| .
.
.
.
| In
May 2002 FOX News with Radley
Balko hit Straight
and its founders prominent
Republicans Mel and Betty
Sembler really hard.
That story is here.
But
instead of fixing the
problem, did the
Republicans resort to damage
control to setup the
messenger? That story is here. |
|
| I have visited Straight, Inc. and have seen firsthand
the impressive results that come from a blend of compassion and professionalism.
It is a program that works where it counts; young drug abusers are
getting straight again. |
Republican Senator Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., Maryland
(from a Straight brochure]
|
|
| Growing Together, Inc.
[an active Straight
descendent program] is committed to helping young people overcome drug
and alcohol addiction problems so that they may lead productive and substance
free lives. |
Republican Senator Connie Mack, Florida (from a
Growing Together brochure). Senator Mack introduced Straight
co-founders Mel Sembler and Joseph Zappala to the US Senate for their ambassadorial
hearings for ambassadorships.
|
|
. . . a highly effective treatment program . . . an
excellent example of people, not government, helping other people.
| Republican Congressman Frank R. Wolf, Virginia from a
Straight pamphlet
|
|
|
To learn more about the Straight story click on Wes
Fager's web site at  |
| Growing Together's
[an active Straight descendent
program] various programs for educational information about abuse, residential
treatment for its clients, family support system and community outreach
to targeted potential abusers have been very effective in helping to combat
and deal with drug abuse. |
Republican Congressman Mark Foley, Florida. From
a Growing Together brochure.
|
|
| I like it
[Straight]
because if you start going wrong they "four-point" you to the ground until
you're ready to do it the right way. |
Republican gubernatorial
candidate Clayton Williams who pledged if elected to to build $100
million worth of Straights all over Texas.
|
|
| I've seen many organizations
in the rehabilitation and prevention field. STRAIGHT is one of the
best. . . You couldn't go straighter than to go with STRAIGHT if
you want your dear ones off drugs. STRAIGHT is straight with me. |
| Art Linkletter, TV personality, whose book Kids
Say the Darndest Things was one of the top 14 bestsellers in
American publishing history, from a Straight brochure. Mr. Linkletter
was on Ronald Reagan's Drug Abuse Commission and in 2000, as spokesperson
for United Seniors Association, Mr. Linkletter addressed the Republican
Convention Platform Committee. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Vice President, George Bush,
sheds a tear at a Straight Open Meeting in Saint
Petersburg, Florida in March 1988. On his left is
Florida Republican Congressman Michael Bilirakis. Dr.
Donald Ian Macdonald was in charge of medical research
at Straight before becoming the White House Drug Czar.
His daughter worked for Congressman Bilirakis [Photo by
Saint Petersburg Times] |
.
|
. Paul Bonacci
was just one of the child victims who came forward
as an adult to tell what they had done to him, and they put him in prison for
his efforts until a federal judge awarded him $1 million dollars for unspeakable
acts committed on him. Frankly, there were a couple of passages that I just
couldn't read. The Franklin Coverup is about child abuse, Satanism, drugs,
Nebraskan blue bloods, CIA mind control, and the Republican Party. This
alarming, thoroughly footnoted book is written by attorney and former Nebraska
state senator John DeCamp. A must read. Click on the book to order it.
|
.
| "Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I
believe that I have the qualifications necessary, if
confirmed, to lead our diplomatic mission in Italy, to
modernize it, and to strengthen it as an instrument to
promote American interests in Italy.
During my career in business, public service,
politics, and diplomacy, I have worked hard and
accomplished much. . . For the last quarter century,
along with my wife, I have fought vigorously against the
plague of drug abuse. In 1976 Betty and I helped found
STRAIGHT, a non-profit, adolescent drug treatment and
rehabilitation program with branches across the U.S.,
which successfully treated and graduated more than
12,000 young people nationwide. For 17 years, I served
as chairman of the board of STRAIGHT. Other than our
children, nothing was more rewarding than this effort.
Betty and I initially agreed that if we helped one child
it would be worth all the effort. With 12,000 successful
graduates . . . It was a gratifying accomplishment. |
Ambassador2
Melvin Floyd Sembler, AO
addressing the Senate
Foreign Relations
Committee, Oct 31, 2001,
on the occasion of his
hearing as George W.
Bush’s nominee to be
ambassador to Italy
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|
GOP
fliers
endorse
two
judges
Critics
say the
endorsements
blur the
line
between
party
politics
and
non-partisan
judicial
campaigns.
By
WILLIAM
R.
LEVESQUE
|
| ©
St.
Petersburg
Times,
published
October
29, 1998
lorida
judicial
campaigns
always
have
been
non-partisan
affairs
. .
.
In two fliers, the Republican Party of Pinellas County urges residents to vote the party ticket, . . . Included in the list are
Irene
Sullivan, a candidate for circuit court judge, and George Brown . . . |
|
|
George W. Bush,
The Drug Free
America Foundation, Inc.,
(formerly
Straight Foundation, Inc.)
and the
Republican Party (c) 2000
by Wesley M.
Fager of the Oakton Institute for Cultic Studies
and Ginger
Warbis
[Permission is
hereby granted to publish and distribute this work in its entirety]
Now you might find it difficult to accept that a US president could become
involved with a cult. First, you'd think a former head of CIA would have to be far
too intelligent to be taken in this way. Secondly, the implications of the leader of the
free world carrying out the responsibilities of that office under the influence
of a destructive mind control cult are just too frightening to consider.
But here are some documented facts on the matter. See if you can come to any
other conclusion.
