hope and Changed away?
This is truly bizarre: “experts” can’t find where the oil went in the Gulf.
Years ago, one of us freelance project managed something for the City of Chicago involving water that was mysteriously appearing and killing trees in one of the parks. He had to call in hydrologists and plant experts and the like, and one of the most interesting aspects of all of it was discovering a whole field of people who do nothing else all day but think about where water goes, and how it moves as a predictable system based on various factors they could input into their computers.
Do “experts” really not know all that much about the oceans if they can’t determine where all the oil from the Gulf deepwater leak went?
Humans have been working with oil for a fair amount of time now, and they’ve been studying the oceans for much, much longer. We remember the nuns back in Catholic School teaching us about the various currents, in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic, Pacific, etc. They had colorful maps and charts that illustrated where these currents went. Perhaps someone should send these to the “experts”. If any of those nuns are still around, they should be consulted on this, too, because it seemed like if we followed the currents, then something that was in the Gulf would be carried away along those currents and end up at a fairly predictable place.
Since oil is not a solid, but a liquid, like water, predicting where it ends up might be more complicated than looking for rubber ducks that were dumped off a large freighter (which happened in the 80s…and provided scientists will all sorts of data on how the currents worked and where detris in the oceans ends up). But, we just think it’s bizarre the “experts” are stumped on where all this oil is.
“It disappeared” or “something drank it” are not good enough answers.
Though, we’ve always said that eventually SOMETHING would evolve to eat petroleum products that are supposedly accumulating into a giant garbaged dump in the middle of the Pacific. We saw a special once about this place that plastics supposedly go, that traps all sorts of animals who are too stupid to get out of the way. That’s where all of those plastic rings from soda packs are strangling all sorts of things, apparently. With all of that material out there, it just seems obvious that some kind of bacteria or critter would evolve to feast on all of it as a food source in due time. That’s what seems to happen to everything else in the ecosystem. Looking at the course of life on this planet, that’s happened time and time again where some pressure forced organisms to adapt, survive, and thrive.
Some animals we have today won’t survive this or that event, but new animals will emerge that will do just fine.
Has something really slurped up all that oil?
Where’s Oprah? Did she think it was chocolate syrup? Have scientists finally found a use for that woman to equal her Media hype?
Or, are “experts” just in dire need of nuns to whip out the maps and graphs and explain ocean currents well enough to find all the oil?
What do you think is going on?
