Fast forward to 2005. Sembler, 75, is the United States Ambassador to Italy..
Says Bradbury of what happened inside: “You don’t understand what they did to these kids. . . . They put stuff up my butt.”…
For the past two years, Bradbury has dug through Sembler’s trash outside his St. Petersburg home. Set off by the story of an ongoing Death Row case involving a STRAIGHT teen who murdered a gay man after being spat on as a “faggot” in the program, Bradbury lashed out. He used eBay to post something he’d found on Sembler’s sidewalk: a penis pump…
When a lawyer demanded he give it back, he demanded $700,000 instead. Bradbury, accused of stalking and intentional infliction of emotional damage, is still in court. He’s hoping the ambassador will be forced to testify about STRAIGHT and be held accountable, though how likely that is remains unclear…
The Semblers live in a palace-like walled estate in Rome, featuring the city’s largest private garden. They jokingly call it “The Magic Kingdom” – like Disney World, the real one as opposed to the unmarked building near Burger King. The wealth that brought him here stems from his accomplishments as shopping center developer in St. Petersburg. He was also Bush I’s Ambassador to Australia. And he is founder of St. Pete’s Holocaust museum.
Then there is his public cheerfulness about STRAIGHT. His Web site brags of saving 12,000 kids from drugs. George H.W. Bush awarded it one of the “thousand points of light” awards.
His influence, according to a 1993 audit by the State of Florida, kept STRAIGHT open despite the facts. Phone calls from politicians in 1989 warned health inspectors that it didn’t matter what abuse they reported, the clinics would stay open. After all, they were run by a personal friend of the President…
By 1994 the clinics were closed in name, but offshoots continue today – with names like SAFE of Orlando….
It’s no wonder Italians are bewildered. Prison abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have Europeans wondering if their once-admired ally, the U.S., is O.K. in the head. And now we’re leaving the impression that it’s O.K. – heroic, even – to treat young Americans like Guantanamo Bay inmates….
(The ambassador has declined an interview request, has said he won’t answer questions about STRAIGHT, and his attorney did not return my e-mail.) link
I sat here for a while trying to compose some sort of commentary to accompany this. My attempt was unsuccessful and for that I apologize.
Watching the US crash is like watching a train wreck. You feel cheap and dirty, but you just can’t stop looking.
also see
http://www.theStraights.com
(both sites by same victim)
I feel speechless. It just keeps coming.
I am also left speechless, as with DeLay’s recent comments about Justice Kennedy. But when you have a snarkout, Ductape, I get very worried.
Let’s keep on this story. Especially the mansion aspect.
I’ve heard about this before and someone even posted on this at dkos but it was completely ignored, so I just passed over the darned thing.
I can do some research in the “Italian” web on this f*+ing freak and see what turns up…
I had read a little about this guy while doing some reading about the charitable choice mess. I’m really glad you posted this, although it’s hard to deal with. With a lot of things I can just find some bitter humor in it but at this point and on these issues I’m sunk, not a bleak joke left. It’s disgusting.
Wow. I had heard some about Sembler, the naming bit I think, but I had no idea he was involved in shit like this. I’ll have to amend your train wreck analogy though. It’s not so much like watching one, it’s more like riding one, however much you’d like to look away and forget that it’s happening, there is no such option available.
How can a person that has been investigated like this have a job with the US government? It won’t be long before the whole rest of the world revolts from this constant flow of crimes against humanity. May they all burn in Hell!!!
The purchase of the “mansion” and the naming of it after a sitting ambassador is unprecedented and both stories were swept under the rug, or rather, just not covered. Both however are fascinating. WaPo ran a story about both after the fact (3/3):
The big news was not in Brussels or Bratislava, but in Rome, where real history was made with the dedication of the Mel Sembler Building. This lovely, ornate building in the heart of the Eternal City had been put up for sale a couple of years ago by an Italian insurance company. U.S. Embassy officials jumped at the chance to consolidate outlying offices in a more secure location near the embassy.
And who better to negotiate the $83.5 million deal than the ambassador himself, a wealthy former shopping center developer in St. Petersburg, Fla., and former Republican National Committee finance chairman who gave the GOP boatloads of money over the years?
