Free Republic

Imagine a world with more sexually open, sensual, happily libidinous politicians. Wait, can you? I want a smart, slutty senator. I want an effective, confident, sex-positive congressman or woman who, if asked, speaks openly and blamelessly and even happily about her proclivities, with a wink and a smile and maybe a bit of cleavage before Labor Day. Married, single, somewhere in between? Doesn't matter. And, dare I say it, I want president who not only freely discusses and shrugs off his or her loves and sexual desires and even affairs, but dares to enjoy sex and thrives because of it...

Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been identified as a long-standing client of a second high-priced call-girl ring, The Post has learned. The ex-governor regularly patronized Wicked Models, the Manhattan-based operation taken down Tuesday, according to financial documents and other evidence unearthed in a yearlong prostitution in vestigation, law-enforcement sources said.

SCHEMER: Darren Dopp, one of the governor's men who orchestrated the plot against Joe Bruno. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer would have faced a grand-jury probe and may have warranted impeachment for repeatedly lying about his involvement in the Dirty Tricks Scandal, an explosive report from the Albany County district attorney concluded yesterday. In a startling revelation, District Attorney David Soares said that had Spitzer not resigned in the call-girl scandal, the DA would have asked a grand jury to consider urging impeachment or other disciplinary action because the then-governor repeatedly claimed in testimony to Soares that he was not...

Disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is being linked to a second call girl ring called Wicked Models, which was busted by Manhattan police on Tuesday. The New York Post reports that alleged madam Kristin "Billie" Davis, a "busty bottle blonde" working toward her master's degree in psychology, has supposedly earned millions from the clients in her lengthy black book.

WASHINGTON -- If Republicans picked a theme song to describe the gloomy political climate they face this year, it would be "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." With Americans at war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the economy tilting toward recession, it is hard to imagine the election-year environment can get any bleaker for the GOP, though that seemed to be the case this week. The consumer-confidence index plunged deeper, as the jobs picture grew darker, and gas prices continued to rise, up to $4 a gallon in places. The housing market, despite a rise in existing-home sales last month,...

As upsetting and intolerable as Eliot Spitzer’s patronage of high-priced prostitutes was for most New Yorkers, the notion that he may have lied about his involvement in the “Troopergate” scandal — raised by a New York Times story Monday — should be even more infuriating. And these wouldn’t be little “white” lies concerning minor details of the scandal, in which his aides planted an embarrassing story about Spitzer’s chief political adversary in the Times Union. They would be bald-faced whoppers concerning Spitzer’s fundamental role in the political dirty trick on Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno. When the story broke...

Last week, the highly successful wife of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer stood by his side "" silent, eyes downcast "" as he confessed his involvement in a sex scandal and resigned from office. Since then, Silda Spitzer, a Harvard-educated former Wall Street attorney, has been under scrutiny. Why did she support the two-timer? "If my husband cheated on me, I'd tell him to carry on (without me)," says Debbie Hargrave, who lives in Concord and has been married for four years. Her mother-in-law went through it and got a divorce. But Hargrave felt for Silda Spitzer. "She had to...

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Local bloggers have spotted an interesting sign outside Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage in Cambridge. The famous burger joint is now selling the "Spitzer Burger," named after New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, who's accused of paying thousands for a prostitute to have sex with him at an upscale hotel in Washington. "Blogging with Mr. Cooper" snapped a shot of a sign outside the restaurant advertising the newest addition to their political burger menu. "(The burger's) hot, sexy and you save $4,291.01." Bartley's says the burger is made with Cajun seasoning and is topped with blue cheese dressing.

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs. In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago. In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999. mo here

The federal criminal investigation that has led to Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York illustrates the great dangers all Americans face from vague and open-ended sex and money-transaction statutes. Federal law, if read broadly, criminalizes virtually all sexual encounters for which something of value has been given. Federal money-laundering statutes criminalize many entirely legitimate and conventional banking transactions. Congress enacted these laws to give federal prosecutors wide discretion in deciding which "bad guys" to go after. Generally, wise and intelligent prosecutors use their discretion properly -- to target organized crime, terrorism, financial predation, exploitation of children and the...

