Christy!!!

Just deserts for all of them!

Yes, but, Hastert now gets to say,

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

That should be good for, say, six weeks.

Spotlight this to the media in Hastert’s district.

You build your machine on corruption, you’ll rust to the core soon enough.

As you said, they are our paid employees. I don’t know about you, but I am feeling like an “at will” employer right about now, and I’m no longer willing to let the Republican rulers foul the People’s House any longer. It is way past time to tell these freeloaders that it is time to hit the road. Elections are fine, mind you, but I’m more of a mind to take a hike up to the House chambers and escort some pork to the door via the shirt collar.

CNN poll:

“Do you think House leaders tried to cover up allegations that Republican Congressman Mark Foley exchanged sexually explicit e-mails with a 16-year-old former congressional page?”

No: 19%
Well, duh: 81%

immanentize — yeah, Hastert could try pulling that fast one, but a really good journalist could stop that in its tracks with the right question.

“Representative Hastert, you’ve asked for an investigation into the inappropriate and possibly illegal instant messages sent by Representative Foley. When are you going to come clean about hiding the inappropriate emails not covered under your request for an investigation?”

Hey KO, maybe you could ask that one?

Or David Gregory could put that one to the President with a slight change of wording:

“Representative Hastert asked for an investigation into the inappropriate and possibly illegal instant messages sent by Representative Foley. When are you going to ask Representative Hastert to come clean about hiding the inappropriate emails not covered under his request for an investigation? What is he hiding?”

One more comment. Pretty damn soon they are going to start smearing the kids involved. Count on it.

Are you telling me that a family-values pitchman was actually a pervert? I suppose you’ll claim next that some anti-porn champion actually touches himself “down there” while looking at dirty pictures. Who could have suspected this?

Spotlight emails were sent to:
Chris Dettro : Legal Affairs Reporter : State Journal-Register
Matthews Dietrich : Assistant Editorial Page Editor : State Journal-Register
Mike Matulis : Editorial Page Editor : State Journal-Register
Mike Turley : Senior News Editor : State Journal-Register

This is Illinois btw.

I would like to propose that this thread include some discussion of exactly how Democratic candidates running against GOP incumbents should frame the themes in Christy’s terrific discussion above. (The incumbents who voted for throwing this down what the NYT called the “black hole” of the House Ethics Committee.) I know that there are campaigns discussing this right now. Can we help? We need to think in terms of succinct press releases and short statements for television. Also, we should all be writing outraged letters to the editor.

I saw a comment somewhere yesterday to the effect that it would help conservatives if the discussion is all about values. Really? What do you think, firedogs?

This is a gift, as someone said. (Professor Foland?) How do we get it to keep on giving?

Rep. Boehner is one of 12 children and has children of his own. He graduated from Moeller High School in Cincinnati, a Marianist Catholic high school, where they don’t condone pedophiles or perverts.

Shame on you, John Boehner, for calling these prurient and sexual predatory Foley emails “naughty”. You know better!

#9: according to some comments I saw at (ick) rightwing nuthouse last night, they already are.
Fucking sick pigs. Keep them away from my kid.

who is running against Hastert? anyone?

Peterr — saw your note in the last thread. Capito doesn’t represent my district — she’s the next district over from me. I phoned her local office this morning, but only got an answering machine. Will let you guys know if there is any local coverage on this today — should be interesting, to say the least. *g*

OT, kind of — but great op-ed by Krugman that a nice person was kind enough to email to me.

Excerpt from “Things Fall Apart”, published today in NYT:

It will be interesting, by the way, to see how Dr. Dobson, who declared of Bill Clinton that “no man has ever done more to debase the presidency,” responds to the Foley scandal. Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage him as much as a Democratic president’s consensual affair?

Heh.

Where is Dobson anyhow?

Not cloistered in a rehab unit, is he? Because he’s as quiet as the Repugs hope Foley will be this month.

WRT Spotlighting media in Hastert’s district, Northern Illinois, very rural.

I think wild ass guess that DeKalb, home of Northern Illinois University, is the largest city, hoping for help from natives.

Cities in Hastert’s district District

Amboy – Annawan – Ashton – Atkinson – Aurora – Bartlett* – Batavia – Big Rock – Binghampton – Bristol – Burlington – Cambridge – Carpentersville – Central – Compton – Cortland – Deer Grove – DeKalb – Dixon – Dundee – East Dundee – Elburn – Eldena – Elgin – Elva – Fox – Franklin Grove – Gap Grove – Geneseo – Geneva – Gilberts – Hampshire – Harmon – Helmar – Hinckley – Hooppole – Huntley – Kaneville – Kewanee – LaFox – Lee – Lee Center – Lily Lake – Lisbon – Little Rock – Maple Park – Maytown – McGirr – Millbrook – Millington – Minooka – Montgomery – Mooseheart – Nachusa – Nelson – Newark – New Bedford – Normandy – North Aurora – Orion – Osco – Oswego –Paw Paw – Pingree Grove – Plano – Plato Center – Plattville – Portland – Prairieville – Prophetstown – Rock Falls – Rollo – Sandwich – Scarboro – Shabbona – Shabbona Grove – Shaw – Sleepy Hollow – Somonauk – South Elgin – Spring Hill – St. Charles – Starks – Steward – Sublette – Sugar Grove – Sunny Hill – Sycamore – Tampico – Udine – Ulah – Valley View – Virgil – Walton – Warrenville – Wasco – Waterman – Wayne – West Brooklyn – West Chicago – West Dundee – Wheaton* – Winfield* – Yorktown – Yorkville

*Towns marked with an asterisk are not entirely contained in the 14th Congressional District and, as such, you may wish to check on http://www.house.gov to determine whether a specific address lies in Congressman Hastert’s district.
Find Your State Representative / State Senator
Local Government Links

* Bureau County
* DeKalb County
* DuPage County
* Henry County
* Kane County
* Kendall County
* Lee County
* Whiteside County

immanentize @ 3

Yes, but, Hastert now gets to say,

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

That should be good for, say, six weeks.

It’s too late.

Friday: I didn’t know anything

Saturday: I was probably told but I can’t recall

Ian at 15 — John Laesch — he’ll be our special guest this afternoon on FDL to talk about his candidacy against Hastert in light of all of this mess. Hope everyone can hang out and talk with John in the comments today! Plus, he could always use another campaign donation on our ActBlue page.

Looks like the rethugs have arrived at a novel solution to the decades-old issue of which is worse, to be caught with a dead woman or a live boy.

They choose both. Schiavo and pages.

OT–T-Rex may find this interesting. His seventy-million year old ancestors have delivered more than just bones to the present: soft tissue.

http://www.calacademy.org/scie…..issue.html

Here’s the next question that Democrats need to start asking now:

How can we trust Republican leadership to protect the pages from other child predators in Congress? What other sick scandals are out there that they are covering up?

We have a duty to investigate what happened with Mark Foley as quickly as possible in order to make sure that this never happens again and to guarantee that there aren’t any other predators currently stalking congressional pages.

Christy Hardin Smith @
16

Peterr — saw your note in the last thread. Capito doesn’t represent my district — she’s the next district over from me. I phoned her local office this morning, but only got an answering machine. Will let you guys know if there is any local coverage on this today — should be interesting, to say the least. *g*

She has a statement up. It’s over at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com

She says she wasn’t informed and seems sincerely pissed that she was blindsided by this. She’s also not buying the line that the first e-mails were innocent.

Ian @ 15

who is running against Hastert? anyone?

John Laesch

[Spelling police…..

Paragraph beginning Hastert attempts to minimize…

Culpability]

Excellent follow-up article by Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe on the St. Petersburg Times issue. Seems SPT editors have lashed out at Hastert, saying “idle chit-chat” was not their opinion. The reason they didn’t go with the story earlier is that they couldn’t find a page to corroborate or go on record, not that they didn’t think the charges were serious.

OT-best FDL Book Salon ever yesterday with Sidney Blumenthal. Great, straight-talking responses from a very savvy guy.

Susan in Iowa #11 — there’s already some talking points about MI-4th district’s Representative Dave Camp, who is a member of the Ways and Means Committee along with Mark Foley:

Camp needs to be asked why he did not object to House members booing mother- grandmother and fellow House member Nancy Pelosi when she called for a recorded vote on her request for an investigation.

He needs to be asked why Boehner’s referral to the House Ethics Committee was acceptable over an actual House investigation.

