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Elections & Voting Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2006 - 00:29:25


What Floridians should know about Charlie Crist
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Oct 16, 2006, 00:16

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(WMR) WMR's intrepid sources in Florida report on some details about GOP gubernatorial candidate and current Attorney General Charlie Crist, or should we say Charlie Christodoulos.

Crist's father, Charlie, Sr., legally shortened the family's name in 1949, according to court records in Pinellas County, Florida. The elder Crist's father emigrated from Cyprus to the United States in 1912. We have also discovered a bit more about Crist's personal details, much of which have been obscured because of Crist's status as a "law enforcement officer." Under post-Patriot Act laws, personal details on law enforcement officers are blocked by special statutes.

WMR received the following article Friday from George Maurer, a Key West Florida radio talk show host. This article contains information that every Florida voter should know before casting their ballot before or on November 7.

"At the outset of this message, let me first get something off my chest. I�m a gay man who, never since I realized same more than 30 years ago, has ever denied same, and who served 30 years in the Army/Army Reserve. About Florida congressperson Mark Foley, I�ve found these past few days particularly troubling, especially so as I�m a progressive Democrat and very troubled about the HYPOCRISY of many of our Republican opposition.

Starting at the top, we have AWOL George W. Bush who constantly gives TV speeches in front of and with a picture background of military audiences. AWOL George�s only military background was a 6-year obligation with the Texas Air National Guard which he used to get a deferment from going to Vietnam, and from which obligation he was Absent Without Leave (AWOL) for the last couple of years of his tour. This same hypocrite has taken us to mammoth, unjustified, unpaid, prolonged war, killing hundreds of thousands of people. In the last couple of days, he and his hypocritical colleagues have enacted a military detainee bill which broadly defines �enemy combatants� and makes any US citizen or resident subject to same, without right of habeas corpus review, review only by an �enemy combatant review tribunal.� They have voted to pay for and construct a 300-mile fence between the US-Mexico 3,000 mile border.

Now we have Mark Foley. As an adult, I�ve never fooled around with underage males, let alone those over whom I�ve had some degree of power.

Now, even the most staunch of Republicans must know about Florida congressperson Mark Foley. But what about Charlie Crist (Jr?), Florida�s Republican candidate for Governor?

The following appears in the online material of the Insurance Journal, as a 9/16/06 posting of Beverly S. Hill of Tallahassee, Florida:

Charles Crist is an �In The Closet Homosexual.�

The fact that he is GAY means nothing.

The fact that he is IN THE CLOSET and represents a party that hates GAYS means everything. This kind of hypocrisy is grotesque and cannot be tolerated. I hope we can all help Charlie �COME OUT� before the election.'

Let�s take a look at Crist�s biography. This perpetually tan (at least from the neck up), handsome, 50-year old bachelor was born on June 24, 1956 in Altoona, PA.. Half Greek origin, half Scots-Irish, his Greek dad, Charles Crist, Sr., M.D., changed the family name in 1949, from Christodoulos, dropping the 'h' and the 'doulos.'

The second oldest of four children and the only son, the family moved to Atlanta when young Charlie was 6 weeks old, and where his dad went to medical school. In 1960, then Dr. Crist got a job at Bayfront Medical Center and the family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1966, Dr. Crist won election to the Pinellas County School Board.

From 1970-74, presumably, Charlie attended St. Petersburg High School where his dad was football team doctor, and where Crist was said to have played quarterback until 'his playing career was cut short by a knee injury his senior year.'

At the Crist home on Snell Isle, Charlie was said to play catch with the boy next door, Felix Fudge, who 'was four years younger.'

Apparently, in the fall of 1974, Charlie decided to go to Wake Forest University in North Carolina, because, despite his high school knee injury, he, according to an 8/27/06 St. Petersburg Times� news article, 'hoped to extend his football career at a small university. . . . *** (B)ut he was a walk-on, a bench warmer who played in junior varsity games but never took a snap in a varsity contest.' Of course, Crist�s official state bio merely says he �attended Wake Forest University, where he played quarterback. . . ."

Now unlike AWOL George W. Bush, there�s not a word anywhere that I�ve seen about Charlie�s draft status in 1975 as the war was ending in Vietnam, and the draft as well, and no indication that he served a single day in the military. 'After his sophomore year at Wake Forest, a homesick Crist gave up on football and *** decided to transfer to Florida State University,' presumably in the fall of 1976. After graduating from FSU in June, 1978 (?), Crist apparently, in the fall of 1978, entered Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the summer of 1979, Crist, while attending law school in Alabama, entered his one and only brief marriage to a woman, Amanda Morrow. During the 1979 holiday season, Crist�s sister Catherine Kennedy said his 'head was down and his shoulders were slumped.' Crist was the one who filed for divorce only some six months after the marriage and it was dissolved on 2/15/80. 'Like Crist, Morrow did not marry again.' In the Miami Herald 8/24/06 commentary 'Naked Politics�, 'Bruce' posted 'What�s this about Charlie�s ex-wife, Amanda Morrow, being a lesbian? Does the press know that she has lived with her partner for years? Is this why Charlie�s marriage failed? Is this why Mr. Crist is for Civil Union for gays? Does this mean that their marriage was a sham?' Presumably, Crist graduated from the Alabama law school in June 1981.