Nancy Reagan took Princess Di to
Straight-Springfield to show her how we handle our druggie kids in this country
while Ronald Reagan wrote an endorsement for Straight pamphlets. Robert DuPont,
Richard Nixon's Drug Czar, had overseen funding for an experimental juvenile program
to try to turn American kids into the straight laced citizens that he thought they
should be. That program was called The Seed and its methods were likened by the US
Senate to Communist brainwashing techniques.
Straight, Inc. grew out of The Seed and Robert DuPont became Straight's
consultant. Republican businessmen Joseph Zappala and Melvin Sembler who were
Straight's co-founders gave George Bush, Sr. so much money that he made them US
ambassadors and even made a TV commercial for Straight. Today Melvin Sembler is
the finance chairman for George W. Bush's national GOP and his wife Betty was
Jeb Bush's co-finance chairman. Barbara Bush is hawking a film for the Drug Free
America Foundation (DFAF), the new name for Straight Foundation, Inc., while the
DFAF says that George W. Bush is considering its recommendations for his own
drug policy platform.
Hmm... Robert DuPont, the Seed and a US government-backed
mind-control experiment. George Bush, Sr., the CIA, and mind control
experiments. Is there a Straight-CIA connection? This brief essay tells the
story of the Republican Party connection to the destructive-mind cult known as
Straight, Inc.
| They [the Straights] run very
close to really performing psychic murder. |
Marge Robertson,
executive director of the
Cincinnati Chapter of the ACLU,
from Cincinnati Post.
|
|
| According to sworn testimony, Straight
often left restrained group members sitting in their own
urine, feces or vomit until suitable concessions were
extracted. |
Dr. Barry Beyerstein, a leading Canadian
researcher on opiates and brain functioning who operates
a laboratory at Simon Fraser University in
British Columbia, Canada
|
| As one parent to another, I know there's
no hurt a parent can be given that can equal that that your
child can give you...But I'm proud of you because you
have supported your children and given them the love they
need. |
Nancy Reagan, a
frequent visitor to Straights
all over the country, from a
Straight brochure
|
|
| To be blunt, I have spent 15 years working in
the drug-abuse field, traveling to more than 20
countries and visiting hundreds of prevention programs.
Straight, Inc. is the best drug-abuse treatment program I have
seen. Lest there be any doubt that this is an accolade I
have bestowed easily or casually, I can tell you that I
have not said that about any other program. |
Former White House
Drug Czar, founding director of
the National Institute on Drug
Abuse and paid Straight
consultant Robert L. DuPont,
Jr., M.D. from a Straight
brochure. As director of
NIDA Dr. DuPont had administered
a whopping $1.4 million dollar
grant to Straight's predecessor The
Seed whose methods had been
likened by the US Senate to
those of North Korean
brainwashing.
|
|
As governor of Texas George
W. Bush has collaborated with Straight Foundation, Inc. (now
calling itself Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.) on one drug
awareness initiative. Now listen to his dad, former
President George H. W. Bush,
making a TV commercial for Straight from the Oval
Office.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE
STRAIGHTS: You can learn more about Straight's
dreadful treatment methods and violations of human rights here.
|
In 1972 the US government funded an experimental
juvenile drug rehabilitation program in Fort Lauderdale, Florida known as The
Seed. Three years later the US Senate under the leadership of Senator Sam
Ervin published a study which
likened The Seed's methods to the brainwashing tactics employed by Communist
North Koreans on American servicemen during the Korean War. The Senate also
compelled the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) which administered the
million dollar government grant to the Seed to follow its own regulations and
require The Seed to issue consent forms to its clients informing them that they
were participating in a medical experiment. At that time NIDA, under the
directorship of the Republican White House Drug Czar Robert DuPont, was
considering an additional grant of $995,000 for Seed expansion programs in
Florida.
The Senate also forbade the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Agency (LEAA)
from granting any additional funds for research programs like The Seed (LEAA had
also made a grant to The Seed.) During the course of the Senate
investigation Florida Congressman C. W. "Bill" Young, Republican St.
Petersburg, meet with Robert DuPont in an effort to make sure the funds that had
been requested for the Seed expansion program in Pinellas County Florida would
not be cut.(1) Funding
for Seed expansions was, in fact, stopped in 1975 but the next year Republicans
Melvin and Betty Sembler and some other Pinellas County Seed parents opened up
the second-generation Seed known as Straight, Inc. with $100,000 in grants from
LEAA----a Congressional order to LEAA to cease such funding notwithstanding.
Besides Melvin and Betty Sembler other local Republican's prominent on
Straight's founding board were the acting Police Chief for Saint Petersburg,
Florida Ray Waymire who ran unsuccessfully for Sheriff of Pinellas County as a Republican the
year Straight was founded and Straight's founding
Secretary/Treasurer Raymond Bourgholtzer who had been president of the St.
Petersburg Republican Club in 1971 and had run for the office of Pinellas
Supervisor of Elections in 1972. 04-07-02
In 1992 Straight president Wesley Pennington
ran unsuccessfully for the Florida state assembly as a Republican while Donald C. Sullivan, MD,
secretary of Straight Foundation, Inc., ran successfully as a Republican for the state Senate.
James T. Russell, states attorney for Pinellas County, Florida, helped
introduce Straight's predecessor The Seed to Pinellas County. He never
prosecuted Straight while it operated in Pinellas County. He ran for
states attorney as a Republican in 1988.
