As reported in yesterday’s The Hill:
The “C’est La Vie Comrade Rather” event – for the benefit of Tom Feeney for Congress – will be held from 5-7 p.m., during which attendees will watch Rather’s final newscast at 6:30.
Feeney told The Hill that the open bar will remain open only if guests drink from their left hands.
We find the irony of Tom Feeney hosting a “C’est La Vie Comrade Rather” fundraiser to be full of more hubris than can possibly be described in a single blog item.
So we’ll just leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions on that matter while reminding them that Feeney himself was, for years, the corporate counsel and registered lobbyist for a Florida software company run by Chinese nationals. A firm which has been confirmed by Federal officials to have employeed an illegal Chinese alien who has recently been convicted of committing espionage against the United States of America for illegally shipping Hellfire anti-tank missile chips to Communist China during the time in which they were represented by Feeney.
Feeney continues to have direct and sympathetic ties to apparent Communist harborer, Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), an Oviedo, FL company which he represented until being elected to the U.S. House in 2002. The owners of YEI, and their attorneys, Feeney’s former law partner, Michael O’Quinn, continue to be large contributors to the Congressman. As well, Feeney’s 2004 campaign headquarters is still located in the YEI building, and YEI threw a private party/fundraiser for their longime friend Feeney in May of 2003.
Feeney continues to dodge all public comment about his years-long relationship and continuing close friendship with the Chinese owners of the firm where a convicted Communist spy was allowed to work openly during Feeney’s tenure. He has also been accused of conspiring to create a “vote-rigging software prototype” at the firm during the same period.
Perhaps Comrade Feeney should be more careful what he crows about.
On the other hand, time in jail seems to have done wonders for Martha Stewart. So perhaps Comrade Feeney will soon find plenty of enlightening time in a gulag in the “red state” of Florida to reflect upon the difference between actual treason against this country by actual Communist operatives and friends of his who harbor them versus the made-up stuff he seems to enjoy using for his own political self-aggrandizement and financial opportunism at the expense of the livelihood of others.
(Hat tip BRAD BLOG commenter and patriot, “American Woman” for calling our attention to this story.)
– A Quick Summary of the story so far. –
– The Index of Key Articles & Evidence in the BRAD BLOG investigative series. –
How surprising is this? Yesterday, in a totally different context, I wrote:
I think I should copyright that phrase. I could use it every day, and for something different each time.
I could go on and on about this, but I’ve made up my mind not to pollute the Brad Blog with any long rants. So if you don’t want to know what I think, please don’t read my blog!
OK OK OK — just one more thing:
Why is Tom Feeney holding fund-raisers in the first place? He doesn’t even have an opponent when he runs for election!! What the heck does he need the money for? Legal beagles? Or should I say attack-dogs?
Just asking!
OK OK OK :: just one more one more thing.
It’s just occurred to me that the use of the French phrase "c’est la vie" is probably intended as a cheap shot as well.
Feeney Implies Dan Rather A French Communist!!
A bigger scandal than Gannongate, and …. crickets chirping. The real scandal is McMediagate.
Hi, Winter – As you and all reading know – the Repubs. can’t get enough money – Feeney can’t get enough money – there’s no opponent, but he still loves money – any opportunity for money – any activity for money – the love and worship of money. Money can buy software hackers and voting machines that can be hacked – money can buy anyone – but, wait a minute, it couldn’t buy CLINT CURTIS! Now there’s an honest opponent – where is Feeney’s opponent in the race for Congress? What’s everyone doing in Florida that is more important than defeating money grubbing Feeney? Feeney should have an uncountable number of opponents. Come on Floridians! Your country, your integrity, your democracy is at stake!
Brad –
Reading American Woman’s comment this morning, I was wondering how long it would take for you to headline it. I reproduce my response to her posting below:
"American Woman –
"Oh, the unmitigated GALL of the man! What a stinking, slimey little CREEP! Just where do these people get off deriding respectable, responsible, professional Americans?"
What better way to cover your very exposed and vulnerable tail than by "lightheartedly" making fun of those serious practioners of democracy who most threaten you? And, for $100 a head, who can doubt that you are not only "disinterested" but above reproach?
U-u-u-u-u-u-u-gh-h-h-h-!!!!!
Don’t worry, Winter Patriot #1; we will.
