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:
“Don’t send smut to my mailbox,” Dina said.
“She needs to know Clint Curtis is endorsed by smut-king Larry Flynt,” Feeney said [in reply to the mother named Dina.]
…
“Voters in District 24 need to know,” Feeney said.
But it all left a bad taste in Dina’s mouth. Not only had she never heard Curtis’s claims, she also had no idea who her congressman even was. Now she does and she isn’t impressed.
“How about sending what a politician can do for someone and what you stand for, because now all I have is negative thoughts that stick in my head because of what I read,” she said.
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!
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.
– Curtis is now running for U.S. Congress against Feeney.
To support or for more info, see: www.ClintCurtis.com
Hee hee!
Tom – keep it up! You’re doing swell!
The smear website now has a disclaimer that it is paid for by the Feeney campaign.
Need a lil more rope Tom?
*grinz*
Congratulations – Mr. Fascist Feeney,..
That smut mailing was a real smart thing to do,..where did you get that idea to trash your political opponent,.. from KKKarl Rove ?
Why don’t you honestly debate the issues with Mr Curtis ? What is with this Nazi ploy to back-stab,.. sandbag,.. slime-ball,.. and sleaze/scumbag your way to winning a political election.
Mr Feeney have you lost all sense of decency ?
Why do you contaminate the political process to this extent ? Our political system is broken and on life support,.. Mr. Feeney we do not need people in Washington D.C. who will bring more injury to the halls of government,.. we need those more interested in honesty,.. integrity,.. and healing. Those traits seem not to be components of your character.
Not content to just jump from the burning ship the SS Hastert into shark infested waters, they seem to be setting themselves afire first.
Is self inflicted immolation really the key to politcal advancement?
The worlds best comedy writers couldn’t do a better job at writing the script for all that’s happening to the repugs right now!
Just watching the ship go down!
Charles Derber, in his book “Regime Change Begins at Home”:
Now, for some reason the population at large can’t make themselves be concerned with illegal invasion and war crimes, habeas corpus, corrupt and brutal partisan politics, the destruction of our public discourse, global warming, or drastic redistribution of wealth, but they can wrap their minds around garden-variety sleaze. Works for me.
Well, you know, if your a Republican you can’t run on the issues, because the (sometimes illegal) Corporations already know what your values are.
Slip a few K in, get what you want, the hell with the people and what they want.
That Moyers show is stunning
“Capitol Crimes”
With all this Foley stuff going on, they would lay low with anything sex-related!
It is possible that Rove decided to throw Foley under the bus to divert attention from Iraq. He has been known to create a situation and blame the other side. Lying and gay-bashing are what they do.
Clint: Start publicizing that “family values” Feeney is sending porn to old lady’s houses…why not? Do an ad, “I am against sending porn to familys’ houses, my opponent is not.”
Clint, this is huge, hop on it. With all this Foley stuff going on? This was a real tactical mistake by “Team Feeney”…we have “WeeneyGate”, and now “FeeneyGate”…lol…
Feeney’s compicitousness is legion and he will be the next one going down in the Abramoff scandal. Feeney’s a clear example of “desperate people doing desperate things” and his porno smear campaign was impeccably timed as a karmic payback. Amazing to see karma in action! Feeney’s “history” now!
Ugh…I see what you’re saying but that’s not necessarily how it’s playing out here. One or two people might see it this way but I live in a “soccer mom” community and everyone I know was more disgusted that Mr. Curtis is affiliated with Hustler. Let’s remember that the reason people use negative ads is because they work.
I am making calls for Clint and the response is amazing. He has a chance at winning but if you think that being tied to Hustler somehow reflects worse on his opponent than him, you are wrong. I have gotten 2 hit pieces on Curtis and I bet you there will be more and more and more. Please send $$$ so Clint can fight back!
