Saturday, October 28, 2006

got it!

in no time flat too. i feel so incapable of holding my own when it comes to html. i used to be good at it, but then they started to do magic with it and that was too much for my blood.

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

i'm having trouble getting a good login on blgger

from flickr. i want to be able to send picts to my blog on blogger, but it keeps saying that it couldn't log in. so i'm testing ecto.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

cheney should be tried for war crimes

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding
--story

Waterboarding Historically Controversial
In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation

it's my hope that with this scumbag running his mouth may yet give the ICC ammunition to use in a war crimes trial.

HALLELUJAH

Supreme Court of New Jersey's holding: "Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed samesex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to samesex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process."
--decision

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

i know why they had to use the 'plan' they used

it was because they had to keep the ones who are fighting worrying about us here. they were fighting for our freedom, not iraqi freedom. now they're told that they're fighting for iraqi democracy, quite a different goal.

Letter of the WeeQ(tm)

In the Register's Sept. 28 editorial, "Torturing American Values," you allude to the belief that our principles of justice set us apart from others who do not take our principles seriously.

Any competent student of history can point to numerous instances when we didn't take these principles very seriously either.

Our numerous broken treaties with the many and various Native American peoples can attest to this fact. We also had to fight the Civil War in order to free the slaves, long after most other advanced countries of the world outlawed the practice.

- Richard Crosser, Iowa Falls.

Letter of the Day

i always luv reading letters from the reichstad brownshirt brigade types, and occasionally will single one out for massive adulation by all my fans (not you silly),and this is one of those times.

from bob maretin in ankeny - hm, i know another person who lives in ankeny that would have the same ideology about a lot of things political that are present with how i think today's writer/winner appears.

Since the election season started, your editorial page has continuously gone downhill in quality. Everyone knows that your ideology slants sharply to the left. You support the Democratic Party with rare exceptions. We have learned to live with your bias, but the quality of your editorial page is dismal and unacceptable.
--attribution

kudos?

anyone who uses 'kudos' like moi, i'll have their head. a letter writer writes:

Hooray for David Yepsen - he hit the nail on the head. In his Oct. 10 column, he correctly defines the current political ads and suggests eight alternatives that make a lot of sense ("Culver, Nussle Need to Develop New Game Plans"). I bet there are tens of thousands of central Iowa voters who agree.

Pay attention, Jim Nussle, Chet Culver, Jeff Lamberti and Leonard Boswell. There is a lesson there for all of you to learn and learn quick. Kudos to Yepsen and the Register.
his name is james e. wise, from des moines.

-=-attribution

see what happens when you go negative?

it backfires!

Democrat Deval Patrick has a commanding 27-point lead in the governor's race as independent voters abandon Republican Kerry Healey because of her negative attacks, according to a new poll released today by 7NEWS and Suffolk University.
--stpru

happy halloween

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/274464845/

do as i say, not as i do

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in the war on terror, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Monday.
--story

pathetic leadership.

the proof is in the pudding

The WP mentions a news conference held by the United Nations investigator on torture where he said some countries try to invalidate criticism of how they handle detainees by pointing out they are merely following the example set by the United States. "Today, many other governments are kind of saying, 'But why are you criticizing us; we are not doing something different than what the United States is doing,' " he said.

--story

Monday, October 23, 2006

the GOP Desperate Moment of the Day(tm)

WASHINGTON - Chris Carney wasn't in Congress in 2002, never voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq and yet the Pennsylvania Republican Party accuses the Democrat of helping to start the war.

"Chris Carney failed our nation once ... now Chris Carney attacks the same war he helped start," reads the mailing sent to voters. "Don't give Chris Carney the chance to fail us again."

Carney, a former intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, is challenging Republican Rep. Don Sherwood. A lieutenant commander in the Navy reserves, Carney dismissed the mailing as a sign of desperation and argued that Bush - with Congress' blessing - took the country to war.

Sherwood voted to give the president the authority to use military force to oust Saddam Hussein.

"How can they dare attack my service? The accusation is that I'm responsible for the war. That is ridiculous," Carney said. "The intelligence community consists of 16 different agencies. I was but one voice in one agency."

