Posted on 10/17/2006 8:17:24 PM PDT by RockinRight
Ohio attorney Scott A. Pullins runs a blog, the Pullins Report, which has relentlessly pursued Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate for 2006 in Ohio. Pullins has been fearless in exploring charges that Strickland is a closet homosexual and supports the LGBT agenda.
"We started following Strickland in the primary," Pullins, who practices law in Vernon, Ohio, near Columbus, told WND. "We especially picked up on the issue after Brian Flannery, his Democratic Party challenger in the primary, began hammering Strickland on sexual issues."
A Father's Day newspaper article in the Toledo Blade, published June 19, piqued Pullins interest. The story noted Flannery "criticized Mr. Strickland for vacationing in Italy with a male political 'protégé' who had been convicted of indecent exposure."
Flannery, according to the paper, had put out a press release stressing he and his running mate both have children, thereby calling attention to Strickland's childless marriage.
Jim Tankersley, the Blade's politics writer, suggested Strickland was defensive that his family was not a traditional one. Strickland countered that children have filled his life, pointing out the children of his best friend, a doctor in Florida, call him "Uncle Ted."
Pullins said the Blade article caused him to look deeper.
"Ted and Frances had dated for several years, and Ted did not want to get married," Pullins said. "But finally, when they were both over 40, they decided to get married at a time when Ted was running for office. Typically, politicians marry young, they have two or three children, and they smile for the pictures. I found it strange that Strickland was a driven politician, but he waited until he was 46 before getting married, and they never had children."
Pullins commented on the Blade article in a June 19 post on his blog titled "Article Adds Fire to Strickland Gay Rumors" in which he said the story "adds fuel to the fire" of Strickland's votes in Congress that suggest "he is soft on those that sexually assault our children."
"The stories imply that the Stricklands are both gay and lead separate lives, Frances in Kentucky and Ted in Ohio and D.C."
'Are you gay or not?'
An Ohio television commentator, hosting a political issues program, brought up Pullins blog reports and apologetically posed the "gay question" to Strickland.
"I just put it out there once and for all and shut everybody up about this … are you gay or not?"
The congressman did not give a direct answer, however.
"Let me tell you this, John, I've been married almost 20 years, I am deeply in love with my wife, and I believe that she is deeply in love with me," Strickland said. "I have been faithful to my wife and I deeply believe she has been faithful to me."
[A video clip of Strickland's answer is available online.]
Strickland continued: "These blogs are really mean-spirited, smear efforts. This fellow that you mentioned, I won't use his name, but he continually puts out information that is absolutely wrong and false."
Strickland gave an example of an allegedly false report by Pullins, but it had nothing to do with any issue related to homosexuality.
Pullins insisted he doesn't "give a hoot about how the Stricklands live their private lives."
"But what I do find interesting," he said, "is the whisper campaign that has been going on behind the scenes for months and the efforts by liberals and some conservatives to shut down any discussion of the issue."
Ohio newspapers and bloggers created a firestorm over the story. According to Pullins, the Stricklands do not own a home in Washington, D.C., or in their Ohio congressional district. They rent an apartment in the nation's capital and own a small condo in Columbus, Ohio. Frances Smith is Frances Strickland's maiden name, which she uses for her published works, including a children's book titled "The Little Girl Who Grew Up to be Governor: Stories from the Life of Martha Layne Collins." Collins was governor of Kentucky from 1983 to 1987.
Pullins also has noted that Frances Strickland is listed on public records as the president and director of a consulting corporation named "Smith Educational Enterprises," a Kentucky corporation.
Smith is listed on public documents with the Kentucky secretary of state as the registered agent for the company. But there is a problem here for the Stricklands – to be a registered agent for a corporation or other business entity in Kentucky, you must be an individual resident of Kentucky or be a business entity that is located in the state. Smith Educational Enterprises is not registered to do business in Ohio.
In a video posted on YouTube.com, Frances Strickland sings a folksy version of her husband's biography, emphasizing his humble roots, all to the tune of "Davy Crockett."
For pursuing this story, Pullins has been soundly attacked by Ohio's liberal bloggers. A blogger self-identified as "Pho" from Akron described Pullins as an "arch-conservative blogger and all-around douchebag," but he finally reconsidered, admitting "I don't really know that Pullins is a douchebag." MLM Liberal, another Ohio blog, accused Pullins of "Swift Boating" Strickland and his wife.
Conservative Ohio bloggers generally have been supportive of Pullins. BizzyBlog, for example, ran a detailed analysis of Ted Strickland's 1999 "Present" vote on House Concurrent Resolution 107, an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote that condemned the American Psychological Association for publishing an article that argued sex between adults and minor children could be beneficial to the child.
Pullins told WND that while "the rumors in Ohio have swirled for a number of years that Strickland is gay," to date "nothing has been proven conclusively."
"Personally, I don't really care if Strickland is gay," Pullins said. "But I don't want to see him as governor of Ohio in the same situation McGreevey faced in New Jersey."
James McGreevey resigned in August 2004, admitting he had been living a secret homosexual lifestyle. His resignation was prompted by a sexual harassment suit filed against him by a former security aide Golan Cipel."
In reference to Strickland's 1999 vote on HCR 107, Pullins insisted that the "Foley problems" needed to be explored:
"There are legitimate issues here. Is Strickland as governor going to surround himself with those individuals who prey on children? Is he going to surround his administration with those type of people? The voters in Ohio deserve answers to these questions."