He needs to be asked why he ever weakened the House Ethics Committee with his past votes.

He needs to be asked why he supports obstructing Democratic members of the House knowing about this situation, like Dale Kildee not being told about Foley’s behavior.

He needs to be asked why he hasn’t called for Hastert and Boehner to step down for covering up this situation and failing to protect young pages.

He needs to be asked why Democratic pages weren’t provided with the same protections — advice from other pages or leadership that Foley was a problem — or doesn’t he believe in the Constitution’s “Equal Protection” clause?

We also need to follow the money: if Camp took any money from the NRCC after Foley’s cash dump this summer, Camp needs to send it back pronto because it’s tainted.

Feel free to use this as a guideline for your own district, rework to fit.

“If you can’t trust them with your kids, how can you trust them with your country?”

Christy,

From my own experiences in child abuse and child abuse prevention work, I read Hastert’s letter a little differently. I read him as asking the DOJ/FBI to see if there were any mandated reporters who failed in their reporting duty.

Of course, that may be too charitable on my part, as Hastert never mentions that legal term. Given the fact that he himself is a mandated reporter, he can hardly be unfamiliar with the concept, so perhaps his non-use of the term is intentional.

However Hastert intended this – as coverup or a call for a genuine investigation – I can’t imagine any of the abuse investigators I’ve ever dealt with looking at this mess and NOT trying to figure out who knew what when, and who (if anyone) did not report their suspicions as required.

Shimkus and the Clerk will be at the top of the interview list, but they will hardly be the only ones.

I grew up about 30 miles from Dennis Hastert’s hometown of Yorkville, IL.

When I was in second grade, Denny (who was a State Rep at the time)came to speak at a school assembly. I don’t really remember what he said, but I could never forget that surname which would cause giggles in any second grader.

I’m 37 years old now. But I’m still pissed that that fat fuck was given access to school children and was able to make an impression on my developing psyche.

Dailykos has a race-by-race thread that gets into what specific campaigns are doing.

Alexander in LA has a competitor who doesn’t even have a website (that’s how red his district is–must be closely related swamp people living in huts, still speaking some Cajun patois).

Reynolds will go down, either by resigning first or losing to his competitor (that’s a tight race already).

Shimkus will probably go down too (btw, anyone else get the vibe that he’s the weak link in the Republican scamble story? Hastert: “Damn that loud-mouthed fool! Why didn’t he check in with us first before shootin’ off that mouth!”), but his competition has raised about 11 bucks.

Hastert–I just don’t see how he survives this mess. If his competitor wins it’s because H resigns.

The other macro affect of all this is Democrats demanding their opponents return Foley-tainted money. Worked in New Mexico-01.

Like Sidney Blumenthal said yesterday, the “return the Foley money” line should be hammered as loudly as possible.

Peterr @ 28

Christy,

From my own experiences in child abuse and child abuse prevention work, I read Hastert’s letter a little differently. I read him as asking the DOJ/FBI to see if there were any mandated reporters who failed in their reporting duty.

Of course, that may be too charitable on my part, as Hastert never mentions that legal term. Given the fact that he himself is a mandated reporter, he can hardly be unfamiliar with the concept, so perhaps his non-use of the term is intentional.

However Hastert intended this – as coverup or a call for a genuine investigation – I can’t imagine any of the abuse investigators I’ve ever dealt with looking at this mess and NOT trying to figure out who knew what when, and who (if anyone) did not report their suspicions as required.

Shimkus and the Clerk will be at the top of the interview list, but they will hardly be the only ones.

I’m not sure Hastert is a mandated reporter. Yes, he used to be a teacher and a coach, but now he’s just the Speaker of the House. I doubt that job is on the mandated reporters list.

Spotlighted (spotlit?) this post to print media in Hastert’s hometown: Chicago Tribune National Media folks with “Political” or “Washington” in their title. Also to Chicago Sun-Times news editor and columnist; and to news editors in Aurora (in Hastert’s district) and Rockford (just outside the district, with many readers inside it.)

My framing for the last six weeks?

The Republicans have breached their solemn duty and violated our sacred trust:

To the country,
to the troops,
to our children.

Rayne @ 26

Susan in Iowa #11 — there’s already some talking points about MI-4th district’s Representative Dave Camp, who is a member of the Ways and Means Committee along with Mark Foley:

Camp needs to be asked why he did not object to House members booing mother- grandmother and fellow House member Nancy Pelosi when she called for a recorded vote on her request for an investigation.

He needs to be asked why Boehner’s referral to the House Ethics Committee was acceptable over an actual House investigation.

He needs to be asked why he ever weakened the House Ethics Committee with his past votes.

He needs to be asked why he supports obstructing Democratic members of the House knowing about this situation, like Dale Kildee not being told about Foley’s behavior.

He needs to be asked why he hasn’t called for Hastert and Boehner to step down for covering up this situation and failing to protect young pages.

He needs to be asked why Democratic pages weren’t provided with the same protections — advice from other pages or leadership that Foley was a problem — or doesn’t he believe in the Constitution’s “Equal Protection” clause?

We also need to follow the money: if Camp took any money from the NRCC after Foley’s cash dump this summer, Camp needs to send it back pronto because it’s tainted.

Feel free to use this as a guideline for your own district, rework to fit.

Thank you. This is a good start. But it is long, and probably best suited for a website. I am thinking about the pithy phrase or paragraph that might sink into the consciousness of voters who aren’t paying that much attention.

I’m not sure Hastert is a mandated reporter. Yes, he used to be a teacher and a coach, but now he’s just the Speaker of the House. I doubt that job is on the mandated reporters list.

He’s not only Mark Foley’s supervisor, he, like Foley, has supervisory authority over the pages. At an absolute minimum today, we have very compelling evidence that Hastert allowed Foley to sexually harrass employees, whom he supervised, in the workplace. I think eventually evidence will be uncovered that Hastert directly, as Foley’s supervisor, enabled Foley to repeatedly commit rape (depending on the age of consent for boys in D.C).

So purely out of curiosity, what tripped the moderation alert on my 9:13?

Rayne @ 17–Great point. Moralist Dobson most certainly should come out and condemn Foley for his sexual predation.

Frank Probst @ 31

Peterr @ 28

Christy,

From my own experiences in child abuse and child abuse prevention work, I read Hastert’s letter a little differently. I read him as asking the DOJ/FBI to see if there were any mandated reporters who failed in their reporting duty.

Of course, that may be too charitable on my part, as Hastert never mentions that legal term. Given the fact that he himself is a mandated reporter, he can hardly be unfamiliar with the concept, so perhaps his non-use of the term is intentional.

However Hastert intended this – as coverup or a call for a genuine investigation – I can’t imagine any of the abuse investigators I’ve ever dealt with looking at this mess and NOT trying to figure out who knew what when, and who (if anyone) did not report their suspicions as required.

Shimkus and the Clerk will be at the top of the interview list, but they will hardly be the only ones.

I’m not sure Hastert is a mandated reporter. Yes, he used to be a teacher and a coach, but now he’s just the Speaker of the House. I doubt that job is on the mandated reporters list.

The mandatory reporter thingy is a red herring as well, Hastert is certainly a “permitted reporter” that is, a person who incurs no liability for divulging information about potential child sex or pornography actions.

CHS @ 19–that’s brilliant. Get him live and loud asap.

Rayne @ 26: That’s a HOT point–all Republicans should be asked “Did you boo? Did you boo the call for an investigation?”

Again, kick the shite out of these people—they are down and now’s the time to really nail ‘em.

The DCCC better be g-damned playing for blood with this story.

If the Foley cover-up and Woodward’s book don’t give Dem’s the House and at least 48 Senate seats,athen this country is really screwed. To me, failure of a Democratic Party win would mean one of two possibilities. 1) The wingnut zombies are the voting majority or 2) The voting process has been corrupted and co-opted by the fascists. As Stalin is alleged to have said “It’s not who votes that counts: it’s who counts the votes:.

If there is a failure of electoral politics in November; the next option is movement politics, ala Gandhi and King. If the time come for marching in the streets and passive resistance; I hope I have the guts to face the possibility of being declared and enemy combatant. The thought of being detained without Habeas is very sobering.

Frank Probst @ 31

Peterr @ 28

Christy,

From my own experiences in child abuse and child abuse prevention work, I read Hastert’s letter a little differently. I read him as asking the DOJ/FBI to see if there were any mandated reporters who failed in their reporting duty.

