Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

And it's the misuse of office that Rob Simmons used to impress his intern Tom Misenti [aka King of Creation, KoC, KingoCreation, and lord knows what else]. Misenti whose Facebook biography listed "Simmons for Congress as an activity, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as his employer. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to Misenti's resume on Facebook.com, employs Misenti as "Field Coordinator for the Second Congressional District.""

Misenti, an administrator on numerous gaming sites, recommended bars in Washington that would serve underaged interns and pages, enlisted gaming artists to create unethical and fraudulent campaign materials against Joe Courtney, and ignored and participated in online conversations about underaged sexual adventures, mass killing fantasies, access to weapons and their effectiveness, racist and anti-semitic conversations, and general hate speech disguised as cheeky end-of-days humor.

And with implausible deniability, Misenti created an online attack blog on Courtney. And there the bile flowed - charges of communist affiliation, socialism, and apocalyptic consequences to follow if Courtney were elected.

Once Misenti's connection to the Simmons campaign was exposed much of the material was removed.

But glaring questions remain. How can a congressman in good conscience participate in the unethical activites now coming to light in the Bush administration and go so far as to extend them? Why is excusing and extending criminal political activity more important than government integrity?  And why didn't Simmons protest these activities?

Why are honest citizens asked to get at the back of the line of criminals, pedophiles, con-artists, terrorists, torturers, delusional fanatics, and other freak show characters before they can access public officials?

In order to understand the difference between a Cindy Sheehan, a Republican or Democrat or just a citizen taxpayer and a Simmons operative we need to examine the evidence.

Misenti was an administrator of the duckandcover gaming forums where conversations such as this thread on weapons  will go on for months at a time often debating the effectiveness of certain weapons in guaranteeing kill ratios.

And if that doesn't seem like something CT Second District voters might think is funny then the duckandcover link to MeatSpin.com that features a "chat" environment purportedly featuring desirable singles from Putnam, Chaplin, and other East of the river small towns is unlikely to be representative either.  On this link, a surprised mother or father might recognize a young adolescent son or daughter exposing themselves to risky behaviors.

Rather than list all of the vile conversations kids patronizing gaming forums are exposed to let's assume that this stuff is not what most Connecticut voters expect their congressmen to be involved with. 

You might wonder if these examples are just talk, teenage fantasies, or misguided bluster.  In some cases they may be.  But a few months ago, the web site called Truthout.org was hacked and rendered inoperable for days by someone who called himself psyl3n5e, a leetspeak spelling of the word 'silence'.  His online profile is shockingly similar to the individuals found at duckandcover.  He turned out to be an Arizona computer consultant who learned his tricks working at a brick and mortar computer reseller.

These individuals share in common a fascination with macho online personnas, guns, merciless toughguy vernaculars, and the hatred of Liberals, Democrats, or anyone who disagrees.  Oh, and let's not forget the familiarity with internet technologies.  The danger is real that one day someone very much like these people will perform a violent exploit instead of simply a deplorable one.

And this brings us back to Rob Simmons and his bad judgement. Simmons claims to be a maverick yet behaves more like a docile Bush lapdog exercising Rovian instincts.  He chose an intern who didn't even have a permanent address in the congressional district. So what are we to think qualified this choice?  Cronyism?  Pay to play?  Political expediency?

We ask these questions because surely Simmons, the self-aggrandizing former CIA operative, must have vetted the candidates before exposing Washington to someone with Misenti's special interests in risky behavior, guns, and gaming violence.  Yet he either discovered them and chose to capitalize on these interests or never discovered these interests at all.

Once Misenti arrived in Washington to work for Simmons he claimed to frequent bars that patronized underaged drinking.  Did the Simmons operation introduce him to this lifestyle?  We are left to wonder aloud and lament that a Connecticut House Representative apparently left the impression on Misenti that unlawful behavior, anything goes, and insider politics are the right stuff.

The Simmons campaign has denied that Misenti is anyone more than a volunteer for his campaign yet Misenti 's anonymous blog attacked Courtney and acted as a factory for what can only be described as vile and unethical material.  The Simmons campaign has pulled much of the material but has never whole-heartedly disapproved of it.  Instead, the offender is hailed as someone being denied the right to free (hate) speech.  Misenti's blog site is still anonymously in operation.

What this all adds up to is that the Bush administration and enablers like Rob Simmons have created a blueprint for a terrorist superhighway for political access to Washington power brokers.  Even the dumbest disgruntled soul on the planet can see what is only now becoming obvious even to the true-believers of this administration.  That is that the shortest distance between an individual who wants access to Bush is a large donation or disingenuous membership in a favored religious or political con scheme.  Patronizing easily deluded politicians like Simmons is far more profitable than crossing them - satisfy their cravings and you are escorted to your desired destination.

We all pay the price for this.  Simmons serves on a number of armed services committees yet soldiers serve without adequate body armor and the Iraq war is a daily reminder that self-styled experts like Simmons despite all their noises to the contrary are flatulently incompetent.

America is not divided by a partisan divide so much as it suffers from intentional intellectual negligence.  The Iraq war is being lost by people like Simmons who spent years blaming the failures of Vietnam on someone else and convinced voters that only true patriots like themselves could right those perceived errors. 

 
We now know that Simmons is no more qualified to help win a war, secure our country, or direct defense spending than the minimum wage, loudmouths calling into neocon talkshows are.

The closer we look at Simmons' mistakes, poor judgement, and violations of public trust, we can only conclude that America will be much safer once politicians like Simmons are relieved of office.