The Unauthorized Randy “Duke” Cunningham Page

For months it seemed that the ethical/legal crises for Tom DeLay and Randy "Duke" Cunningham were two equally-outrageous but unconnected scandals. Cunningham was taking bribes from defense contractors; DeLay was skirting campaign finance rules and doing illegitimate favors for corrupt lobbyists.

As it turns out, there may have been a connection after all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/politics/14delay.html

Texas prosecutors in the criminal case against Representative Tom DeLay revealed in subpoenas made public Tuesday that they were investigating ties between Mr. DeLay and a lobbyist who is at the center of a bribery scandal that prompted another House Republican to resign from Congress last month.

The subpoenas sought documents from the lobbyist, Brent Wilkes, a California businessman whose lawyers have confirmed that he is one of four unnamed co-conspirators listed in the criminal charges against former Representative Randy Cunningham, the California Republican who pleaded guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes.

Mr. Wilkes was close to several Republican members of Congress, including Mr. Cunningham and Mr. DeLay, Republican of Texas, who traveled as Mr. Wilkes's guest in a private jet he partly owned.

Specifically prosecutors in DeLay's Texas case are interested in a $15,000 contribution Wilkes' company made to DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC. Also of interest is the fact that Wilkes hired Christine DeLay's consulting firm.

Looks like some of our suspicions were and are correct:
—

DeLay's Prosecutors Dig Deeper Into California

By LAYLAN COPELIN
Cox News Service
Friday, January 20, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas — It was the fall of 2002, and Texans for a Republican Majority was scouring for corporate money when it found an unlikely donor — a California defense technology firm willing to send part of its $40,000 startup money to help U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's political committee.

PerfectWave Technologies, a San Diego-area firm, gave DeLay's committee $15,000 to help elect Republicans to the Texas Legislature. It sent the rest of the $40,000 to a gala tribute to Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the San Diego-area congressman who resigned after pleading guilty last year to taking bribes from military contractors.

Read the whole story:
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/shared/news/stories/DELAY_0120_COX.html

And yet another article:
From The Hill website, written by Josh Marshall
————————————————————————————

The Contracting Scandal Won’t End With Duke
—
The Duke Cunningham scandal turned out to be as overdone, cartoonish and free of all ambiguity as the man himself. And Duke’s exit sounded more like the confession of a disgraced televangelist than the usually defiant send-offs of Washington pols caught in the webs of their own making.

Now Cunningham’s various ill-gotten gains — the fancy rugs, the candelabra, the ornate furniture and antiques — have been confiscated by the IRS and placed on display in a warehouse in San Diego where the now-former congressman’s constituents can ogle all the pricey gifts he bagged while purportedly representing him.

Soon, the IRS will sell the stuff off at auction.

But watch closely because this isn’t ending with Duke Cunningham.
—

There is a lot more:
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/JoshMarshall/120805.html

I cannot wait to see a photo of Delay with that smirky smile wiped off his face. Since a lot of his bribe money went to his wife's consulting firm, she had best get the smile off of her puss also.

This is going to get very deep.

Careful guys, some folks might think that connecting Dandy and BugBoy is a vast left wing conspiracy against "honest" politicians. BWAHHHHH!!!!

All stupid sarcasm aside, it would not surprise me one damned bit if there was a connection between BugBoy and Dandy considering the dirty web that Tom's best buddy Jack weaved.

I seriously doubt that any novelist could create a corruption scenario that includes a speaker of the house, a lobbyist/restauranteur/possible assassination conspirator, a large chunk of the republican congressional leadership, a smaller percentage of the dems, not so pious fundamentalist wingnuts and indian gambling. You're right, Paul, this is going to be the greatest show on earth, if the Mainstream Media allows it—if Dandy were a Clinton loving dem, his ugly face would be pasted from sea to shining sea and the Republicans would be shrieking 24/7 about corruption and the need for morality in the highest places. Instead we see stories about a war on Christmas...

Dan (not Anderson) excellent outline, now write the screen play!

Additional Characters:

Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist, arrested for trying to have sex with a 13 year old girl he met online.

Jim Bakker, televangelist with Pat Robertson at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting network. Committed adultery with Jessica Hahn. Indicted on federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering.

Bob Barr, Republican Congressman from Georgia. Sponsored the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, saying "The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." Was married three times. Paid for his second wife's abortion. Failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife was photographed licking whipped cream off of strippers at his inaugural party.


Robert Bauman, Republican congressman and anti-gay activist, was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.