In
early 1982 a former Straight client had complained of child abuse at Straight-Atlanta
and referred to it as a "hell hole" according to the Atlanta Journal
and Constitution. The youth named five clients who were still being held against
their will at Straight and on February 1, 1982 Kathleen Wilde of the ACLU filed
suit against Straight Atlanta in Cobb County Superior Court for holding the five
youths against their will and for operating without a license. Writs of habeas
corpus were written for the five. The suit charged that the five teenagers were
suffering "inhumane treatment" that creates an "immediate danger
to physical and mental health." Nancy Reagan was scheduled to visit
Straight-Saint Petersburg on February 15 and so on February 4 a reporter from
the Saint Petersburg Times called Sheila Tate, Mrs. Reagan's spokesperson, to
ask if the first lady was still planning to visit Straight in light of the ACLU
suit in Georgia. Mrs. Tate responded that Mrs. Reagan has no plans to cancel her
visit and declined comment on "something that is in litigation."
Nancy Reagan went on to visit Straight's
special treatment camp in Saint Petersburg Florida carrying Drug Czar Carlton
Turner with her. [Someone is posting on the Internet now that they were
there when Nancy Reagan made her visit and that one Straight
dissenter was bound and gagged in a timeout room during the First lady's
visit.] After that visit Czar Turner told reporters that
"we had more than 17,000 requests for information after Mrs. Reagan
appeared on television discussing drug programs." Ms. Reagan later
visited the Straight treatment camp in Cincinnati, Ohio. In his book HOW TO KEEP
THE CHILDREN YOU LOVE OFF DRUGS Ken Barun, the coordinator of Nancy's Just
Say No program writes that he himself visited almost all of the
Straight treatment facilities and he discusses the Straight method at some
length as a model program. Melvin Sembler even founded the Kids Say
No anti-drug abuse program for the International Council of
Shopping Centers.(2)
|
"We must make every effort to end drug and alcohol use among our young people and
Straight has an excellent record of success in meeting this goal... That's what
organizations like yours are about--our children, our families, and our future."
-- President Ronald Reagan [from a Straight pamphlet]
|
A judgment of
$721,000 was made against Straight in 1990 for abuses sustained by Karen Norton
at the hands of Straight's national clinical director Father Doctor V. Miller
Newton, III. Through the years many of Father Newton's counselors have been
convicted for assaulting clients in a Newton operated treatment program. In 1996
Father Newton agreed to give the federal government $50,000 in return for not
being prosecuted for insurance fraud. In 2000 Father Newton and his doctors
settled with Rebecca Erlich in New Jersey for $4.5 million for abuses she had
sustained in his own second-generation Straight known as Kids of North Jersey.
Meanwhile Straight's consultant Dr. Robert DuPont went around the country being
paid by Straight as an expert witness in its many civil trials for claims of
child abuse. Here is Nancy Reagan hawking books
for Straight's paid consultant Dr. Robert DuPont and for Father Newton.
Father Newton left Straight in Florida in 1983 after a barrage of criminal
investigations and civil suits had been levied against Straight to set up
his own second-generation Straight known as Kids of Bergen County in New Jersey.
For years he operated under Democratic Governor James Florio but then in the
late 1980s allegations of abuse started surfacing at KIDS. In 1989 West
57th Street, a CBS news magazine, did an expose of KIDS and later Bergen
County prosecutors went in there and escorted clients out. Finally a New
Jersey administrative judge was tasked to do a study
on KIDS. She recommended against licensing KIDS without a Certificate
of Approval as a Drug Abuse Center and until it could be demonstrated that KIDS
was willing to comply with state health regulations. So Father Newton just
renamed his program to Kids of North Jersey, hopped the Hackensack
River into Hudson County, and continued to operate for another 10 years
under Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman. When I called New
Jersey state health authorities circa 1997 I was told that KIDS had been given a
special certificate to operate by the New Jersey Commissioner of Health and
Human Services.
The row between the ACLU and the Straight had not begun at Straight Atlanta
either. Earlier the ACLU had been involved in the alleged false imprisonments of
Roger Young and Jeff Bourgholtzer at the Pinellas Seed. Raymond Bourgholtzer,
Jeff's dad, who had been president of the St. Petersburg Republican Club went on
to become the founding Secretary/Treasurer for Straight, Inc. (The ACLU did not
get involved in the alleged abduction of a 16 year-old girl from St. Petersburg
Catholic High School into The Seed.) Straight was on probation on February 2,
1978 when a young girl named Gail Stepheson escaped from her host home clad in
jeans, a robe and slippers and asked neighbors Fisher and Thelma Thomas to use
the phone to call for help. It was then that a pack of Straight old-comers
forced their way into the Thomas' home and dragged Gail Stepheson away screaming
for help.(3) The incident sparked off a US
Congressional inquiry by Maryland Republican Representative Robert E. Bauman to
Florida Republican Congressman C. W. "Bill" Young who had fought
previously to get funding for The Seed.(4) [Gail
Stepheson's grandparents lived in Maryland.] But all was ultimately smoothed
over when: (a) Senator Charles Mathias, Jr., Republican from Maryland, was the
guest speaker at Straight's annual banquet in 1980, and (b) and when Florida
state Republican Senator Robert Melby, who works in Saint Petersburg down the
street from Mel Sembler on Central Ave., introduced the Melby Bill to Florida's
legislature to give parents the right to force a kid into a drug rehab program
with the force of a court order. In the future when a Florida kid was be
forcefully returned to a drug rehab it wouldn't really be kidnaping if the
parents consented. [Straight founding board members Fred Kenfield and Raymond
Bourgholtzer have been campaign contributors to Melby.] Today the Melby
Bill is the precedence for Florida's infamous Marchman Act which has been used
to get kids into still operating Straight-like programs.