Of course, that may be too charitable on my part, as Hastert never mentions that legal term. Given the fact that he himself is a mandated reporter, he can hardly be unfamiliar with the concept, so perhaps his non-use of the term is intentional.

However Hastert intended this – as coverup or a call for a genuine investigation – I can’t imagine any of the abuse investigators I’ve ever dealt with looking at this mess and NOT trying to figure out who knew what when, and who (if anyone) did not report their suspicions as required.

Shimkus and the Clerk will be at the top of the interview list, but they will hardly be the only ones.

I’m not sure Hastert is a mandated reporter. Yes, he used to be a teacher and a coach, but now he’s just the Speaker of the House. I doubt that job is on the mandated reporters list.

Mandated reporters are not simply mandated to report abuse they suspect among the young people with whom they work, but any abuse they suspect anywhere. Thus, if a teacher sees someone hitting a kid viciously while walking down the street on a Saturday afternoon in a town a 1000 miles from their classroom, they are mandated to make a report. It doesn’t matter whether the kid is in their class or simply an unknown child – they must call it in.

Hastert may not be a mandated reporter in terms of his duties as Speaker of the House, but his background as a teacher puts him on the hook IMHO. It is also possible that his duties to make appointments to the Page Board and other interactions with Pages may make him a mandated reporter in his capacity as Speaker, but I don’t know enough about the internal workings of the House administrative staff to say for sure.

karen allen, thanks for the background on Boehner. As a Roman Catholic he has zero credibility not to be aware.

Prof. Foland at 37 — absolutely no idea. Just looked over your post and nothing jumps out at me — sometimes, it just gets tripped up for reasons I don’t understand, and it looks like your 9:13 was one of those to me.

Re: mandated reporter. Do federal sexual harassment laws apply? Are pages paid employees as well? I may be way off, but since they are minors, just wondering if all bases are covered.

Steve @ 41

If the Foley cover-up and Woodward’s book don’t give Dem’s the House and at least 48 Senate seats,athen this country is really screwed. To me, failure of a Democratic Party win would mean one of two possibilities. 1) The wingnut zombies are the voting majority or 2) The voting process has been corrupted and co-opted by the fascists. As Stalin is alleged to have said “It’s not who votes that counts: it’s who counts the votes:.

If there is a failure of electoral politics in November; the next option is movement politics, ala Gandhi and King. If the time come for marching in the streets and passive resistance; I hope I have the guts to face the possibility of being declared and enemy combatant. The thought of being detained without Habeas is very sobering.

By the way, Happy Birthday, Gandhi!

meta @ 43

Re: mandated reporter. Do federal sexual harassment laws apply? Are pages paid employees as well? I may be way off, but since they are minors, just wondering if all bases are covered.

pages are not paid employees.

angie @ 46

meta @ 43

Re: mandated reporter. Do federal sexual harassment laws apply? Are pages paid employees as well? I may be way off, but since they are minors, just wondering if all bases are covered.

pages are not paid employees.

Yes they are paid. It’s not much, and some gets automatically taken out to pay for their dorm, but they are paid.

meta @ 45

Re: mandated reporter. Do federal sexual harassment laws apply? Are pages paid employees as well? I may be way off, but since they are minors, just wondering if all bases are covered.

federal sexual harrassment laws do apply — and apply to Congress. there was a big fight about this a few years ago in the Clinton admin., and Congress IIRC voted to make such employment laws apply to themselves.

PS One need not be paid to qualify as a covered “employee.” Volunteers and interns count as well.

Then I think this plot just got thicker.
I’ve been a mandated reporter. There should be at the very least documentation. So that’s one for starters.

angie at 47 — actually, they apparently are paid a stipend for their work, according to one article I read this morning. I didn’t practice labor law, so I’m not certain where they would fall in terms of civil harassment issues, but I would bet that we have a reader out there somewhere who would know the answer to that.

Peterr @ 46

angie @ 46

meta @ 43

Re: mandated reporter. Do federal sexual harassment laws apply? Are pages paid employees as well? I may be way off, but since they are minors, just wondering if all bases are covered.

pages are not paid employees.

Yes they are paid. It’s not much, and some gets automatically taken out to pay for their dorm, but they are paid.

I heard something on TV last night that it’s around $400-$500 a week

It’s rare that I have anything nice to say about Howard Kurtz. This is from his online chat in progress.

Howard Kurtz: I haven’t seen much of that. I’ve seen journalists observe that the Foley mess, by exploding in the campaign’s final month, could influence the election, but not blaming Democrats for their reaction. Many Republicans are appalled as well. The problem for the GOP is the earlier warnings to Dennis Hastert and John Boehner and the perfectly legitimate question of what the GOP leadership did about it.

Bold is mine.

Interesting spin at the righty blogs:

http://www.redstate.com/storie…..ouse_pages

It’s ABC’s FAULT. (Since they imply the sources must have been Democrats, I guess becuase any good gooper would have had to have kept quiet. Sometimes they do our work for us.)
Not even their own readers are buying it.

Shelley Moore Capito is my rep. So far she has had to return $ from Ney, DeLay, & Cunningham– and she has about a 100% rubberstamp record—and she says she is shocked! shocked I tell you. Here’s my question to my rep Shelley—”If the page classes were warned about Foley as far back as 2002, how come you didn’t have a clue about this? Did you really need to hear about the e-mails from Shimkus? Or is that cover for you having your head in the GOP sand?” Shelley’s looking for plausible deniability (a family trait)

The GOP Predator Enablers’ attempts to draw a distinction between the “overly friendly” emails that they sat on and covered up and the sexually explicit emails is destroyed by the fact that GOP legislators were warning the pages as far back as 2001 about Foley being a predator.

Therefore, the moment that the “overly-friendly” emails surfaced in 2005, the GOP Predator Enablers clearly should have known that Foley had been way, way, way over the line and should have taken immediate steps to build a firewall between Foley and any pages.

Hastert and his fellow GOP Predator Enablers did not do so. They need to take the fall.

I stand corrected, sorry. I have friends and family that have served as unpaid summer interns.

For their average of 40 hours of work per week, Pages are compensated $17,600 per annum, from which are deducted federal and local (based upon the individual page’s permanent residence) taxes and $400/month in room and board fees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U…..tives_Page

Hey FDL gang.

Man what a couple of days huh? Ugly, ugly, ugly stuff.

The big question for me is are we going to see any investigations before the elections. I know the Feds will probably take a while, but what about Pelosi’s 10 days? Am I right saying that wasn’t completely agreed to and the Ethics committee can take their jolly ass time getting around to it?

Hastert, Reynolds, and Boenher need to resign immediately. As well as the member of the page board who didn’t alert his counterparts.

The rats are running.. atrios reports that Hastert’s web-site scrubbed the press releases about Hastert protection kids.

Rice: No memory of CIA warning of attack

Tenet and Black warned Rice in the starkest terms of the prospects for attack, she brushed them off, Woodward reiterated Monday. He told NBC’s “Today” show that Black told him the two men were so emphatic, it amounted to “holding a gun to her head” and doing everything except pulling the trigger.

When does the press start calling her out on the absolute pathological prevarication?

Ya know, if we had a real president, he/she would have already demanded the resignations of everyone involved. But nooooooooo, these assholes are actually trying to minimize the issue.

SLIME IN THE HOUSE!!!

Such a shame we don’t have a REAL president.

No happy Gop faces in our Monday morning conference room today…I asked what they thought about Foley and they said him AND anyone who knew about it should go too. Whoa! This is big, believe me. These guys are all still behind Bush big time.

Hi Christy et al…
Back. Using Xp (shudder)

Missed y’all.

Peace

hmmm, first i wanted to think the worst of hastert too (surprise) and the “outside of congress” thing seemed like a move to shift blame, but part of foley’s shitck was to wait until the kids were out of the page program before he moved in for the kill, so the chance is that if any of them talked to someone about what was going on it wouldn’t have necessarily been someone in d.c. but more likely someone back home.

ohmygod, did i just give cover to denny hastert?!?!?!

LOL! Snow-job is refusing to answer questions and directing folks to Hastert. LOL!!!

Hey Hastert…

INCOMING!!!