Crist�s reported chronology from 1981 until his 1992 election to the state senate is inexact at best. As far as I can glean it, he twice failed the bar exam before passing it on the third try.

While struggling with the bar exam, he apparently 'interned' with the State Attorney�s Office (in Pinellas?). (It helps to have a Republican medical doctor daddy.) Presumably in 1982, he got a five-year job as �general counsel' for the St. Petersburg-based National Association of Professional Baseball Players, the 'controlling body' for minor-league baseball in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Given time off for various months at end during the 5 years, he unsuccessfully ran for the state senate in 1986. Then, supposedly in 1987, he joined his brother-in-law�s, J. Emery Wood�s, one-man law firm.

In 1988, Connie Mack won US Senate election, and Crist worked for a year as Mack�s state director. He returned, for a couple of years apparently, to his brother-in-law�s law practice, and Charlie was then elected himself to the state senate in 1992 where he served for four years until 1996. In 1997, who knows what he did? In 1998, Crist ran unsuccessfully for US Senate against Bob Graham. In 1999, Jeb Bush appointed him Deputy Director for the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation and he then won election as Florida Education Commissioner where he served from January 2001 to January 2003. From January 2003 to date, Crist won election and has served as Florida�s Attorney General.

One might sarcastically suggest that a person with an undistinguished academic career, an almost non-existent private sector career, who�s tan, handsome and articulate and has a fairly rich Republican daddy, certainly deserves to be on the public dole as Florida�s Education Commissioner and Attorney General. Now, of course, Crist is the Republican nominee to be Florida Governor.

One should note that, while Education Commissioner in 2001, Crist was reported as condemning a play with a gay theme that 'offended Christians' (see May 2001 newsletter, TransFamily.).

For the past year, as Crist�s quest to be governor developed, Charlie has supposedly been 'dating' Kathryn 'Katie' Pemble, executive vice-president of the Bank of St. Petersburg. Pemble is 41 years of age, divorced, and has a 7-year old daughter. As to possible marriage with Pemble, Crist says 'I haven�t thought about it.' In mid-September, 2006, 'millionaire Reform Party gubernatorial candidate Max Linn ' . . . 'insist(ed) that Charlie Crist is gay� . . . 'on Orlando radio station WFLA-AM 540' . . . to talk show 'host Bud Hedlinger. . . . ' Linn said 'he would �put my hand on a stack of Bibles� to say Crist is gay.' His sexual preference is not to women. . . . �(See Gadfly in governor's race may have a sharp stinger.)

As to Crist�s being gay, 'Linn claimed to know this because he and Crist were in the same 1985 class of Leadership St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce program. �We discussed it,� Linn said. Linn . . . said if Crist were to win, he would be subject to extortion and blackmail. In the next breath, Linn said he would avoid mudslinging but that Crist�s personal life is a special case because it�s about integrity.�

WMR has also learned that Crist's fraternity brother at Florida State was Brent Sembler, son of major Bush and Crist financial backer Mel Sembler. Sembler, who served as George W. Bush's ambassador to Italy and Daddy Bush's ambassador to Australia, was the brains behind the founding of SEED, Straight, Inc. and the Drug Free American Foundation (DFAF). Straight and SEED have been accused of abusing teens undergoing drug rehabilitation, including subjecting teens to brainwashing techniques. And what doctor served on the advisory board of SEED and approved of such techniques that subjected underage teens to brainwashing? None other than Dr. Charlie Crist, Sr., the father of the man who seeks to replace Jeb Bush and Governor of Florida. And why has Bernie McCabe, the State Attorney for Pinellas County, never brought charges against SEED, Straight, and DFAF for child abuse? It might have something to do with the fact that McCabe is a campaign contributor to Charlie Crist.

It is clear that Crist's candidacy is an attempt to continue the Bush "banana republic" regime in Florida. And that spells big trouble for Democrats in the 2008 presidential election. After all, we should all remember what Jeb Bush and his hand-picked Secretary of State Katherine Harris pulled off in 2000.

� 2006 WayneMadsenReport.com. All Rights Reserved.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is author of the forthcoming book, �Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates.� He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report.

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