There is a bizarre story swarming blogtopia, laced with unconfirmed (and confirmed) sources that could lead to another Republican Sexual Hypocrite "outing" and scandal. First, some facts about the weird murder suicide in Orlando in late August that kicked off the whole matter:
A Republican political consultant killed in an apparent double murder-suicide in Florida had worked extensively in Alabama politics including a controversial "Adam and Steve" campaign leaflet that parodied gay marriage.
Ralph Gonzalez, 39, president of The Strategum Group, was found dead Thursday along with his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30, according to The Associated Press. A motive has not been determined. Weapons and signs of a struggle were found in the house.
... The Alabama Republican Legislative Committee in 2005 paid Strategum $3,144.06 to print a flier that accused a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives of supporting gay marriage.
The flier depicted two smiling men on a porch holding hands with the caption: "Let Gloria Dolbare know God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"
The Orlando Sheriff's deputies have not released a timeline or official motive -- the bodies that were discovered had been dead for several days. Some articles at the time mentioned a gay love triangle, which caught the eye of several blogs. As Andy at Towleroad noted, Florida Today originally ran the story with the "Lovers' fight may have sparked three deaths." He did a screen cap of it:
The newspaper later scrubbed all references to the "lovers' quarrel" from the report without comment.
The fact that it gets even more GOP-scandalous - it also ties into a male escort service/prostitution ring - shows it is begging for additional investigation by the MSM, but no one seems to want to touch it. Drama Queen notes:
In both Monday and Tuesday's posts, my point was that it's highly suspicious that the traditional media has basically ignored the Florida murder suicide: a sensational story that juicily combines fundamentalist Christian politicians and homosexual consultants, election software tampering and this potential tie to a gay porn-related murder in Pennsylvania.
This story is potentially wilder than anything Larry Craig's toe-tapping in an airport restroom. I have no idea what it all means since there are many still off-the-record sources. I'll let Scrutiny Hooligans, Down With Tyranny and Pat Go Bye Bye tell the potentially sordid tale. BlueNC has been on the case for some time now as well. However, you might want to start here for an overview.
The events on the record are noteworthy enough for the MSM to investigate at this point, because the office of right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has gone on the record tying the pol to the shooting. Howie Klein, making a serious charge:
As we mentioned yesterday, Drake, a former marine, also is alleged to have a strong relationship-- both intimate and business/political-- with right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC). When I spoke to McHenry's office about this they at first insisted they never heard of Drake then, confronted with specifics, admitted they know him. They refused to put Congressman McHenry on the phone. There is every indication that McHenry may have been one of the Republican elected officials who was using the services of the gay prostitution agency connected to Drake. Our pals over at the BradBlog points out the connections between Florida's ultra-corrupt, vote-tampering congressman, Tom Feeney, and Gonzalez and reports the threat to expose the list of Republican elected officials who were using the gay escort service.
Where will it go? Who knows, but with a story of this potential magnitude, the mainstream news media, which has the resources to investigate and uncover whether the thick smoke does or doesn't lead to fire, isn't biting.
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Meanwhile, drop by The Pensito Review for a post on the next GOP closet doors that could be kicked open.
While we're on GOP topic, look at the yeoman work of this Blender, Tommy Korioth. He said he expected to spend a couple of hours working on a list of the Republican Culture of Corruption, but it took him 3 days. We've got to get this stuff into a searchable Conservative Values Monitor database again.
