Sex Workers Vote Too…

So why shouldn’t they be represented on their local council?

Knowing my home county as I do I suspect that, aside from allowing the likes of Guido Fawkes to make totty jokes, that this latest Lib Dem sex hooha in Bideford has more to do with simple snobbery than any real ethical issues with sex work.

Lester Haines in The Register:

Three Devon councillors have quit the Liberal Democrats after discovering that a fellow party member is offering herself as a £75 a pop topless stripogram, the Telegraph reports.

Myrna Bushell, 34, secured a seat on Bideford council in May, along with hubby Mel. Voters were probably unaware, however, that she leads a double life as “Jessica”, a “very sexy auburn professional multi-talented adult & non-adult entertainer” who’s shamelessly punting herself online.

She also apparently runs a £1.50-a-minute sex line from her home, which proved too much for Tony Inch, his brother Simon, and deputy Mayor Caroline Church who harrumphed out of the Lib Dems and now sit as independents. A joint statement issued by the three declared: “We believe that our integrity and principles will be compromised if we stay.”

Bushell retorted: “There are elements here that run deeper. The reason I do them is to pay my bills and be able to spend quality time with my family. It’s not incompatible with being an elected councillor and it’s not illegal. Three people seem to be upset but no one else is – I’ve got to earn a living somehow. Caroline Church hasn’t liked me from the beginning.”

Council clerk George McLauchlan confirmed Bushell had “not breached the councillors’ code of conduct because her business activities do not impinge on her duties as a councillor.

Personally I see no reason why she should not do this work and be a councillor so long as she’s honest and upfront about it, and she obviously is. If the electors are happy with her who the hell are her fellow couincillors to judge?

On the other hand I can’t see how it can possibly said conclusively that her activities do not impinge on her council duties, unless she has some way of proving that no-one with any business whatsoever before the coiuncil has ever looked at her website or called her chatline or attended a party at which she has performed. There is certainly potential for a conflict of interest even none has yet occurred.

That said this attempt to stop a young, active and engaged citizen in the joint enterprise of running the local community just because of her sexual activity is narroiw-minded and snobbish and has only served to make Bideford and the Lib Dems look ridiculous.

Given the current crop of politicians’ proclivities for political whoredom I’d say Ms. Bushell’s ethics may be superior to theirs; at least what she does is, as she says, legal.

*Snort*

Fun with photoshop: guess who? From MarkMayhew’s Flickr photostream: Click screenshot for larger version.

Heh, indeed.

UPDATE

More scurrilous Vitter photoshopping here, here, here, here and here.

And can someone tell me if is this really is Senator Vitter in a miniskirt and sash at a bar’s “Mr. Legs’ contest?

UPDATE II

Vitter apparently lied to evangelical pastor and sausage-dog abuser James Dobson when asked about prostitutes before his election.

Theological datapoiint: does it count when you lie to a hypocrite?

The Grand Old Poopy Party

A quote from Mrs. “Vitter the Shitter”, via Craigslist:

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he’d had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston’s wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune:

“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

Did she know, even as she was posturing so emptily, that her husband could only come in his doody diapers? I find it hard to believe she didn’t.

Diaper fetishism may be hilariously distasteful to the majority, but it isn’t a crime, and it isn’t child abuse – it’s the hypocrisy that’s mostly causing the public furore ( well, that and the natural prurience of the mob, of which I’m one).

But even if not a crime it is, however, symptomatic of the kind of closeted, hypocritical sexuality that seems to prevail amongst GOP politicians.

A year or so a go I posted a list of Republican sex offenders, and it’s a very long list. Here’s a short excerpt:

Via Armchair Subversive (hat-tip to the News Blog), who has my entire admiration for having the stomach to wade through this cesspoool of filth and who’s done a bang-up (if you’ll excuse the expression in the context) job of collating reports of kiddy-fiddling rethugs from all over:

Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.

Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.

Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.

Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.

Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.

Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.

Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.

There’s more, much more. Read the whole thing.

Don’t tell me no-one had any idea about Vitter.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez. Pas.

Diaper fetishes, financial shenanigans, brothels, corrupt senators – courtesy of a commenter at Tbogg comes a fascinating New Orleans political blog, Your Right Hand Thief, which lifts the lid on sexual corruption and hypocrisy in the Katrina-devastated city. It’s damned good reading, once you get the cast of characters sorted out in your head, but it’s not for the easily shocked.

In New Orleans not just the infrastructure’s buggered; the politicians are too. The difference is the politicians enjoy it. Take a particularly vile Louisiana Senator named Vitter, whose sexual predilections allegedly include a taste for wearing dirty diapers. (This seems to be becoming a popular pastime amongst politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, if persistent rumours are true. But I digress.)