Virginia Republican Congressman
Frank Wolf introduced Straight to Congress and worked with 70 families to
get Straight opened in Virginia. When Wolf learned in mid 1982 of Straight's
history of criminal investigations his spokesperson, Stephanie Bolick, stated
"we feel the problems have been cleared up and the program deserves a
chance to work in the Washington area." Bill Burns, who was on Ronald
Reagan's White House staff, had two sons in the Straight that Congressman Wolf
helped bring to northern Virginia. Mr. Burns hosted a radio talk show in the
1980s called STRAIGHT TALK which was funded by the
White House and by NIDA.(5) In 1983 a
federal jury found Straight criminally guilty of holding a college student named
Fred Collin's against his will for 5 months and awarded him $220,000. Today,
despite Straight's efforts to rehabilitate this honor roll college student, Fred
Collin's is now Dr. Fred Collins, Phd. in mathematics from Virginia Tech. The
false imprisonment of Fred Collins didn't dissuade Nancy Reagan form Straight.
Subsequently she took Princess Di to Straight's camp in northern Virginia to
show the princess how we deal with our teenage drug problem in America. In
1985 when the White House sponsored PRIDE's International Conference on Drugs
attended by 17 first ladies from around the world there was only one young
person there--16 year old Robin Page, a girl who had been saved by
Straight. And Ronald Reagan's aid Bill Burns? Immediately after the announced
judgement against Straight he presented Straight with a check of endorsement for
$25,000 in the name of some concerned group from Washington, DC.
Reagan's Drug Czar Carlton Turner who
accompanied Nancy Reagan on her first visit to Straight endorses the front page
of Father Newton's book Not My Kid with these words: "Not My
Kid should be required reading for any parent concerned about their
children's future." Turner spoke at a Straight fund raising dinner in May
1982.(6) When Clearwater, Florida
pediatrician Donald Ian McDonald placed his boy Andy in Straight in 1979 he
became a natural target for Straight. He was recruited as Straight's National
Research Director. When McDonald later spoke at a PRIDE conference he gave
credit to Father Newton. In 1982 McDonald served with Robert DuPont on NIDA's Workgroup
on Marijuana Abuse in Adolescence. After Carlton Turner Ronald Reagan
selected Straight's Donald Ian McDonald for Drug Czar. Later Donald Ian
McDonald admitted that most of what he learned about drug addiction he learned
from Straight's Dr. George Ross with whom he had breakfast at George Bush's
White House on March 2, 1988.
|
"They kept screaming in my face every day. One day I couldn't take it any more
and I tried to get up out of my chair and they four-pointed me on the floor.
They took my knees and elbows and twisted them and pulled my hair." --
Dena Lathan, Athens Texas, recalling her stay at Straight Dallas camp.
|
In
Florida former Senator Republican Paula Hawkins, chairwoman of the Senate's
Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse once accused The Washington Post of
being a traitor in The War on Drugs for, among other reasons, giving Straight
Inc. bad press.(7) In Texas Local Republicans
Kent Crusendorf, Chris Harris, Bob Melton and Clayton Williams all had kids in
Straight-Dallas. Clayton Williams ran for governor of Texas and promised, if
elected, to build $100 million worth of Straight-like programs all over the
state. "I like it [Straight]," he once said, "because if you
start going wrong they four-point you to the ground
until you're ready to do it the right way."
Twin zealots for George
W. Bush.
When Ronald
Reagan campaigned in Florida, Nancy had been accompanied around by the wife of
Straight's Donald McDonald, when George Bush campaigned in Florida he slept at
the home of Straight co-founder Mel Sembler. After his 1987 election George Bush
placed millionaire and Straight board member Alec Courtelis (who had been the
national finance co-chairman for the Bush campaign) in charge of a nationwide
search for talent for the new administration.(8)
On December 6, 1988 Florida's Republican governor Bob Martinez called on George
Bush and later had lunch with Straight's co-founders Sembler and Zappala.(9)
Bush made Sembler and Zappala ambassadors to Australia and Spain, respectively.
He made Martinez his second Drug Czar. In 1992, Tampa's Channel 13 Eye Witness
News handed Martinez the minutes from a Straight board of director's meeting
which recorded that "John Martinez, former governor of Florida, will
work with Straight on our licensing issues." When asked by Channel 13
News whether this was he, Martinez would make no comment. Bill Bennett was
George Bush's first Drug Czar. In 1989 Bennett assembled together prominent
Americans from all over to help him develop the President's drug budget. These
esteemed individuals proposed to the President to increase the drug war purse by
94% to a whopping $7,900,000,000, including nearly a half billion increase in
treatment, prevention, and research to $1,727,000,000. This collection of
America's best recommending $500 million dollars more to drug treatment programs
included Mel Sembler, Robert DuPont, Carlton Turner, Joyce Tobias, Mac Vines and
a host of others who had positive relationships with Straight. During his term
as president, Americans would spend more on the Drug War than on private health
insurance: $120 billion. [In 1994 Drug Czar Martinez was investigated by the FBI
because after losing the governorship to Lawton Chiles he took $63,000 he had
left over in campaign contributions and gave $2,000 to Operation Par on whose
board sits Betty Sembler. He gave the rest to the Republican Party of Florida to get
George Bush re-elected in 1992.(10)]
When George Bush, Sr. ran for president in 1988
prominent Republicans formed what they called Team 100, a team of 100
businessmen who pledged to collect $20 million for Bush's war chest. Federal law
limited maximum contributions by political donors to $1,000 and $25,000 for
individual candidates and for campaign activities, respectively. These ceiling caps
were imposed to keep individuals, corporations and foreign governments from
buying political favors. But the soft-money loop-hole in the law allowed
donors to donate larger sums of money. Many people gave
soft-money to the Bush war chest. Straight board member Alec Courtelis, who
donated $100,000 to the Republicans, was
Republican Party Finance Chief. Mel Sembler and Joe Zappala were on Team 100.