--story

Quote of the Day

(in talking about karl rove) from CBHagman

The brain may function, but in the service of promoting incompetence, vainglory, greed, and corruption.

The mouth may move, but the words are dead and empty.

The heart may beat, but it is lifeless.

Exploiting blocs of religious voters, Rove has no faith himself. Vicious in "victory," vindictive in mind-set, Rove has helped midwife what could well be the nadir of America's role in the world. The country remains a superpower, but the groundwork is laid for unspeakable disaster -- in the form of massive debt, national security risks, societal upheaval -- that is already evident in some areas.

There's a difference between success and getting what you want, and it would appear most in the Bush administration are oblivious to that fact, perhaps Rove most of all.

History will judge this empty and loathsome man very harshly indeed.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley made friends with a wide circle of teenaged House of Representatives pages, then singled out "hot" boys to write to, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said it had identified four more former pages who said they were sexually solicited by Foley, who has resigned since the scandal broke last month.

One former page, who was not identified, said Foley sent him e-mails when he was 16 asking about "my roommates, if I ever saw them naked." Later, the former page said Foley hinted about a job opportunity "because I was a hot boy," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Two years later, the page, now 22, said, he wrote Foley to ask about hotels in Washington. "You could always stay at my place.
I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex," he quoted the disgraced former member of Congress as saying.

--story

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Quote of the Year

this is the big one folx. the WINNER!

"Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this."
--Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman
ESPN

Friday, October 20, 2006

welcome to the new Amerika

ruled by republicon hypocrites.

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

Immediately after Bush signed the act into law Tuesday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asserting the new authorities and informing the court that it no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that had been under consideration since 2004. The U.S. District Court cases, which had been stayed pending the appeals court decision, were similarly invalid, the administration informed that court on Wednesday.

The administration's persistence on the issue "demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it," said Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor involved in the detainee cases.

--
story

maybe they'll start listening

or else make it worse since they know they aren't the ones that are gonna have to clean it all up

Iraq, said the speaker, is "a setback. You can't sugar-coat that. We've reached a point where we've got to get real. This is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation's not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word 'winnable.' So what the United States needs to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs."

This wasn't just any old armchair observer talking on Thursday. It was Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the President's foreign policy team. Haass worked for Ronald Reagan, for Bush's father and, as the policy planning boss at State under Colin Powell during Bush's first term. By virtue of his post at CFR, he is as close as you can come these days to the voice of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
--story

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

republican family values at work

in sweet pacific rim fashion (no pun intended)

What no one seems to want to report is that Tom DeLay promised the garment industry in the Marianna Islands that the government would stay out of their sweat-shop affairs. DeLay got Abramhoff to get Mehlman to make sure the right guys were in control. That’s because the garment industry of the Islands had basically kidnapped Asian woman who paid a price to get to the United States for work. Since the Marianna’s are a US commonwealth, the garment industry can technically put “Made in the USA” labels on their products, but in reality, the garments are made in mediocre-paying sweat shops by captive labor who are also forced into prostitution and also forced to get abortions if they get pregnant. This is what DeLay, Mehlman, Abramhoff and company were getting paid to protect. Let’s get that story out, please.
--story

buried deep down in the story

is the fact that bush is not concerned about losing control of congress because he knows the republicans can win with diebold on the job.

Bush's wishful-thinking model of policy-planning appears not to be exclusive to the Iraq war, according to the Post, which buries this detail deep down in the story: "Bush has been preparing his post-election agenda in a series of meetings, sitting down one-on-one with nine members of his Cabinet in the past month to review ideas. Bush insists that the sessions not consider a victory by Democrats, participants said."

--story

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

the man is on drugs i tell you

NEW YORK Vice President Dick Cheney, as he is wont to do during difficult times for the administration, appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show today, where he declared that the current government in Iraq is "off to a good start" and "they're doing remarkably well." Americans are concerned, however, because the war, which began in March 2003, "wasn't over instantaneosly," he explained.
--story

congressional pages dancing nude??

