Phil Gramm May Be Gone, But His Porn Lives On
Phil Gramm's recent disparaging of "a nation of whiners" complaining about a "mental recession" did more than offend the sensibilities of economically struggling Americans. His gaffe also served as a reminder that McCain had appointed one of the most reactionary, venal, and destructive political figures in recent times as his top econ man. By Sunday, the damage to the McCain campaign had grown so severe it announced that Gramm's role had been significantly reduced.
Phil Gramm attempted to invest $15,000 in "Truck Stop Women." His money ultimately helped produce a film portraying Richard Nixon wandering nude around the White House.
Gramm was an accident waiting to happen. Indeed, his gaffe represents little more than a scrap in the massive heap of wreckage he has left in his wake. Gramm's own presidential campaign in 1996 was among his most high-profile casualties. In order to win a whopping total of 8 delegates, the charisma-challenged Gramm had to spend $20 million, or about $2.5 million per delegate. This experience curiously translated into a job as one of McCain's key political advisors.
But first, Gramm returned to the Senate, where he was lobbied intensely by one of his major campaign contributors, Enron. Enron enjoyed easy access to Gramm's office; the senator's wife served on Enron's board of directors and Ken Lay was his 1992 campaign co-chair. Gramm rewarded his financial angels in 2000, slipping the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" into a omnibus spending bill just as Congress headed off for summer vacation. His amendment instantly enabled the creation of a shadow banking system -- "weapons of financial destruction" in the words of Warren Buffet -- that directly contributed to the current mortgage foreclosure crisis. Millions of Americans have suffered as a result of Gramm's machinations.
While the destruction Gramm has caused is felt across the country, little is known about the seedy business schemes that preceded his political career. Before Gramm joined the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed to call for the defunding of the NEA, before he attacked an opponent for taking money from a gay rights group, and before he was interviewed by the white supremacist Southern Partisan magazine, Gramm was an avidly active investor in soft-core pornography movies.
Gramm's journey into porn began in 1973, when his brother-in-law, George Caton, rushed to tell him about an exciting low-budget soft-core production called "Truck Stop Women." A promo poster for the film boasted of its buxom stars: "No Rig Was Too Big For Them To Handle." Caton, who was in charge of fundraising for the production, asked Gramm to become an investor. To entice his brother-in-law, Caton showed him scenes of Playboy Playmate of the year Claudia Jennings displaying her bare essentials (she is naked throughout much of the film).
These scenes "really got Phil titillated," Caton told journalist John Judis in 1995. Gramm enthusiastically cut Caton a check for $15,000. Because the film was oversold, however, Caton returned his brother-in-law's money, offering him an investment opportunity in an upcoming feature.
The following year, Gramm sent Caton a check for $15,000, this time to finance the production of "Beauty Queens," a soft-core flick about pageant judges having sex with contestants. But at the last moment, the director of "Beauty Queens," Mark Lester, decided to shelve his production to make the sequel to his "Tricia's Wedding," a comedy starring the drag queen troupe, The Cockettes.
Gramm contributed at least $7500 towards the sequel, a satire of the Nixon White House called "White House Madness" that featured the crazed president wandering around the White House in the nude. Gramm never saw that money again. Shot in ten days on a soundstage crudely modeled after the Oval Office, "White House Madness" tanked at the box office.
Like the rest of Gramm's endeavors, his soft-core porn career was a complete disaster.
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Well, well, well, another Republican family values guy got caught with his hypocrisy showing. Why is anyone surprised?
How can you make porn that loses money? Is it even possible? I used to work in an independently owned video rental shop. They carried all the latest Hollywood releases rated from G to NC-17, but 75% of the income came from the porn rentals. They had everything you could think of and a few things you'd rather never know existed, but even the freakiest, most obscure variations had loyal fans. Leave it to the 'pubs to make porn boring.
LOL! Good one, Tommygun264.
Max Blumenthal says "...Gramm rewarded his financial angels in 2000, slipping the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" into a omnibus spending bill just as Congress headed off for summer vacation. His amendment instantly enabled the creation of a shadow banking system -- "weapons of financial destruction" in the words of Warren Buffet -- that directly contributed to the current mortgage foreclosure crisis. "
If this is true, it needs much great exposure in the MSM, along with other Gramm led deregulations of the Banking Industry. And another aspect of our current consummer crisis around banking, Bill Clinton SIGNED INTO LAW all of Gramm's underhanded gifts to his Banking Industry cronies at the expense average American citizens: uasary level interest charges on credit cards, obscene "transaction fees" for ATMs and forms of electronic banking.
We need some major Vanity Fair type coverage banking lobbyists and what politicians like Gramm and Clinton have halped them do .
We sure can't count on the MSM to do it.
"Mrs Peel, we're needed!"
