Poor, poor, corrupt, ethically-challenged, morally bankrupt Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff). Can't even run a smear campaign without getting into trouble, screwing it up and seeing it backfire.

As we reported several weeks ago, the feckless Florida Republican launched a "Crazy Clint Curtis" smear website and blogsite, to attack his whistleblower-turned-congressional opponent with doctored photos and doctored facts.

The Tom Feeney for Congress Campaign's shameful tactics continue to fizzle, apparently, as they have been forced to remove their smear blogsite, which had been set up on blogger.com to attack Curtis. The removal of the site, and the link to it from the main smear-site, comes not a moment too soon: we had planned to run an item on Feeney's latest demonstrable lie, which we had noticed was recently posted on the smear blog. The blog, which had been at CrazyClintCurtisBlog.blogspot.com is now redirected to an innocuous search page, with no trace left behind.

In a blog item Feeney posted on the site --- before he "disappeared" it --- he charged that an article published in Hustler about the mysterious 2003 death of Raymond Lemme "was based on the delusions of Clint Curtis's murder conspiracy theory," or some such nonsense.

As it was "we," Brad Friedman, who actually wrote the article in question [PDF], we can tell you that it was based on nothing of the sort. It was based on the mysterious and still unexplained circumstances surrounding Lemme's death, which the Valdosta, GA police had initially ruled a suicide, but then later reopened the investigation after The BRAD BLOG reported on an affidavit filed by Curtis. Curtis alleged that his former employer YEI had harbored Chinese illegal aliens spying for China (later confirmed), overbilled on state contracts (later confirmed), and that Feeney, who also worked for the firm as lobbyist and attorney --- while simultaneously serving as Speaker of the Florida House --- had requested Curtis to create a software vote-rigging prototype (not yet confirmed, but similarly not disproven.)

Lemme was an investigator from the Florida Inspector General's office, looking into the charges Curtis originally filed with the state of Florida in early 2001. In his sworn affidavit, Curtis says that Lemme told him in June of 2003 that his final report was almost complete, and that he'd found the corruption "went all the way to the top." Two weeks later, Lemme was found dead in Valdosta, Georgia.

Our story on Lemme's death detailed the many contradictions between the official police report and the unearthed photographs of the death scene --- photographs which the police report originally stated were taken at the scene but unavailable, due to a "failure in the camera's flash memory cards."

And now, Feeney has scrubbed the smear blogsite altogether, in what appears to be the latest misstep in the Congressman's bizarre and shameful campaign.

Previous follies in Feeney's smear campaign include (but are not limited to):

All of this from a man who issued a news release in the early morning hours after Curtis's landslide victory in the Florida primary. Quoth Feeney: "Serious times demand serious leaders and Curtis is not even in the same solar system as the rest of us."

Really? Which solar system are you in, Mr. Feeney? We're still waiting for your "serious" leadership, or at least a serious campaign on both the issues and allegations.

For his part, Curtis recently issued a press release calling on Feeney to explain what he knew of Florida colleague Mark Foley's sexual predator issues and when he knew about them. As a GOP Deputy Whip in the U.S. House, Feeney is a part of the Leadership who had been reportedly made aware of Foley's predilections long before the information was publicly revealed.

So far, Feeney has refused to comment on the record, to our knowledge, concerning the Foley matter.

He has also refused to take a polygraph test concerning Curtis's allegations and has denied, but not answered to, them. Curtis, who gave an account of the remarkable story in video-taped sworn testimony to a Congressional panel in late 2004, successfully passed such a polygraph on his own in early 2005.

The Clint Curtis campaign for the U.S. House (FL-24) issued a press release late last week asking "What Did Feeney Know About Colleague Mark Foley's Predatory Behavior And When Did He Know It?". (Press release posted in full at the end of this article.)

It was not without reason that we asked the same question of Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) last week at the end of a blog item on the latest misstep in the corrupt Congressman's crazy smear campaign he's running against Curtis. A smear campaign that, we might add, seems to be helping Curtis enormously!

For evidence of that, see this local Florida news report (includes video) blasting Feeney for sending porn mailings to local moms, and this darn-near accurate feature article in Saturday's Orlando Sentinel calling on Feeney to take a lie-detector test!

The question of what Feeney knew about Foley, when he knew about it and what he did about it is an appropriate one. Feeney, as Deputy Whip, is a member of the House GOP leadership who had reportedly been informed long ago of the "Foley Problem." Feeney is also a Florida caucus colleague of the now-disgraced child predator and proudly worked with Foley on bills such as the PROTECT Act of 2003 to punish those who would exploit children.