Sembler was Bush's finance co-chairman for Florida. Including their soft-money
contributions Mel Sembler reportedly contributed $127,000 to the Republican
Party in 1988 and Joseph Zappala donated $126,000 in almost identically matching
funds.(11) Later Mel Sembler was a big
contributor to the George Bush presidential library. Straight
board member Roy Speer of Home Shopping Network fame gave another $100,000.
Wayne Huizenga gave another $100,000.(12)
Today Straight consultant Robert DuPont sits on the board of Psychemedics--a
Huizenga's drug hair testing company.
In all George Bush, Sr. nominated at least six members of his Team 100 for
U.S. ambassadorships including Park Avenue socialite Joy Silverman who had no
college degree and virtually no work experience; she listed her work experience
as assisted husband in connection with growth by planning and hosting
corporate functions-... that is she threw dinner parties! And there was former
Nevada Republican Senator Chic Hecht nominated for Ambassador to the Bahamas. He
once promised not to make Nevada a "nuclear-waste depository."
Asked
why he would feel at home in the Bahamas he had replied, "I've been
involved in gambling in Nevada, and I've been involved in banking
for 25 years . . . Also, I understand it is a nice lifestyle. I love golf and
they have a lot of nice golf courses and good fishing." That comment led
Senator John Breaux, Democrat from Louisiana, to comment, "we need an
ambassador willing to serve on the front lines of the drug war, not the back
nine of Paradise Island's golf course."(13)
There was lumber magnate Peter Secchia nominated for ambassador to Italy who
once reportedly told a reporter that his reason for being at the 1987 Republican
state conference in Michigan was that he was looking for "a big-titted
woman". And there was real estate broker Della Newman from Seattle who once
admitted in an interview that "she has no particular interest in foreign
affairs." Bush nominated her for Ambassador to New Zealand but when asked
by a reporter she did not even know the name of New Zealand's prime minister.(14)
And of course there were the two millionaire businessmen from Saint Petersburg
Florida, Straight co-founders Mel Sembler and Joe Zappala. Like Joy Silverman,
Zappala was only a high school graduate. Bush nominated him for Ambassador to
Spain even though he had no foreign service experience and could not speak
Spanish. On his application when asked for published writings he stated,
"No published writings." Zappala won his nomination despite a strong
move led by Maryland Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes to stop him. He was in
Spain for the planning of the Summer Olympics in Barcelona in 1992. Straight
board member Roy Spear got the concession agreements for the 1992 Summer
Olympics and George Bush taped a TV commercial
promoting Straight for a Straight Telethon hosted on Speer's HSN on Christmas
Eve 1988. Bush nominated Mel Sembler for Ambassador to Australia and again
despite strong protests by Democrats led by Paul Sarbanes, Sembler was approved
by the Senate.
Sembler and Zappala have offices near one another and often partner
together, they have the same view on drug rehabilitation and they made
almost identical matching amounts to Republican causes in 1988. Zappala is normally camera shy and doesn't say much publicly.
But when he does he often mimics his big brother Mel. In 1988 speaking of George
Bush, Sr. Sembler, who has a BS degree in communications, had this to say:
"The support I've given him is very zealous. We
like this man. We like the way his head works, we like his loyalty, we like his
great intelligence. The man has a winner syndrome."(15)
[Tell me this communications giant doesn't belong in the announcer's booth on
Monday Night Football!] During his Senate hearing for his ambassadorship, Joe
Zappala told the assembled Senators, "I did contribute substantial monies
to the campaign. I was a zealot for George Bush, and
I'm proud of my involvement."(16)
No wonder some call Mel Sembler and Joseph Zappala the "Saint
Petersburg Twins".
Joseph Zappala was introduced at his Senate hearing by Republican Senator
Connie Mack who called him a "friend of Florida" and a "great
negotiator" who has worked to solve problems in his community, such as drug
abuse. But it was drug abuse that Senator Pell, knowing of the Fred Collins judgment, hit Mr. Zappala with when he asked him in writing: "How do you
respond to those critics who charge that the methods employed by Straight are
unsound?" Zappala did not answer that question but was to get back with him
in writing.(17) Later Kentucky
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell would speak on Zappala's behalf on the Senate
floor saying "No one will deny that Joe Zappala made campaign contributions,
but it was his contributions to the business world and his community that made
the difference to the president." And then Senator McConnell went on to
cite Joe Zappala's leadership in Straight, Inc.(18)
[This is the same Senator McConnell who fought so hard in 2001 to stop the
McCain-Feingold soft money reform bill. In 1997 Senator McConnell, as chair of
the National Republican Senatorial Committee, led the NRSC in raising nearly $11
million in soft money, more money than any congressional committee has
ever raised in an off-election year. In 1999 - 2000 Mel Sembler only gave the
senator $1,000.]
Senator Paul Sarbanes challenges the Sembler/ Zappala nominations.
