Every now and again we’re pleasantly reminded that there are still good folks out there littered amongst the debris that is the American Corporate Media 2005. Or as Murrow presciently predicted, the “vast wasteland”.
We found one of those good folks in Carol Towarnicky of the Philadelphia Daily News (she’ll be a guest on this weekend’s BRAD SHOW who blasted the MSM for ignoring the Gannon/Guckert scandal. This week, it’s kudos to Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel for his piece yesterday on your friend and ours, Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL).
You didn’t think we forgot about you…did ya, Tom?
It looks like Tom is up to his enchanting old tricks this week as he tries to disentangle himself from the scandals that he’s in nearly as deep as Tom DeLay — he just doesn’t happen to be the House Majority Leader (yet), so you may not have heard. (You will in the future…no worries).
Maxwell tears old Tom (Feeney, that is) a new one in his column, headlined “So sorry — it’s the media’s fault” from yesterday:
In the letter to Karen Rotterman, Chief of Staff Jason Roe wrote: “I cannot tell you how sorry I am that you were mentioned in the story. As you know, the current environment in Washington is such that reporters are in such a frenzy to write anything about Members’ of Congress travel that anything not done absolutely correctly seems newsworthy to them.”
The things that Feeney didn’t do absolutely correctly were:
Take a $5,600 trip to Scotland, which included golfing at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews that Feeney has said was paid for by another lobbyist, which would violate ethics rules.
Mistakenly report that lobbyists (the Rottermans) paid for another trip, which would have been another violation.
Still, Roe believes this is all much ado about nothing. “All this is, is media hysteria,” he said. “The media think people care about this. They don’t.”
We wish the media would become “hysterical”! They look fairly sound asleep on most of this to us. What with Runaway Brides and all to worry with.
Maxwell closes smartly with this:
Sounds like somebody needs a vacation.
🙂 We like Maxwell.
Good to know someone else besides yours truly is on the Feeney beat!
…CONTACT…
Scott Maxwell, Orlando Sentinel
(Thanks to BRAD BLOG commenter, American Woman — a big Tom Feeney fan she! — for the link!)
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
– A Quick Summary of the story so far. –
– An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.
Cheers for Scott Maxwell … and a big soft crying towel for poor tom feeney.
the usually impeccable Brad is slightly off on the "vast wasteland" allusion: it was Newton Minow, JFK’s FCC commissioner, see
http://www.janda.org/b20/News%2...stwastland.htm
nevertheless, the plot continues to thicken in the hall of mirrors that is our broken democracy
How does a second-rate politico like Feeney merit a chief of staff? He can’t even speak for himself? What gives here?
If Feeney were faced with the same media Nixon had to deal with, he’d be in prison as we speak. Yet he sends a flunky out to say people don’t care about ethics?
The sad part is…he might be right.
Well-l-l-l….I hesitate to throw cold water on Scott Maxwell….but I gotta say I’m less than thrilled with his piece. Am I being too picky here? It wasn’t a flat-out BAD article, like wycliff’s, it just seemed a bit timid, considering that feeney has been accused of FAR more serious shenanigans, as we know.
So….forgive my tepid response.
BRAD is great! Scott……eh.
feeney needs to answer questions while attached to a polygraph about an American Hero by the name of RAYMOND CARMILLO LEMME.
Joan #4 –
Hee hee…think we should buy Brad a newspaper?
OT:
George Galloway (The politician who promised to tell the truth) got elected in London last night beating a Blair ally on the war. A bloody nose for Blair on Iraq.
See my write-up.
=D
Mr Maxwell replied to emailed thanks with:
thanks for note, mick.
i’ll check out brad’s site too.
scott
—–Original Message—–
From:
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 4:01 AM
To: Maxwell, Scott H
Subject: The things that Feeney didn’t do absolutely correctly were:
Sir ,Thanks for your story "So sorry — it’s the media’s fault" on the orlandosentinel.com site ,in addition to your story is the following information (for your information only) which begins:-
"On December 6th, 2004 , The BRAD BLOG (www.bradblog.com) published a sworn affidavit by Florida software programmer Clint Curtis. In his affidavit and videotaped sworn testimony presented before members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee, Curtis claims to have been asked by U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to design a "vote-rigging software prototype".This request took place in October 2000 during a meeting at Yang
Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), a computer consulting firm in Oviedo, Florida."
Viewable at "https://bradblog.com/ClintCurti....htm"
This seems to be "the story of the century" about "the crime of the
century".
Your Sincerely
M
Wellington
New Zealand
Yea MMIIXX!
#7 Partridge, Thanks for the story!
WooHoo MMIIXX! Yay!
Brad – I love your line "Bang Bang Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Came Down On His Head!" Clever.
We just need to keep poking – keep stinging — like a nest of angry hornets. We’ll get ’em eventually.
"An influential conservative group did"
If it is this influential conservative group, I’m going to be rolling in the aisles. :laugh:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2.../22/155525/061
The only thing they deserve, after overhearing what I have, is a red ticket straight to the funnyfarm.
Gordan Penk
Gordan, your sense of humour is obviously more robust than mine.
Look at the names in those lists and then look at the list of the people with the most political/economic clout and you may see a correlation.
Nutters they certainly are, but they are powerful nutters and they are dangerous.
It is certainly a disgusting sight, I’ll advocate to that. The fellowship council is full of some of the most extreme and insane individuals in any society, I think I have seen or even my esteemed grandfather has seen in all their time.
But they clearly must be stopped, and the public limelight must come down if we are to restore normalcy.
Powerful as they be, I’m sure there is more than enough sane individuals willing to blow the whistle and let the people throw them out of office.
I’m not interested in hearing about another world war two fallout. I think this country has had enough, and I think its time it stands on its own two feet to pull out the fraudulent support beams.
Gordan
(OT)
I hope everybody is contacting everyone they can in government and in their address books to make sure EVERYBODY understands that there is now absolute proof the President lied us into war with Iraq. The President (and VP) must resign. Period.
Florida will probably not regain pride and dignity until Jeb is out of office – year and half I think. It would be nice if it were sooner by Bush breaking the law and disgrace. I can hope!!
I think a good long term strategy would be to pre-emptively start to bring public attention to the activities of all the Bush brothers. The plan is probably to pass the neocon torch (and the Whitehouse) from one to the next, I say we start pulling the rug out from under them now.
I sent Scott Maxwell an e-mail. I thanked him for his story, and suggested asking Feeney a single question as a follow-up:
"Mr. Feeney, can you shed any light on the mysterious death of Raymond C. Lemme on July 1, 2003?"
If the answer is, "I understand he committed suicide," the next question should be, "Do you subscribe to that belief?" Any answer other than "no" would indicate Feeney has been keeping up on things quite closely.
Assuming the answer is "no" or "Who is Lemme?" I suggested the following question: "Mr. Feeney, have you ever heard of a man driving 80 miles across state lines to check into a motel, not occupy the room but drive 80 miles back home to sleep, then arise at 5 a.m. the next morning to drive 80 miles back to the same motel to check out, then sneak into the room he never occupied for the purpose of killing himself?"