Vitter’s just been named on the DC Madam’s list (download from cloggie.org here) and is also said to be a customer of the infamous Canal St Madam too:

Tonight I got confirmation from a solid inside source who has no ideological ax to grind. The source said Vitter was a client at Canal Street, and provided some additional details that shed light on Maier’s comment that there was “more to the business than sex”. [Update: Based on her comments about Vitter not having “unusual predilections”, I would interpret this comment to mean something like companionship and social interaction rather than fetishes… etc.] These details are not for the faint of heart, either.

We’re talking about, among other things, Diaper Fetishism. That’s right folks, according to a trusted inside source, Vitter was well known among other Canal Street Brothel patrons to like diapers as well as other bizarre “fetishes”. I don’t have much more info than that from my source, except that some of the other patrons at the brothel included a well known business-minded New Orleans Republican and a well known Democratic ex-governor. There are many other well known patrons who never held public office, too. You’ve probably heard various names floated about.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love that New Orleans has more than its share of sex fetishists and preeverts who can’t come missionary. This ain’t a vanilla town, kids.

But the thought of Vitter prancing around in a dipey is a bit jarring, especially since I’m changing those nasty things every day. I can’t help picturing the scene and wondering about the details. I assume they were adult sized. But were they cloth or disposable? Did they get dirty? Was there a diaper genie available? What about a tube of Boudreaux’s? Were they customized in Vitter Blue? How old were Vitter’s children when this was going on? Did he change diapers in the morning and then wear them at night?

Enquiring minds would like to know – including mine now. I’m hooked.

But although this is a great blog for lovers of the picaresque and of sex scandals in a steamy southern setting, it’s important to remember it’s not fiction. It’s horribly, disgustingly real: Vitter and his friends’ disgusting political, financial and sexual corruption is worsening the lives of families already devastated by nature and poltical negligence. First they were fucked over by nature, the Corps of Engineers and FEMA: now they’re being fucked over even more by people who care only about the money to be made out of their disaster, not about getting people home.

The hurricane season is coming. The Corps of Engineers’ new maps show New Orleans is still not protected, and its elected representatives are out drinking, catting, coming in their shitty nappies and making lucrative deals while doing so.

Click image to download .pdf

Three weeks late, the Army Corps of Engineers released maps today revealing the West Bank’s severe vulnerability to storm surges, a predicament that hasn’t changed in the two years since Hurricane Katrina, given that the region awaits major improvements to its gaping line of levees and floodwalls.

It’s a source of continued surprise to me that there hasn’t been an armed insurrection in New Orleans – but then I guess that’s why they made sure the refugees couldn’t return to see what the bloated vultures are doing to their city.

Only 21 percent of the 77,000 rental units in the five parishes in the New Orleans metropolitan area are slated to be rebuilt through government grants and tax credits, according to a recent study by PolicyLink, a nonprofit research institute, with a disproportionate number for families on teacher or police officer salaries, rather than much lower-paid home health aides or hotel clerks. Rents on the remaining units have doubled or even tripled.

Despite pitched opposition, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is going forward with plans to demolish and redevelop the city’s four largest housing projects, knocking out 3,000 apartments that were occupied by low-income families before the storm and adding middle-income families to the mix. So far, there is money in place to rebuild only about 1,000 units affordable enough for previous residents.

At the state level, officials have allocated $6.3 billion for the Road Home’s assistance program for homeowners, dwarfing the $869 million allocated to the Small Rental Property Program, which housing advocates say is the most likely to replace affordable units quickly.

Clever- no rental homes, no problem with those pesky Katrina refugees. Plenty of room for carpetbaggers and whores though.

What’s happening to New Orleans and its people is a lesson to all of us who think we are safe from natural disaster. I’ll give NOLAnian blogger Gentilly Girl the last word:

[…]

Without our area America would never have come out of the Great Depression, never could have been the liberator in WW II, and never could have placed Humans on the Moon. This Nation would never have achieved the status it has today without using US. WE ARE the major power for this country, and even today, we are the basis of much of what the U.S. is and can be.

We gave willingly as dutiful citizens, but then there came a storm in August, 2005. Our protections against such storms, promised by the same Nation that was destroying our lands, freakin’ damned FAILED, AND MANY OF US DIED OR BECAME HOMELESS. Our world, our little part of it, almost died. Many voices called for our death, but we would not hear them. We are rebuilding OUR land.

Our place almost died. Can you understand that statement? Look around what you perceive as your community being totally gone. Can you stomach that? That your friends, neighbors, shops and eateries are wiped from the face of the Earth? To know that the faces you have known for years are no longer next door or around the corner? To realize that the children (who you hated because of their pranks and noise), are no longer in the place their parents lived in? That they aren’t there to remind you of the continuity of culture? That you are no longer a part of the Dance of Life?
Can you imagine that in the place where you live?

Can you?

More…

UPDATE:

Commenters as Democratic Undergriound have given the good Senator the sobriquet “Vitter The Shitter”.

Wahahahahahahahaha.