Creepy sexual hypnotist dumps money into Oregon GOP coffers
Carla Axtman
Much has been written about Loren Parks, the Nevada businessman who fancies himself a guy who can tame 'frigid' women into sexual dynamos for their man by hypnotizing them into believing they're having sex with Mickey Mouse. Shockingly, Parks has had to settle two sexual harassment lawsuits out of court.
Besides his weird and creepy nonpolitical activities, Parks has also shoveled huge piles of cash to Republicans and extreme conservative causes in our state. This week, he piled on to the tune of $375,000 to the Oregon Senate Republicans (a contribution which I erroneously said yesterday on OPB's Think Out Loud went to Dudley--apologies).
Parks has given $12,000 to the Oregon Republican Party in the last two months, too.
Parks' donation to the Senate Republicans represents almost half of their current cash on hand, which puts them in the position of being beholden to a guy who not only doesn't live in our state, he continues to push his extremist brand of conservativism.
Looking at their campaign finance activity, there's virtually no grassroots money coming in to the Senate GOP. Most of the donations are coming in five figure checks from individual Senate Republicans, not from grassroots donations.
Contrast this with the Oregon Senate Democrats, who have much more in the way of small donations from both individuals and PACs. The Democratic Party of Oregon has a bunch of small dollar contributions as well.
It's not easy for the Democrats to compete with the Loren Parks of this world. Few of us in Oregon have the kind of income that allows us to give that kind of money, so it takes a lot more of us to equal just one wealthy conservative donor. Do yourself a favor and please donate to the Oregon Senate Democrats. Oregon deserves better than to be under the political thumb of a creepy, rightwing nut.
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1:45 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
Hey now some useful information on this site- Mickey Mouse huh? I was wondering how that worked.
Thanks for the tip Carla!
Can you find out some more info for us on this? What happens if you use Donald Duck for example.
2:40 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
Yeesh, John. I'm afraid you'd have to run that one by Parks.
So creepy on SO many levels.
12:34 p.m.
Oct 3, '10
So I notice your're posting Donald Duck today! Co-incidence? I think not. I'll get Sarah Palin to investgate...
2:39 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
The G.O.P. has a history with sexually creepy guys--remember GWB and his "Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their, their LOVE with women all across the country."
12:28 p.m.
Oct 6, '10
remember ....Sam Adams and Neil Goldschmidt ....too many pedophiles aren't able to put their love into practice like these two (and avoid prison time and lifetime registration requirements) here or all across the country ...
7:00 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
Given that OrGOP is virtually powerless in OR, thankfully, who cares who they are beholding to. Heck, I don't care if [fill in the blank] gave them money, they are in no position to act on his|her|it's behalf.
7:01 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
in re: L. Parks
eeewwwwwww!
7:07 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
Loren Parks pretty much owned the Oregon GOP for a while through the power of his wallet. Their main candidate and head of the party for a while, Kevin Mannix, was financed by and deeply in debt to Parks.
Parks once single handedly financed a charter school, I think it was in Gresham. Then one day he walked into the school and discovered to his dismay that they were teaching fifth graders about the solar system. He said that learning about the solar system in a science class would not help children learn to run a business. So he immediately shut down the school three months after they had opened. Nice guy..... There's a lot of good stuff about him if you Google.
10:48 p.m.
Oct 2, '10
There's a lot more to that story.
Parks thought he could show the world how to run a school like a business. His folly was quickly exposed to the parents that were stupid enough to place their children in this man's scary experiment.
11:01 a.m.
Oct 3, '10
Carla:
I was wondering how it would take before you found Nigel's WWeek article.
There's no doubt Loren Parks is beyond creepy - and rich. He has long bankrolled Mannix and Sizemore from out-of-state.
But you lament the apparent fact that Oregon Democrats don't have their own (less creepy) sugar daddies.
Perhaps you've never met Win McCormack? No one will ever confuse Parks' and McCormack's personal lifestyles, but I don't think McCormack qualifies as either a Republican or a small donor to Democrats.
11:57 a.m.
Oct 3, '10
Bruce: Are you seriously comparing Win McCormack to Loren Parks? That's an extremely wild stretch. I agree that McCormack gives a lot of money to Democrats--but that's within the context of oodles of grassroots donations that Democrats also receive. Parks donations represent almost half of the Senate Republicans current cash on hand based ON ONE DONATION. McCormack gave into the six figures in Oregon, but it was spread around and not representative as a main source of revenue. His 2004 contribution to ACT is a drop in the national bucket compared to say, the Koch brothers.
