Free Republic

Wednesday morning, August 27, between 11 am and 1:30 pm EST or 9 am and 11:30 am mountain time, I'll be chairing a New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force event in Denver at the Colorado History Museum. The keynotes are Senator JOHN KERRY (D-MA), Obama National Security Adviser GREG CRAIG, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, former Congressman and Obama Adviser MEL LEVINE, former German Foreign Minister JOSCHKA FISCHER, and Aspen Institute President (and former CNN Chairman and CEO and TIME Managing Editor) Walter Isaacson. Our panel will be former Israeli negotiator and New America Foundation Senior Fellow...

Durham, N.C. — A Durham couple charged with kidnapping, rape and assault was involved with a satanic cult, a prosecutor said on Monday. Joy Johnson and Joseph Craig appeared at a bond hearing Monday. A judge set Craig's bond at $590,000, but refused a prosecution request to increase Johnson's bond from $270,000 to $500,000. Prosecutors said a man and a woman met Craig through a shared interest in Satan worship, but the pair never consented to physical abuse. Craig shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his Albany Street home, prosecutors said. He...

DURHAM, N.C., July 1 (UPI) -- A Durham, N.C., Democratic official and her husband face criminal charges in connection with alleged satanic rituals. Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting. Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for incidents in January and May, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Tuesday. Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney ...acknowledged that "part of the allegations are...

Allegations that a local Democratic official and her husband were involved in Satanic rituals that included shackling people to beds, caging them and depriving them of food and water have horrified county party leaders.

BOISE - Outgoing Sen. Larry Craig revealed tonight that he is writing a book. In a live interview on NewsChannel 7 Tuesday night – Craig, 62 - told Dee Sarton that he is in the process of writing a book on energy - that will also talk about his time in Congress – and the events of the past year. "There will be a bit of what's happened in the last year, and the way it evolved,� Craig said. “I think that's important for Idaho and those outside Idaho who are interested to know." He hopes the book will be...

Sunday's giveaway is a miniature bathroom stall with a couple of lower legs and feet - a spoof on the airport episode involving Idaho Sen. Larry Craig at the Twin Cities airport last summer. The St. Paul Saints, long known for offbeat, sometimes edgy, promotions, have come up with a real doozy for this Sunday's game. While lots of sports franchises hand out bobblehead dolls, usually depicting their players, the Saints are handing out 2,500 "bobblefoot" knicknacks. The keepsakes consist of a miniature bathroom stall with a couple of lower legs and feet. One of the feet is springloaded and...

Embattled Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) is getting support from fellow Republicans who say he should not resign over a public sex scandal — including from someone who can speak from experience. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was among several GOP senators who say Vitter’s testimony in the “D.C. Madam” prostitution case should not compel his resignation. “First and foremost, in these kinds of issues, it’s the state and the relationship you have with your state that really determines where you ought to go,” Craig said. “That was certainly my case. The Senate itself wasn’t going to judge me. I...

CRAIG’S LIST Upee (Boysee, ID) – Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig made a list. He’s checking it twice. He’s gonna’ find out who’s naughty or nice. ‘Cause Santa Claus isn’t comin’ to town. Fashioned after the ever-popular Internet buy, sell, and swap Web site, Craigslist, Senator Larry Craig has listed his close encounters of the worst kind on his new Craig’s List Web site. In exchange for a plea deal with the Hennepin District Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Senator Craig agreed to create a Web site listing the names of his partners in grime. Due to space limitations, we are...

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), encumbered by a scandal since last summer, did not file for reelection by his state’s deadline Friday, keeping a promise he made and officially marking the end of his congressional career. Craig’s political future has been in doubt since his arrest and guilty plea on disorderly conduct charges filed after an incident in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last June. The three-term senator, who previously served five terms in the House, denied the charges that he solicited sex from an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation to crack down on alleged gay...

Craig Accepting Applications for Summer Interns Deadline Quickly Approaching WASHINGTON, D.C. - Idaho Senator Larry Craig is currently seeking intern applications for the summer term, which runs from May to August. The application deadline is March 15, however if more time is needed for the application process, please contact Senator Craig's office for an extension. Craig offers paid internships within the Washington, D.C., office. Preference is given to Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors). '"Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office,"...

Five months after the Larry Craig sex-sting scandal broke, the senator is operating publicly as if nothing ever happened. With just a year remaining in Larry Craig's Senate term, there's little indication that the Senate Ethics Committee is doing much about the Idaho Republican's controversial arrest last summer. Craig, who said he'd step down at the end of his term, is under investigation by the ethics committee in connection with his arrest in the men's room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. He was cited on a disorderly conduct charge in a sex sting. No one on the tight-lipped Senate committee...