I think Foley was intentionally trying to avoid the application of sexual harassment laws by not going beyond being the ‘friendly mentor’ until the pages left the program (all the info I’ve seen indicates that he used their departure as an excuse to ask for their e-mails and that’s when it got truly weird). Again, that put the kids in a weird position re: who to report it to, since there was no longer a supervisor.

Sounds like a lot of them vented to this guy that heads the alumni board – and his statement sure sounds like it’s from someone sitting down with a lawyer to decide what to say now that he’s in the middle of a political shitstorm. I imagine that he’s wondering if he’s gonna be a target of Hastert’s “go after anybody but me” investigation.

That blog that started the whole thing does look a bit odd, I must say. Some commenter there said it looked like a Mike Rodgers product? Didn’t turn up anything on a quick google on that name…any help?

Christy, this is a drive by (gotta go to court) but I am so glad to know that you are on this.

You of all bloggers have the experience and credentials for this story.

And the empathy. You can and are froming this just as it should be.

Keep going.

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.
Foley Sought to Rendezvous with Page

I’m a former social worker, and the mandatory reporting requirement is never taken lightly, and it is not just job related. It is your absolute responsibility, and most don’t feel it is something you can leave when you leave the job. You will always be covered if you report, if you say you have been a mandated reporter in the past. It is just absolutely the very least that can be expected from anyone who has ever been in the teaching, social services, medical or law enforcement professions. No excuses.

There’s something more that I think has not been examined as deeply as it should be.

Last night I watched the clips of an ABC News segment on the Foley/Page scandal. For reference, the clip is on CnL:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..-round-up/

ABC News correspondent Brian Ross said, “A former page has come forward to tell ABC News that warnings were issued to pages about Foley in 2001….”

Matthew Loraditch, a page from the 2001-2002 school year, said, “It was a slight cautionary statement, you know. Don’t get too wrapped up in him being nice to you and all that kind of stuff, you know. He’s a nice but he is a little bit odd.”

Now something jumps out: if pages were warned in 2001 about him, then some things may have happened before 2001. To put it differently, if someone gives you a warning about a sexual predator, then they had to know about his problem to warn you in the first place. Assuming this report is true, this scandal and coverup goes back even further than 2001.

The mind boggles…

BQ@65

On the earlier thread you mentioned you were trying to verify a posted comment regarding CREW having notified the authorities this summer on Foley.

Any luck? I tried and couldn’t find it.

kristinejoy @ 67

I’m a former social worker, and the mandatory reporting requirement is never taken lightly, and it is not just job related. It is your absolute responsibility, and most don’t feel it is something you can leave when you leave the job. You will always be covered if you report, if you say you have been a mandated reporter in the past. It is just absolutely the very least that can be expected from anyone who has ever been in the teaching, social services, medical or law enforcement professions. No excuses.

very, very true from my experience in healthcare.

windje @ 68

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.
Foley Sought to Rendezvous with Page

…oh man. I wish they’d quit including the IM’s. They are just sickening.

But man, the evidence just keeps piling up. I think it’s just a matter of time before one of these kids comes forward and says something happened beyond messaging. My thought is Foley was this way because it worked at some point. I doubt he was “just trying” after 4-5 years. Somewhere out there someone knows something more. But, I can’t blame them for not coming forward in this atmosphere.

My heart does go out to the young man who is the President of the Alumni group. He is in a terrible position. One of the worst things that happens to those who are the targets of harassers and abusers is that they get re-victimized over and over and over again. It is a horrible and lonely path no matter what happens.

Blank Kludge!

condolences on the xp

(ok, back to work) :(

angie @ 71

kristinejoy @ 67

I’m a former social worker, and the mandatory reporting requirement is never taken lightly, and it is not just job related. It is your absolute responsibility, and most don’t feel it is something you can leave when you leave the job. You will always be covered if you report, if you say you have been a mandated reporter in the past. It is just absolutely the very least that can be expected from anyone who has ever been in the teaching, social services, medical or law enforcement professions. No excuses.

very, very true from my experience in healthcare.

I’m not saying Hastert isn’t a sleazebag for looking the other way on this. I’m just saying that I don’t think–from a purely technical standpoint–he’s a mandated reporter.

Tony Snow presser on C-SPAN right now — getting hot!

What I don’t understand is why we have not yet heard that the FBI has seized the ex-congressman’s computers. This may be news to you guys, but all the main flavors of IM (AIM, MSN, YIM, Trillian, Jabber, maybe even GAIM) all keep logs BY DEFAULT of all the conversations you have using them. Google Talk tells you upfront that Google will use your chat conversations to target context-appropriate text advertising at your browser.

I think AIM and Yahoo log all this stuff on their servers as well- which means there is certainly a backup somewhere that is at least nominally outside Republican control.

So, howsabout it FBI? When are you going to impound the computers? I’d love to see any emails Foley has that are to/from Denny’s office…

Snootie McClellan and Ari Fleischer are probably in their laz-y-boys laughing into their beers.

No, I don’t think he would be considered a mandated reporter legally. However, as someone who once was, you would think he would understand the importance of it and would have acted. OH, but that would have taken a conscience. N/M.

I believe however that the person in charge of the paging program would have been a mandated reporter in a legal sense. Someone was “in charge” of these kids. That person must have been a mandated reporter.

Steve @
59

The rats are running.. atrios reports that Hastert’s web-site scrubbed the press releases about Hastert protection kids.

Here’s a link to ThinkProgress about what you mentioned: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/…..yberspace/

Hastert Yanks Press Releases On Efforts To ‘Keep Kids Safe in Cyberspace’ From His Website

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert first claimed he was made aware of Foley’s emails to a young congressional page by media reports on Thursday. He has now admitted he was actually informed last fall. (my emphasis)

(snip)

smiley @ 78

What I don’t understand is why we have not yet heard that the FBI has seized the ex-congressman’s computers. This may be news to you guys, but all the main flavors of IM (AIM, MSN, YIM, Trillian, Jabber, maybe even GAIM) all keep logs BY DEFAULT of all the conversations you have using them. Google Talk tells you upfront that Google will use your chat conversations to target context-appropriate text advertising at your browser.

I think AIM and Yahoo log all this stuff on their servers as well- which means there is certainly a backup somewhere that is at least nominally outside Republican control.

So, howsabout it FBI? When are you going to impound the computers? I’d love to see any emails Foley has that are to/from Denny’s office…

Ya gotta get a warrant signed by a judge first. Ya don’t just kick in the door and start grabbing stuff. Oy

Has this been noted yet?…

Brian Ross at ABCNews has new emails indicating that Foley sought to meet with pages, and one exchange suggest a reference to a prior meeting.

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

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..w_fol.html

54 froggermarch says:

October 2nd, 2006 at 9:27 am

Interesting spin at the righty blogs:

http://www.redstate.com/storie…..source_and _what_did_the_source_do_to_protect_house_pages

It’s ABC’s FAULT. (Since they imply the sources must have been Democrats, I guess becuase any good gooper would have had to have kept quiet. Sometimes they do our work for us.)
Not even their own readers are buying it.

this is the usual – CYA by republicans by shooting the messenger for the bad news and deflecting attention from the bad news itself

I have read thisscandal dates back to at least 2001. John Boehner just became Majority Leader late last year or early this year. Wouldn’t Tom DeLay also be culpable in this cover-up, as he was Majority Leader for most of this time?

Also, how can we reach out to the page web-site, or former pages to let them know we will take care of them?

Smiley, Foley’s computing equipment were seized this weekend by the FBI. Don’t know about anyone else.

Cozumel @ 82

smiley @ 78
Ya gotta get a warrant signed by a judge first. Ya don’t just kick in the door and start grabbing stuff. Oy

{SNARK}Really? You didn’t read W’s memo did ya?{/SNARK}

There are so many ways this was handled badly, it’s hard to know where to start.

First and foremost, this is about a person in a position of power who broke the bonds of trust that someone in his position has a legal and ethical responsibility to maintain, and he broke that trust with teenagers who should never have been compromised in any way.

This is also about those who had a responsibility to make sure that all legal, ethical and moral obligations were met, and to address the possible and/or actual breach of those obligations with nothing but the safety of the young people in their charge as their priority, in a non-partisan and non-political way.

Whatever Mark Foley’s reasons for his behavior, it is always incumbent upon those whose job it is to monitor these kinds of situations to first protect the abused and not the abuser. That the parents did not want to go public is not carte blanche to sweep the matter under the rug, not when other children’s safety is at risk. The response is, “We will do everything we can to keep your child’s name out of this situation, but we have a legal and moral obligation to make sure that other people’s children do not fall victim.”

