Wow, you HAVE been a fly on the wall of hell, haven’t you?

I miss Buffy. And Angel too.

Agreed, Jane. Haven’t read the whole thread yet (I plan to over coffee later), so don’t know if anyone’s referenced the Angel ep where the dead CEO of Wolfram & Hart takes Angel on an elevator ride down to hell? When they finally finish the endless descent, the elevator doors open on the same street they left from. Hell is here…especially if Dems don’t pick up enough seats next month.

Unless you can find super wide fabric,your sheets will end up with seams in them.But for linen,it would be worth it I think.

“The speaker’s designated problem-solvers find themselves in a bad spot in the Foley scandal.”
By Noam N. Levey, Times Staff Writer
October 8, 2006

WASHINGTON — When a complaint about Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate interest in a teenage former page was brought to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s office last year, it ended up on the desks of two of the Illinois Republican’s most trusted lieutenants.

The two men — Hastert’s chief political advisor and his senior legal counsel — along with Hastert’s longtime chief of staff, are the speaker’s go-to team to resolve problems.

Today, what this trio of senior aides knew about Foley’s interest in teenage pages and what they did about it may determine whether the story remains a sexual scandal or grows into one of broader deception and coverup, as Hastert’s critics have charged.

Fiercely loyal to the speaker and the Republican Party, veteran aides Scott Palmer, Mike Stokke and Ted Van Der Meid have for years helped Hastert tend to his Republican flock — and protect its members when they run into trouble.

According to several current and former congressional staffers, the group played a central role in the effort to rewrite House rules so then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay could retain his leadership post even if he were indicted. The team also helped engineer the elimination of a congressional subcommittee critical of the cost of a construction project favored by Hastert and others.

The speaker’s office has acknowledged that Deputy Chief of Staff Stokke and counsel Van Der Meid fielded a complaint last fall that Foley had been sending provocative e-mails to a former page in Louisiana. And Palmer, Hastert’s chief of staff, is facing accusations that he was alerted to Foley’s behavior by a senior Foley aide as early as 2003.

Now, leaders of the House Ethics Committee — which has been charged with investigating the Foley case — say they plan to look broadly at how House leaders handled the issue.

If they do, that may prove troublesome to the speaker and his party, said congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, a critic of Hastert’s leadership. “To an awful lot of people around Capitol Hill, when they look at Palmer and Van Der Meid, they see Ehrlichman and Haldeman,” Ornstein said, invoking the names of two principals in the Watergate scandal of a generation ago.

Hastert’s office has repeatedly denied any suggestion of a coverup since Foley’s resignation Sept. 29 amid reports that he sent sexually explicit messages to former pages.

Palmer said he never received any warning about Foley three years ago. And the speaker has maintained that Stokke and Van Der Meid appropriately forwarded the complaint they received to officials who oversaw the page program.

None of Hastert’s aides responded to interview requests for this report.

Being a political problem for Hastert is an odd position for Palmer, Stokke and Van Der Meid.

The three aides, each of whom has decades of experience in politics, are usually the men who take care of problems for a speaker who often leaves the nitty-gritty job of managing House business to others.

“It’s been one of the secrets of his success,” former Rep. Bill Paxon, a New York Republican who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee in the early ’90s, said of the effectiveness of the Hastert team.

snip

Highly focused, determined and sometimes quick to anger, Palmer is widely considered among the most powerful chiefs of staff in the speaker’s office in decades.

“Very few things happened or went through the speaker’s office without Scott having some level of involvement…. He is Denny’s alter ego,” one former House Republican aide said.

Like many current and former congressional staff members who still do business with the speaker, the aide asked not to be identified while talking frankly about Hastert’s staff….

Ron Russell @ 115

Hmm. I haven’t watched Battlestar but you’re the second person I’ve read about today who thinks it reflects what’s going on here, now.
Maybe that’s why Jesus spoke in parables…

Margot, you’ve got to catch this show. I wasn’t a really regular viewer, but after the first episode this year I’m not going to miss one. It effectively turns the whole “War on Terra” thing completely upside down. Don’t miss it.

Frankly I can’t see any difference between sex and food in bed….

i guess that depends on what you eat …………….

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meine geliebter likes to eat crunchy food in bed. i’m ok with that but it always puzzles me since she’s way neater than me in every other aspect.

Think about it for a few moments; does the phrase tactical nuke mean anything to you ?

It could all go down hill (a “downward spiral into oblivion” to quote a famous phrase from back when…) in such a hurry and for sooooo many

Scary indeed

“…Churches have given us great treasures. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.” – Daniel C. Dennett

Man, have I been blind to things around me for so long; never too late to learn (AARP member that I am…)

Thanks again folks

makes my time spent here reading the threads REALLY REALLY worth it & I realize how “risky” it might be for some of you given the subject matter

This is such a cool place…

“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day,” – Thomas Jefferson