On his Senate application form, under the block for any foreign languages spoken Mel Sembler had written
"English (fluent)." If you know anything
about twins and how one feels the pain of the other or one knows what the other
is thinking, it should not surprise you to learn that at one place on their Senate
application forms Sembler and Zappala used almost identical
language! Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Paul Sarbanes was not
amused and had this to say about the two using almost identical wording.(18a)
|
| "This is an absolute insult to the
process. It's incredible. It's the sort of thing where a teacher in school would hand the exam back, or better yet flunk the
student." |
|
Syndicated cartoonist Gary Trudeau had a field day lampooning
President Bush's 1989 ambassadorial appointments and ran several satires like
the one below:
|
|

|
| On
August
23,
1989,
cartoonist
Gary
Trudeau
and
Universal
Press
Syndicate
published
the
above
lampoon
presumably
on Mel
Sembler
insinuating
he was
the
highest
bidder
for the
Australian
ambassadorship
job.
When
asked
why,
according
to the
comic
strip,
he had
said,
"NO,
NO.
I just
promised
the kids
a
country
where
they
could
surf."
Today Mel keeps a
framed copy of the
cartoon
above the toilet in his office.
[Florida Trend Magazine, May
1997] |
|
|
Check out Democrat Senator Paul Sarbanes
blasting Joseph Zappala's Senate hearings. Of course he
had a few choice words for Mel
Sembler too.
On June 12, 1989 four days after Joseph Zappala went before the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations for his hearing on State and Ambassadorial
Nominations, it was his big brother's turn. Like Zappala, Mel Sembler and his
wife Betty were introduced by Republican Connie Mack. (Growing Together is
a second generation Straight which operates in Lake Worth,
Florida. In 1990 Florida state health officials claimed that
it turned its patients into "virtual prisoners" while Florida Judge
Michael Gersten said a girl's treatment in it "smacks of abuse."
[Sun Sentinel, March 9, 1990] Here Republican Senator Connie Mack
and Republican Congressman Mark Foley are endorsing a Growing
Together pamphlet.) But Melvin's interrogators were not so
hostile. He faced three Republicans and only one Democrat and was not asked
about allegations of abuses at Straight. Republican Senator Jesse Helms had seen
the video on Straight that Sembler had brought [Richard Bradbury claims the film
was staged.] Afterwards Senator Helms said, "You'll get emotional as you
watch it." He "commended" Mel Sembler for his work at Straight.(19)
The hearing was chaired by the only Democrat there, Senator Alan Cranston from
California. Looking through the transcripts
at (a) you see that Melvin Sembler was introduced by Republican Senator Connie
Mack. At (c) Senator Mack praises Melvin and Betty for founding Straight, Inc.
At (d) chairman Cranston begins speaking and at (e) and (f) he starts stressing
the importance of Melvin Sembler's nominated position because the country was
leaving the Reagan Era which had predicted a "bright future" for the
Pacific region, but that future had just been darkened because of the massacre
at Tiananmen Square of Chinese citizens by their own repressive government. At
(g) he says there is something "Orwellian about it" all. Ironically
Senator Cranston reminded Melvin and Betty that President Bush had just
announced that any normalization of relations between the United States and Red
China would require "a recognition of the rights of individuals and respect
for the rights of those who disagree." In fact his last words to Melvin and
Betty at (i) was to "encourage respect for human rights". How could
this coincidence have occurred? A man and his wife who had capitalized on
communism perhaps more than anyone in the free world, who were then and
there running their own Orwellian program called Straight, Inc. which is no
respecter of human rights. Talk about the pot [pardon the pun] calling the
kettle black!
Here is Republican Senator from Delaware William
V. Roth, Jr. inviting Straight-Springfield's executive director over to his
Subcommittee on Investigations to give a talk on youth and drugs. And here
is Republican Senator Orrin Hatch dispatching
one of his aides to check Straight out. Republican Congressman Frank
Wolf was surely unaware when he sent this "put
the heat on" letter to Virginia state health authorities wanting to
know why they had denied Straight a license in 1991. He was surely unaware of
the mounting allegations included the sexual abuse of a minor male child,
the assault of a female client who says her old comers raped her with a
curling iron for not writing her morale inventory, the breaking of a
girl's finger because she refused to admit to a drug problem she did not
have, and a bizarre treatment therapy conducted at
Straight-Springfield where the kids spat into the face of a newcomer to keep him
off of drugs.
Today Mel Sembler is finance chairman for the national GOP and his wife
Betty, who is called Ambassadorable
by Florida's Governor Jeb Bush, was Jeb's finance
co-chairman when he ran for governor. After his
unsuccessful bid for governor of Florida in 1994 Jeb Bush formed the non-profit Foundation
for Florida's Future which employed two of his campaign aides.
But a 1998 expose by
Florida TV station WJXT on that charity reported that only 27% of the raised
money actually went to programs with most going to administrative salaries
for foundation employees. The one shining example of the foundation's work
that Jeb likes to boast about is the foundation's effort to form the
Charter School in Miami for underprivileged kids which he had established along
with black political activist T. Willard Fair, President of the Greater Miami
Urban League. After winning the 1998 gubernatorial election, Jeb
appointed T. Williard Fair as a co-chairman of his inaugural
committee. The WJXT report found that only $33,000 or just 2%
of the foundation's raised money went to the Charter School (although the
foundation did loan it $40,000). The foundation's
annual report shows that the Sembler Company and the Huizenga
Family Foundation both gave $5,000 or more to Jeb's foundation [former drug czar
and paid Straight consultant Robert DuPont sits on the board of
Psychemedics, Huizenga's follicle drug testing
company.] In her continuing efforts to affect the
nation's drug policy Mrs. Ambassadorable has formed a new tax exempt,
anti-drug foundation called Save Our Society from Drugs or S.O.S.
