FOLEY GATE

one thing that hasn't been mentioned (much by any paper/news organization that i've seen) is foley's history with gay boys. one doesn't jus all of a sudden decide to go after teenage boys over night! there has to be some historical concerns that haven't been brought to the forelight. there has to be some history on this guy either from the bars or other chat rooms. i think that's where the fbi should be contacted and directed to concentrate their efforts on. dig up whatever history there is on this guy and present the facts and findings to the American people - BEFORE THE ELECTION.

FOLEY GATE

Top Republicans are pointing the finger at Speaker Dennis Hastert for not doing more after learning of solicitous emails sent from Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) to a Congressional page.

Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) this morning switched his position on the leader's culpability, telling a radio interviewer, "I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of."

On Saturday, Boehner had denied speaking to Hastert about Foley this spring -- after initially telling The Washington Post that he had.

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), head of the House GOP's political arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, has also implicated Hastert. "I did what most people would do in a workplace," Reynolds said at a press conference last night, “I heard something, I took it to my supervisor.”

--tpm

ya cant believe a word they say any more

FOLEY GATE

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Monday that no Republican leaders saw lurid Internet exchanges from former Rep. Mark Foley to pages and that he would have demanded the Florida Republican's expulsion if he had known about them.

"As a parent and speaker of the House, I am disgusted," Hastert, R- Ill., told reporters after holding a meeting at the Capitol in the wake of the disclosure of the e-mails in 2003 to a page, which led to Foley's resignation last Friday. The page's home state was not immediately cited.

The speaker did not mention e-mail exchanges between Foley and another page, from Louisiana, in 2005. Other House Republicans said they told Hastert about those exchanges months ago. Hastert has not disputed those accounts.

"Congressman Foley duped a lot of people," Hastert said. "I've know him for all the years he has worked in this House and he deceived me, too."

--story

now he's crying the victim???

this can't be justification as to why repug leaders did nothing

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — At least two news organizations were tipped off to e-mail messages sent by Representative Mark Foley long before the story of his sexually explicit remarks to teenage pages broke last week and forced him to resign.

The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald received copies of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley, Republican of Florida, and a teenager, but neither paper gathered enough solid material to publish a story, according to statements by the papers’ editors.

It was not until the exchanges were published online last week, first by an anonymous blogger, then on the ABC News Web site, that the story gained momentum and grew more damaging as other teenagers came forward.

The trickle of information about Mr. Foley’s messages, first made known to the news media almost a year ago, has raised questions not only for Congressional officials but also for news organizations about how to handle anonymous sources making explosive accusations in an election year.

--story

so, someone cant be investigated until some story makes a newspaper? my head is spinning out of control over the matter. that this has been going on for as long as it has been and nothing done about it just boggles the mind.

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other GOP leaders are dismissing suggestions that they should have done more to investigate an e-mail from Rep. Mark Foley to a former teenage page that had raised a "red flag" with the boy's parents and his congressional sponsor.

Hastert rejected a call by a leading conservative newspaper that he resign, a spokesman said Tuesday.

"The speaker has and will lead the Republican conference to another majority in the 110th Congress," said Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean.

Hastert said his top aides and Rep. John Shimkus, a fellow Illinois Republican overseeing the page program, acted appropriately by trying to resolve the matter as an internal GOP problem rather than mounting a more formal investigation that would have involved Democrats.

--STORY

so there ya have it folks. hastert really knew about the emails and had tried to keep democrats from knowing by 'resolving' the issue 'internally' (whatever that means). but by keeping democrats in the dark about their steps to fix this, can only mean one thing: they did nothing to stop the congressman from enjoying more internet sex with teenage boys.

FOLEY GATE

a good roundup of what's happening on the foley case on cnn.

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON TIMES ON TUESDAY WILL CALL FOR SPEAKER HASTERT'S RESIGNATION, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... DEVELOPING... Editorial titled: 'Resign, Mr. Speaker': 'House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once... Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance'... -- Washington Times, October 3, 2006...

--drudge

and while we're on the subject of children...

(AP) -- Since 2001, federal funding for a grant program that helps U.S. schools pay for programs to prevent substance abuse and violence has declined significantly.

Funding was $439.2 million in 2001 but has fallen to $346.5 million this year, with $310 million recommended for 2007.

The Bush administration has recommended eliminating the program, though Congress has repeatedly voted to retain it.

--story

records show tenet briefed rice on al-qaeda threat

so when rice says there was no meeting, she can chalk up another mark on her lie list. one would think there would be come record of the meeting so it shouldn't have been that hard to prove. or disprove. as it stands, rice is not telling the truth when she says she didn't know.

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 — A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman (Sean McCormack) said Monday.