We are the NEW MSM! It's US!
We are the ones we've been looking for.
We don't lie to us.
The neo-con cable news networks do, however.
Family values my foot.
I hate to say it but as a christian,I told u so.The Bible says:"You will know the tree,by the fruit it
bears".The
Tush with the first Bush.
Phil Graham is a stalwart adherent of family values.
Or not.
"Truck Stop Women" is a pretty well regarded B-picture that got good reviews for itself and its director, Mark L. Lester, when it was released over 30 years ago.
Really, Phil Gramm has more than enough pieces of gross idiocy on his record. There's no reason to use this movie to try and make him look bad; his political activities have already done that a thousand times over.
Average American voters put more weight on anything sexual
than, say, support of death squads or torture. Recall the GOP
reaction to Bill's hobbies. In fact, that may have contributed to
the victory of the neocon crew... Who can understand all those
numbers? Of course that won't help those losing their homes...
Perhaps Mr. Gramm can argue for his moral consistency vis a vis the Lewinsky scandal by asserting that Truck Stop Women never stooped (pardon the pun) to the graphic depiction or oral sex.
You are defending the cinematic merits of "Truck Stop Women"?
"Truck Stop Women" is a hoot! I wonder which of the owners of this film let it be known Gramm was an investor? DVD rentals are bound to be remarkable over the next couple of weeks. An incredible marketing ploy!!!
I heard Gramm is good friends with Larry Craig and Mark Foley. Makes you wonder, right?
"Not that there's anything wrong with that"
It's real simple: Capitalism and the free market mentality has failed. Now the people are beginning to realize that.
A lot of us always knew it would implode on itself. Just a matter of time.
That figures.. Anyone who remembers Edwin Meese's tap dance about porno being too obscene to be distributed outside the halls of Congress shouldn't be surprised. The GOP is full of repressed old men who think about sex more than those who view it as a healthy and normal part of everyday life (liberals).
OMG! You can't make this stuff up! Yet another hypocrite in the Republican Party!
About Phil Gramm, courtesy of the late, much mourned Molly Ivins:
When he ran for president in 1996 and finished fifth in Iowa, all the profiles written of him included the line “Even his friends don’t like him.” Self-righteous and strident, Gram demonized his opponents and used bitter, polarizing rhetoric. During a Senate debate over Social Security, a member pointed out that the proposal under consideration would hurt 80-year-old retirees. “Most people don’t have the luxury of living to be 80 years old,” Gramm scoffed, “so it’s hard for me to feel sorry for them.” Well, there is that.
http://thi
it's all psychological folks. let the good times roll.
AcitizenNJ,
There's nothing psychological about my hard earned money for retirement.
At 66,I cannot afford to vacation,afraid I might get ill and need my savings.
So,until you've reached my age keep LOL and LTGTR,see what you get from
the GOP.
Active was being sarcastic, C65
It's really astonishing at how little McCain actually thinks before he acts. As a republican, he FRIGHTENS me.
As a Republican you should be frightened. You're a person without a party. The Republican Party was hijacked by Newt Gingrich and never returned despite the feeble pleas and ploys of the party's ultra conservative hold-outs. Phil Gramm, just another addict ... power addict with no soul.
But in reality, this (current Republican party) is the abandoned hull of the religious right's tug-toy and the oil oligarchy that has plagued our country since Ronald Reagan sung for his supper in California by kissing their butts for the promise of the presidency and then holding the door open of them when he got to the White House.
George er ... John McCain is not one of them. He's their joke - the decoy - eventually the scapegoat. That's why a Phil Gramm exists in his world. No actual Republican has a very high opinion of Gramm. He's a disgrace. Wanna see real pornography - listen to any McCain Town Hall. Pure profanity. Listen to McCain as he speaks Gramm's words.
Binx101
The Almost Daily Binx
http://bin
Well, welcome to the club. Republicans have FRIGHTENED good-thinking people for a long time. While you've been enjoying your bar-B-Que's and Tom Clancy novels, the Republican party has been quietly turning our country into a vicious Fascist state, stealing from the taxpayer to fund illegal wars and rewriting the nation's laws to allow corporations to rape our economy.
Good that you're waking up. For a lot of us, Gramm's obscenity is no surprise. And John McCain is the logical conclusion of the 28-year fascist revolution begun by Ronald Reagan.
Welcome to the real world, hoopesaz.
OBAMA
ROFLMAO!!
The has been who helped bring down the country is advising the has been who wants to continue bringing down the country - that is rich!
First Gramm cheats thousands of people by pushing through deregulation of financial institutions and wall street "operators," then he calls people who are hurting (as a result of his selfish actions) "whiners", and now it's porn??? Some choice for a financial adviser, Sen. McCain! (Gramm is right up there with Keating...
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