The leadership had a responsibility not only to speak to Foley, but to advise Foley that they had no choice but to turn the matter over to the proper authorities, and to have done so immediately.

The Democrats’ response should focus on the well-being of the current and former pages, and the procedures and policies in place for addressing any issues that arise with these kids going forward.

They should also be talking about trust, and what it means to have broken trust where young people are concerned, and how one can possibly trust those who would condone, cover-up or minimize the implications of this situation, and how we can possibly believe anything these Republicans say about anything.

windje,
I didn’t have any luck either. I was about to ask if I’d missed some confirmation, since a few people had referred to it (I think in the last post’s comments) as if proven.

I don’t want to propagate anything that might end up getting CREW caught up in Denny’s hopeful net-casting.

imm mentioned above that this falls under Federal sexual harrassment laws. Foley is a “supervisor” over the pages. Hastert “supervises” both Foley and the pages. These are institutional issues and as such, Hastert, at an absolute minimum, had a fiduciary responsibility. I think the age of the victims, Hastert’s knowledge and authority mean that his responsibility went far beyond mere “fiduciary responsibiity, however.

blackmail, greymail, email….

Oooh, Oooh, Oooh!
I still have the Hastert site scrubbed press release open in a tab – anyone want to walk me thru saving a screenshot in Firefox and I will send it to whomever.

The spittle is flying as Rush is in sheer panic mode over this on his radio show this am. It’s as if he is getting no guidance from above, so all he can think to do is keep desperately flailing the “Dems did it too” line. “The’re the party that loves teh gay, remember? Remember?!” Pure comic gold.

As important as this scandal is, and as useful as it might be to give a boost to some Democrats in close races, let’s try to remember what else happened last week. The Legislature approved torture, and did away with habeas corpus protections.

I’m as mortified as everyone else by Foley and his sexual predations, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here.

My 2 kopeks hehe.

I can’t remember where I read it on the toobz, but I read that *only* the Republican pages were warned, not the pages for the Democrats.

aReader @
83

Has this been noted yet?…

Brian Ross at ABCNews has new emails indicating that Foley sought to meet with pages, and one exchange suggest a reference to a prior meeting.

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

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..w_fol.html

There will be more of these. But the worst cases will not come forward. If you screwed around with a Congressman and then got a plum job for it, you’re probably going to keep your mouth shut, because you know that you really will be vilified by the GOP.

The kids I worry about the most are the gay kids. Being gay and a teenager is an isolating experience. I could see someone chatting with Foley, just to have someone–anyone–to talk to about their sexuality. My concern is that some poor 17-year-old is going to get outed in all of this.

meta @ 86

Smiley, Foley’s computing equipment were seized this weekend by the FBI. Don’t know about anyone else.

I haven’t heard that??? Are you sure? Or is it just that his office has been sealed off.

Anne @ 87

There are so many ways this was handled badly, it’s hard to know where to start.

First and foremost, this is about a person in a position of power who broke the bonds of trust that someone in his position has a legal and ethical responsibility to maintain, and he broke that trust with teenagers who should never have been compromised in any way.

This is also about those who had a responsibility to make sure that all legal, ethical and moral obligations were met, and to address the possible and/or actual breach of those obligations with nothing but the safety of the young people in their charge as their priority, in a non-partisan and non-political way.

Whatever Mark Foley’s reasons for his behavior, it is always incumbent upon those whose job it is to monitor these kinds of situations to first protect the abused and not the abuser. That the parents did not want to go public is not carte blanche to sweep the matter under the rug, not when other children’s safety is at risk. The response is, “We will do everything we can to keep your child’s name out of this situation, but we have a legal and moral obligation to make sure that other people’s children do not fall victim.”

The leadership had a responsibility not only to speak to Foley, but to advise Foley that they had no choice but to turn the matter over to the proper authorities, and to have done so immediately.

The Democrats’ response should focus on the well-being of the current and former pages, and the procedures and policies in place for addressing any issues that arise with these kids going forward.

They should also be talking about trust, and what it means to have broken trust where young people are concerned, and how one can possibly trust those who would condone, cover-up or minimize the implications of this situation, and how we can possibly believe anything these Republicans say about anything.

It may be “hard to know where to start” but it’s even harder to know where it ends.

You hit the key word here: trust. That’s the word that drives the law in situations like this, that’s the word that drives the moral discussion in situations like this, and that’s the word that drives the political calculations in situations like this.

The whole CYA things is aimed at regaining trust, and there’s no way Hastert can pull that off as long as his name is in the list of dramatis personae.

Can voters trust republicans? It’s getting harder and harder for even the reddest of voters to answer yes to that question.

meta @ 86

Smiley, Foley’s computing equipment were seized this weekend by the FBI. Don’t know about anyone else.

Ahh, that’s what I was looking for. Guess I missed it somehow- don’t know how, I’ve been reloading rawstory and abcnews pretty frequently.

Cozumel- sure, you need a warrant. And according to Denny, even with a warrant you’re still intruding on separation of powers (ha ha, remember when we had separation of powers? sigh, those were the days). But I would imagine they’d get a warrant pretty damn quick, given the nature of the allegations and the bad press that’s already out. I mean, imagine the headlines: “FBI delays investigation while congress destroys evidence” Can’t have the papers writing that now, can we?

How long will it take before a former page comes forward, and tells how Mark Foley molested him? One day? Two days? A week?

The Republican House Leadership are co-conspirators in the cover up of a Child Molester in their midst.

Denny Hastert — RESIGN.

I can’t help remembering how they went after Clinton with torches and pitchforks. Yet they boo Pelosi when she calls for an investigation. It seems they believe that anything they do is just fine because *they* are doing it.

This misadministration has been so intent on regulating when/how and with whom everybody *else* has sex. Apparently only elected Republicans have any choice in the matter, and their choice is not to be questioned (they think).

Am I wrong to be secretly hoping that the dems DID leak this to the press cause that would give me a long awaited sign that they have some sort of BIG, GIANT SNEAKY PLAN or that they do have some spine/balls/take your pick.

Is that too much to ask????

kurt–you’re right about the gravity of the torture law.

however, I think I speak for many people when I say that all I care about is winning: a Dem-controlled house will shine much-needed light on Republican crimes and destroy the GOP.

That’s the bigger picture, period.

BQ @ 88

windje,
I didn’t have any luck either. I was about to ask if I’d missed some confirmation, since a few people had referred to it (I think in the last post’s comments) as if proven.

I don’t want to propagate anything that might end up getting CREW caught up in Denny’s hopeful net-casting.

I don’t want to propagate bologna either. Thanks for the response.

Frank Probst,

Hastert as one in the chain of command and in fact at the top of it would still need to report. The situation would be, for me, analogous to a physician discussing an issue of possible child abuse with the CEO of the hospital. The physician is definitely a mandated reporter but from the moment the physician tells the CEO the CEO has a fiduciary trust to follow up and see that the physician reports the suspicion or the CEO must him or herself report it.

I mentioned this last night, and Christy has a link in the post to the CREW site, but just in case some folks haven’t read what’s over at CREW, I’ll be brief: CREW received copies of at least some of Foley’s IMs/emails during the summer. Their Executive Director, Melanie Sloan, is a former federal prosecutor with experience in sex crimes. She turned the evidence over the FBI. During the summer. So why do I see an announcement Sunday that the FBI is starting an investigation? Does this coverup extend to the FBI/Justice as well? Just asking. And something I am going to keep asking.

This is the nail in the perverbial voting booth or something like that. Look at this scandal as the ultimate “negative ad” that will succeed in suppressing republican turn-out way beyond our mere mortal abilities. Can’t wait to see what Keith Olberman does with this tonight.

John Casper @
18

WRT Spotlighting media in Hastert’s district, Northern Illinois, very rural.

I think wild ass guess that DeKalb, home of Northern Illinois University, is the largest city, hoping for help from natives.

A near-native here. Aurora, Batavia and several of the other towns are the southwestern edge of Chicago’s suburban ring. Aurora in particular is quite large. DeKalb is smaller and isolated from the bulk of the district’s population. The whole area is part of the Chicago media market.