Maybe Dan Rather has some plans for research and writing for his retirement. Maybe his best work is yet to come. Maybe his revenge will be sweet and just. Maybe Feeney is just ASKING for trouble.
Who’s this "American Woman"? I need more information. Gossip!
"(Hat tip BRAD BLOG commenter and patriot, "American Woman" for calling our attention to this story.) "
Nevermind….
Feeney is a ruthless, hypocrital, dangerous, individual. He belongs in jail, not congress.
I urge everyone to write their representatives in Congress about this outrage, and send it to other key people in the House and Senate, too, such as Speaker Hastert (speaker@mail.house.gov) and Judiciary Committee chair Sensenbrenner (sensenbrenner@mail.house.gov), and use the informationin this article to make the case that Feeney needs to be investigated and prosecuted. Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!
should organize a reception/rally "at the Capitol Hill Club" to let Feeney know that his kind are on notice, people know the truth and his kind can not escape the spread of that truth even without "CORPORATE NEWS NETWORKS".
The way this guy flaunts his arrogance makes me want to puke.
Let hope Clinton Curtis survives to bring Feeney to answer some tough questions .
Brad
It would be facinating to know if our friend Tom gets the use of suite 103, 1420 Alafaya Trail Oviedo, Florida 32765 as a gift, and if such a gift is disclosed as a campaign donation from YEI!
(you’ve probably already checked this one out)
For Feeney, who ran unopposed, to host a fundraiser in the name of "Feeney for Congress" is a bit like the A.S.P.C.A. holding a benefit for stray animals in the middle of the Serengeti Plain. And the analogy to jungle beasts is deliberate.
He had no opponent. His party won the presidency and maintained control of both houses of Congress. And he throws a cocktail party to celebrate the retirement of a septugenarian CBS anchorman?
If progressives needed a better example to show to their conservative friends of what’s wrong with politics in the United States, I can’t imagine what it could be. It strikes me that Feeney is really feeling the heat. This looks and sounds very much like the way Nixon behaved in the early days of Watergate.
These people are addicted to hatred and abuse. They are wired that way. This is completely natural…throwing a drunken party to celebrate someone else’s misfortune. Remember when Cheney dressed a child in his family as the Grim Reaper, and she pranced about on stage representing Kerry’s healthcare proposal?
They think this all very funny. They think they are clever. They are Hellishly cornball…Hee Haw with a murderous edge. And most of all they are trying to desperately convince themselves that they are on top, with a foot on the opponent’s throat.
Eventually these traits are the very things that bring their demise.
And they have absolutely zero self respect. They are the ultimate victims of themselves.
Perhaps Dan Rather is coming into a better phase of his life, free of the malignant MSM.
Don’t let them make you puke. They will be doing enough of that.
In today’s New York Times, Frank Rich has a column titled "Gonzo Gone, Rather Going, Watergate Still Here." It’s required reading for everyone, albeit too long to reproduce here.
Gonzo, of course, was Hunter Thompson. Rich makes the point that Thompson loathed Nixon, but also reminds us that at the time of Nixon’s reelection in 1972, only 48% of Americans had heard of Watergate. That, despite the fact that the break-in news was months old (the Times had it on page 30, with zero follow-up).
Does this all sound familiar? A mainstream press afraid of going after the incumbent administration too hard, fearing exclusion and/or retaliation. A widening net of scandals, seemingly disconnected but joined under the rubric of abuse of power. A power-mad cadre of loyalists, energized by mutual dependence on an insecure president. A White House that furiously puts out red herrings to deflect attention from its own mendacity. And, of course, lies for their own sake, and lies to cover other lies.
Frank Rich’s column is in the Arts & Leisure section of the Times. That, in and of itself, is revealing.
Robert Lockwood Mills #18 "… column is in the Arts & Leisure section …"
Perhaps because the right wing has made an art of lying and even do it in their leisure? Their ad hominem ad nauseum is not just for breakfast anymore as Feeney shows.
Meanwhile the prosecutiong attorney in Texas still has an eye on DeLay.
So now what do Blackwell, Feeney, and Gannon have in common: Going off the deep end to bring attention to one’s "work for the good," which in reality is "work for the bad." If you are celebrating your "badness" (which is what is being rewarded in Washington these days), then what you get is more "badness."
