Will the Toothy Democrat maintain his integrity by donating to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children the campaign contribution he has received that is tainted by tangential association with a gay sex scandal involving legal minors… OR is his call for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs to do that same thing simply a political stunt?

I fear the future of our great Republic hangs in the balance; contact (politely) the Lampson campaign yourself and encourage them to do the right thing for the constituents of Congressional District 22!

Lampson for Congress
281-488-4922
campaign@lampson.com

UPDATED– Reader “Definitely Blond” says in comments that she contacted Lampson’s office and was told that they “were not aware of such a donation.”Always ready to lend a hand, allow me to point you to the following image of the donation from Lampson’s July 15th, 2005 Federal Election Commission campaign finance report, page 31:

You can click on the pic to get a better look.

It reads:

Date: 5/27/05
Name: Barney Frank
Address: Newton, MA 02458
Employer: U.S. House of Representatives
Occupation: Congressman
Amount: $750

Hope that helps.

You Tube has apparently been practicing some interesting censorship policies, and Michelle Malkin is not happy about it one bit.

BUMPED UP IN TIMESTAMP FROM
ORIGINAL POSTING ON TUESDAY EVENING

I very, very, very much intended to stay above the “partisan” fray in relation to the Foley sex scandal… but Grinnin’ Nick Lampson has made himself too lush a target to pass up:

Today, I sent a letter to my opponent asking her to join me in calling for the resignation of any member of congressional leadership who had knowledge of inappropriate email and instant messenger communications between shamed Congressman Mark Foley and underage pages working at the House of Representatives. I urged my opponent to donate the funds she recently received from Congressman Tom Reynolds, who has admitted he knew of the situation and did nothing about it and from any others in congressional leadership who had prior knowledge of Mr. Foley’s actions to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Now, we find out that the national Republicans are quick to condemn Congressman Foley, but are willing to accept the $2.7 million campaign war chest Mr. Foley has amassed. On Sunday, Carl Forti, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said “that the committee would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money or part of it to devote to House races.” [New York Times, 10/2/06]

That’s despicable.

Please join me in calling on Mr. Foley and the NRCC to donate his $2.7 million campaign war chest to the National Center for Missing Exploited Children.

Hey, I understand this is politics, and the Lampson campaign is trying to stay on script with the national Democratic party making a push on this story as a part of their attempt to take back the House.

But you’d kinda think that maybe–just maybe–someone over at Lampson HQ would have paused to ask whether or not they really should be making an issue about the need for political candidates to donate to charity any campaign contributions they’ve received if the donor has even a tangential association with a gay sex scandal involving legal minors.

Especially when a simple FEC search reveals that Lampson’s campaign has received money from Barney Frank, the Gay-American Massachusetts Congressman who lived with, underwrote, and did political favors for a male prostitute who was running a gay-sex ring out of Frank’s apartment and who at the time had felony convictions for possession of cocaine, oral sodomy and production of obscene items involving a juvenile.

LoneStarTimes.com calls on Nick Lampson to prove his integrity by donating Barney Frank’s $750 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Anything less would be despicable.

You can join our call for Nick Lampson to do the right thing by contacting his campaign office here:

We called at 7:31 pm Tuesday evening and left a message (with a person); in fairness to Lampson’s campaign, I think they deserve at least until noon on Wednesday to decide on a response.

If you do call to encourage Nick to do the right thing, please be polite.

Anyone remember ABSCAM? Murtha was one of the ones investigated. And here he is caught on tape saying that he won’t take the fed’s money until they scare up some business for his district first….

Support Irey and send Murtha back to his district with empty hands….

Tony Blankley, The Washington Times:

Yesterday, the lead editorial of The Washington Times called for House Speaker Denny Hastert to resign his speakership immediately. I am the editor of the editorial page. Several loyal Republicans and conservatives around the country strongly disagreed with that judgment and thought we were caving to Democratic Party and liberal media pressure and dirty tricks.