Eliot Spitzer’s downfall as governor last week may have roots in pursuit of wealthy bankers while state attorney-generalIN early 2004 Eliot Spitzer was at the height of his powers as the sheriff of Wall Street, the highflying New York prosecutor who had set his sights on the cosy corporate kleptocracy that was pocketing millions from insider deals while ordinary investors went bankrupt. His latest victim was Richard Grasso, the chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, who had made headlines around the world by negotiating himself a $140m (£69m) retirement package that Spitzer alleged was illegal. Grasso claimed he...

Prosecutors are homing in on the disgraced former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer, by investigating whether he used money raised for political campaigns to pay for travel and other expenses relating to his meetings with prostitutes. The New York Times, which broke the story of his involvement with a prostitution ring that led to his resignation on Wednesday, said the inquiry into his actions was focusing on three trips in which he employed the services of women supplied by the Emperors Club VIP, a New Jersey-based operation. One of those meetings was the February 13 liaison at a Washington...

As the political eulogies for Eliot Spitzer are written, a lot will be said about the alleged contradiction between his "righteous," "crusading" public persona and his tawdry personal life. For example, in a remarkably insipid column today, Gail Collins of the New York Times professes utter amazement at the revelation about Spitzer, as if it came out of nowhere, like space_aliens_landing in the middle of Central Park. "You never know," sighs this middle-aged naïf. The New York Post's man in Albany, Fredric Dicker, is having none of it. "I Knew He Was a Fraud & a Hypocrite from the Day...

Had New York Governor Eliot Spitzer reached out for the Gideon Bible in his fancy Washington, D.C., hotel room instead of, allegedly, a high-priced prostitute, he might have been forewarned of the dangers in such liaisons. Such as: "A prostitute is a deep pit; an adulterous woman is treacherous. She hides and waits like a robber, looking for another victim who will be unfaithful to his wife." (Proverbs 23:27-28) And: "For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword....

It has been said that “he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.” And in the case of Eliot Spitzer this couldn’t be more true. In his case it’s the political sword, as his enemies rejoice in his downfall. Most people, it seems, believe he got exactly what he deserved. The illegal tools of the state brought Spitzer down, but think of all the harm done by Spitzer in using the same tools against so many other innocent people. He practiced what could be termed “economic McCarthyism,” using illegitimate government power to build his political career on...

"If you are in a relationship, and it is 'doing absolutly [sic] nothing' for you, makes you feel bad about yourself of situations, just causing unessesary [sic] drama, and ruining things that you may actually care about . . . why would you want that in your life?" She wrote, "Surround yourself around people that [sic] are making moves, and doing what 'they want and love' with their lives, positive energy . . . that's what life all about . . . living." I feel a tear coming on. Two alternate pictures are emerging of Ashley. In one, she's a...

A call-girl has been ordered to testify about her tryst with Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced New York Governor, as prosecutors investigate whether he used campaign funds for his meetings with prostitutes. Ashley Alexandra Dupre , also known as Ashley Youmans, has received a subpoena to appear behind closed doors before an investigating grand jury hearing the case against the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring, her lawyer said in court this week. The struggling singer was caught by an FBI phone-tap talking to an accused madam about her $4,300 encounter with a man identified as Client 9, now named as Mr...

So New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned because the FBI discovered he was sleeping with expensive call girls. America, predictably, went crazy. A man cheated on his wife! Quick, call all the pop psychologists and famous feminist authors, and book them for the morning talk shows! And I, a former booking agent at one of New York’s most exclusive escort agencies, just rolled my eyes. Remember that scene from Casablanca, when Captain Renault declares that he is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on — just as the croupier hands him his winnings? I keep thinking of that scene when...

As David Paterson gets ready to take over as governor on Monday, there are reports that federal investigators are looking into whether former Governor Eliot Spitzer used campaign funds to cover his tracks while paying for high-priced prostitutes. According to the New York Times, the feds want to see records from three trips Spitzer took, including the February 13th visit to Washington.

** EXCERPT ** Once, just once, wouldn’t you love to see the politician up there at the lectern sweating bullets, apologizing for letting down his wife and family …. alone? Once, just once, wouldn’t you love to see the wife issuing her own statement saying that what he had done was unacceptable and that she was leaving him? Wouldn’t that be morally correct? But instead, again and again, we see the pathetic, ravaged faces of these women victims, standing supportively beside their husbands as they allow themselves to be excruciatingly humiliated in front of the whole world. We really haven’t...