During a panel discussion about the role of teenage congressional pages in the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) on the October 14 edition of Fox News Watch, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared that congressional pages "have been painted as some kind of virginal, hermetically sealed young people" by "the media," when if "[y]ou talk to the Capitol Police, as I do," the "untold story" is "there are a lot of these kids, including female pages, who undress in front of windows with the shades up and who -- who cavort in the pool topless and naked." Thomas added: "[T]here's been no media reporting on who all of these pages are."

--
story

FOLEYGATE

see how many excuses republicans are using to cancel being around hastert and reynolds.

Shortly after the Mark Foley scandal blew up, Speaker Dennis Hastert boasted to Rush Limbaugh that there was no knocking him off stride -- he was planning to campaign in thirty different districts in the month preceding the election.
--story

Saturday, October 14, 2006

FOLEY GATE

WHAT A LIAR.

DES MOINES, Iowa - House Majority Leader John Boehner on Friday accused Democrats of endangering House pages for political gain.

Boehner, speaking at a campaign event for 3rd District Republican candidate Jeff Lamberti, said Democratic operatives have known about inappropriate e-mails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, to young male pages for some time. He said Democrats had been shopping the information around Washington as a political ploy.

"Someone who had this information allowed those 16-year-old pages to be at risk while they were playing their political games," said Boehner, R-Ohio. "I do not believe thus far that Republicans knew about these sexually explicit instant messages."

Boehner, a 16-year veteran of the House, found himself at the center of the page scandal when he claimed to have talked with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, about improper contact between Foley and the pages.

Hastert said he doesn't recall the conversation with Boehner.
--source

FOLEY GATE

Oct. 13 — Representative John Shimkus, who has been chairman of the Congressional page program since 2001, said Friday that he was unaware of previous complaints about Mark Foley.

Mr. Shimkus, Republican of Illinois, said that had he known of the complaints about Mr. Foley, he would have handled concerns about Mr. Foley’s e-mail messages to a page from Louisiana differently.

“There is stuff that everybody would have done differently,” Mr. Shimkus said after testifying under oath for more than three hours before the House ethics committee. “Having 20/20 hindsight, a lot of things would have been different.”

Mr. Shimkus said that he learned of concerns about Mr. Foley last fall and that he and the clerk of the House confronted Mr. Foley at a meeting in Mr. Foley’s office.

=--SOURCE

when actions like these are handled in secret

we have lost our democracy.
ATLANTA, Oct. 13 -- The imam of a northern Georgia mosque pleaded guilty to providing material support to the militant group Hamas in a case in which the agreement, charges and even the plea hearing were handled in secret.
--source

Friday, October 13, 2006

the party of family values

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News. NBC News first reported on the camping and rafting trip on Tuesday.
--msnbc

the party of family values?

that's a hoot.

Is a second GOP congressman getting drawn into the House page scandal? NBC reports:

Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News.
A spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington said that the U.S. attorney in Arizona has started a "preliminary assessment" of the trip, after an unidentified source made allegations about the congressman's behavior on the expedition. . . .

One participant, who requested anonymity, said he was uncomfortable with the attention Kolbe paid to one of the former pages. He was "creeped out by it," he said, adding that there was a lot of "fawning, petting and touching" on the teenager's arms, shoulders and back by Kolbe. . . .

Kolbe's office issued a statement to NBC News denying that anything improper had happened. "The rafting trip back in 1996 consisted of five current staff, two former pages, and his sister," a spokeswoman for Kolbe said. "There is absolutely no basis and no truth to any [allegations of] inappropriate behavior."
--story

it would be one thing if the participants were adults, but these were teenagers. what's more damaging is that republicans were always screaming about how OTHER's behavior was abhorrent in cases like this.

when do they start to call it corruption?

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.
--story

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

FOLEY GATE - TIMELINE

As early as 1997, Foley began sending sexually explicit messages to a page; other pages have come forward from the 1998, 2000, and 2002 classes saying that they also received explicit messages.

--continued

those fox family values?

Former LOS ANGELES TV reporter and LAPD officer and sometime CLEAR CHANNEL Talk KFI-A/LOS ANGELES fill-in host and guest ROD BERNSEN was arrested in LONG BEACH on SATURDAY on suspicion of molestation after an incident on board a cruise ship.