--story

dr frist is emboldening the terrorists with his cut & run strategy

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.

frist is emboldening the terrorists with his cut & run strategy

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.

--story

FOLEY GATE

In addition to explicit sexual language, former Congressman Mark Foley's Internet messages also include repeated efforts to get the underage recipient to rendezvous with him at night.

"I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you," Foley said in one message obtained by ABC News.

--SOURCE

they should be searching every computer that man has ever been on. and treat him like all the other common criminals who are sexual predators especially against minors. no mister nice guy just because he's a congressman. no siree.

FOLEY GATE

Appearing on CNN this morning, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow referred to the sexual and graphic emails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley to several teenage pages as "simply naughty e-mails."

Snow stated, "Look, I hate to tell you, but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill and there have been other scandals as you know that have been more than simply naughty e-mails." He added that a full probe was needed to be "fair to all parties" who are being accused of not taking earlier action against Foley. Snow said to O'Brien, "What you are trying to do is pick fights here."

--story

Website of the Day

http://www.bornrich.org/entry/branson-reveals-spaceship-two-interiors/

FOLEY WATCH

In addition to explicit sexual language, former Congressman Mark Foley's Internet messages also include repeated efforts to get the underage recipient to rendezvous with him at night.

"I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you," Foley said in one message obtained by ABC News.
--story

FOLEY WATCH

more cries for resignations

Centralia city councilman Danny L. Stover, the Democratic candidate for Illinois’s 19th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, demands that incumbent Representative John M. Shimkus resign immediately as Chairman of the Board of the House Page Program due to Shimkus’s failure to investigate diligently allegations about Florida Congressman Mark Foley’s inappropriate exchange of electronic mail and Internet messages with at least one former page. Stover insists that Rep. Shimkus was obviously the wrong choice to conduct an investigation a year ago, and is even more convinced that Speaker Hastert’s decision to ask Shimkus to investigate further is yet another error.
Rep. Shimkus neglected his specific duties as chairman, Stover complains, and Shimkus appeared to be more concerned about politics than protecting the well-being of the victim identified in the current news reports. The news reports suggest other victims may exist, and all victims were presumably minors when the alleged incidents occurred. Stover is concerned that the congressman failed to conduct even a modest investigation of potentially serious wrongdoing, Shimkus instead having simply accepted assurances of the accused that nothing inappropriate had taken place.

--story (link coming)

Quote of the Day

"The decent conservatives will line up behind calls for immediate comprehensive investigations to be concluded before the midterms. They'll demand them. The amoral right-wing sociopaths will stall and dismiss the accusations and evidence out of hand. They'll wring their hands over the political fallout, make excuses for why investigations can't happen until after Nov 7 (If ever), implicate the innocent and pardon the guilty, straight down a partisan line as distinct as a laser beam."

--Daily Kos

the press release that was taken down my hastert's web guru

Over at TPM, Josh needled House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) for an Aug. 29 press release about Hastert's efforts to "keep kids safe in cyberspace." August 29, of course, is months after Hastert is said to have learned of Foley's indiscretions.

read the full press release here

FOLEY GATE

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Republican congressional candidates scrambled to distance themselves from the Mark Foley sex scandal, fearing it might implicate their leaders and deal a final blow to the party's bid to keep control of the House in November elections.

--story

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 /U.S. Newswire/: Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid today released the following statement on the developing scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley and the House Republican Leadership.

--story

FOLEY WATCH

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Former Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned Friday amid allegations that he sent inappropriate e-mails to teenage pages, told a Florida television station that he is in a treatment facility for alcoholism.

--story

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

--CONTINUED

FOLEY WATCH

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — In the hierarchy of Congress, the high school students who serve as Congressional pages fall somewhere near the bottom, seemingly invisible as they scurry through the hallways of the Capitol ferrying messages to powerful lawmakers who often fail to give them a second glance.

In that rarefied world, Representative Mark Foley, the silver-haired Republican from Florida, stood out.

He took pains to befriend the 16- and 17-year-old aides, several former pages said in interviews on Sunday. He chatted with them on the House floor, they said, sent handwritten notes and urged them to keep in touch when they left Washington for their hometowns.

“You didn’t have a lot of interaction with the members because most of them treated you like a kid, but he was pretty friendly,” Ashley Gallo, a 21-year-old former page who is now a senior at Western Michigan University, said of Mr. Foley.

“He would talk to people,” said Ms. Gallo, who was a page in the fall of 2001 and said she knew several pages who were friendly with Mr. Foley.

“He would say, ‘Here’s my e-mail address if you want to keep in touch.’ I don’t think anyone thought anything of it. They saw him as a mentor or a reference.”

--continued

well, DUH.... they LIED to you

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, about an imminent Al Qaeda attack and failed to persuade her to take action.