The Republican Idaho Senator who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after soliciting sex in an airport bathroom has used about $23,000 in campaign funds to pay for a Washington lawyer to represent him before the Senate Ethics Committee. Federal campaign finance laws prohibit legislators from using campaign money for expenses unrelated to their duties as an officeholder or candidate and Senator Larry Craig has for months argued that he shouldn’t be punished by the Senate because this case has nothing to do with his official acts as a lawmaker. The three-term senator was arrested earlier this year by an undercover...

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has used $23,000 in campaign funds to pay the top Washington ethics lawyer, Stan Brand, who is fighting his case before the Senate ethics committee, according to Craig’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission. No additional legal expenses appear in the report, but they eventually will. Craig, according to his office, has decided to use his campaign committee for attorney fees related to his criminal defense in Minnesota as well. “A better read (of the latest report) is that Stan Brand bills more quickly,” Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, wrote in an email. The report covers...

Broadcast network news division chiefs walked the corridors of their newsrooms yesterday, little flecks of foam about their mouths, muttering Macbeth's "life's but a walking shadow" gag, upon learning that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's very first network TV interview since his June arrest for allegedly soliciting sex in an airport men's room had attracted only 5.7 million viewers to NBC's "Matt Lauer Reports" Tuesday night. The Golden Age of Washington Political Sex Scandals Goosing Network News Numbers -- over. Lauer had given his all for the prime-time interview about what he called "the most famous bathroom stop of the last...

WASHINGTON -- Idaho Sen. Larry Craig said he was entrapped in a sex sting at an airport men's room and was not aware of the bathroom's reputation as a spot to cruise for gay sex. "Well, I certainly am now," Craig told NBC's Matt Lauer in an interview aired Tuesday night. "Were you prior?" Lauer asked. "Not at all," Craig responded. "I go to bathrooms to use bathrooms." Craig said it was a "tough call" when he decided not to tell his wife or children about the arrest. "I didn't want to embarrass my wife, my kids, Idaho and my...

MINNEAPOLIS - Embattled Sen. Larry Craig asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday to overrule a county judge who refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting. Craig's appeal was filed at the court in St. Paul less than two weeks after Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the guilty plea, saying it "was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and ... supported by the evidence." Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex...

BOISE, Idaho — Among the most famous excuses ever given for questionable behavior, "I have a wide stance" must fall somewhere between the schoolchild's favorite "the dog ate my homework" and President Clinton's "I didn't inhale." But Sen. Larry Craig's contention — made just after his arrest in a restroom sex sting — has permeated the public consciousness, showing up as more than just the punch line to late-night talk show jokes. The online Urban Dictionary defines "wide stance" as a euphemism for a closeted homosexual. David Kurtz of the blog "Talking Points Memo" called Craig's wide stance claim "The...

Sen. Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame, despite his well-publicized arrest and guilty plea in an airport sex sting, officials said.

Question: What’s harder to get rid of than a cold? Answer: The Republicans getting rid of Senator Larry Craig. It’s a story with (wide stance) legs. And a new allegation: The male escort responsible for the downfall of Christian evangelist leader Ted Haggard is now alleging that embattled Senator Larry Craig also came to see him. While promoting his new book during a radio interview with KNWQ-AM in Palm Springs Wednesday night, Mike Jones hesitated from making the allegation on the air. Management for the radio station says Jones told them he would reveal something about Idaho Senator Larry Craig...

Senate Republicans have suffered a lot of embarrassment over the antics of Sen. Larry Craig, a pro-family politician who played footsy with another man in a bathroom. But the Democrats have their own embarrassments, and one of them is presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden, their leading foreign policy "expert." Double Talker His logic was on display on NBC's Meet the Press program, where the long-time Delaware senator, who now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked by host Tim Russert about changing his position on setting a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. Two years ago...

THE SORDID saga of Larry Craig in the bathroom stall seems certain to continue, now that the Idaho Republican senator has reversed his decision to resign and said he will serve the remainder of his term. Mr. Craig's zigzags have only added to the circus atmosphere... All that said, this was Mr. Craig's call and he is entitled to make it. For the same reasons that we had qualms about the basis for his prosecution, we think demands that he leave or be ousted from the Senate are overblown and unwarranted. Mr. Craig's behavior in a Minneapolis airport restroom was...

Apparently this guy took lessons from Larry Craig. Joey Difatta is currently Chairman of the St. Bernard Parish Council and a former member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee, until Thursday running for State Senate from District 1. Jefferson Parish deputies working an undercover detail in a men's bathroom at Dillard's at Lakeside Shopping Center in March 2000 stopped DiFatta after he indicated a desire to engage in sex with an undercover deputy in an adjoining bathroom stall, according to an interoffice memorandum written by Sgt. Keith Conley, one of the deputies involved in the investigation. The report said...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex sting. "I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down. Craig had earlier announced he would resign his seat by Sept. 30, but had wavered when he went to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea. The third-term lawmaker issued his statement not long...