Parker J. Bena, Republican activist and Bush Elector, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

William Bennett, Drug Czar under George H. W. Bush, compulsive gambler who has had to wire as much as $1.4 million to cover gambling losses in a 2 month period.

Howard L. Brooks, Republican legislative aide and advisor to a California assemblyman, was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.

Andrew Buhr, Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.

Dan (not Anderson) . . . you are taking notes, correct? You are going to have to come up with a catchy title.

The best catchy title that I have ever heard of, and you are going to have to beat it to gain my true respect for your efforts was a movie of edited clips of: Rapher Johnson, John Thomas, Johnny Weissmuller, Marilyn Monroe and Hoot Gibson. The title was of course "Run, Jump, Swim, S#rew or go for your gun!"

Submissions of the title for this Dan (not Anderson) screen pay about this Cunningham et al debacle are now being accepted for posting here.

Don't forget Jim West, ultra Repub from Spokane, WA who was recently outed and was charged with trying to exchange sexual favors for jobs at city hall.

Read all about it:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/jimwest/

Interestingly, you could not find a more anti gay politician in the region than West. Funny how things turn. But this is nothing new...gays have long been bashed in the interest of a strong political platform, even by gays themselves.

All of this is a bit off topic....but who cares?

——-
Something is missing in all this...a piece of the drama that has not been reveled yet. Something big is still out there....the white whale.
I plan to keep digging...

Agreed, the white whale is still out there, Ishmael . . .

Ha! I wish I had talent and a good agent (being a failed writer of two unsold manuscripts, I seem to have neither.)

A title? Hmmmm....

Silly off the cuff titles:
Tonto's Revenge?
The Chronicles of Greed: The Aviator, the Bugman and the Casinos?
Human Cockroaches?
A Genius For Corruption?
Crybaby?
Low, Slow, and Out of Ideas? (Which is what I am.)

The Accidental Hero

The intro quote would be:
"Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum," Pappy Boyington (who was a bit of both.)

The list of characters are pretty long and involved. Jeez, this would be a Homeric Illiad.

Here is what I would "do":
1) Prologue- 1972: A US Navy F-4J Phantom in the midst of a furball with a bunch of Mig17s. Too obvious... A SOG team leading a rescue of a downed aircrew, led by a leader, Duck, who was a good solider, but a few rounds short of a full clip in both the ethics and brains. Turns out that one of the pilots was a son of an ambitious newspaperman looking for a good story. The old man makes the SOG team leader a hero (of course he wanted the CMH, but had to settle for a "mere" DSC) for a nation looking for heroes. A few of the guys he led were peeved, but don't get too pissed as they go home.

2) Jump 20 years later. He becomes a congressman ala Dandy with help from the son of the journo (also an over eager ambitious journo) who made him.

3) Duck puts his foot in his mouth. Flips off old people. Threatens to use an M-2 HMG on Capitol Hill. Hangs out with a crowd of corrupt scumbags who wrap themselves up in the flag and cross. Becomes a pal of a, uh, Louisiana Congressman who earned the nickname, the Pilars (as in putting nuts in pilars to those who won't vote on things he wants) and his sleazy lobbyist/restauranter pal.

4) The hero, a Blogger/webmaster, gets under his skin by making Duke look like the @!#$ he is till one day a disgruntled former aide emails our hero a list of his sins in particular why certain government contracts are going to a certain company.

Duke finds out and cries to his Congress friend. Congres friend goes to his lobbyist pal who uses his connections to deal with the hero and his annoying website permenantly... Ah, if only I could make the lobbyist pal own a white cat (for those James Bond fans.)

5) Hero gets shot at. Typical conspiracy thread. Friends die. Disgruntled aide dies. Real Estate agent blabs and then dies. You get the cliches. No one wants to go near our hero because he's a marked man.

6) Hero is scared shitless till an old teammate of Duke comes by and helps with the

Events lead up to a confrontation on the steps of the Supreme Court...

Silly and predictable, but this is the best I could come up with in a 1/2 hour.

Sorry, I forget to add (just got back from "work.")

The old teammate of Duck uses the skills he learns in the jungles of Vietnam to aide the young blogger. Mucho gunfire and chase scenes galore.

Yup, pretty derivative but it's a start. There is a lot more that has to go into than this really simple outline, especially if you want to add Sex, that awful thing that bunches up certain elements of society. Journalism, money, sex, drugs and violence. What more do you want for a pot boiler novel?

To steal a line from Dire Straights. Title:? Money for Nothing.