BERNSEN, 58, who is well-known in the market for his long run as a reporter for FOX O&O KTTV (TV) (FOX 11), was a fill-in for KFI from late last year through MAY, was on a cruise with his wife and sister; KFI, whose reporter ERIC LEONARD broke the story MONDAY afternoon, reports that the
incident took place in the ship's sauna with two 12 year old boys.

--story

and what about pakistan's khan?

why hasn't bush been as forceful with musharraf on khan's activites as he banters about with north korea's underground test of a nuke? bush now drew a 'new line in the sand' about exporting the technology from north korea, but forgave pakistan for doing it. what a hypocrite.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

FOLEY GATE

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Even if former Rep. Mark Foley did not violate federal laws in sexually explicit Internet communications with underage boys, he still could find himself charged under state statutes.

Federal law generally requires a person to meet a minor for sex or at the very least, to attempt to meet, for a crime to have been committed. However, under laws in some states where the Florida Republican communicated with children, an attempt to seduce the victim might be enough for a criminal case.

Federal prosecutors investigating Foley's lurid communications are examining whether Florida authorities might be better positioned to bring criminal charges against Foley, since the state threshold for determining if a crime has been committed is less stringent than federal law, according to a senior Justice Department official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity.
--STORY

FOLEY GATE

ABC's John Yang reports: A current House staffer has told ABC News that Scott Palmer, House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) chief of staff, met with disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) to discuss the time and attention he was giving House pages many months before the Speaker's office has said it became aware of the issue.

The staffer, who asked not be identified because of the ongoing FBI and House Ethics Committees invesgitations, told ABC News that the meeting between Palmer and Foley came to light in November 2005, around the time when Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), head of the House Page Board, and then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl, who was administrator of the page program, met with Foley about an e-mail exchange Foley had with a former page, sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA).

"At that time, I became aware that there was a previous meeting" between Foley and Palmer, the staffer told ABC News.

This corroborates the account of Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, who said he had gone to Palmer to seek the intervention of the Speaker's office to try to change Foley's behavior. Earlier, Palmer said that "what Kirk Fordham said happened didn't happen."

LINK: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/10/second_source_t.html

FOLEY GATE

Oct. 7, 2006 — Republicans had hoped House Speaker Dennis Hastert's "the buck stops here" speech last Thursday would ease some of the pressure on him, but the daily drip of the Mark Foley scandal continues to keep the focus on what Hastert and his staff knew and when did they know it.

Today, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed Congressional staffer who said Hastert Chief of Staff Scott Palmer, one of the most powerful men on Capitol Hill, personally met with then-Rep. Foley, R-Fla., about his inappropriate contact with male pages. That meeting, the same source tells the Post, took place long before Hastert says his office was first alerted to "overly-friendly" e-mails Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy.

The New York Times also cites an anonymous Hill source who alleges Palmer was warned about Foley's troubling behavior well before Hastert has said his aides were first alerted in 2005.

Those two reports seem to back up former Foley Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham's account — first told to ABC News — that he warned Hastert's top aide about Foley's problems as far back as 2003.

Hastert's office is now declining to talk about specifics of the scandal, citing an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation, which was launched after Palmer denied Fordham's account.

A new Newsweek poll conducted since the Foley scandal broke seems to suggest the scandal is bad news for the GOP's prospects in next month's elections. The poll shows that 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress, including 10 percent of Republicans.
--STORY

the numbers

and if you're a GOPster, they're not pretty. on the otherhand, if you're a democrat, it gives you much needed exhilaration.

And that was the good news for the GOP. More worrisome still, the Foley fiasco is jeopardizing the party’s monopoly on faith and power. For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror. Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power. If the election were held today, 51 percent of likely voters would vote for the Democrat in their district versus 39 percent who would vote for the Republican. And while the race is closer among male voters (46 percent for the Democrats vs. 42 percent for the Republicans), the Democrats lead among women voters 56 to 34 percent.
--newsweek

Friday, October 06, 2006

pathetic excuses are running amok amongst the GOP

WASHINGTON - Rep. Chris Cannon today attempted to clarify public comments he made last night seeming to blame teen-age congressional pages in the unfolding scandal with disgraced ex-Rep. Mark Foley.
"These kids are actually precocious kids," Cannon, R-Utah, told KSL Radio's Nightside. "It looks like uh, maybe this one email is a prank where you had a bunch of kids sitting [around] egging this guy on."