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, is trying to use his paper's Spitzmas story to lend credence to its recent John McCain contrivance: "[A] day after Spitzer resigned in disgrace following the Times' revelations that he had frequented a high-priced hooker ring on several occasions, Keller, in a phone interview with E&P, clearly saw some room to boast."It certainly has had the same volume of reaction, sometimes a good story is just a good story," he said about comparisons to the McCain report. "We certainly took our share of heat on the McCain story. The McCain story...

Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation yesterday because of his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring. But this is far from his real scandal. And regardless of what happens in this case, Spitzer has long acted as of he were above the law -- or rather as if he were the law. During his tenure as New York Attorney General, Spitzer stretched state law to make national policy, tried his targets in the media with improper leaks, and used the machinery of his office to go after his political enemies. As TAS's Philip Klein wrote earlier this week, "Spitzer himself does...

So what if the Governor of New York hired a prostitute? Did he force her? Not pay her for the service? If so, then that might be an issue. Perhaps it’s illegal, but then how can you regulate the oldest profession in the world? I am against human trafficking, and forcing people against their will. But the question is not what he did – the real question is, because of who he is, should he have done it? Does being with a prostitute impair his ability to govern the State of New York? Probably not. I do feel that intrusive...

To say that the reform agenda that Eliot Spitzer campaigned for as a gubernatorial candidate has been largely unachieved would be an understatement. After barely a year in office, in which tales of his administration’s alleged dirty tricks and threats against opponents dominated the news, Spitzer is certain to depart having done little to end the massive dysfunction that characterizes Albany and that has left New York voters increasingly cynical about their state’s government. Whether Spitzer’s replacement—Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, a longtime Albany insider—can bring a measure of needed reform is an open question, considering that he doesn’t have a...

Had New York Governor Eliot Spitzer reached out for the Gideon Bible in his fancy Washington, D.C., hotel room instead of, allegedly, a high-priced prostitute, he might have been forewarned of the dangers in such liaisons. Such as: "A prostitute is a deep pit; an adulterous woman is treacherous. She hides and waits like a robber, looking for another victim who will be unfaithful to his wife." (Proverbs 23:27-28) And: "For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword....

How could he? Oh, I get the call-girl thing, the other woman thing, in the Eliot Spitzer case. Many of our outsized political leaders are -- what's that strange and understated phrase we use in these situations today? -- "not perfect." I'm no longer shocked or disappointed because the straying politician becomes entangled with mistresses or prostitutes or who knows what for the same reason he plunged into politics in the first place: to fill the bottomless hole in his soul. A hole that's still there after the crowd heads home, the election is won, the legislative victory is achieved,...

Federal investigators will pore over Spitzer's financial records - dating to his days as NY's attorney general - before they decide whether, or how, to prosecute him, a L/E source told The Post yesterday. The feds' desire to thoroughly examine Spitzer's bank, credit-card and other records dating as far back as 1999 is a key reason prosecutors are not rushing to cut a plea deal with him. That inquiry could take months, the source said. Manhattan US Attorney Michael Garcia said, "There is no agreement between this office and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter."...

The richest man in Great Britain was a customer of the same high-end prostitution service patronized by Gov. Spitzer. The Duke of Westminster, listed as the world's 46th richest person by Forbes magazine, hired four hookers over a six-week stretch in late 2006 and early last year... Despite his incredible wealth, multi-billionaire Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor haggled with one of the Emperors Club girls for the cost of their date... Prostitute Zana Brazdek, then 26, described the 56-year-old Grosvenor as dull and demanding. The court documents that took down Spitzer and identified the disgraced governor at "Client 9" also included information...

IF LOOKS COULD KILL . . .we'd be preparing for Gov. Spitzer's funeral as wife Silda glares at him while he resigns yesterday. A decade ago, as she watched Hillary Clinton humiliated by her intern-loving hubby, Silda Wall Spitzer made clear her intentions if Eliot ever cheated. "That would never be me. I'd be gone," Silda told friends, a pal told The Post. But appeared to be standing by her hooker-loving hubby yesterday, even as the fairy tale has soured behind closed doors. Describing their relationship as "icy," a source said they now sleep in separate bedrooms. Silda Spitzer,...

