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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] 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.
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. 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)
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.
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)
Syndicated cartoonist Gary Trudeau had a field day lampooning President Bush's 1989 ambassadorial appointments and ran several satires like the one below:
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 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. 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?
You are the visitor since Dec 8, 2000 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]
23. A second-generation Straight is one based on the therapeutic model perfected at Straight, Inc. These programs are often organized, at least in part, by a former Straight official. Second-generation Straight does not express or imply that the group is destructive, though many second-generation Straights have been accused of child abuse. |
lorida
judicial campaigns always have been non-partisan
affairs . . .
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.
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.
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 
