Julian Carroll turned 86 last April. He's even older than Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn-- and until this weekend he was the Democratic minority whip in the Kentucky state Senate. In 1968 he was elected Speaker of the Kentucky House and in 1974 he was elected governor of the state in a 470,159 to 277,998 landslide. His credibility suffered a severe setback when he was accused of taking insurance kickbacks and took the Fifth Amendment in front of the Grand Jury. He ran for governor again in 1987 but came in fifth in the Democratic primary. He's been in the state Senate since 2004.The reason he's no longer minority whip is because Saturday he was accused of propositioning and groping a 30-year old man in 2005. The Senate Democratic Caucus is also urging him to resign from the Senate. Funny how no Republicans urged Mitch McConnell to resign from office when he was caught groping a much younger man during the few weeks he served in the Army (and was then booted out). A spokesman for the Kentucky Democratic Party said, "We are terribly concerned by the events described in the Pure Politics piece concerning Sen. Carroll. While we acknowledge and greatly appreciate Sen. Carroll’s life-long career of public service, we cannot overlook the severity of these allegations and take them seriously." Carroll says the charges are false.
When approached in a hallway in the Capitol by Spectrum reporter Nick Storm, Carroll denied the allegations. “It is ridiculous,” said Carroll. “It did not happen.”Spectrum obtained a copy of a Kentucky State Police investigation into the matter, including a letter indicating that the Lincoln County Attorney decided not to prosecute the case.“Without proof of more than a request for sexual contact, I do not believe a criminal case could or should be sought,” the letter from April 2005 said.Carroll was married and had four children at the time.As to why the recording is surfacing publicly now, Spectrum pointed to an article last August by Washington D.C.-based Roll Call about Kentucky’s 2016 U.S. Senate race. In that article, Carroll was interviewed about whether Lexington Mayor Jim Gray’s sexual orientation mattered in the Senate race. In that interview, Carroll was asked whether he thought being gay is a choice.“I know my Christian friends don’t approve of it,” Carroll told Roll Call. “And quite frankly, it’s not a choice I choose to make.”He added: “You can choose to ask God to convert you and heal you of that choice.”
A few days ago, a friend of mine told me he was about to interview a very senior congressional Democrat and asked for suggestions about the interview. I suggested he wait 'til the last question-- since it would probably be the last no matter when he asked it-- and they say something along the lines of "It's 2017; is it still appropriate for you to be living a lie in the closet and pretending to not be gay? Since everyone knows anyway, doesn't that expose you to a political attack or even blackmail? Why not just get the hell out of the closet already?"It's so... Republican for Democrats to still be creeping around in the closet. [Here at DWT we don't out him because his voting record on LGBT issues in absolutely fine.]Anyway, you've probably heard all that chatter about Kid Rock, a Republican, threatening to run for senator in Michigan. Republicans are very excited and encouraging him to declare his candidacy. None of them seem to care that Kid Rock and Scott Stapp singer in the fake Christian band Creed caused a messy little scandal with a sex tape from 1999.The scandal was over a tape of the two rock'n'roll Republicans getting completely drunk and having some random groupies blow them on camera, with Stapp moved to scream "It's good to be the king!" Stapp, kept the tape in a safe and back them he had a home-- which, he claims, was burglarized in 2002. (Kid Rock's camp claims Stapp was strung out and broke and that he actually sold the tape for drug money. Kid Rock has never spoken to Stapp again.) In 2006 the company Stapp sold the tape to, Red Light District-- yep the folks behind the Paris Hilton sex tape-- said they were releasing the tape and even did a YouTube promo, which Kid Rock's lawyers made YouTube remove. Meanwhile, Stapp-- in an autobiography-- has claimed that the tape was really just a Kid Rock tape with him digitally imposed... although that's been proven false. Will the sex tape come out during the Senate campaign? Will any Republicans care? I mean after Trump, are there any boundaries left anyway (at least for Republicans)?