--story

kean to hastert: resign you fool

WASHINGTON - New Jersey Republican Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr. on Friday called for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign over the congressional page cybersex scandal, making him the first major candidate in his party to do so.
--story

GOP shenanigans

in tennessee
At least five apparently bogus voter registration forms were submitted to the Metro Nashville election commission by a worker with ties to the Republican National Committee, and up to 150 other registrations have been called into question, The Tennessean has learned.
--story

we're not the minority any more

YIPPPEEE

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Wall Street has shifted its allegiance in the 2006 election cycle by donating more to Democrats than Republicans who have been the investment banks' usual benefactors, U.S. Federal Election Commission data show.

Five leading firms Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bear Stearns Companies Inc.,Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. have contributed $6.2 million so far to candidates before the November elections, with about 52 percent going to Democrats.

--story

that's what happnes when you play politics

it cant' ALWAYS be what YOU want georgie.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's campaign strategy of painting Democrats as soft on terrorism has been stalled by a congressional sex scandal, jeopardizing Republican hopes of holding the House of Representatives, analysts say.
--story

bush's version of auschwitz

Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.
--story

bush's freedom on the move

BAGHDAD -- The cleric's young men fanned out across the neighborhood, moving from shop to shop, posting the new religious decrees.

Printed neatly on white-and-green fliers, the edicts banned vices like "music-filled parties and all kinds of singing." They proscribed celebratory gunfire at weddings and "the gathering of young men" in front of markets and girls' schools. Also forbidden were the "selling of liquor and narcotic drugs" and "wearing improper Western clothes."

But at the bottom of the list of prohibitions was a single command. Scrawled in green ink, it read simply: "Cut hair."

"I feel powerless," lamented Moataz Hussein, 22, a wiry, soft-voiced teacher seated in a hair salon on the main road of the Tobji neighborhood on Sunday. His long, stylish black hair was now a recent memory. "They are controlling my life."
--story

Thursday, October 05, 2006

there's no evidence of arms coming from iran

ON THE IRAQ-IRAN BORDER -- Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the desert in the start of what British officers said would be months of patrols aimed at finding the illicit weapons trafficking from Iran, or any sign of it.

There's just one thing.

"I suspect there's nothing out there," the commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."
--story

pretty much shuts down their arguement that this was started by democrats

The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.

That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
--story

FOLEY GATE

WASHINGTON - A top House Republican staff member charged Wednesday that he warned senior aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert as far back as 2003 about former Florida Rep. Mark Foley's behavior toward underage congressional pages.

Hastert has said his aides were first alerted about Foley in fall 2005, and then only with ambiguous evidence. Foley resigned Friday after evidence became public that he had exchanged sexually explicit Internet messages with former male congressional pages for years.

Kirk Fordham -- who was Foley's chief of staff for a decade before holding the same post for Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- said he had told Hastert's aides about the behavior at least three years ago.

Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, flatly rejected Fordham's assertion: ``What Kirk Fordham said did not happen.''
--story

FOLEY GATE

it's now being traced back to 1997
A former congressional page said Thursday he received sexually suggestive messages from then-Rep. Mark Foley in 1997.

Tyson Vivyan's account appears to show the earliest exchange of suggestive messages reported so far between Foley and teens who had served in the Capitol page program. Previous accounts placed the earliest contacts in 2003.

Vivyan, 26, told The Associated Press that Foley began sending him instant messages about a month or two after his nine-month stint as a page ended in June 1997.
--story

FOLEY GATE

A longtime chief of staff to disgraced former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) approached House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office three years ago, repeatedly imploring senior Republicans to help stop Foley's advances toward teenage male pages, the staff member said yesterday.

The account by Kirk Fordham, who resigned yesterday from his job with another senior lawmaker, pushed back to 2003 or earlier the time when Hastert's staff reportedly became aware of Foley's questionable behavior concerning teenagers working on Capitol Hill.
--STORY