For background, as briefly as we can give it (regular BRAD BLOG readers may skip this graf) Curtis is running to unseat Feeney this year. Curtis alleged in December of 2004 that Feeney had asked him to create a vote-rigging software prototype to be used for flipping the votes in South Florida when both men worked at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), an Oviedo, FL, software firm. Curtis was a programmer, and Feeney was their general counsel and registered lobbyist (in addition to his day job as Speaker of the Florida House). As early as 2001, Curtis also alleged that YEI --- where Feeney maintains his campaign headquarters even today --- was harboring communist Chinese spies and overbilling state agencies by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Both of those claims have since been borne out (see this summary of the extraordinary Clint Curtis story); Curtis has also told his story in sworn video-taped testimony before a congressional panel and passed a polygraph test, which Feeney, for his part, still refuses to take.

Despite Feeney's silly and shameless use of doctored photos and doctored facts on his campaign's smear website and smear blog --- which has only just now been updated to disclose that its "Paid for by Tom Feeney" after an FEC complaint was filed --- and despite Feeney's various misfired attempts to tar Curtis with ridiculous and self-disproving claims, we'll avoid such cheap and childish shots at the Congressman. At least for the time being.

We will, however, suggest that Mr. Feeney --- who has been mighty quiet about the Foley scandal since it broke --- may want to go on record, sooner rather than later, about exactly what he knew and what he did, or didn't do, about the Foley issue over the past several years.

While we're at it, was Feeney one of those dozens of folks in Congress who recently received subpeonas on this matter? I'm sure he'll have no trouble telling us whether that answer is either yes or no.

As we all know, it's not the crime, but the cover-up that gets 'em every time. We're waiting Mr. Feeney. You may wish to make your move before someone else does it for you. Just trying to be helpful here.

Clint Curtis' complete press release follows in full...

A campaign mailing received by a hundred thousand Florida voters today would seem to indicate that the corrupt, and apparently desperate U.S. Congressman from Oviedo, Florida, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff), is willing to do everything within his power to lose his congressional race this year against challenger Clint Curtis.

"Don't send smut to my mailbox," the New Smyrna Beach, Florida. mother says in a video report at Florida's WFTV Channel 9, "It's not really something I want my 9-year-old walking out to the mailbox and bringing to me and asking me questions about."

The mailing, of dubious taste, is the latest chapter in Feeney's bizarre smear campaign against his former colleague, vote-rigging whistleblower turned Congressional opponent Clint Curtis.

We highly recommend the article at the WFTV Channel 9 website (which also includes a video of their coverage on tonight's evening news.)

In the mailing --- sent by Feeney to more than 100,000 voters in Florida's 24th Congressional district and featuring a poorly-doctored photograph of Curtis dressed as Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner --- Feeney claims he's attempting to "alert" voters that Curtis has been endorsed by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

So far, Feeney's bizarre attempts to garner support have included a rudimentary smear website named "Crazy Clint Curtis," featuring doctored photos of Curtis and other dubious claims, and a blogsite repeating those claims citing "evidence" that actually seems to belie the strange assertions. (e.g., See our coverage of on Feeney's odd 9/11 conspiracy theory.) The smear blog, however, has no indication that it's paid for by the Feeney campaign.

The disingenous references to Hustler in the mailing, including a doctored cover from the salacious magazine, are in reference to an article of ours [PDF - WARNING: Includes graphic photos from death scene!] on the mysterious death of Florida Inspector Raymond Lemme, which the magazine ran some months ago.

Lemme, as we originally reported at BRAD BLOG, was found dead in a Valdosta, Georgia hotel room during the course of investigating Curtis' whistleblower claims against Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), an Oviedo, Florida, software firm with top-security state and NASA contracts.

Curtis had worked as a programmer at YEI while Feeney was their general counsel and registered lobbyist.

Feeney was also the Speaker of the Florida House at the time when Curtis claims YEI had employeed illegal Chinese aliens (spying on America), overbilled the state on contracts, and had requested that Curtis create a vote-rigging software prototype at the behest of the Congressman. The charges of Chinese spies and state overbilling have since been confirmed, by both state and federal investigations and reports.

Hustler ran a sidebar with our article written by someone named Mark Johnson. That sidebar, titled "Vote for Clint!" describes Curtis' early plans at the time to run for Congress and urges readers to support the effort at www.ClintCurtis.com.

