Here are excerpts from The Advocate’s report:
WASHINGTON — A former New Orleans prostitute who said U.S. Sen. David Vitter was a regular client appears in the newest edition of Hustler magazine, granting an interview alongside a naked pictorial.
Wendy Ellis, 34, says she had a relationship with the Louisiana Republican that lasted over three months when Vitter was running for Congress in 1999. The two would rendezvous at a French Quarter apartment two or three times a week, Ellis says.
Ellis was an exotic dancer in a Bourbon Street club when she was contacted by an acquaintance who ran an escort service, she says.
Ellis says she learned from her escort manager that Vitter was her state representative.
“I just blew it off,” Ellis says.
Vitter paid her $300 per visit, Ellis says, and didn’t talk much during their 20-minute sessions.
Ellis, who acknowledged being a drug abuser at the time, suggested to Vitter that they start to meet privately. Vitter got spooked when Ellis told him her name is Wendy, she says, which is the name of Vitter’s wife.
But after that, Vitter went “once or twice a week” to the Bourbon Street club where she worked to watch her dance.
Oh yeah. And let the record show that Sen. Vitter has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president.
[Crossposted from Talk to Action]
Our state has been maligned by the religious right and the GOP pols who pander to them for some time now.
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And I am guessing that some of those pols, or the presidential candidates they support will be coming to here trolling for votes…
They’re looking for money from this area — they’re indignant, not crazy.
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(Mass. family values = 40th teen pregnancy rate in the country and 47th in divorce rate)
the MA primary gets moved up to early Feb as the guv and the lege are talking about.
If so moved, Massachusetts would have the 5th highest delegate count at stake that day. That said, we’re still talking 121 out of the 2,000 in play.
Certainly MA is important to the fortunes of Giuliani as the other northeasterner besides Romney, for starters.
Is if Giuliani scoops it from Romney, lending to a big positive burst for him. Otherwise, anything that happens here gets drowned out by California.
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Oddly enough, 3 of the top 4 delegate states on Super Tuesday are home states of a candidate — CA, NY, IL, and MA.
…pulling a Republican ballot in the primary and vote for Guiliani. I wouldn’t vote for him in the general, of course, but it might help defeat the empty suit Romney for the nomination.
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Not being a registrant of any party opens up the options.
I’d rather defeat Romney in the general, though unfortunately I think he has little chance of getting there. But Giuliani could actually win the general, which would give us an enthusiastic Iraq war cheerleader as president. So I’m all for giving Romney a better chance in the primary if we can đŸ™‚
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Note: I doubt Giuliani, or any fervently pro-Iraq-war candidate, could win the general if they were running against a Democrat firmly opposed to the war and who made that one of the key contrasts in the campaign. But we’re likely to get a Democratic nominee with a somewhat fuzzy position on the war, who will not make it the key contrast between the candidates, which means that despite the general unpopularity of the war, Giuliani could still win.
I like our chances against Romney. Cook Political Report shows that Hillary Clinton’s lead over Romney is twice her lead over Giuliani.
IIRC, MA went for Reagan in at least 1980, if not also in 1984.
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Republicans have two problems in MA. Since 1984, they’ve been running lunatics at the national level. And at the state level, they haven’t contested seats in large numbers of legislative districts; as anyone should know, you can’t beat somebody with nobody.
We’re talking about primaries here. If one of the other candidates beats Romney in his home state, it could matter more than the delegate count if the race isn’t decided yet (this is assuming we do move ours to Feb 5th, which looks likely). And our delegate count matters somewhat, too. Massachusetts is only a throwaway if we stick with March and the race gets decided in February.
Given that delegate count is partially predicated on a party’s success in a state, Massachusetts doesn’t offer a whole heck of a lot to Republican candidates.
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We will have 43 up for grabs, which is less than 10 other states voting that day.
I didn’t say we’re the most important state and all the Republicans will flock here.
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MCRD suggested we’re utterly irrelevant to the Republicans and none of here will come here once.