Prominent on its board of directors is none other than T. Williard
Fair. Used to be in Pinellas County Florida that if you were a young
black person with a real drug problem you went to Operation PAR, but
if you were a white teenager who had drunk some beers or experimented with
marijuana, or if you had a drug problem, you went to
Straight. But today Betty Sembler is on the board of
directors of Operation PAR! [Saint Petersburg
Times, 7-14-95, p. 3b]
Now you might find it difficult to believe that a US president could become
so involved with a cult, but is it so strange? According to The Great Drug War
by Dr. Arnold Trebach, Fred Collins, then an engineering student at
Virginia Tech, now a doctor of Mathematics, was shanghaied into
Straight when he paid his brother a visit there and was eventually awarded
$220,000 by a federal jury for being falsely imprisoned by Straight.
According to Dr. Trebach the first time Dr. Collins had seen Straight was on a
segment on NBC's News Magazine back in 1982 and Dr. Collins had
remarked, "It reminded me of a Moonie cult." Well now George and Barbara Bush
travel the world giving speeches for Reverend Moon and his Unification Church.
According to this Business Wire release of
October 13, 2000 The Drug Free America Foundation (formerly Straight
Foundation, Inc.) convened a panel of experts to make drug policy
recommendations to presidential hopeful George W. Bush and the impression I get
from this wire release is that Governor Bush is adopting their proposals. Read
it and see what you think. And go to the Drug
Free America Foundation's web page to see that Barbara Bush is hawking films
for the DFAF and her son Texas George W. Bush has teamed-up with the DFAF to
develop anti-drug use educational material. The whole family is
involved with the Straight cult.
Straight, Inc. & Drug Czar2001
If Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley had met Betty Sembler when he was a youngster, one wonders whether he would be where he is today. Mr. Romley has admitted to using marijuana twice in the 1960s. Under Straight guidelines Mr. Romley would have been an incurable drug addict for life, most certainly on his way to harder drugs. He would have been placed in Straight and he would have been denied an education for an extensive period of time. And yet Betty Sembler's Drug Free America Foundation has teamed up with the Maricopa County Attorney's office to produce and market the 12 minute film
"Medical" Marijuana: A Smokescreen." The DFAF joined with prosecutor Romley to work to defeat the medicalization of marijuana
initiative in Arizona. According to the Arizona Republic, Betty Sembler is a backer of Rick Romley. In February 2001, President Bush's White House team interviewed Rick Romley for the position of Drug Czar. (It was around that time that President Bush nominated Mel Sembler for the office of
president of the Import/Export
Bank.)(20)
Former U.S. Representative from Florida Bill McCollum, who did the Clinton impeachment thing, is another in the running in 2001 for Drug Czar. When he ran for U.S. Senate in 2000 Betty Sembler was on
McCollum's finance
committee.(21) In
fact the entire Sembler family has been very good to Mr. McCullum as you can see
by clicking here.
In the period
1999 - 2000, Huizenga Holdings was McCullum's biggest contributor at
$39,000 [you recall from above that Sembler and Huizenga helped Jeb Bush
stay afloat after his first gubernatorial defeat in Florida and that
Straight's former paid consultant Robert DuPont is a director on
Psychemedics-- Huizenga's hair testing company.] Publix
Supermarkets kicked in $11,750 to the would-be Drug Czar [Sembler
Company is a major leasing company for Publix Supermarkets.]
Joseph E. Seagram & Sons were in for $12,000. [Source: OpenSecrets]
Public Campaign awarded Bill McCullum its Golden
Leash Award for using his position on the Banking and Financial Services Committee U.S. House of Representatives to promote special favors for his "cash constituents."
In May 1998 Representative McCollum helped kick off the Orlando Conference--an
anti-medicalization of marijuana conference. The key-note speaker was former Drug Czar Bill Bennett. The event was sponsored by Betty's DFAF and
S.O.S., and by Florida's Department of Law Enforcement.
During the Vietnam War the U.S. Army developed a defoliating chemical called Agent Orange. It wasn't until 20 years later that the long-term effects on humans of this terrible
drug was determined. In 1999 Bill McColloum and Betty Sembler were staunch allies of a measure in Florida to unleash a
herbicide on Florida's farmers called fusarium oxysporum
which Bill McCullum calls the Silver Bullet in the War on Drugs. The claim is that the fungus will only affect cocaine, heroin and marijuana plants!
That harebrained idea was dreamed-up by Florida's own Drug Czar, James McDonough, who is another
Floridian under consideration in 2001 for the nation's Drug Czar. Besides his nutty proposal to spread a potentially harmful fungus on Florida's crops, would-be drug czar Jim McDonough tried to spread a state-wide panic in May of 2000
by blaming
club drugs for causing 254 deaths in the Sunshine state. Included in McDonough's
party-goers, fatalities list was 15
year old Mitchell Waters who died of a heart ailment but was taking a prescription that contained a drug on McDonough's list; Pearl Mastros, a real swinger around the nursing home, when he died there at age 80; and "druggie" Tavani Smith, age 4, who died in a hospital! And there were other errors in McDonough's report.(22)
Now
Betty was not on McDonough's finance committee but she was the finance co-chairman for McDonough's boss, Florida Governor Jeb
Bush--the President's brother. Betty Sembler and Jim McDonough sit on the advisory board of the
Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training (MCTFT)--a program funded by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Florida National Guard and hosted near Betty's
house at Saint Petersburg Junior College. MCTFT is the federal government's program to train law enforcement officers, nationwide, in
counter drug task force efforts.