Ahem. This is the sort of stuff that we have come to expect from BushCo. But, the story is a fascinating one and rather twisted. Kinda like Sembler himself. Twisted enough for WaPo to bestow their annual and coveted In the Loop Narcissism Run Amok Award for 2005 even though it was just beginning of March with practically the entire year ahead of them.
Bush thought this unusual. “And he said,” Young recalled, ” ‘We don’t do that, do we? We don’t name buildings for ambassadors where they have served.’ And I said, ‘Mr. President, I introduced the bill and you signed it.’ ” (Don’t blame Bush for not noticing one line tucked into the omnibus appropriations bill.)
Personally, I think that WaPo writer Al Kamen is letting the Shrubster off pretty easy. It wasn’t just the $83.5 million dollars, it was also the unconventional naming process. I guess old Al is suffering from lowered expectations.
The White House and the State Department have pretty high expectations for Mel Sembler. They are outright proud of him. This juicy nugget comes directly from Sembler’s bio on the State Department website:
In February 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Sembler United States Ambassador to Australia and Nauru. As the President’s personal representative, he actively promoted United States’ interests abroad during his three and one-half years’ service. At the recommendation of the Governor-General of Australia and with the approval of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Sembler was named an Honorary Officer in the Order of Australia at an investiture ceremony in October 2000. The Order of Australia is an Australian society of honor for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and is rarely given to foreigners.
Although best known as a leading shopping center developer, Sembler is also renowned for his activism in the anti-drug movement. In 1976, Sembler and his wife founded STRAIGHT, an adolescent drug treatment program. During its 17 years of existence, STRAIGHT successfully graduated more than 12,000 young people nationwide from its remarkable program.
I have not researched the validity of the claims against the Straight, Inc. program or Mel Sembler and his wife Betty. However, there is a website that focuses on participants in the program, their stories and how they are asking to be removed from the list of 12,000 who “successfully graduated” from the program. I am certain that some of these are fake, as the site is not secure, but there are many powerful testimonials that speak to the torment that was inflicted. I will not quote any here, as there is no way to verify the real from the hoax.
As you browse, you may find interesting, the appearance to several references to Oprah. I am guessing that Sembler was either on the program or his program was mentioned.
There are agencies watching the Sembler’s and the radical methods that have been employed at the facilities that are currently operating under different names or are descendants of Straight, Inc.
One of these watchdog groups is International Survivors Action Committee They have provided the following watch-list of post-Straight facilities:
AARC (Alberta Adolescent Recovery Center) – Canada
Growing Together – Florida
Kids Helping Kids – Ohio
Operation Par – Florida
Pathway Family Center – Indiana and Michigan
Phoenix Institute – Georgia
SAFE (Substance Abuse and Family Education) – Florida
Second Chance – Tennessee
ISAC operates as a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization and has a pretty well-developed website. This is part of what they have to say about “Kids Helping Kids” and the other post-Straight Sembler facilities:
The complaints specifically allege the following occurred in early 2004:
A male client suffered a broken leg during a particularly violent physical restraint performed by other clients.
A brand-new female client was dragged out of an Open Meeting by 2 staff members and 2 fellow clients. The child was supposed to stand in front of a room full of strangers, say her name, list off the drugs she had used, and tell a humiliating story from her “past.” Instead, the child said: “Let me tell you what really happens here…” According to witnesses, the child was then tackled, dragged out of the open meeting and screamed for 15 minutes while being restrained.
With no instruction from the staff of Kids Helping Kids, parents attending the Open Meeting stood up, turned their backs to the struggle, and began to loudly sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in an attempt to drown out the child’s screams. Witnesses describe the incident as “horrifying” and “traumatic.”
Official police reports obtained by ISAC substantiate these complaints.
That is pretty scary stuff.
But, consider for a moment, not the children, but the unmitigated gall of an administration that would laud this man on the State Department website, appoint him to a third Ambassadorship, and name an Embassy after him.
But then, King George refers to everything that Donald Rumsfeld does as “a superb job”. Guess that sets the expectations bar pretty low.