WASHINGTON - Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex sting. "I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down.

A Minnesota judge denied a motion by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in August in connection to an airport bathroom stall sting operation. The order, released Thursday, likely derails Craig's plans to remain in the Senate.

Sen. Larry Craig's actions an airport bathroom stall in June didn't constitute a crime and he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, Craig's lawyer argued today. In a 45-minute hearing covered by a crowd of local and national media, William Martin faced skeptical questioning from Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter, Jr. Porter said he doesn't expect to rule on Craig's petition for at least a week and a half. "Seeking to have a guilty plea overturned is nearly impossible and it should be," Martin acknowledged during the hearing. But he also argued that Craig's plea was...

Papers filed Monday in the case of the State of Minnesota v. Larry Craig contain some stinging rebukes of Craig's accusations of pressure to plead guilty and pick apart his rationale for requesting a withdrawal of his guilty plea in August to disorderly conduct. Craig, a U.S. senator from Idaho, was arrested in June during a sting operation by Minnesota Airports Commission police in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport restroom. Craig's lawyer argued that his client could not make an intelligent plea of guilty because of pressures stemming from an Idaho Statesman investigation into the Republican senator's alleged homosexuality. The...

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho) motion to withdraw his guilty plea will be heard in a Hennepin County District court room this week. You read it here first: Contrary to conventional wisdom, Craig will win this motion. I was out of the country and completely unplugged when the Larry Craig story broke. The only U.S. news I saw while I was in Egypt and Jordan were the mimeographed news sheets printed from an international Internet news service that were hung on hotel room doors each morning. Certainly it was amusing to see the men's room at the Minneapolis St. Paul...

I DID nothing wrong," said Larry Craig at the start of his long national nightmare as America's favorite running, or perhaps sitting, gag. That's the truth. Justice lovers of all sexual persuasions must rally to save the Idaho senator before he is forced to prematurely evacuate his seat. Time's running out. The final reckoning may arrive this week. On Wednesday, a Minnesota court will hear Mr. Craig's argument to throw out the guilty plea he submitted by mail after being caught in a June sex sting in the Minneapolis airport. If he succeeds, there's a chance he might rescind his...

Barrett: "What brings you back to the Capitol today?" Craig: "Go to work." Barrett: "Are you intending to vote today, sir?" Craig: "That's my plan." Barrett: "Why decide to come back today?" Craig: "Because I'm a serving United States Senator from Idaho." Craig then stepped into the senators' dining room on the first floor of the Capitol. On the way he passed a visibly surprised Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who gave Craig a big welcome back handshake.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - When tourists ask for the bathroom in the Minneapolis airport lately, it’s usually not because they have to go. It’s because they want to see the stall made famous by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest in a sex sting.

ACLU says First Amendment protects Craig's bathroom behavior THE ASSOCIATED PRESSMINNEAPOLIS -- Sen. Larry Craig's foot-tapping and hand movements in an airport bathroom amounted to speech protected by the First Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers on Monday.The Idaho senator pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after an undercover officer at the Minneapolis airport alleged that Craig solicited him for sex. Craig has denied that, and his attorneys have asked a judge to let him withdraw the guilty plea.Craig was accused of moving his foot next to a police officer's foot and tapping it in...

A hearing on Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's motion to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport sex sting has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 26 before Judge Charles Porter at the Southdale Suburban Courthouse, 7009 York Ave. S., Edina. That's just four days before Craig has said he will step down. A spokesman for Craig has said he is unlikely to finish his third term unless a court moves quickly to overturn Craig's conviction. It wasn't clear what impact the Sept. 26 hearing would have on Craig's plans. He has been under intense pressure from Republicans to resign. Craig's...

MINNEAPOLIS - Sen. Larry Craig filed court papers yesterday to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport sex sting, arguing that he entered the plea under stress caused by a newspaper's inquiry into his sexuality. Craig, an Idaho Republican, pleaded guilty last month to disorderly conduct after his June arrest in a sting operation in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis airport. A police report said Craig had solicited sex from a male officer at the airport, which the senator has denied. In a "state of intense anxiety" after his arrest, Craig "felt compelled to grasp the lifeline offered to...

The details of Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom shocked his colleagues and constituents, but he was not the only person ensnarled in the airport police action against suspected lewd conduct in the restroom. Thirty-nine other men were arrested at the airport in a three-month period this summer. A review of their cases and interviews with four lawyers representing many of the suspects show how Craig - who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but now says he is not guilty - fits into the larger picture of the sting operation and sheds light on his...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Larry Craig should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting because he was under extreme stress after being hounded by journalists asking questions about his sexuality, his lawyer argues. Craig, an Idaho Republican, pleaded guilty in August to disorderly conduct following a sting operation in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis airport. His lawyer, William Martin, said he will file court documents Monday trying to undo that decision so Craig can fight the charge. Martin said Monday that Craig did not "knowingly and intelligently enter a guilty plea." The senator simply admitted...