Feeney's new mailer, however, looks like it may have done little more than succeed in angering Florida families and voters who had never even heard of either Feeney or Curtis before. The mother in the report indicates that it has led her to not vote for Feeney this November.

Adding to the poorly timed association of sex and politics --- in light of the recent revelations of sexual improprieties by Feeney's Florida GOP House colleague Mark Foley --- it looks like another triumphant disaster for Feeney.

From WFTV's report:

The article and video (both of which we couldn't recommend more!) go on to say that Feeney claims our Hustler article about Lemme's death charges that "Feeney was involved in a suspicious death in Georgia."

Since we actually wrote that article, we can tell you that no such allegation was made of involvement by Feeney in the death of Lemme. WFTV should correct that point for the record. (NOTE: We've contacted the WFTV reporter, Josh Einiger, who did an otherwise very good job on the story and he says he'll be attempting to correct the inaccuracy on their website shortly. Apparently, he was just repeating what Feeney, and the mailing, had incorrectly claimed.)

Hey Tom, in the next mailing, why don't you include photos of yourself posing with a bunch of Congressional pages? Voters in the 24th need to know how much you care about our nation's youth!

Signs (along with the desperate and shameful campaign smear website and smear blog he created) that Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) may be in trouble down in Florida in his race against whistleblower-turned-opponent Clint Curtis in the 24th district congressional race?

This today from from the Orlando Sentinel (who had previously endorsed Curtis' primary opponent, before Clint thumped him 2 to 1 in the recent election):

Also, as it's been reported that the House GOP leadership was informed about Rep. Mark Foley's predatory behavior with minors in the Congressional page program months ago and apparently took no action, it's fair to ask what Feeney, as both a Deputy Whip in the House and a fellow member of the Florida caucus, knew about Foley's behavior and when he knew it.

Feeney's campaign, by the way, has received money from Foley in the past, according to this report from MyDD.

Like his colleague Foley, Feeney has enjoyed trumpeting his own work in the House to create legislation to protect children from predatory behavior. Like Foley, (and those Feeney hangs with from DeLay to Abramoff to Ney to Cunningham to Jeb and George W.), he's never been big on transparency or honesty either. So we expect he'll do whatever he can to dance, dodge and otherwise obfuscate on this matter as usual, unless someone holds his feet to the fire.

We'd love to be proven wrong, but we're not holding our breath.

Oh...and this from The Hill last week, in response to Feeney's "crazy" campaign smear sites:

...

The silly, seemingly ineffective, and apparently expensive smear campaign being mounted by Florida's U.S. House Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) attempting to attack his congressional opponent, a former colleague-turned-whistleblower, Clint Curtis continues.

Repeating a seemingly unsubstantiated attack on Curtis, initially posted on Feeney's "Crazy Clint Curtis" smear campaign website, a posting on the Congressman's smear blog site makes the same unevidenced claim.

Feeney's "evidence-free" charge is that Curtis has claimed Feeney knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened.

It's an extraordinary claim now repeated several times in several places by the Congressman who was recently named one once again this year one of the "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a non-partisan ethics watchdog organization in D.C.

While the claims has now been made on both his smear campaign website and blog, the "evidence" offered by Feeney for this claim would seem to disprove their own assertions. Here's Feeney's latest smearblog item in it's entirety (NOTE: We don't believe it's written by fifth graders, it just reads like it)...

That's it? Are we missing something here?

Their evidence that "Crazy" Clint Curtis claimed Feeney knew about 9/11 before the attack is that line from his self-published book?!

If we were Feeney, we'd ask for our money back from our campaign consultants. After they came home from school.

See our previous report on the smear site set up recently by Feeney and the kids, including doctored photos of Curtis and many other impressive campaign techniques.

Keep up the bad work, Tom!

For the record, in our two years of interviews and reporting on Clint Curtis' story since we originally broke the story of Curtis' extraordinary allegations [PDF] of Feeney's request to create vote-rigging sofware and much more, we have never heard him make any such claim that somehow Feeney knew about 9/11 before it happened.

On the other hand, while Feeney is spending hundreds of thousands on his less-than-dignified "Crazy Clint Curtis" smear campaign, he has yet to answer to any of Curtis' substantive allegations made in sworn affidavit, sworn video-taped testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and found to be truthful in a polygraph test administered by the state of Florida's former lead polygraphist.

What Feeney has refused to speak to includes (but is certainly not limited to) the following wholly unanswered questions...