This area is a republican stronghold of long standing, but Hastert is already in some difficulty, thanks to land deals connected to a highway project that received huge earmarks in the last transportation bill.

re your update about the Page Alumni website:

I believe that’s the organization headed by Matthew Loraditch.
He could be trying to clarify his position with respect to who was “warned” by whom in the Foley matter.

As soulcatcher points out above, Loraditch’s commented to ABC:
“It was a slight cautionary statement, you know. Don’t get too wrapped up in him being nice to you and all that kind of stuff, you know. He’s a nice but he is a little bit odd.”

And those comments were characterized as a “warning” by ABC.

But in the New York Times late last night, Loraditch’s position is significantly different:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10…..r=homepage

“Matthew Loraditch, who worked as a page with Ms. Gallo and Mr. McDonald in 2001 and 2002, said a supervisor had once casually mentioned that Mr. Foley “was odd” and that he later saw sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Foley had sent to two former pages after they left the program.

But Mr. Loraditch said he was never warned by program supervisors to stay away from him.”

Kurt @ #94

I understand your concern.

May I remind you of a certain ‘third-rate bungled burglary’ that occured in Washington DC a few decades ago?

It became the loose thread that unraveled the Nixon adminisitration.

This is truly getting more horrifying by the minute. If it turns out that Foley actually had a rendezvous with one (or more) of the pages, and that the GOP leadership failed to act prior to any of Foley’s encounters, then this whole thing could go down in history as the WORST sex scandal ever on Capitol Hill.

Let me also say, I take no delight in any of this. What Foley has “allegedly” done is sickening. I cannot, however, revel in the fact that a man has destroyed his own life, and the lives of countless teenagers and their parents. The repercussions for them will last a long, long time.

What the GOP leadership has “apparently” done in covering up Foley’s actions IS the real story here. Their loyalty to the party is truly horrifying. They protect only themselves, abandoning those that need protection. Over and over, these sick fucks (ooh, feels good to say that!) have abandoned the troops, the Veterans, the hurricane victims, the aged, the immigrants, the middle class, and now, our children.

How ironic that Rove’s dream is about to be undone by, not Iraq, not Bush’s incompetence, not nut-job Cheney, and not Plamegate, but a good old-fashioned Washington sex scandal. They can’t blame this one on the Clenis (although they’ll try, just watch).

BTW, I DO take delight in irony.

Kurt @ 94

As important as this scandal is, and as useful as it might be to give a boost to some Democrats in close races, let’s try to remember what else happened last week. The Legislature approved torture, and did away with habeas corpus protections.

I’m as mortified as everyone else by Foley and his sexual predations, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here.

My 2 kopeks hehe.

We haven’t forgotten, but we lost the torture and habeas corpus battles already. They’ll both be fought again before the Supreme Court, but not today. Right now, I think we should stay focused on the current scandal, which involves sex Sex SEX!!!

This certainly isn’t going to help Bush when he cries “Wolf” for the umteenth time throughout October.

What the FUCK is wrong with the Republicans? I used to be one. Can’t these guys be honest about anything? It is one thing to believe something and work for that, it is quite another to sell out your principles and kill the thing you are working for, just so you can win.

I think rank and file republican members of congress should do what the generals in the Army are doing — resigning thier commission based upon honorable protest. If you can’t stand up inside, then quit!!! It is the American way!!

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Far be it from me to be cynical, but Pagegate sure has blown coverage of all the tidbits of State of Denial, Rummy, the Secretary of the Army who is defying Rumsfeld and won’t sign off on the budget, the lies of Kindasleazy Rice, and the NIE scandals out of the water. There’s a lot going on that’s not getting the attention it deserves.

Do I see KKKarl’s fingerprints here, or is that being too cynical?

CREW has a press release up right now, entitled “CREW URGES DOJ I.G. TO PROBE WHY FBI FAILED TO INVESTIGATE FOLEY EMAILS SENT BY CREW THIS SUMMER”

Hugh #105

Good analogy.

God knows parents will resonate with this issues, but another group is all of those (us?) in jobs with constant ethics training, legal responsibilty classes, etc. Think of anyone in a management or sensitive role, and, of course, think of all members of the military.

This class of people must be thinking “What gives? If I did that, I’d be fired, blackballed, indicted, who know? If the GOP can get away with it, then why am I taking all these mandated ethics workshops?”

cspan says they have a camera ready to “get” Hastert and Shimkus if anything is said this hour after their meeting.

Hugh @ 105

Frank Probst,

Hastert as one in the chain of command and in fact at the top of it would still need to report. The situation would be, for me, analogous to a physician discussing an issue of possible child abuse with the CEO of the hospital. The physician is definitely a mandated reporter but from the moment the physician tells the CEO the CEO has a fiduciary trust to follow up and see that the physician reports the suspicion or the CEO must him or herself report it.

Again, from a purely technical standpoint, I don’t think so. The physician is the mandated reporter in the legal sense. The CEO my have a “ficuiary trust” to cover the hospital’s ass, but that’s not the same thing as being a mandated reporter.

Hastert is going to issue yet another statement within the hour. CSPAN will carry it live.

Cozumel @ 120

Hastert is going to issue yet another statement within the hour. CSPAN will carry it live.

His resignation?

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

from CREW’s press release: “As a former prosecutor who handled sex crimes in the District of Columbia, the emails set off alarm bells. Grown men simply do not send emails requesting photographs to teenagers over whom they have had some degree of authority,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW wrote today.

Thanks NormalLiberal at 10:09.

I have to take off, but save a seat for me Kurt. I’ll come sit with you.

windje @ 122

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

Yeah but it’s DOCTOR Dobson, who professes to have a degree in child psychology (right?) that just drives me insane. Falwell and Robertson are cartoons to me.

windje @ 115

Far be it from me to be cynical, but Pagegate sure has blown coverage of all the tidbits of State of Denial, Rummy, the Secretary of the Army who is defying Rumsfeld and won’t sign off on the budget, the lies of Kindasleazy Rice, and the NIE scandals out of the water. There’s a lot going on that’s not getting the attention it deserves.

Do I see KKKarl’s fingerprints here, or is that being too cynical?

Too cynical. He wouldn’t distract us with an ugly sex scandal. All of the scandals you mentioned above are about Bush, who is not up for re-election. This scandal involves the House of Representatives, all of whom are up for re-election. Karl’s October surprise would be something along the lines of: We just blew Osama bin Laden to smithereens. We’re doing DNA testing on what’s left of him. We’ll have the final results on Nov 15.

windje @ 121

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

All I’m getting from them is the sound of silence. And that says a lot.

Impeachment Happens @ 124

windje @ 122

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

Yeah but it’s DOCTOR Dobson, who professes to have a degree in child psychology (right?) that just drives me insane. Falwell and Robertson are cartoons to me.

Doctor of what – podiatry. He stinks to high heaven.

mc #111

“[the GOP has] abandoned the troops, the Veterans, the hurricane victims, the aged, the immigrants, the middle class, and now, our children.”

It seems all they care about is their base, or as Bush calls them, “the have-mores”.

sharkbabe-

gottcha.

Hope to have Firefox installed soon.

Keep raking this uck…

BK

Zergle @
87

Cozumel @ 82

smiley @ 78
Ya gotta get a warrant signed by a judge first. Ya don’t just kick in the door and start grabbing stuff. Oy

{SNARK}Really? You didn’t read W’s memo did ya?{/SNARK}

From a legal standpoint (please help us out here, Christy), I’d think that it ceased being “his” computer and “his” office at the moment he resigned.

I have nothing today but second or third rate snark on this subject. I will instead refer all to King Tbogg.

Don’t forget about any of the speakers or attendees of the 2006 Value Voters Summit held late last month… over 1700 of them.

http://www.frcaction.org/index.cfm?i=WX06C06

Hastert and Shimkus, NO comment till after the elections (oops) investigation blah blah

windje @ 127

Doctor of what – podiatry. He stinks to high heaven.

Close.

From the FotF website:

He [Dobson] has an earned Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (1967) in the field of child development. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of California and a licensed marriage, family and child counselor in both California and Colorado.

USC? That would mean that (snicker) Dobson is (snort) a (giggle) Trojan!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Mary @ 124

I have to take off, but save a seat for me Kurt. I’ll come sit with you.

is there room for me too?