I couldn’t disagree with my fellow conservatives and Republicans more. I have been an active and loyal Republican for more than 40 years (starting as a youth coordinator for Barry Goldwater in 1964, campaigning for Ronald Reagan for governor and president, serving in the Reagan White House for six years and as Newt Gingrich’s press secretary from 1990 to 1997, among other Republican campaigns and jobs).

I believe in and have regularly fought the partisan fight to the bitter end — except when the position is ethically indefensible.

In this case, defending Denny Hastert’s decisions is ethically wrong, would undermine our party’s commitment to the defense of traditional moral values and is politically stupid in the bargain.

I have known Denny for almost two decades. He is an exceedingly decent man and a hard worker for conservative Republican values and politics. But we cannot deny the fact that he had a sustained lapse of good judgment. The fact that he reportedly has been quite ill for some time may be an explanation — but not an excuse.

Forget the later hideous text messages. When the speaker was told that Mark Foley had sent that first e-mail — the “overly friendly” one that we all saw last Friday — he had to be either obtuse or on notice of the problem. Any father of a young man who saw such an e-mail sent to his son would rightly be disposed to immediately punch out Mr. Foley and warn him to keep away from his son, and then he would call the police. It was common knowledge that Mr. Foley was gay. If he had been straight and asked for a 16-year-old girl’s photo, any sensible person would have concluded the same thing.

But the fact that, according to my best sources in the House Republicans, Mr. Hastert never informed any Democrats of the matter (even on the page oversight board), unambiguously suggests that he knew what was up. Thus began the cover-up. Of course he knew what the Democrats would do with the information. But not only is this not a Democratic Party dirty trick (the facts are real, not made up), but Mr. Hastert had a moral duty to do all in his power to make sure there would not be more victims of Mr. Foley’s alleged sexual predation — or clear potential for such.

The fact that Democrats might also cover up such facts is just another reason why I am a Republican. Republicans do stand for sound moral values.

And if it is unfair that Democratic voters often give their politicians a pass on such matters (e.g. former Massachusetts Democratic congressman Gerry Studds got re-elected by his liberal voters after a similar incident was made public), that is just the price we have to pay in this wicked world for holding fast to our values and principles. If virtue were profitable, the whole world would be virtuous.

How in the world will Republicans be able to champion our values in the future if we weasel and excuse the cover-up of such conduct in one of our own? We have more to protect than the next election, we have our historic reputation among more than half the country for our principles.

It has been excruciating watching Republicans on television in the last few days grimly and ineffectively trying to defend Mr. Hastert. Better to take a stand on principle, and elect a new speaker for the last three months (the retiring Henry Hyde, a man of principle who is held in esteem on both sides of the aisle, would be ideal). We may or may not take a political hit, but better to go to the electorate with our heads held high for doing the right thing, than to slink around like a pack of phonies.

But this may end up being embarrassing to the Democrats, too. It is implausible that ABC got a hold of this information on their own and just happened to broadcast it on the last day of the congressional session.

While I don’t have any proof, I will be amazed if Democratic operatives and at least a few Democratic congressmen didn’t know about this and fed it to the media through various obscure blogs and to ABC. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) (just like the National Republican Congressional Committee) is in the business of disseminating negative information before elections, among other things.

It will be interesting to see what the FBI finds in the DCCC e-mail and files. It may well turn out that the Democrats also knew about Mr. Foley and the pages and held it back from the FBI for crass partisan purposes.

But whatever the Democrats did or didn’t do, we Republicans can only be responsible for our own conduct and conscience.

Although the hour is late, it is never too late to do the right thing. At this point, there is nothing left worth defending but our honor. And who knows, as an added bonus, it might also be the politically smart thing to do. But either way, it is the right thing.

Matt Bramanti, upholding LST’s tradition of
excellence in citizen-journalism by
heading for the beaches of Hawaii
as Election-season reaches its peak…

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