I don't know which is more surprising: That caped crusader Eliot Spitzer allegedly had sex with a call girl, or that he paid her $4,300.If you haven't been in the market for a prostitute lately, that might sound like a lot of money. But it's pretty typical for a high-priced call girl in a big city.The Emperor's Club VIP, the New York agency Spitzer allegedly used to hire a prostitute, charged $1,000 to $3,100 per hour for its so-called models, depending on their "education, sophistication and ambience created," according to a cached version of the club's Web site, which has...

The end of the short Spitzer administration began with televised images of the SUV carrying him and his wife. The disgraced state leader took to a podium and spoke in dry measured tones, his wife standing by his side. With swollen eyes, she was close enough to him to wind up in the TV frame - but never came close enough to touch him. New Yorkers were left with outrage at Spitzer's hypocrisy. "......... what an a- - - - - -" said Patricia Browne, 45, of Chelsea, who watched the resignation speech with coworkers in her Midtown office. At...

NEW YORK — "Kristen," the high-priced prostitute whom New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is believed to have hired, has been identified by the New York Times as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a 22-year-old aspiring musician and native of New Jersey. Dupre, who was born Ashley Youmans, now lives in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, the Times reports. She appeared in court Monday as a witness against the four people charged in the alleged prostitution ring known as the Emperors Club V.I.P. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupre told The New York Times in a telephone...

Federal investigators will pore over Gov. Spitzer's financial records - dating to his earliest days as New York's attorney general - before they decide whether, or how, to prosecute him, a law-enforcement source told The Post yesterday. The feds' desire to thoroughly examine Spitzer's bank, credit-card and other records dating as far back as 1999 is a key reason prosecutors are not rushing to cut a plea deal with him. That inquiry could take months, the source said.

ELIOT SPITZER WAS NOT CAUGHT BY THE PATRIOT ACT: "Currency transaction reporting requirements were enacted in the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, and money laundering was made a crime in overhaul of the federal narcotics laws that took place in 1986. Believe it or not, Karl Rove did not diabolically dream these provisions up to trap unwary Democrats, nor are they part of George W. Bush's post-9/11 Politics of Fear."

Remember back during the Bill Clinton years all those stories about how being a serial philandering president might not necessarily be a bad thing? NBC's Bob Faw captured that zeitgeist, saying in 1998 that actually, Clinton was in very good company. "It might put Mr. Clinton’s conduct with a certain intern in a different light," he said, referring to allegations by liberal historians that Jefferson had sexual relations with his slave Sally Hemings. "After all, if Bill Clinton’s favorite President could end up on Mount Rushmore and the $2 dollar bill despite being sexually active with a subordinate [...] it...

This may be deleted soon, along with her whole profile, so we'll preserve it here. But don't be surprised if she keeps it up and it grows. Given the fact that Paris Hilton is famous for, well, not much more (maybe even less) than what Ashley did, don't be surprised if she gets a record deal out of this. Sounds like she got sucked into this business through an ex-boyfriend when she was broke. Here's some advice for everyone out there; If someone you're with even suggests you prostitute yourself to make ends meet, leave them! They aren't doing...

When Eliot Spitzer was New York attorney general, the man seemed to own the press, seizing headlines with every investigation on Wall Street -- or prosecution of high-end prostitutes on Staten Island. Now that The New York Times has reported on Gov. Spitzer's much more amicable relationship with a separate ring of expensive prostitutes, the press will for a time own him. Nor will public life be much better for Silda Wall Spitzer, Mr. Spitzer's wife. So let's take a moment to appreciate the last softball interview Ms. Spitzer is going to have for a while: a video tour, for...

Eliot Spitzer's favorite squeeze Kerstin has been revealed as Ashley Alexandra DePietro by the NYTimes which I consider less of a source than the 22 year old woman's actual homepage. If it is not too highly trafficked right now, click on it to see what she is like. Her song "What We Want" is first class. She is a singer and her career is about to take off tomorrow. Here is her latest posting from the 30th of August (before tonight, nobody had visited this woman's website since July): Hello Everyone!! how are you?? This Blog i am going to...

Virgin Mobile moved quickly this week to produce an Eliot Spitzer print ad as part of its “You call the shots” campaign. To promote its dedication to a more personalized approach to customer care, Virgin will run a full-page ad this week in Metro and 24 commuter dailies in Toronto featuring the now-former Governor Spitzer with a thought bubble above his head that reads: “I’m tired of being treated like a number.” The ad copy reads: “At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re...