Susan in Iowa @
12

I would like to propose that this thread include some discussion of exactly how Democratic candidates running against GOP incumbents should frame the themes in Christy’s terrific discussion above. (The incumbents who voted for throwing this down what the NYT called the “black hole” of the House Ethics Committee.) I know that there are campaigns discussing this right now. Can we help? We need to think in terms of succinct press releases and short statements for television. Also, we should all be writing outraged letters to the editor.

I saw a comment somewhere yesterday to the effect that it would help conservatives if the discussion is all about values. Really? What do you think, firedogs?

This is a gift, as someone said. (Professor Foland?) How do we get it to keep on giving?

1. Go to your local GOP congressman or congresswoman’s website. Look for a page that says something like “constituent services.” Click on that link and see if that brings you to a menu which lists the “House Page Program.” If the link opens to info on how parents and kids can apply for the program, it is out of date.

Apparently, the people managing the program are closing shop temporarily. These application pages should be removed from ALL of the congressional web sites.

2. Show up at rallies at which the GOP candidate is appearing and ask questions about protecting our kids from sexual predators in congress. Call talk shows on which your local GOP candidate is appearing and ask simple, polite questions about these issues.

mc @ 110

This is truly getting more horrifying by the minute. If it turns out that Foley actually had a rendezvous with one (or more) of the pages, and that the GOP leadership failed to act prior to any of Foley’s encounters, then this whole thing could go down in history as the WORST sex scandal ever on Capitol Hill.

Let me also say, I take no delight in any of this. What Foley has “allegedly” done is sickening. I cannot, however, revel in the fact that a man has destroyed his own life, and the lives of countless teenagers and their parents. The repercussions for them will last a long, long time.

What the GOP leadership has “apparently” done in covering up Foley’s actions IS the real story here. Their loyalty to the party is truly horrifying. They protect only themselves, abandoning those that need protection. Over and over, these sick fucks (ooh, feels good to say that!) have abandoned the troops, the Veterans, the hurricane victims, the aged, the immigrants, the middle class, and now, our children.

How ironic that Rove’s dream is about to be undone by, not Iraq, not Bush’s incompetence, not nut-job Cheney, and not Plamegate, but a good old-fashioned Washington sex scandal. They can’t blame this one on the Clenis (although they’ll try, just watch).

BTW, I DO take delight in irony.

Irony, my goodness. How about the fact that another in a long line of Louisiana victims (child no less) may be what brings down this neo/theo cabal.

Maybe someone already covered this, if so, my apologies for repeating it.

Isn’t this far past an ethics violation and some sort of criminal violation? Get the cops in there and let them investigate.

Josh Marshall is reporting that the FBI was given the filthy Foley emails months ago. And apparently the FBI sat on the information until now.

Some are calling for an investigation to see whether the delay by the FBI was politically influenced.

This gets bigger by the second.

Covering this rapidly developing story is what the blogs are made for.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001658.php

Morning firepups -

Busy day in clinic.

What’s new with the party of torture, dungeons, and sex perversion?

Arrogance. An attitude of IOKIYAR. Foley did what he did because he thought he could and it now appears for at least one year, probably 5 years, and conceivably for much longer he was right.

As for Hastert and the Republican leadership, they thought much the same. Tom Delay? They could rationalize that as just politics, an aberration, not criminality. Even with Bush on the ropes, the public against Iraq, they were still able with no real difficulties to pass a bill legalizing torture and doing away with habeas corpus. Why shouldn’t they think that they could get away with this one too? Foley wasn’t careful enough in his perversions and they have already tossed him under the bus. But them? Why should they pay any price? Why should anyone hold them responsible for anything? They don’t feel responsible and so if anyone does come after them, they won’t see it as about morality, but politics.

This I think is their mindset and why they have misread and will continue to misread the situation. People like these think responsibility is for saps. They will never learn that it isn’t the crime, it’s the cover-up.

If you can’t trust Republicans with your kids, how can you trust them with your country?

smiley, more of an explanation. Couldn’t remember where I’d read that so I went searching for a citation. Couldn’t find one so went through some exchanges with a friend who’d written that CNN had reported on Sunday I think that Capitol police have sealed off Foley’s office to secure potential evidence from possible tampering. Sorry for the confusion.

I am reposting this from a couple days ago ( or was it a couple months).
Many people are skeptical of Madsen which is OK, be skeptical of
everything. Madsen was totally on target about Porter Goss.

One thing we all can do is call our local election boards and
demand paper ballots. There are likely a few FDL attorneys out there.
One word, litigation. Sue them, and demand local Democratic parties
also sue. Death to Diebold.

http://waynemadsenreport.com/2006_04080426.php
“April 15, 2006 — Rumsfeld personally involved in homo-erotic prisoner
abuse in Guantanamo.”
Also, an agent of Department of Homeland Security was asked
to pick up “puppy chow” and “tender vittles”-but this did not
mean dog food. 4-14-06

http://waynemadsenreport.com/2006_04010407.php
OFFICIALS of Department of Homeland Security, Brian Doyle and Frank Figueroa
were busted for sexual crimes against underage teenagers.
“Amazingly, Figueroa had been in charge of the Homeland Security Department’s Operation Predator, designed to curb child sexual exploitation and child pornography.” 4-6-06

http://waynemadsenreport.com/2005_11111118.php
“Sexually-explicit photos at Abu Ghraib special ordered by a homosexual and pedophile ring inside the Bush White House”

“There is good reason for the embarrassment of the Pentagon in the affair. The orders to take the sexually-oriented photos and videos, some of which involve teenage Iraqi boys and girls and sodomization by their guards, came directly from a pedophile and closeted male homosexual ring operating in the White House, according to the intelligence sources. Copies of the tapes and photos were sent directly to the White House for the entertainment of senior members of the Bush White House, including officials in the Vice President’s office and the Executive Office of the President.” wayne madsen 11-16-05

There was some talk in Late Night about Foley going into rehab, but there was no confirmation. Now there is. Toledo Blade

Former Rep. Mark Foley, under FBI investigation for e-mail exchanges with teenage congressional pages, has checked himself into rehabilitation facility for alcoholism treatment and accepts responsibility for his actions, his attorney acknowledged today.

(I’ve been awake for less than a hour, so my apologies if this was covered in another thread.)

OT-Venturing over to the wingnut side of the internets is always interesting. Found this little tipoff to the repubs schedule this week.

Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes will dedicate tonight’s show to the new (old) tapes of John “ABSCAM” Murtha. Tune in at 9:00.

That’s from Redstate. They’re obviously terrified of Murtha. Why else attack the guy who didn’t take a bribe and make it sound like a crime?

Two words that should be rolling off every democratic candidate’s lips, on every issue, are Trust and Accountability.

Trust has been broken by the GOP, on almost every issue one can imagine.

Fiscal Responsibility? Broken.
WMDs? Broken.
Katrina response? Broken.
EPA analysis of Ground Zero Air? Broken.
VA benefits for Iraq war casualties? Broken.
(and on and on and on . . .)

In the same vein, Accountability has been MIA. You can make your own list of issues on this one.

And the Republican House leadership handling of the Foley mess is the icing on the cake. They can’t even be trusted to watch out for the young people in their own workplace, and ducked any meaningful attempts to hold each other accountable until it was out in the public media.

Trust and Accountability.
Trust and Accountability.
Trust and Accountability. . .

I read over in the Salon WarRoom that this situation is similar to something Turdblossom would do to take attention away from “State of Denial”.

Either way, I think it shines the light of day on the hypocrisy and corruption infecting much of the current administration and congress.

“Josh Marshall is reporting that the FBI was given the filthy Foley emails months ago. And apparently the FBI sat on the information until now.

Some are calling for an investigation to see whether the delay by the FBI was politically influenced. “

God, now we’re forced to investigate the investigators.

Where is this going to end?

If we just had some Dems who could hack the (Diebold) hackers…

someone help me out here- how will alcohol rehab cure pedophilia? seems not unlike going in for an appendectomy and having the doctor cut off your leg…

So now you’re sober, but you still want to abuse children?

New thread

windje @ 129

Impeachment Happens @ 124

windje @ 122

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

Yeah but it’s DOCTOR Dobson, who professes to have a degree in child psychology (right?) that just drives me insane. Falwell and Robertson are cartoons to me.

Doctor of what – podiatry. He stinks to high heaven.

Proctology

John Casper @ 11

Spotlight emails were sent to:
Chris Dettro : Legal Affairs Reporter : State Journal-Register
Matthews Dietrich : Assistant Editorial Page Editor : State Journal-Register
Mike Matulis : Editorial Page Editor : State Journal-Register
Mike Turley : Senior News Editor : State Journal-Register

This is Illinois btw.

