Political Scandal-O-Rama

I considered resurrecting an old GOP thread for this, but political scandals really transcend parties and I have high hopes for the longevity of this thread. I read up on this little beauty a few weeks back, but forgot to post about it. It’s a pretty fun one.

Michigan State Representative Todd Courser was elected earlier this year as a Tea Party conservative. Cindy Gamrat, previously a stay-at-home mom who homeschooled her kids, was elected at the same time as a religious conservative. They had never really known each other before, but they shared an office and at least part of an ethos, and… well, love blossomed between them.

But it was a FORBIDDEN LOVE as they were both married with Brady-Bunch numbers of kids and at least one of them had run on a family-values platform.

And - sadly for the pair - their secret love was discovered and was pretty much bound to get out. Gamrat claims that she was receiving blackmail threats to expose the affair.

Sensing that this illicit relationship was going to get out sooner rather than later, Courser did what I imagine every one of us would do if in that spot: He arranged for fake emails to be leaked about him and a male prostitute.

No seriously. Here’s his logic: If there was an easily-disprovable story about him being gay and hitting up a man-toy-for-cash (“bi-sexual porn addicted sex deviant”), then the mundane story of him having an affair with a family-values co-worker would get practically no air-time and perhaps be scoffed at as another fake.

Amazingly, this brilliant scheme quickly fell apart and Courser was exposed as a heterosexual, run-of-the-mill adulterer. One who tried to concoct an elaborate cover-up using government equipment while being paid by Michigan taxpayers.

Today, Courser and his finely-honed political compass realized that even though two votes to have him expelled failed (mostly because the Democrats were demanding a full investigation that the Republicans would rather didn’t happen), maybe it was time to go. So he resigned. Cindy Gamrat had some hopes that she would simply be censured rather than ejected, but it was not to be. She is only the forth Michigan state representative to be kicked out of the General Assembly in the state’s history.

Wow, that’s crazy.

Make up a story to deflate the other story. What could go wrong?

Can’t just come out, make the “I got caught” face, and tell the truth.

“Mistakes were made.” Great thread idea, Tin!

Moral of the story: No one cares about your love life unless you make it a point to run on a platform supporting exactly the opposite of what you actually do. I mean, Clinton never promised to be tasteful, much lest faithful…

Wasn’t that the plot of some movie? Using an obviously fake scandal to discredit a real one.

Wag the Dog I believe.

And I think that was part of his appeal. He was the handsome rogue that everyone could like.

#PigGate

(Frankly, I think “Pighazi” rolls off the tongue a little better.)

Of all the pig-headed things to get photographed doing. Sheesh.

What a swine.

A snoutrage. A bae of pigs disaster. That distant laughter you hear is coming from Cambridge.

This will certainly hog the headlines.

Did anything ever come out about Walker?

I think not. He wisely decided to step out of the race before any attention would come of it.

I mean, he was a college drop out with a 2.59 GPA. That is pretty terrible, I reckon.

There are also some scandals in his past.

Possible illegitimate love child, misuse of government employees on an election campaign, tampering/illegal student government campaign (when he was in college).
This guy is a walking scandal.

I would guess that one of his many skeletons in his closet was about to fall out of the door.

An important Indiana state representative named Jud McMillin abruptly resigned to “spend more time with his family.” He’s of the type that believes in the sanctity of marriage, as long as that marriage consists of one man and one woman. But oddly, a sex video, presumably starring him and someone besides his wife, was texted from his phone to several people on his contacts list. He tried explaining this by texting: “My phone was stolen in Canada and out of my control for about 24 hours. I have just been able to reactivate it under my control. Please disregard any messages you received recently. I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received.”

Another man brought low by the criminal hijinks of Canadian impersonators/pornmakers/phone thieves/video rebroadcasters. If this video was sent by someone else for “the unauthorized release of a picture or video of someone else engaging in sex or in a state of nudity”, it’s ironic because he sat on a legislative committee that would have criminalized that act. But he helped kill it. The killed anti-revenge porn bill would have done nothing to stop a man who selected “send all” instead of “send to a buddy”, though.

This excuse of “the phone was out of my control (and thus any goddamned thing could have sprung from there and I don’t have any idea where it came from)” is getting familiar. In very local news, a nearby suburb of Minneapolis has a school board member who won’t resign over controversial statements about a Facebook post. The story goes that this member of the Columbia Heights school board, Grant Nichols, made an ungodly-early-hour reply on someone’s Facebook post bitching about Muslims and how (allegedly) unsanitary they are. Word got around. Hundreds of high school kids walked out of class to protest his post. A week later, there was a contentious school board meeting where for two hours, people, including Nichols’ former English teacher, demanded that he resign. His story, and he’s sticking to it, is that someone else got access to his Facebook account and made the post, so why should he resign? Don’t worry, though, because he’s regained control of his Facebook account. No other rude comments written by forces unknown will appear on his account from now on. Students and other citizens are still upset, however, so he is still in hot water. Another man (that may be) brought low by Facebook hijackers that reply to friends’ posts making oddly specific controversial statements about the cleanliness of certain cultures.

So make sure your social media and devices are secure! People are making them look like you said or did stupid things!

I was going to post here, but someone stole my account.

How often is your phone stolen and then you have it back 24 hours later? I think that Jud McMillin guy is lying!

I once had a coworker who had their phone stolen, and the thief called to ransom it back. She called her childhood friend - who happened to be the chief of police in her town - and he said that normally the cops don’t even bother with phones, but he set up a “sting” for her. She got the phone back, and the idiot thief got arrested. It took three days, total.

So in the best possible scenario that could ever exist, it took 3 days.

Yup - 24 hours? No way.