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Both of those positions are false. You’re rasising the first one (implicitly) as a strawman, and effectively knocking it down. MCRD raised the second one, seriously, and I knocked it down.
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The puzzling thing is that you seem to imply your comment contradicts mine, when I see them as comfortably coexisting, and both true.
…is akin to a discussion of virginity among prostitutes.
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This line of discussion will bring up the Paul Bonaccio situation with Barney, Teddy and MaryJoe, etc. Lots of glass in this house, maybe it is best not to throw rocks.
and that is that Barney never ran on a “family values” platform. so he can;t be called a hypocrite. vitter, however, is a sexual hypocrite of the first order.
Vitter is morally offensive because he is a hypocrite. Barney is just a child molester and tolerable.
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I wonder if there are any more politicians that are hypocrites? If there are, they are probably all Republicans or independents. We Democrats are so squeaky clean!
care to back that up with even a whisper of a hint of a shred of evidence?
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no, thought not.
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but of you’re looking for child molesters in politics, you need look no further than your overly-friendly neighborhood GOP. And here’s another good reference called Republican Pedophiles.
And the glass chimney is sending shards through the living room.
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I don’t understand how one political party’s sexual misconduct is better than another’s?
the republicans run on a platform of “family values” which they themselves can’t live up to (see: Vitter et al.). all the while they are vilifying everyone else for not living up to the “values” they themselves are breaking left and right. so, the GOP has made itself into The Party of Hypocrites (POH).
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certainly there are dems that break the law. but dems seldom run on a platform of holier than thou – kick the queers – womb-control crapola. therefore when they do wrong, they are in the wrong but are not hypocrites because they never set themselves up as Professional Moralists to begin with.
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The Party of Hypocrites set up their own pillory post.
You can’t criticize our repehensible behavior because we don’t claim to be anything what our reprehensible behavior would indicate?
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That’s a helluva plank/platform. “We’re bottom feeders, don’t expect anything better”.
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I would rather have a republican to kick around that claims to be reaching for the brass ring and misses and asks for forgiveness for being fallible and being a liar or whatever. Particularly galling was Bill Clinton walking in and out of church with his extra large bible and leaving his ejaculate on Monica Lewinsky and cigar wrappers on the floor. What—are you kidding me?
i think of the dems as the party of personal responsibility. the gop is more like the party of “do as i say not as i do”.
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as for forgiveness, it happens in both parties…for some. notice that the heterosexual hypocrites are generally given a wink and a nod, whereas the closet cases are left to dangle in the wind. selective forgiveness, i’d say.
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Nice… thanks for eloquently crystalizing what nobody has been saying.
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But that’s not the point here, is it. The point is the position in which Republicans have placed YOU!!
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YOU are most likely to vote for them, presumably on the basis of co-religionist fellowship with respect to values and/or policy. HOw’s that working out for you? Do you feel like you got your money’s worth?
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In nearly every bit of policy and procedure these last fifteen years, they’ve betrayed all the advertisements and campaigning they used to sell themselves to YOU!! Do you still think they are the party that defends marriage? Where would you get that idea? Do you still think they are the party that strengthens the military? Do you still think they wish to balancebudgets and promote fiscal responsibility? Has George Bush ‘restored honor and decency to the white house‘?
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YOU fell for their story. And YOU now defend them. Do you still harbor illusions that they are one your side??
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‘Cause, you see, it’s not about the Republicans or the Democrats. It’s about YOU. If you vote for them again, given what you now know, you will be the hypocrite. That’s your choice, to be sure, but you can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Bravo!
importance to the GOP. They could care less how it votes( as if we don’t already know). Anyone who travels frequently and visits the many other states in the US already knows that Mass is viewed by them as a laughing stock, left wing nut job in the same category as Vermont.
