It doesn’t get any better than this:
Pinal County Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu has a reputation as a hard man– especially hard on immigrants. Some people have claimed he’s a sadist who takes delight in splitting up families and gratuitously ruining people’s lives. Last week the 43 year old Babeu, now a far right Republican candidate for Congress, was the toast of CPAC. Theylove hard men there.
Today Mitt Romney’s campaign booted Babeu from his position as a Romney for President Arizona co-chairman, reminiscent of the move his 2008 campaign did when Romney for President Idaho co-chair Larry Craig was arrested in a public toilet trying to have sex with a young-looking police undercover agent. Closeted gay Republican flock to Romney for some reason I’ll never understand.
It turns out that Babeu wasn’t just another garden variety, run of the mill Republican closet queen. The anti-immigrant fanatic had a long-time lover named Jose. And it gets much worse. The story was brokenby a respected Arizona veteran journalist Monica Alonzo. Babeu threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship.
[…]
Meanwhile, Babeu, a former boarding school headmaster who claims he was repeatedly molested as a child by a Catholic priest, is still deluding himself that he can continue running for Congress against GOP incumbent Paul Gosar. That should be over by Monday. Babeu’s press conference a couple hours ago is stunning. He admitted he’s gay and tried painting himself as a victim, although he did admit the relationship between himself and Jose.
I came to the conclusion a few years ago that the more homophobic a male politician or religious leader is, the more likely he is familiar with the taste of trouser snake. But this case hit the trifects. A closeted gay anti-immigrant sheriff/congressional candidate blackmailing his illegal immigrant lover. They even have pictures.
Babeu (Baboo?) has already resigned/been dumped by the Romney campaign. I’m betting his run for Congress will be over in a week. Any bets on how long before he has to turn in his badge?
LA Times:
“This isn’t a case of … Rep. Weiner,”. Nope, it is a lot worse you lying hypocrite. Weiner did not threaten to deport anyone. And he is ugly too.
Yes, but the skeleton in the closet is totally fabulous.
😆
A teenager working in one of our local greenhouses sold a marijuana plant to the grandmother of the police chief because she was looking for something “green and leafy” for the balcony of her assisted living apartment. The greenhouse has changed owners, and the previous owner has relocated to a motel with crossbars on the windows and a very tall fence.
These are f’king gorgeous. Slideshow of the Morning Glory cloud formations over Norther Australia. These happen only in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
http://www.slideshare.net/GliderPilotOrg/gloriamatutina-6830663
Amazing, Ralph, thanks.
thank you for showing us the beauty
Ralph, thanks. 🙂
When Smart dies she’s gets a free pass into heaven because she’s already been through hell.
Odd, this photo looks just like the one of Jon Favreau fondling the Hillary cutout.
+1000
Oh, hi myiq. I almost forgot:
The Susan Trimarco thing is really taking off in Argentina. So far, one photo on Facebook has 450 likes and 140 shares.
This mother has spent years searching for her daughter who was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring and is still missing. So far she has rescued over a hundred girls from forced prostitution. Now, in spite of continued death threats from organized crime, she is testifying…
Not much in the English speaking press as yet.
There is plenty of human trafficking in the world, but this isn’t just about crime, it’s about courage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susana_Trimarco
I’m still not comfortable with outing GOP politicians, no matter how much you don’t like them. It’s like saying you believe in gay rights and then turning around and using homophobia to tear down your opponent.
If Paul Babeu is such a creep, then it seems like people should be able to to take him down on the issues, not his personal life. Our politics now days are all about the politics of personal destruction when what we really need is some leadership around the issues.
I don’t really care about his sexual orientation but having an affair with an illegal alien and threatening to have him deported if he speaks out when you are an anti-immigrant politician is the height of hypocrisy.
Not to mention illegal.
But the first thing you mentioned was him being homophobic (which I don’t see a lot of basis for) and being secretly gay. It’s like the reason Van Jones had to resign was not because he was corrupt, a racist, and used green energy as a slush fund. It was because he said some 9/11 truther stuff.
Are there homophobic Republicans in the closet? Sure, but there aren’t a lot of really vocally homophobic Republicans out there. There are closeted Democrats out there as well.
Now if the point was that this guy was anti-immigrant but was having an affair with an illegal and tried to deport him for personal reasons, that’s a much more solid argument.
Fuck if there ain’t. The GOP pretty much has a monopoly on vocal homophobes.
But I didn’t mean to say or imply that Baboo was a homophobe. I have seen no evidence of that. I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression.
I’ll give you that. There are Republicans out there who are homophobic.
If you take the tribal politics out of this article and read the original, this is more like a lover’s spat than evidence of Republican hypocrisy. Jose wasn’t an “illegal,” he allegedly had a visa. He’s not an innocent victim being threatened with deportation, he’s a spurned lover and business partner running around posting nasty things about his ex because he’s mad the relationship ended.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2012-02-16/news/paul-babeu-s-mexican-ex-lover-says-sheriff-s-attorney-threatened-him-with-deportation/
Well, if you out a Republican’s gay lifestyle, you’re a hero. If you out a Democrat who’s in the closet, you might get a visit from the gay mafia. I think Hillbuzz implied that in the case of a former celebrity White House adviser who was mugged and roughed up, presumably to shut him up.
From the article, I can’t even tell if this guy was in the closet. But Jose, rather then sounding like an innocent victimized illegal immigrant being threatened with deportation, sounds more like a jilted lover out to get revenge. I mean, gay or straight, it’s kind of crappy to post intimate photos and text messages of your EX on the internet and then to go to the newspapers and complain about how he was cheating on you and you’re going to make him pay.
How do you know that Babeu’s lawyer didn’t threaten him with deportation? Having a visa is not the same thing as being a citizen.