Greetings from ground zero -- the Philadelphia suburbs where the epic battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may be decided in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary on April 22. Current scuttlebutt -- a frail reed in this mercurial race -- is that the multiracial metropolises of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will go for Obama, while the vast rural and small-town heartland will endorse Clinton, whose family roots are in coal-country Scranton. The cloud of feminist cant about Hillary's struggling candidacy has been noxious. "Media misogyny has reached an all-time high," screeched the National Organization for Women in a press release titled "Ignorance...

Eliot Spitzer Enemy Number One of Manhattan Investment Houses: "Get Odds on This @$&%#ing Hypocrite!" They might as well throw a parade down Wall Street this week. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has turned into the ultimate "hypocrite", Wall Street investors and others claim. Throughout much of the last decade, Spitzer has focused his attention on taking down investment firms, banks and even online gambling enterprises. In response to vast requests, the Internet gambling site Bodog began to offer betting odds on the disgraced Governor before Tuesday evening sets in. Click Here to See Odds Gambling911.com's own Tyrone Black tells...

The lawyer for an escort who is mentioned in the federal government's criminal complaint against the Emperor's Club VIP involving New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer says the johns who used the high-end escort service paid "exorbitant" prices for anonymity. "You're paying for the girl to leave and forget. That's what the $5,500 buys you -- a very low-profile visit to a club like this," said attorney Kathleen Mullin. Mullin says her client, who has not been charged with anything, did not know Spitzer, but she has talked to one other escort who had "dealings" with Spitzer, known to investigators as...

David Paterson was never supposed to be governor of New York. The relief and trepidation in New York share a common source: ...at a time when the state is wrestling with a difficult, multibillion-dollar budget, there are drawbacks to having a new governor who describes his own worst failing as a difficulty in saying “no.” “When I feel I have erred, it’s in that direction — of trying too hard to keep people together and to keep everybody happy, which is not always what should be your first mission in government.” Paterson has had an ambivalent relationship with his disability....

Disgraced Gov. Spitzer ... a millionaire, was hopping into bed with harlots for as long as 10 years and traveled as far as Florida for call-girl trysts... The prostitute-patronizing former prosecutor spent today huddled with top aides and lawyers in his Fifth Avenue apartment - trying to arrange a plea deal under which he’d resign his office but avoid prison time - as he desperately clung to power despite growing cries for his departure, even among fellow Democrats.

Tanya Hollander, the woman charged with arranging prostitutes for the Emperor's Club VIP, appears to have been leading a secret double life as both a hippie-ish holistic healer and a power broker's madam. Tanya, as the media has been spelling her name, is alleged to have booked girls for New York Governor-for-the-moment Eliot Spitzer. Meanwhile, Tania, an alias listed in charges unsealed by the U.S. Attorney's office on March 6, appears to have maintained an extensive "health counseling" website (now taken down but cached here) and a MySpace page (last login February 8), where she describes herself as "a grounded,...

ALBANY, New York (CNN) -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday that he will step down from the state's top office and promised to "atone for my private failings" with family members.

Just came over the radio. He's gone.

If you think about it, it's politicians like New York's Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer who, on slow news days (or even busy ones), entertain us with what often seems inexplicably foolish sexual behaviour. Sex, even when it's boring, isn't boring. As for Gov. Spitzer's dalliance with $1,000 to $5,000-per-hour prostitutes, complete with taped phone conversations, e-mails, and haggling over price, the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente nicely summed up the role of the wretched wife who stands silently beside him at his obligatory press conference "as the son of a bitch tries to save his career -- the moment after...

Kimberly Strassell writes about how a fawning media enabled Eliot Spitzer: ...from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it. Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more. Time magazine bestowed upon Mr. Spitzer the title "Crusader of the Year," and likened him...

Silda Wall Spitzer is a Harvard Law School graduate and a former high-powered Wall Street attorney who earned more than her husband. On Monday, this accomplished woman silently stood next to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in an increasingly familiar American media ritual: the news conference in which a male politician explains his implication in a sex scandal - accompanied by his wife. Silda Spitzer appeared shaken and anguished during her husband's 67-second news conference, but she held his hand as they exited. Hours earlier, reports surfaced that the 48-year-old father of three teenage daughters had spent thousands of dollars...