04-16-02
In the late 1990s Melvin developed the Republican Party concept of Regents
. One of his most famous Regents is Enron's Ken Lay. Mel's friend
Alex Spasos, owner of the San Diego Chargers, is another. Mel and
Alex, who are both contributors to the Shoah Foundation (survivors of Auswitch)
toured the foundation together. And both made sizable contributions to stop Proposition 36 in California--an initiative to modernize our drug laws. Alex donated $100,000 and Straight Foundation (now calling itself Drug Free America Foundation) pitched in another $125,000.
Betty will never forget the day when Jeb Bush turned to her in an adjoining box during George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention to tell her he had just declared August 8, 2000 Betty
Sembler Day in all of Florida, in large part for her work with
Straight. Nor will she likely forget her 70th birthday the next year when everybody gathered at Gratzzi's Italian restaurant to wish her well.
Judge Irene Sullivan, a Republican who had been aided in her judgeship
election because the Republican Party endorsed her on a pamphlet it
distributed, could only stay for salad and Saint Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, who was at another nearby luncheon, did manage to stop in to say hello.
(Judge Irene Sullivan is the wife of former Florida state
Republican Senator Donald Sullivan, MD who was formerly the secretary
for Straight Foundation, Inc. Attorney Rick Baker had been the local
campaign chairman for both Gov. Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush. Jeb
Bush appeared at a political fund raiser for him.) In stead of gifts Betty had asked everyone to contribute to the
Straight Foundation, Inc. which now calls itself DFAF. When Mel
Sembler opened his latest masterpiece, the Bay Walk shopping center, and
held a VIP party on November 16, 2000 Judge Irene Sullivan was on-hand along
with Judge Bob Beach. [St Pete Times, 11-19-2000]. Which brings us back to Alex Spasos' donation of $100,000 to stop Proposition 36 and DFAF's donation of $125,000. While Mr. Spasos gave real green money records show that Straight contributed $125,000 in "non-money". What the hell is $125,000 of non-money? Does that mean that Betty and Calvina Fay charged their salaries into stopping Prop 36, or what?
Updated04-12-02
In 2001 George
W. Bush nominated Melvin Sembler to head the
Import/Export Bank, but Sembler declined this plum citing conflict of
interest. So George, Jr. gave him the embassy to Italy. Here's the sales
receipt. In fact, here are known political
contributions by the Sembler family from 1980
- 2002. And here is Mel on his
new assignment. We feel that Mel Sembler has paid more than his
fair share to get respect from his fellow
Republicans. And so it is only fitting he should
be required to pay no more than $24,000 during the 2004
election cycle (which was the total contributions to them Republicans made by Clark
Randt, Jr. in 1999 for
the Red Chinese
post.) In fact, we strongly urge Mr. Sembler to buy
the Red China post
next. Does he realize that the Great Wall
of China is the only man-made structure that can been
seen with the naked eye from outer space, and unlike that tower in Italy, it does not lean
even after all these years. But best of all the
People's Republic of China has 11,178 miles of
coastline! Yes, Mr. Sembler,
you should go for Red
China next. Perhaps you can save the world
by turning Red China
into a nice capitalistic society like our own. You
could show them how to market "thought reform"
for profit so they could Capitalize
on Communism.
|
Not since George
H. W. Bush
was our ambassador to
China when Forrest Gump tore their
Commie asses up
in ping pong has there been a better
opportunity to normalize
relations with Red
China. |
You are the 6280th visitor since Dec 8,
2000
Questions? Comments?
Ginger Warbis ,
Wesley Fager, Survivors
of Straight Discussion
Footnotes:
1. St. Petersburg Times, 3/15/74.
2. [SPT , 4-22-1989, Section Religion, Ed: City, p. 5E]
3. [SPT 2-23-78]
4. [SPT 4-30-78, Sect B]
5. [The Fairfax Journal, 12-17-80, p. A12.].
6. Saint Petersburg Times, 5-13-82, p.12b
7. Baum, Dan, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the
Politics of Fairure, p. 232; Trebach, Arnold, op. cit., p. 31.
8. Wall Street Journal, February 23, 1988, p. 57, col. 3.
9. spt 12-6-88 1B
10. [spt 8-7-94, p. 9A, National]
11. [Baltimore Sun, 7-18-1989]
12. [SPT, 1-25-89, p. 3B; SPT 1-25-1989, p. 3B, City Ed,
Sect Tampa Bay and State]
13. [SPT, 7-12-1989, p. 1A, Sect: National, Ed: City]
14. [[Harper's Magazine, September 1989, pp. 66- 67]
15. [SPT 10-17-88, p. 1B, City]
16. [SPT, 6-9-1989, p. 1A, Section: National, Ed. City]
17. SPT, 6-9-1989, p. 1A, Section: National, Ed. City
6-9-89
18. [SPT, 1-04-1989, p. 1A, Sect: National, Ed: City]
18a. [SPT, October 4, 1989]
19. [SPT, 6-13-1989, p. 4A, Section: National. Ed: City]
20. The Arizona Republic, Feb. 23, 2001 by Mike McCloy
21 SPT-online, State, 9-3-99. 22. Orlando
Sentinel, 5-21-2000.
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