Sandra
#14 – Sandra — That’s why Clint should take Big Dan’s advice. He can kill two birds with one stone. He can show Feeney for the ridiculous hypocrite that he is and he can put to rest the “connection with Hustler”.
Feeney’s smearing is so ham-handed and obvious, he’s giving Clint some great opportunities to show who is honest, moral, and able to seriously work for the district and who is the clown.
Shoot, just make up a flyer with a couple of quotes like this on it “He takes very good care of his members, he understands their needs, and then when he needs to get votes for an issue, he’s got a lot of good will built up. And that same good will is helping members stand behind him as he faces these unfair attacks,” said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, who is helping to coordinate DeLay’s political defense.
Link
Or this “Florida Lawmakers Dumping Foley Campaign Contributions”
“Rep. Tom Feeney, an Oviedo Republican, plans to donate cash received from Foley’s political action committee in 2001 to the Central Florida Veterans Memorial Park Foundation, according to Pepper Pennington, a spokeswoman for Feeney’s campaign.”
Link
“Pepper” ?
you’re absolutely right that Clint should be out with tv and radio ads to show people what a real slimeball this Feeney is, but ads require money. LOTS of it. so do these mailers — I wonder how much Feeney paid to use the post office for such smut?
Feeney has already amassed a warchest of over $1 milion. He must be scared to have gone to such lengths with this dirty campaign mailer.
Clint hasn’t made any friends in Big Business by promising to watch out for the average middle-class family, so he doesn’t get the Big Money contributions.
The Feeney smear campaign is only going to get worse — he’s promised to spread his slime far and wide, according to this story from a few weeks ago — so Clint’s gonna need lots of support from honest Americans. And wear boots if you venture into FL District 24, ’cause if this is any indication of Feeney’s full-desperation-attack-mode, it’s gonna get deep.
Sandra, #14 — I hope that when you’re talking with people about Clint, you tell them the truth — that he’s NOT “associated with Hustler“, as you put it, and never has been. That’s the kind of thing that Feeney wants them to think!
I hope you remind them that obviously Curtis has no control over what is said about him in the media. He didn’t seek out or have anything to do with the endorsement, and it’s just Feeney’s despereate attempt to divert attention away from questions about his corrupt associations with Abramoff, Delay and Ney. Birds of a (Feeney) Feather!
Keith Olbermann carried this story tonight on his show. Now I’m praying that on 11-08-06 when the train wreck happens Keith jumps on it and never lets it go. He was the only corporate media to report anything on the 2004 debacle.
How about, send prints of the article without the tag and let people find out later the source. They’ll say, oh, I read that – it was good.
I do have faith that what goes around comes around. It will be when it is supposed to be. In the meantime, one can only do the right thing.
Floridiot #8
The Moyers show had all of the usual suspects of the voting machine scandal. I kept hoping it was going to go there, but it certainly went through the history of the flim-flam men who wrecked a major portion of our political system. I hope a lot of people tuned in!
GOD! I came home this afternoon to see about 30 or 40 people canvassing my neighborhood with Feeney T-shirts on! One thing for sure, he’s making FUN of Clint but he’s taking him seriously. They didn’t knock on my door…guess they’ve given up on Dems!! I saw them all over the cul-de-sac though. This is a 1300 home subdivision. Called my friend at the very end of the project and she said they hit there about an hour later.
Emma
P.s. Aren’t you glad you don’t live here? Seeing this guy daily is killing me.
I know Flynt is lawyered up…how ’bout a lawsuit for unauthorized use of the ‘Hustler’ trademark logo? I have no idea Hefner’s politics, but he could file a little nusiance lawsuit on Feeney as well, my non-lawyer mind thinks.
Hey what happened to the CrazyClintCurtis.com Did feeney get enough crap about it or did he feel he was getting pasted by thinking Americans across the country who would access the links provided showing all his crooked dealings?? NICE JOB ONCE AGAIN TOM FOOLERY!!!! Though I do miss the giggles it provided and the inane rantings of his staff!