The only purpose the People’s Repubik will serve the GOP is as a success story of how a GOP Governor was successful in enacting the nation’s first successful health care program in spite of it’s corrupt ,liberal, one party system.
as a tale of disaster in how a GOP governor facilitated the onset of homosexual “marriage”.
I travel around the country a lot. In the past 5 years I’ve been to 46 states at least twice each, and spent a combined 6 months or so outside of New England. I’ve even canvassed, organized for candidates, or registered voters, in states as diverse as Maine, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire, Colorado and North Dakota (but political organizing was not the majority of my travels: I’ve stayed with friends, seen local bands, ridden the bus, gotten groceries, gone to contra dances, and in general gotten acquainted with many of these places).
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I have noticed that Massachusetts is more prominent as a target of attention in faraway parts of the country than many other states, but there’s no universal contempt, dislike, or dismissal. Reactions to Massachusetts vary, but in my experience are more often positive.
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It is true that many right wingers tend to view Massachusetts as you describe: but that’s also the case with our local right-wingers here in Boston.
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This does remind me of a time, in late November 2004, when I attended a grassroots political meeting in Boulder because I happened to be visiting friends nearby. Near the beginning of the meeting we went around saying our names and where we were from, and when I said I was from Boston someone remarked “oh, you’re a Massachusetts liberal!” tongue-in-cheek, but you could tell (and the speaker knew) that a “Massachusetts liberal” was something all of them looked up to, a concept they saw as a positive role-model.
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(note: I also have friends in Longmont and Fort Collins and CO Springs and Denver; I know Boulder is rather atypical, though I love it there).
I was in southern California and damn near got in a fist fight after someone asked, ” What the hell is wrong with you people?” Take off the rose colored glasses. I’m in daily contact with folks all over USA. We are considered a curiosity in the same vein as the Ebola virus.
Funny how people hear what they want to hear. Some people think we’re crazy in a bad way, other think we’re crazy in a good way. The biggest problem people have with Massachusetts is that we keep hogging the glory in pro sports.
are hotbeds of secular progressive left wing liberal nutjobs. No wonder they think Mass is “normal”.
I somehow get the feeling that your experiences have not been with “main stream” Americans. I think most will agree that the majority of people in America are “middle of the road” with possibly a slight tendency toward conservative views.These are the people that the far left loons calls right wingers and neocons. These are the people who think that Mass and Vermont are laughing stocks. I agree with them totally.
Boulder is super-liberal. Fort Collins has a lefty core but includes a lot of suburbia that’s pretty damn normal and actually makes up a majority of its population. Longmont is considered fairly conservative but has some crunchy edges. Denver is your typical big city, but less liberal than most. CO Springs is a hotbed of conservatism with few rivals.
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My overall experience of the country is very very very broad. For example, a few months before that meeting in Boulder, I spent most of a week volunteering on a campaign in Minot, ND, canvassing door to door. That’s a very conservative place (and the Democrats running for state house who I was volunteering for were trounced by the Republicans, to nobody’s surprise).
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Like I said, I’ve seen a lot of different opinions of Massachusetts, though on the whole, more positive than negative. And certainly no evidence that we’re universally reviled or universally dismissed or universally mocked.
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The Boulder story was just for fun. I thought I made it clear that I don’t consider that story somehow representative of the country as a whole. It may give MCRD a “hook” with which to dismiss what I say, but he’s not exactly pulling much intellectual weight with his comments here, and I suspect nothing I say will make a difference with him (or her). I do want other readers here to realize that MCRD’s comments in this thread are nonsense, though.
It is simply trollish on a site like this to speak of “secular progressive left wing liberal nutjobs”. Please heed advice from the first thread on which you posted.
Polling shows that most Americans think the country is conservative and many more Americans think they are conservative than think they are liberal. Nonetheless, polling also shows most Americans have views that are much closer to progressive than liberal. Health care, Iraq, and the economy all favor Democratic positions. A very odd mishmash indeed.