You'll have to do better than this.
Oh--and McCormack isn't creepy and extremist, unlike Parks.
12:36 p.m.
Oct 3, '10
We should be so lucky as to have Win in charge of our state-
12:58 p.m.
Oct 3, '10
Carla:
Nobody compares to Parks on the Creep-O-Meter - certainly not McCormack.
As Mapes noted,
"McCormack gave nearly $350,000 to Democratic presidential and congressional candidates in the past two elections. And in the past two years, he gave $333,000 to local and state candidates and ballot measure campaigns in Oregon.
On top of that, he made the biggest political donation of his life -- $1 million -- to an independent voter turnout group seeking to topple Bush in 2004. The group, America Coming Together, operated independently of the Democratic Party so that wealthy donors could exceed federal campaign finance limits."
Parks is a certifiably creepy wealthy donor to Republicans.
McCormack is a noncreepy wealthy donor to Democrats.
Both parties have their sugar daddies. Some are just creepier than others.
1:56 p.m.
Oct 3, '10
Carla:
While conceding the creep factor to Parks, a quick Orestar check shows Win McCormack has been busy writing checks in 2010 as well.
$75,000 to Kitzhaber 2010 (13920)
$50,000 to Defend Oregon (13130)
$20,000 to Democratic Party of Oregon (353)
$20,000 to Bob Stacey for Metro President (13836)
As a millionaire Democrat, Win McCormack is free to support candiates and measures to his liberal heart's content.
I'm sure Dr. John appreciated that last $50,000 check he received from McCormack. With friends like that, it takes a lot of grass roots scratch to equal one McCormack check.
P.S. Amount of money Loren Parks has contributed to Chris Dudley: $0.00.
9:12 p.m.
Oct 3, '10
you know what creeps me out... Austin Industries giving $100K to Dudley. You know who they are? cause I didn't. So I looked them up!
short preface... did you know that Filigree Advisors, the company that Dudley is part owner and plays the part of the greeter at... states that their investment focus is "oil and gas investments" on their SEC filing?
This is where it gets interesting, Austin Industries is a Austin Texas company that specializes in Oil, gas and chemical development. Now one would have to wonder what on earth would they expect for their $100k?
Could this be why Dudley refuses to take a position other than he's "open" to Oregon Coast off shore drilling.
that's what creeps me out.
6:32 a.m.
Oct 4, '10
Always pays to follow the money.
At least to the extent election laws permit.
7:56 p.m.
Oct 4, '10
You know what? I WOULD LOVE to follow the money. Unfortunately the supreme court decided that we didn't need to know where the corp money is coming from and the GOP refused to allow a vote on the "disclose act". So elections have now come down to who puts up the dollars... it's bad enough that Austin Industries can help affect a campaign in Oregon, but the really sad part is that companies like Roche (german) and BP (british) can now buy elections in our country at whim.
Just for fun go and try to look up who funds Americans for Prosperity, or America's Fund. Cause these are the people dropping the serious dollars into Oregon politics (and every other state in the nation).
12:34 p.m.
Oct 6, '10
The Disclose Act was politically motivated bad law. It applied the disclosure requirements unevenly by giving exemptions to mostly groups who write big checks to socialist political parties and their candidates ...oh I am sorry I mean to say Democrats not socialists ...I wonder if Roget has those two terms listed in his latest thesaurus yet...probably
10:16 a.m.
Oct 4, '10
Bruce:
And yet if you add up all of the McCormack donations you've cited, they pale in comparison to the SINGLE donation of $375,000 that Parks gave to the Senate Republicans.
Which in fact, makes my point. The Democrats have a lot more grassroots donors they need to cobble together in order to make up for just this ONE donor.
12:36 p.m.
Oct 6, '10
The left is owned by it's supporters carla. How much have the various labor unions in this state (and outside this state) spent to buy various candidates and ballot measures away from the voters? To listen to them cry in court when they were using the justice system to silence one of their more vocal critics ...alot!
6:48 p.m.
Oct 7, '10
Chester:
Labor unions in Oregon are owned by their Oregon workers. These are the people who change the bed sheets at nursing homes, teach kids how to read, do service jobs in hotels, etc. They CHOOSE to pool their money together and give it to candidates.
If that's who "owns" the left, as you say, fine by me. I'd much prefer that to a creepy sexual hypnotist with a whole host of bizarre right wing ideological notions--who doesn't even live here.