As I thought long ago, they will bury themselves with this arrogance but only with our help. It’s just not a mentally healthy state and all of these guys are exhibiting somewhat of a "break from reality."
Well Miss P, they’re getting away with it. The mentality of "Fuck you Jack, I’m fireproof" permeates all the way up to the Whitehouse. They know that not enough people will find out to make a difference. Now they have the MSM in their back pocket, all the decadence in the world can be had with no backlash.
Sad, but true.
Not only does Feeney hypocritically imply that Rather is a communist. He lumps him in with Ward Churchill. Isn’t Dan Rather the same guy who said on the Letterman show after 9/11,
"George Bush is the President, he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where."????
Dan Rather and Ward Churchill trading jokes
in a bar together? I don’t think so.
I wouldn’t lump John McCaine, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe in with the Bush/DeLay/Feeney crowd. Those guys are genuinely conservative. Although their lack of ability to stand up to the neocons is less than admirable.
As an animal lover who detests PETA’s extremist views, can’t the moderates in the Republican party openly crtiticize the Nazi fringe of the Republican party once in a while?
Just like a bunch of kids misbehaving, in the absence of a parent saying, "stop or someone will get hurt…or you’ll break something," they’ll go on. But I don’t think mass group-think has ever really succeeded, has it?
To parapharse a Repug operative ". . . and while you’re busy examining/investigating [stomping out that small fire] we’ll be doing something else [to divert your attention, starting another small fire] for you to examine/investigate [anything to keep you from recognizing what is important, the forest fire about to consume you] and that’s how the "neocons" are going to take over this nation.
And, guess what? It seems to be working!
We must find a way to dispatch a task force to each new item and feed it all back to "ONE" location which will be responsible for keeping "ALL" informed. Any suggestions?
Kouka #24 – Having followed Brad Blog for several months now, with all the input from the bloggers together with their numerous references and links to other reports/sites, as well as VR, I feel that our side is really getting on top of things. We recognize the tactics, the lies, the attempts to misdirect and fudge. The liars are losing ground fast, and I’m looking foward to their final fall – the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Justice for all in the United States of America!
Patience all my fine brothers and sisters.
Justice is on the march!
In # 8 Peggy speculates that Dan Rather might have plans for research and writing in his retirement. She might have been prescient.
In today’s New York Times (Arts Section) we find an article titled, "As an Anchor Leaves, a Reporter Re-emerges." It discusses plans for Rather to cover the next space mission and do a profile of actor Bruce Willis. Pretty tame.
But the next paragraph isn’t. It reads as follows:
"Lest anyone think (Rather) has been cowed by the criticism of the Guard report, he is also working on an investigative piece that involves the government, though he would not say more than that."
We’ll have to wait for it. But at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I’d surmise it might have something to do with Feeney, whose cocktail party to celebrate Rather’s "retirement" might have been premature as well as overkill.
Stay tuned, Peggy…and everyone else.
re #27 That’s an interesting teaser, Robert. Thanks very much. Lots of teasing going on today on the green and yellow blog. Can we handle the suspense?
I agree with what Kouka said, that these corrupt individuals get things going to take the attention off of themselves. I wonder how many sleeping pills they need to go to sleep… Probably they’re so hardened, they don’t need anything to sleep, they are so full of themselves, egos like full stomachs after a fantastic dinner.
Now that the Raymond Lemme case is being reopened (with a visibility it lacked altogether in July, 2003, and relatively in December, 2004), I think the Bush Mafia might have finally bitten off more than they can chew.
It’s a perfect story for "60 Minutes," and/or for Dan Rather to regain his standing. But they had better start working on it today, or the story will have gotten too far along by the time they broadcast it.
Sorry RLM, do you really think think that any broadcaster in America would touch the Lemme case with a barge pole?
The backlash from reporting on Bush’s NG record (from which the documents have yet to be conclusively proven to be false) was so great, do you really think they’d go for a murder? Wake up and smell the coffee.
No balls, no morals – that is the theme of the modern MSM.
If we want this particular dirty laundry aired, we’re gonna have to do it ourselves.
Real journalists might as well forget about the MSM, they’ve certainly forgotten everything about journalism.
Keep the faith brothers and sisters.
Greg Palast has posted a good commentary on the Dan Rather situation : I’D RATHER NOT SAY GOOD-BYE, DAN
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