The campaign of one of Congress' most corrupt members, Tom Feeney (R-FL), has apparently enlisted fifth graders to create a smear website (www.CrazyClintCurtis.com) dedicated to smearing Feeney's congressional opponent Clint Curtis with doctored photos, innuendo and unsubstantiated, disproven claims.

The rudimentary site (okay, it's not created by fifth graders, it just looks, works and acts that way) includes doctored photos and videos of Curtis, and a smear blog to go with it. Though the main "Crazy Clint Curtis" website indicates that it's "Paid for by Tom Feeney," the blog itself that it links to --- accessible via CrazyClintCurtisBlog.blogspot.com --- has no indication of who it's paid for. If that blog site is created and/or run by a paid member of Feeney's campaign staff or uses it's vast resources (Feeney has reportedly spent the better part of $1 million for this brilliant smear campaign,) it would seem that Feeney is in violation of FEC campaign laws which require a "Paid for by Tom Feeney" notation somewhere on the blog.

Curtis' own website also includes a link to a blog, but as far as we know, it is maintained by a private unpaid individual.

Feeney has reportedly spent somewhere near $700k on his admitted smear campaign so far.

The good news is that those with a free blogger.com registration are allowed to post comments to Feeney's smear blog in reply to the Congressman's silliness! At least as of now. So feel free to give them regards from The BRAD BLOG and let them know where individuals concerned about things such as clean elections, clean officials, clean government contracts, congressmen who take trips from foreign-agents and Jack Abramoff, and who work with companies involved with convicted Chinese spies, can get grown-up information on the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney story if they are interested.

Curtis has made claims concerning Feeney's involvement as registered lobbyist and general counsel for a Florida software firm that has now been shown to have harbored and petioned for an illegal Chinese alien (who later pled guilty to charges related to sending Hellfire anti-tank missile chips to Communist China) and overbilled the state of Florida by hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has also alleged that Feeney asked the company, in a meeting at which Curtis was present, to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the firm. Curtis' claims have been made to Florida and Federal officials, as well as in a sworn affidavit and video-taped sworn testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

As well, he has passed a lie-detector test in regard to the claim. So far, Feeney has refused to take such a test, or to debate Curtis face to face despite challenges from the Curtis campaign to do either. Feeney still refuses, as recently as this Tampa Bay Scene cover story published last Thursday, to answer directly to any of the allegations (most of them proven through independent government documents and investigations) that Curtis has made in regard to Feeney.

For his part, Feeney has either refused to discuss the matter, or otherwise claimed he's had nothing to do with the YEI firm since leaving them to go to Congress in 2002. That, even while Feeney's campaign headquarters remains in the YEI building, the owners of the company continue to be amongst his top financial supporters, and even hosted a party for him in 2003 (with undoctored photos)...

Bill Stone of the Tampa Bay Scene writes a devasting and detailed cover story in this week's issue, on the allegations of computer programmer Clint Curtis that Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked him to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the same firm in Oviedo, Florida back in 2000.

-- PDF version of the article here: Tampa Bay Scene's posted version is in the PDF of the entire issue of this week's paper.
-- Plain HTML version of the article here: They've given us the go ahead to post an HTML version of the piece in full.
(NOTE: Some graphic photos are included with the article!)

Stone's report covers much of the ground we've detailed extensively at BRAD BLOG over the past two years since we first broke the story in December of 2004. Nonetheless, he brings a great deal of that reporting together in one easy-to-read article, and also brings us up to date on the latest shenanigans of Feeney, who finds himself facing Curtis this year, mano-a-mano, in the election for the U.S. House in Florida's 24th Congressional district.

Hardcore readers of The BRAD BLOG will be familiar with much of the story. Indeed, Stone credits us with a great deal of his sourcing, as we spoke to him for several hours at length during our recent summer travels around the country. His article, however, includes new details to chew on.

In particular, Stone hits on a fresh point or two in regard to the death of Raymond Lemme, the investigator from the Florida Inspector General's office --- the first official that Curtis had informed of his allegations against Feeney.

As well, Feeney's camp now has a new slur word they're shamelessly attempting --- without evidence, as usual --- to use to smear Curtis...

For the second year in a row, DC ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington (CREW) --- the folks who filed successful ethics charges in the House against former Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay --- have issued their "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" report.

And once again our old friend, the corrupt Florida congressman Tom Feeney, is right up there near the top! Congratulations, Tom!

What may be most impressive is that Feeney, amongst other bad seeds like the disgraced Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, is neither in jail or even under indictment! Yet! No easy feat for someone as sleazy as Mr. Feeney! You'd have to be the craziest man in America to think you could get away with it! But (so far) Feeney has!