Hey John – how about the Illinois Times? I’ll send to Dusty Rhodes over there.

Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes will dedicate tonight’s show to the new (old) tapes of John “ABSCAM” Murtha. Tune in at 9:00.

That should be interesting. I can hardly wait to see the ratings. Will viewers tune in to that or SEX on CNN and MSNBC ; )

smiley @ 150

someone help me out here- how will alcohol rehab cure pedophilia? seems not unlike going in for an appendectomy and having the doctor cut off your leg…

So now you’re sober, but you still want to abuse children?

Part of it is PR, the accused is seeking help. This pushes the meme of taking personal responsibility and at the same time walking away from it because the person in question was suffering from a disease and so was less responsible for their actions.

It also takes the person in question out of the public eye for several weeks, keeping them from reporters’ questions and cameras, and allows initial anger and outrage to cool a little.

Holy crap.

When I heard Snow this morning refer to this as”naughty emails” I screamed so loud it scared my poor kitties half to death.WTF is WRONG with these people?

The tamer communications in this mess are Foley grooming this kid. This is how predators work for heaven’s sake. That information isn’t a big secret,with abuse being so pervasive in our culture,you’d have to be living under a rock not to have the slightest clue about that. Good god,this is even written into TV show plots about child molestation,parents are warned about grooming when they look into internet safety and their kids,and the victims themselves eventually come to know this is true as well.

Man,this just gripes my cookies to no end. How dare anyone in this administration or the GOP minimalize this. Craven is about the nicest thing I can say.

Foley ought to be grateful that wasn’t my son he was trying to seduce,I don’t think he’d want to deal with some face time with this mom.

I have no tolerance for this crap,or anyone who tries to excuse it or lay blame on the victim.

I’d like to know exactly when it was that Foley joined the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and when he became its Chairman. Did he become chair even as many suspected him of being “odd” and “over-friendly”? As far as I can tell it was established by Nick Lampson in 1997/98. Assume Lampson led it for a while…

smiley @ 150

someone help me out here- how will alcohol rehab cure pedophilia? seems not unlike going in for an appendectomy and having the doctor cut off your leg…

So now you’re sober, but you still want to abuse children?

It’s like Mel Gibson claiming that it was the booze that made him a racist anti-Semite…

Foley may very well have an alcohol problem – it’s not uncommon for people who engage in the kinds of behaviors he has to try to drink away the guilt and shame, but once the haze clears, you’re still a man who seeks and possibly engages in deviant behavior with teenage boys who are away from home and have no parental presence, and continues to stalk them once they go home.

This is all about broken trust made worse not just by a failure of accountability, but by a deliberate avoidance of accountability. I don’t know that anyone associated with that can be redeemed through their action now, and I’m not sure they should be allowed to be.

The alcohol rehab is what we in the field would call a side trip. He doens’t want to face his sex addiction but he is willing to deal with his alcoholism. Alcoholism does not cause pedaphilia. It might remove inhibitions but the sex addiction if a different addiction. This is not uncommon. I think the denial of sex addiction is even harder to break through than with alcohol. He’s just “blaming” something which is what all predators do. Minimize, deny and blame.

So, Hastert’s press conference was supposed to be at 1315 EDT, then 1345 EDT. Still on hold…. plus, I just tried to link to C-SPAN 1 on the internet and the toobz is clogged. A lot of intereast in this, pups.

Ed*ard Teller @ 158

So, Hastert’s press conference was supposed to be at 1315 EDT, then 1345 EDT. Still on hold…. plus, I just tried to link to C-SPAN 1 on the internet and the toobz is clogged. A lot of intereast in this, pups.

C-Span live on Hastert now.

New thread

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..h-pickles/

immanentize @ 3

Yes, but, Hastert now gets to say,

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

That should be good for, say, six weeks.

May I edit this? Thanks.

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing cover our collective asses conspiracy…and oh, by the way, there are a lot asses to cover.”

Atrios says it best:

“So, Hastert thinks the really important thing to do is investigate those who had copies of the IMs and emails like, say, the guys Foley was sending them to in order to find out why they didn’t turn them over to the FBI.

This is a sick and twisted bunch of people running our government – letting a predatory colleague stick around in order to cover it up and then essentially threatening to go after anyone who comes forward with information.

Your Republican party, protector of predators.”

Zergle @ 80

No, I don’t think he would be considered a mandated reporter legally. However, as someone who once was, you would think he would understand the importance of it and would have acted. OH, but that would have taken a conscience. N/M.

I believe however that the person in charge of the paging program would have been a mandated reporter in a legal sense. Someone was “in charge” of these kids. That person must have been a mandated reporter.

Gosh, I’m reading as fast as I can and still EPU’d. So, my questions are:

1.) These pages are residents, right, they have a dorm and attend school, right, so this would be = a boarding school? So, isn’t someone ‘in loco parentis’ or whatever?

2.) Wonder why the parents didn’t want it followed up? “Say, you wouldn’t want the whole world o know your kid’s a twinkie, would you?”

Frank Probst @ 96

The kids I worry about the most are the gay kids. Being gay and a teenager is an isolating experience. I could see someone chatting with Foley, just to have someone–anyone–to talk to about their sexuality. My concern is that some poor 17-year-old is going to get outed in all of this.

Amidst the schadenfreude and electoral hopefulness, I do also share Frank Probst’s concern. But on top of that there’s a concern about the history of sex panics in general. Many folks try to be scrupulous about not scapegoating already-disempowered groups; for instance, I certainly see progressive bloggers trying hard to prevent gays from being conflated with sexual predators in the Foley case. But sex panics seem to have a strong tendency to undo such efforts and, over the long term, bite us in the ass. For instance, the Catholic clergy scandal raised the same issues of pedophilia-as-opposed-to-homosexuality, and many people tried very hard to keep the two issues separate. But as I understand it, the biggest result within the seminaries has been a devastating witch-hunt that’s aimed at identifying and expelling, not pedophiles, but anyone identifiable as gay.

This kind of sex-and-kids issue is so explosive, and has such potential for abuse, that I think we need to strategize seriously about how to avoid weird-but-predictable manipulations. Just for one example: I could easily picture the sex-panic momentum here getting turned by the right into a drive for even greater surveillance and control of electronic communications. (IIRC, the spectre of online pedophiles has already been used to legitimate a requirement that e-messages be not only recorded by service providers, but the records stored for [I think] a period of 2 years. Chilling for any activist or queer.)

I’m sure the page alumni board site is down because the chair needs to figure out why he didn’t report the e-mails that he seems to have seen a couple years ago – the more explicit ones.

I’m not saying that there’s any real parallel between the responsibility of a 19-year old who saw the e-mails and the Speaker of the House, the GOP head of the page program, and the head of the RCCC, who were in positions of power over the program.

But he is in something of an embarrassing situation, admitting that he’d been warned about Foley, that he’d seen the very damning e-mails, and didn’t do much.

mc @ 7

CNN poll:

“Do you think House leaders tried to cover up allegations that Republican Congressman Mark Foley exchanged sexually explicit e-mails with a 16-year-old former congressional page?”

No: 19%
Well, duh: 81%

Which brings me to the next burning question:

Is it true what I read someplace previously, that as early as 9 a.m. Monday morning (early, in that the scandal broke over the weekend)… CNN was already on the air, saying that the American public does not seem too energized by this scandal?

Let me ask no one in particular: how the hell could CNN make this expert determination? And, as early as 9.am. Momday morning, for shit’s sake?

This, to me, ties the offense level of Official Bush White House Spokesman Tony Snow’s finding pedophilia to be a joke (

Looks like the Republicans could not finish up business and get out of town fast enough once this scandal hit the headlines. “Cut and Run” Republicans?

immanentize @ 152

windje @ 129

Impeachment Happens @ 124

windje @ 122

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

Yeah but it’s DOCTOR Dobson, who professes to have a degree in child psychology (right?) that just drives me insane. Falwell and Robertson are cartoons to me.

Doctor of what – podiatry. He stinks to high heaven.

Proctology

Hmmm, being an asshole doesn’t mean you’re an expert in examining them. :)

Naturally, I am not the first to think about the Catholic Church and their failures of oversight. The question would be Could there be some financial liability for Hassert or the Grand Old Party itself?