Why men like Larry Craig continue to court danger in public places

In an effort to rehabilitate his reputation and save his political career, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, dispatched his children Michael Craig and Shae Howell to talk to ABC News' "Good Morning America" this week and testify that their father isn't gay and was not in fact guilty of the lewd conduct for which he was arrested. Michael Craig said his father was simply "a victim of circumstance" who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Sen. Arlen Specter continued to defend Idaho Sen. Larry Craig on Friday, saying his Republican colleague's guilty plea in a restroom sex sting did not involve "moral turpitude." Specter first suggested Sunday that Craig should seek to vindicate himself. Craig pleaded guilty in August to disorderly conduct following the sting operation in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, but said this week he hoped to withdraw the plea.

Many of us here, of course, take it for granted that the news media focuses far more on any scandals or troubles that occur with Republicans while at the same time they try their level best to ignore those that are perpetrated by Democrats. But, it's always helpful to get as many statistics as possible to buttress our case. I have here another small indication of how the GOP is treated unequally with the Democrat Party revealing Media Bias in the form of a Nexis* search of two ongoing, but not equally treated, scandals in the news. Our search parameters...

Video: Sen. Larry Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest for allegedly soliciting in a public restroom. Slate V delivers a re-enactment, based on the police report.

On “America’s Most Wanted” television show, suspects often get identified after their pictures are aired. Such was the case when Larry Craig’s daughter, Shea Suzanne Howell appeared on ABC. Craig can add the arrest of his daughter to the list of unintended consequences he is racking up. This sad event proves that “no good deed goes unpunished.” After her national TV appearance, a GUARDIAN reader put two and two together and sent this little unsolicited nugget late Wednesday from the Ada Sheriff’s warrant list: “You would think the Boise police would go ahead and arrest the “stand up” character witness’s...

An update on the Montgomery trial. She killed the mother and stole her baby. Finally there's a trial. What crazed defense do her attorneys plan to present as they pee upon our feet and tell us it's raining? More on the lovely Mike Vick, a narrative on lawsuit abuse and links to previous big cases.

<p>After all, the Pennsylvania Republican is a contrarian with his own notions about due process. Remember Specter's attempt to render the Scottish verdict — "not proven" — at the end of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial?</p> <p>"I'd like to see Larry Craig go back to court, seek to withdraw his guilty plea and fight the case. I've had some experience in these kinds of matters since my days as Philadelphia district attorney and, on the evidence, Sen. Craig wouldn't be convicted of anything, and he's got his life on the line and 27 years in the House and the Senate, and I'd like to see him fight the case 'cause I think he could be vindicated."</p>

The GOP hustled the Idaho senator off the stage as soon as news of his arrest in a Minneapolis airport men’s room came to light. But Craig isn’t going gently. The fallout could help the Dems win the White House next year.

The politics of being caught in an airport sex sting are tough enough for Sen. Larry Craig, but a legal fight against his guilty plea won't be any easier. The Republican on Wednesday relayed word that he would resign his seat by Sept. 30 only if he fails to withdraw last month's guilty plea to a charge of disorderly conduct. Legal experts say it's tough to convince a judge to allow a guilty plea to be withdrawn, and that even if the tactic succeeds, it could backfire if it leads to a trial where the lurid allegations against the senator...

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) intends to try and overturn his conviction in an airport sex sting and if he is cleared, serve out the rest of his term, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday. McConnell said he spoke with Craig by phone on Wednesday morning where Craig told him his plan. Craig announced last Saturday that he intends to resign from the Senate on September 30th. Craig would have been up for re-election next year. McConnell said the case has already been referred to the Senate Ethics Committee and that any further matter on the case would...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawyers for Sen. Larry Craig asked the Senate ethics committee Wednesday to reject a complaint based on the Idaho Republican's guilty plea in a police undercover operation in an airport men's room, saying the events were ``wholly unrelated'' to official duties. ``Assertion of jurisdiction over this matter by the committee would be literally unprecedented and would create deleterious consequences for the Senate as a whole,'' the lawyers wrote. The letter was hand-delivered to the ethics committee hours after Craig served notice that he was reconsidering his weekend pledge to resign his seat. Craig pleaded guilty last month...

Lawyers for Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho delivered a letter to the Senate ethics committee today asking the committee to reject a complaint relating to his guilty plea in an airport sex sting operation. The move opens a potentially ugly battle between Mr. Craig and the Republican leadership, as Mr. Craig reconsiders his plans to resign from the Senate. Mr. Craig stunned Washington late yesterday with an announcement through his spokesman that he may return to the Senate despite announcing Saturday “my intent to resign from the Senate effective September 30.” His spokesman, Dan Whiting, said Mr. Craig is...

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