--nytimes

REPUBLICAN PEDOPHILES LIST

HERE

and HERE

FOLEY-GATE

WASHINGTON - The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress called Sunday for a criminal probe into former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s electronic messages to teenage boys — a lurid scandal that has put House Republicans in political peril.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett called the allegations against Foley shocking. He said
President Bush hadn't learned of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old boy and instant messages to other boys before the news broke last week.

--STORY

FOLEY-GATE

The FBI has opened a "preliminary investigation" of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley over the sexually explicit Internet messages he sent to congressional pages, all male high school students under the age of 18.

--ABCNEWS

FOLEY WATCH

finally some democrats have some spine.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats demanded on Sunday that House Republicans keep them in the loop and thoroughly investigate former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old boy. The White House went further, suggesting the need for a criminal probe.

"This should be investigated objectively. I think the Democratic leadership should have been told 10 months ago," said Rep. Jane Harman of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "I gather that basically nothing was done except that Foley was warned."

--story

FOLEY WATCH - pelosi's letter

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following letter sent today to House Ethics Committee Chairman Doc Hastings and Ranking Member Howard L. Berman about the Foley matter. The text of the letter follows:

--read the letter here

FOLEY-WATCH

The Republican congressman who resigned Friday following the discovery of sexually explicit Internet messages he sent to teenage boys was a gregarious and charismatic lawmaker who built his political career in large measure on legislative proposals meant to halt the sexual predation of children and others.

Beginning with his 1993 sponsorship of a measure in the Florida state legislature to seize the cars of men who solicited prostitutes, former restaurant owner and real estate agent Mark Foley repeatedly attracted a flattering political spotlight by inveighing against those involved in sexual crimes and presenting himself as a protector of exploited children.

A well-liked member of the class of conservatives elected to Congress in 1994, Foley was until two days ago a deputy whip for the House Republicans and a co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. A Web site for the bipartisan group states that it was formed to "create a voice within Congress" on that issue and to operate a hotline for tips about "online child sexual exploitation" that could be passed to law enforcement agencies.

washington post

FOLEY-GATE

over at rollcall they've got a coupla articles that are worth reading.

foley watch

he's in seclusion now. like we're supposed to feel sorry for the bastard.

Foley left Washington on Saturday for an undisclosed location. He is said to be an emotional wreck. His older sister, Donna, who always has been by his side during his political campaigns, is with him.

--story

FOLEY-GATE

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top three Republicans in the House assailed Rep. Mark Foley Saturday over his e-mails to a teenage male page and said his resignation was not enough.

Calling the incident "an obscene breach of trust," the congressmen released a statement saying, " immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system."

--story

FOLEY-GATE

WASHINGTON — Sexually explicit messages from former Rep. Mark Foley to one former congressional page might be just the tip of the iceberg, the leader of an alumni association for former congressional pages told Scripps Howard News Service on Saturday.

While Foley resigned this week after published reports of "friendly" e-mails to one 16-year-old male page and the pending broadcast of more sexually explicit instant messages, similar graphic messages from him were received by at least three other teenage boys who once worked in the page program, said Matthew Loraditch, a Maryland college senior who runs the U.S. House Page Alumni Association's Internet message board. ...Loraditch said his friends all thought the messages were disturbing, but they did not report them, either because they did not think the messages posed a serious threat or because they might have worried about career consequences.

--story

FOLEY-GATE

WASHINGTON — A spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed late Saturday the agency is deciding whether to press charges against former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who hastily resigned from office Friday.
--STORY

if this was you or me we'd be sitting in a cell while they were bickering on whether to bring charges. his status as a VIP allows him better treatment under the law obviously. no more is America the land where everybody is treated fairly. the more time they're wasting on whether to bring charges allows Foley to scrub his hard drives of any evidence that could incriminate him. the people of America should scream their outrage over the sloppy gathering of law enforcement on this issue. to hell with the children seems to be the true message of Florida officials.

i wonder how many papers catch this story

A Florida law that bars exit polling near voting places violates the press' rights under the First Amendment, a lawsuit filed by The Associated Press and five television networks alleges.

The lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Miami contends that a 2005 amendment to state law that prohibits asking a voter a "fact" or "opinion" within 100 feet of a polling place is unconstitutional.

"We're asking the court to ensure they can talk to voters in Florida on Election Day within a reasonable distance from polling places," said Susan Buckley, the attorney representing the news organizations.

--story

FOLEY WATCH

gonna start cataloging articles that mention this wretch of a human being.

new york times

washington post

AP

usnewswire

editor and publisher

foxnews

by now it's all over the place.

sound like someone you know?

who does this sound like?