The indifference to the Rule of Law and our American Values and Constitution doesn't stop with Tom himself though! Just take a look at what Feeney's own chief of staff, Jason Roe, and his wife Patty are up to --- apparently with Feeney's help --- according to this report last week from Harper's!

The CREW list, which includes both Republicans and Democrats (though mostly Republicans), singles out Feeney for his years-long record of corruption, obfuscation, ethics violations and broken rules in accepting lobbyist and foreign-agent paid travel, holidays and more!

While we know that Feeney has already been accused by computer programmer Clint Curtis of asking him to create vote-rigging software back in 2000 and other skullduggery (Curtis has given sworn video-taped congressional testimony and has passed a lie-detector test in regard to those charges,) CREW continues to track some of Feeney's greatest Congressional Corruption Hits, from golf in Scotland with Abramoff to trips bought and paid for by foreign-agents. Take a look...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Here's Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel, from his blog, with my emphasis:

As reported extensively at The BRAD BLOG during the past two years, Clint Curtis has leveled several specific accusations at Tom Feeney. The chief allegation is that Feeney requested Curtis to design a software vote-rigging prototype (a computer program which appeared to be a simple vote-counter but which was in fact something else). Curtis has taken --- and passed --- a polygraph test in support of his allegations. Feeney has not indicated any willingness to go near a polygraph.

For more on the Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney story, start here.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel has noticed the "Clint Curtis Is Crazy" campaign being run by Tom Feeney. It's hard not to notice, I'd say, when a three-ring binder full of stories about Clint Curtis lands in your lap.

Scott Maxwell, whose reporting we were fortunate to encounter just the other day, chips in with a line-item from his blog:

There's quite a bit more more detail from Robert Perez in a piece called Congressional race gets 'crazy' fast which begins like this:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the election returns from Florida showed a landslide win for Clint Curtis over Andy Michaud in the 24th congressional district's Democratic primary, I heard a fascinating story from Ace Reporter and Managing Editor Alex Babcock of Oviedo, Florida's Seminole Chronicle. The Chronicle is Feeney's "hometown paper" which both the corrupt Republican congressman, and Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI) --- the company he used to lobby for, even while he was speaker of the Florida House! --- threatened with a lawsuit after the paper dared to report on Curtis' sworn, video-taped testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Curtis had testified that Feeney asked him to create a prototype of electronic vote-rigging software when they were both employed by YEI as The BRAD BLOG originally broke back in December of 2004. Curtis, of course, is now the Democratic candidate challenging Feeney for the U.S. House seat in Florida's 24th congressional district.

Babcock's remarkable account of the "jubilant" Election Night conversation, witnessed by at least three other parties, went as follows...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An "explosive" new press release from the office of Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) reveals "new information" regarding his November opponent, Clint Curtis, the "Craziest Man in America".

Wow! Craziest Man In America! That's quite a distinction. There are some pretty crazy men in America these days, as if you haven't already noticed. And it's odd that Tom Feeney should award this title to Clint Curtis, because ...

I never even knew Clint Curtis was a little bit crazy! Did you?

Well apparently he is, because Tom Feeney certainly wouldn't say so if he wasn't.

Right????

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel jumped all over the story of Clint Curtis, his apparent victory in last night's Democratic primary, and the epic battle "between Good and Evil" which it sets up in Florida's 24th Congressional disctict.

See? Here's their coverage!, and this is --- literally --- the bottom line:

Even lower down the page, it also says this:

Calling 6 or 7 green and yellow bloggers!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to reliable sources, WESH-TV has called Clint Curtis the winner of the FL-24 Democratic primary by a landslide. Curtis had 12,652 votes, compared to 7,990 for Michaud: That's 61% for the vote-rigging whistleblower, with 208 out of 257 precincts reporting, or or 81%.

According to other reliable sources, a reporter from the Daytona Beach News-Journal called Clint and asked whether he wanted to make a statement. Clint said:

So ... shall we let the party begin? Well, really: there's no hurry!

If Clint can wait until all the votes are counted, then so can we!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Democrats in Florida's 24th Congressional District are used to being surprised by Tom Feeney (left), but he's been surprising them again during the past few days. They have reported receiving fliers in the mail --- and phone calls, too --- which appear to be serious, even respectful --- if brief --- comparisons of the policy positions taken by the Republican incumbent, Feeney, and his potential Democratic challenger, Clint Curtis.

What's wrong with this picture?