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The Democratic-Republican tilt now favors Democrats overwhelmingly. Bush’s popularity has hit some remarkably low marks: 50% disapproving strongly and no state in the country showing approval above 50% for the President. All polling about the current unpopularity of Congress shows that no one wants more Republicans as a remedy.
…if I wanted Bill O’Reilly’s opinion, I’d go to Fox News. Secular Progressives isn’t a real term outside of the “
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When do you think Asa..ahem…Toms opinion will start quoting Michael Savage and calling us all sodomites?
The GOP nationally is running short of money and it’s having a difficult time recruiting candidates. Who’s running against Kerry other than Ed O’Reilly?
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I see that Asa here cannot refer to Massachusetts other than as the “People’s Republik”, the same phrase he uses elsewhere. I thought he had given up on the GOP, too, though for the unusual reason that it was led by too many women.
…I have been called a faggot (and worse) on right wing web sites. I have to admit that I find the terms “hooker” and “prostitute” thoroughly denigrating. Can’t we come up with a more neutral description that doesn’t denigrate women?
Why do you find the word “hooker” is pejorative to women generally. Are you suggesting that women generally are hookers?
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Engaging in a criminal act usually has some baggage with it ie a pejorative moniker. Sexual identity is not yet a crime in USA. Well, until the Islamo-fascist take over anyway.
seems pretty non-judgmental to me. but how about “pleasure engineer”? đŸ˜‰
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i agree though that if anyone in the transaction is denegrated, it is usually the prostitute. the johns rarely get criticized. just look at vitter, still in Congress although he has a history of extra-marital congress. and of course, there is only one term for “john”, but many for “prostitute”. gee, wonder why.
But of course, the terms prostitute and hooker are terms that are not exlusive to women.
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And yes indeed, this is an opportunity to call David “John” Vitter on his hypocrisy.
but how about “pleasure engineer”?
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Robert Anson Heinlein đŸ˜‰
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Seriously.
…”prostitute” may, on the surface, appear to not be derogatory, but its connotation is.
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Male prostitutes are generally not referred to as prostitutes–which is why I consider the term sexist. They are referred to as “call boys,” “escorts,” “rent boys” (in the UK), “hustlers” or other relatively neutral terms.
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Sex worker is a good term, but it describes a much broader category of which prostitute is one example. Sex workers are also: strippers/exotic dancers, photography & video models, sex surrogates (therapist/prostitute), phone sex workers, and a few others.
How does one become an ex hooker? Is that like becoming an ex murderer?
i interpreted what he said to mean that you’re no longer in the army, therefore you are ex-army. it is no longer your profession. prostitution is a profession, albeit one that must be condemned by “moral” folk like republican senators.
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interesting that you translated raj’s comment in the way you did.
…had so many careers that he will next be telling us that he is the reincarnation of Werner von Braun.
As a matter or record, I have retired from two professions and am currently employed for fifteen years in a third.
And as I have stated in the past I have have held several jobs/professions simultaneously. I once worked with a psychiatrist that held two full time jobs and rehabbed his rental properties from midnight til 0400. He only got three hours of sleep a night. It never surprises me how lazy people are. Instead of bellyaching, I went to work.
know anything about the law. Yet HE calls people “Jokers”?
LMAO!
If prostitution is her profession for a while, and then she quits and moves on to something else, she is an ex-hooker. What’s so hard to understand about this?
Being as how that prostitutes generally have “issues” that would provoke them into this behavior and aforementioned behavior has certain societal disapproval, it is not surprising that prostitutes and their behavior lend themselves to be labelled with numerous unattrative monikers. Since biblical times forward. To say this is insensitive defies hsitory. A whore by any other name is still a whore. Why would you attempt to call it anything other than what it is? I believe Mark Twain had a short parable relating to same.
“Oldest Profession” is the term commonly used to describe prostitution. go to any book spot on the web and query that term. you’ll get a list longer than your arm. even my grandpa, who was a baptist minister, had amongst his scholarly biblical treatises and ancient tome entitled “The Oldest Profession”.