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

(from wikipedia on the big lie)

the whole shebang

the IM's of MAF54 (foley's IM tag)

what's so sinister about this whole affair is that the republican leadership knew about it for a whole year but never told the democrats who insisted that foley resign. no wonder they're referred to as repukes. they make me sick.

and as skids noted on DU:

Republicans put draft dodgers in charge of wars, some guy who thinks the UN should be disbanded in as ambassador, corporate whores in as heads of OSHA and the mining safety agency, a guy who paves over wetlands and wants the EPA to let the states do all the work in as, yes you guessed it, head of the EPA, and oil moguls in charge of energy policy.

more proof that bush let 9/11 happen

The CIA'S top counterterrorism officials felt they could have killed Osama Bin Laden in the months before 9/11, but got the "brushoff" when they went to the Bush White House seeking the money and authorization.

CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism head Cofer Black sought an urgent meeting with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, writes Bob Woodward in his new book "State of Denial."

--source

Site of the Day

http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

when do you call it corruption?

BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 -- A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."

--source

the cities are only a hundred miles away

and i'd sure like to go up and protest.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have chosen the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul — in the politically pivotal Midwest — for the 2008 presidential convention, GOP officials said Wednesday.

--story

they do NOT want us there

BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 -- A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

--source

Quote of the Day

from a newspaper in connecticut:

The war in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position regarding the terrorist threat, according to officials familiar with the analysis who talked to reporters. In other words, we are less safe than we were before the war.

they lied and nobody cares

WASHINGTON — Adding to criticism of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq, a retired senior general who commanded an infantry division in the conflict said Monday that requests by commanders for more soldiers were repeatedly turned down.

"Many of us routinely asked for more troops," retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste said, contradicting statements by President Bush and his senior aides that the administration had given the military all the resources it had asked for.

--source

Website of the Day

HERE

iraq is just a "comma" > bush

the transcript from blitzer's interview with the piece of shit:

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there's a strong will for democracy. (emphasis added)

something i caught in today's papers that i wanted to keep

for future reference:

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times all lead with a government report finding that the war in Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism. The classified National Intelligence Estimate, issued last April, finds that the occupation of Iraq has been a crucible for new, more decentralized extremist cells, while global outrage over the war has proved to be a boon for terrorist recruiters.
The NIE represents the opinions of all 16 intelligence agencies and was approved by Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte. It's worth noting, as all the papers do, that a 2002 NIE was used to build the case for invading Iraq. That history makes the report's stark assessment of the war all the more sobering. Since the report is still classified, the papers rely on sources familiar with the document for tidbits, and as a result the stories all sound very similar. TP won't pretend it's surprised that all three papers do their cover pieces on the same day, five months after the report was issued. It sounds, however, as if the slim 30-page report is a little short on specifics as well: There's no attempt to discern the chances of the U.S. being attacked again, nor does the report make any policy suggestions. The report simply states, one sources tells NYT, "that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse."

--today's papers

Letter Of The Day

comes from my old school chum and the father of my neighbor across the street (small towns have that way of doing things like this).

Thirty-eight days into Bill Clinton’s presidency, the WTC was bombed. No one blamed George Bush Sr. Clinton’s Justice Department captured those responsible and put them in prison. No less than 22 planned Al-Qaeda attacks (20 in this country) were thwarted by these arrests.

Clinton tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI, created a national security post and introduced two anti-terrorism bills, all fought by the Republicans in Congress. In 1998, in retaliation for U.S. Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton hit targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.

The Sudanese government never offered up bin Laden. A man named Mansoor Ijaz claimed he knew a Sudan general who could deliver him and suggested sanctions against Sudan be lifted. Sudan’s regime has killed more than two million Christians, deals in slave trade and state-sponsored terrorism. Sandy Berger deemed him unreliable.

U.S. policy deals with governments, not individuals. After the USS Cole attack, Clinton had Richard Clarke devise a comprehensive plan to eliminate al-Qaida. In December 2000, that plan was presented by Sandy Berger to the incoming Bush administration. It was ignored for nine months. In Bush’s first seven months in office, he was away on vacation 42 percent of the time.

In February 2001, the Hart-Rudman report on national security, which cited a very real terrorist threat, was also ignored by Bush’s people. Repeated FBI warnings involving al-Qaida, flight schools, airplanes and terrorists’ chatter were ignored.

Meetings between Clarke, Berger and the Bush administration were continually postponed. Repeated requests by Thomas Pickard of the FBI for manpower and money increases were denied by Attorney General Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Finally on Sept. 4, 2001, Clarke’s plan reached the Principal’s Committee and they decided to advise Bush to accept it. One week later, the WTC fell. The next day, they blamed Clinton.

What?

--Gene Beller

attribution