Pullins also says there are unanswered questions about the staff member with whom Strickland traveled to Europe.
"We don't even know who this guy was, even though Strickland admits taking him on a private vacation to Italy," the attorney said. "The records are sealed, and we don't have any idea who this guy is. His name, address and photograph should be up on a website warning people about this predator. Why does Strickland continue to hide the man's identity?"
"The story noted Flannery "criticized Mr. Strickland for vacationing in Italy with a male political 'protégé' who had been convicted of indecent exposure."
On another thread it is stated that Strickland was a guest speaker at a NAMBLA event.
VOTE FOR BLACKWELL!!!
Slight correction.
He continued to retain the staffer after the allegations, but the staffer left of his own accord later on, roughly a year later.
The staffer somehow got his record expunged which is why his name does not appear on any sex offender websites.
And yes, people called for Hastert to resign over less than this.
Question..does Ohio have a Defense of Marriage type act /bill either in force or ont he ballott, and has Strickland indicated how he feels about it?
Unfortunately, true or not, this coming out now, especially in light of the Foley scandle, will just look like a desperate trick from the Blackwell camp.
I hope I'm wrong, I really like Blackwell, but I just don't see this winning the race for him.
Well, what's good for the elephant is good for the donkey.
Maybe, but there is an element of first strike here.
The film "Volcano" with Tommy Lee Jones didn't do so well, because the film "Dante's Peak" with Linda Hamilton had come out just a month or two before, and was about a Volcano disaster, and so people just didn't care as much.
See what I'm getting at?
I just went over to the left side of the buckeye blogosphere to see what they are talking about:
Apparently strickland's former staffer, the pervert, is threatening lawsuits for being named the filthy pervert that he is.
Personally, I don't think that anyone with a blog should have that much of an expectation of privacy.
Thanks for the clarification.
But Strickland did travel with said staffer (and no one else) to Switzerland to celebrate his 1998 reelection after knowing that said staffer was a bona fide homosexual sexual predator, right?
It was Italy and it was just the two of them.
And according to Strickland, while he had been told about the incidents, he took the pervs word for it.
As for the homosexual angle, one of the complaints included his pleasuring himself in front of middleschool girls.
Arrest records can be seen here. These are the name redacted (by the blogger who posted them) version.
More info on the perv.
"Name Redacted served in senior staff roles for two U.S. Senators and two Members of Congress. He has served on the staffs of three presidential campaigns, managed a victorious nationally-targeted congressional campaign and was a part of the White House and Party Leadership communications team during one of the most controversial congressional battles in U.S. history."
White House = Clinton/Gore, One of the sentors was Toricelli. Although this guy may have been somewhat bi-parisian in his politics.
Thanks for the info..
Hannity and his friend Cunningham discussed this tonight.
The perv was exposing himself and masturbating in front of SCHOOLCHILDREN! And the fag Strickland rewards him with a high position and a trip to Italy!!!
Ohioans have a clear choice here:
A decent moral man like Steele versus a NAMBLA-loving pig like Strickland.
OOPS! I meant Blackwell.
All these contests are swirling around in my head.
Oh, HECK!! Just vote straight Republican and you can't go wrong.
http://www.kenblackwell.com/Blog/BlogPost.aspx?ID=658
Hannity and Colmes report on the scandal.
And, "Is this why he knowingly received praise from NAMBLA because of his vote to deny protection of youth from sexual predators?"
These are all legitimate questions that are offshoots of the question that you think is 'crap.'
The question of whether or not he's gay is in and of itself not something I care about. But the other things you mention-yes.
I could vote for a gay man (or woman) for office without a hitch as long as he or she had the right positions on all the issues, and was not a pedophile or dishonest in the way Strickland has been, and if being gay wasn't the entire focus of everything they did.
Can't say that I do. But I understand what you're saying though but here's how I see it:
DemocRATS gave the nation the Mark Foley "scandal". They opened this gateway and demanded that Denny Hastert step down because Mr. Hastert didn't 'wiretap' Mr. Foley's e-mails and IM's before this mess exploded. We were treated with DemocRATS, pontificating on how the Republicans "aren't protecting the children" because they allowed this predator to continue running for office because they were power hungry. Oh, the difference time and power of the undocumented journalists (the blogsphere) makes!
We now know that Mark Foley wasn't some child predator but a homosexual man scoping out young ADULT MALES. Mark Foley is gone but the gateway is still open.
All that's happening here is showing the utter HYPOCRISY of the DemocRATS. If Mark Foley is enough to call for Denny Hastert's head, then this (Strickland's soft on pedophilia vote in 1999 and his hiring of a sexual predator) should be enough to call for Ted Strickland's. What's good for the elephant is good for the donkeys.
If anyone were to read Mr. Strickland's one-minute speech, you would see clear as crystal that he was blasting his colleagues for the way they voted, NOT because he was concerned that the resolution claimed that anyone who had a "childhood sexual relationship with an adult" (These are his words, hence the quotes) could never have a healthy sexual relationship later in life. I believe that reason is bogus, given this information.
This man cannot be trusted as Governor of this state for he may turn Ohio into a safe haven for these child predators! What good would it do to elect Betty Montgomery who goes after these monsters if she most likely will be undercut by the executive officer of the state?!
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