FOLEY GATE

A close House ally of Speaker Dennis Hastert called Wednesday for temporary suspension of the congressional page program amid the uproar over former Rep. Mark Foley's Internet exchanges with former teenage pages and Hastert's handling of the problem. ...

"People are very, very concerned" about daily disclosures concerning Foley's salacious messages, said Rep. Ray LaHood, saying the program should be shut down at least for awhile.

Meanwhile, LaHood, who also is from Illinois, said that it's not the speaker who should go and said the page program should be shut down, at least temporarily. He questioned an "antiquated" congressional page system that brings 15- and 16-year-olds to the Capitol and has resulted in scandals in the past.

"Some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them. We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability," LaHood said in a CNN interview. He said the program should be shut down until problems can be resolved.

--STORY

so, just because grown adult men can't resist their temptations, the children should suffer and have opportunities taken away? this could only be the agenda of the republicon leadership trying desperately to cover their assholes.

hopefully they'll be able to tell when drives have been scrubbed

because they've had plenty of time to get rid of any incriminating evidence that computers leave in the wake of criminal activity.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal investigators have asked the House of Representatives to keep computer records and papers from former Rep. Mark Foley's office, a senior Justice Department official said Wednesday.

The move is a sign that a criminal investigation into the congressman's correspondences with teen pages is imminent, perhaps within days, Justice Department officials said.

The investigation remains a preliminary inquiry, but a full criminal investigation will pave the way for subpoenas, searches and grand jury testimony, Justice Department officials said.

--story

someone asked me

is there no institution the GOP won't corrupt?

heh.

FOLEY GATE

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

--ABCNEWS

you just can NOT make this shit up.

FOLEY GATE

The chief of staff for Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, was reportedly fired today for his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal, according to Republican sources on Capitol Hill.
...
People familiar with Fordham's side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert's staff about Foley's "problem" with pages, but little was done.

--story

FOLEY WATCH

Tuesday night, Foley was the topic of conversation for the patrons at H.G. Roosters, a gay bar in West Palm Beach.

But Roth's announcement that Foley is gay wasn't news here. No, at Roosters, you could learn the name of Foley's current male companion in five minutes.

--STORY

FOLEY GATE

Reynolds, R-Clarence, held a news conference Monday evening, saying that there are two sets of e-mail and instant message correspondence, and he was aware of “overly friendly chit-chat” between former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., and a 16-year-old former page but didn’t know about the more explicit conversations.

Reynolds called the second set “despicable” and “disgusting,” and said he called for Foley’s immediate resignation once he read them on Friday.

--story

FOLEY GATE

Despite a call from a conservative newspaper for his resignation over his handling of a congressional sex scandal, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., intends to retain his leadership position.

"House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once," The Washington Times said, in an editorial in which it joined conservative leaders in calling for leadership resignations over the handling of the matter involving ex-Rep Mark Foley, R-Fla.

A written statement from Hastert's office said that wasn't going to happen. "The Speaker has and will lead the Republican conference to another majority in the 110th Congress," the statement said, adding, "Mark Foley has resigned his seat in dishonor, and the criminal investigation of this matter will continue. The Speaker is working every day on ensuring the House is a safe, productive environment for members, staff and all those who are employed by the institution."

--story

FOLEY WATCH

the after-effects of this scandal are resonating nationally.

A former male House page from Louisiana has received threats since reports surfaced Friday that former Rep. Mark Foley sent him inappropriate e-mails, another congressman said Monday night.

--story

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/