What a strange turn this election has taken. I understand the Republicans are working hard to have Foley's name removed from the ballot but he's considering a run on the Florida for Pederasty line.

schmuck-en-freu-de
n.
Pleasure derived from President Bush's misfortune.

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10:26pm EST

Nancy Pelosi just proposed an issue (not sure of the specific procedure, other than "under Rule 9") that the House vote on a statement (resolution?) that would assure parents that if they entrusted their child(ren) to the Page program, that nothing "like this" Rep Foley incident would ever happen again.

Republican response is to "refer" the issue to the Ethics Committee which would consider it after the elections.

The truth is probably pretty close to what we have already learned. Other members of the house knew about the creep 11 months ago. The House leadership was told, but as always, did nothing.

My guess, however, is that between now and the Sunday talk shows, the official "story" will emerge that Foley was told to quit as soon as Hastert and the leadership found out.

All we can do is set back and watch as the right wing corporate media rush in to protect their friends.

God I hope I am wrong about the media, but I don't think so.

Ron Byers

Foley should know how much trouble he is in, he wrote the Foley Provisions in H.R. 4472, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

He knows.

And if he doesn't, John Walsh can tell him.

After all, he's a constituent!:

O'REILLY: With us now is John Walsh. Well, I'm sure this is going to get very high ratings on FOX on Saturday night. It's dramatic footage. But more importantly, we have to shock the American people because the politicians are letting us down. Can you believe Kennedy and Reid are doing this?

WALSH: You know, I've been going up there for 25 years. And you and I have talked many, many times. I think a lot of people don't realize that I'm a father of a murdered child, and have been up on Capitol Hill doing this.

And this bill should have been passed two years ago. Mark Foley, my congressman...

O'REILLY: Yes.

WALSH: ...from Florida sat down with James Sensenbrenner, wrote it and we got it passed last year in the House of Representatives.

O'REILLY: Right.

Smacks of the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal, don't you think?

So Hastert, Boehner and the Repos think the Democrats are soft on terrorists, while Hastert, Boehner and the Repos are soft on those who terrorize young boys.

Freud would likely characterize that behavior as overcompensation.

What do we tell the children?

It may be irony, but also travesty. As was noted by Paul 'TPM Muckraker'Kiel yesterday, the Senate spent 3 days debating the Marriage Amendment last summer and 10 hours on the hello torture-sayonara habeas corpus bill.

JohnW1141

This Foley story has been known to Republican leasdership since last November, so what do we have; A Republican party that feels gays should not serve in the military but gay Republican pedophiles can serve in Congress.

what do we have; A Republican party that feels gays should not serve in the military but gay Republican pedophiles can serve in Congress.

You have to admit that keeps them out of the military.

Best, Terry

I guess my thoughts were following the same path. Expect a Democratic ad to talk about what they do not what they say? Not going to happen. I am not sure what Dems think will happen (the earth shake? mountains tremble? rivers flood?) if they follow the Republicans down their well-travelled, proven-effective, low road. But I do not expect ads that highlight the moral morass this collection of perverts, bribe-takers, war-profiteers, racists, sanctimonious liars have created. We can save our remarks for private discussions, just like they do in dictatorships (Idi Amin's Uganda or Baby Doc's haiti).

I thought given the Foley story, the Catholic Church was suspending negotiations to see how Republicans handle their abuse problems. Any news to this effect? Will the Catholic Church withhold Communuion from the Republican leadership who covered up Foley's dalliances or is that reserved for political enemies? You know, Kerry...

Y'know, one of the things I find really amazing is how thoroughly this little scandal has shut down any discussion of Congress's recent enactment of a 'Torture & Tyranny' Bill.

It seems that discussing the sexual predations of a blow-dried minor congressman upon unreceptive and semi-receptive underage youths, is vastly more important than discussing the fact that a majority of both Congresses has given the President the authority to forcibly inflict sexual and physical violations upon the bodies of helpless innocent people.

I don't get that. What's going on here.

Is the American attention span really only fifteen minutes long? The memory not much longer?

Or is this a situation where there are just so many outrages happening so fast, everyone is just running as desperately as they can to keep up, constantly shifting from one to the other in a sort of 'multi-tasking' or moral angers?

Is this a situation where Progressives simply decided that the torture situation had been fully and fairly discussed, that there was nothing else to say, and we should move on? A sort of unstated mass-mind consensus?

Or is this a situation where Democrats and Liberals decided that the public wasn't interested in the torture issue, and so it was time to move on to something more photogenic? Another unstated mass-mind consensus?

Or is this a situation where Democrats and Liberals felt that the 'torture' discussion was unproductive and divisive given that 1/3 of Democratic Senators and 1/5 of Democratic congressmen voted for it, and rather than resolve this embarrassment, they just changed the subject?

Is this a cynical ploy by the Republicans to divert attention quickly, so as to avoid prolongued public scrutiny of the torture bill... which might persuade the public that it *really is a torture bill.* Made their hit, time to move on. I really doubt it, but I thought it worthwhile to include the option.

Is there a better explanation? I find myself amazed at the continuing dramatic and almost completely random shifts of American attention. Is this a factor of 24 hour news coverage which constantly demands the new, new, news?

It strikes me that in the broader meta-context, something really critical is going on.

I think that if recent history is anything to go by, it'll last another day or so, and then its gone.

By next week, people won't even remember the name Foley.

Interestingly, this scandal broke on a Friday, which obviously minimizes its impact for the Republicans.

Obviously, its not good for the Republicans and they'd rather not have a scandal at all. The evidence we're seeing suggests that their reactions to the scandal are uncoordinated and unplanned, they, or some of them, were taken by surprise. But if they had any control, they would have chosen the end of the news cycle: a Friday. It would tend to impell the story to dissipate, making it stale old news by the time a new cycle starts up on Monday.

But if the Republicans aren't picking and choosing when to take the hit, then who is, and why? Was this the action of 'certain' Republicans, begging or asking the media to hold off for a few days, keeping the word from their colleagues for danger of prematurely blowing a bad situation? Or was this a deliberate choice on the part of the media to delay? Or was it simply the vagaries of fortune?

Am I paranoid? Certainly. Am I paranoid *enough*? That's the important question.

Does anyone remember the recent flap of internet-using sexual predators and right wing operatives in the Department of Homeland Security?

The obvious first thing to tell the children is to avoid Republicans and Catholic priests.  Yes, that is applying a very broad brush and slopping paint all over a lot more folks than deserve the paint, but why not?  It is a standard Republican approach in politics, so it should be good for the gander.

Not to state the obvious (that means, "to state the obvious"), but if Foley were a Democrat, this would be a feature story on CNN to the exclusion of just about everything else.  And Fox News would talk about nothing else for several days, calling in their  "experts" to rail at all Democrats in general for being child abusers. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

True enough. But politics is memory. And a nation with no past has no future.

This one is simple. The Republican leadership played politics to protect a child molester. That should be the lead talking point on every Sunday talk show, and they should be shouting it from the rooftops. It also happens to be true.

War, terrorism, and now pedophilia. (And yes, I know that the age of consent in DC is 16. It's still illegal under federal law and if Mr. Foley's cellmates won't buy that defense then the rest of the country won't either). This after the homeland security press secretary turns out to be a member of the raincoat crowd.

1A. I was rehearsing the Star-Spangled Banner.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2w9EAdLMWA&mode=related&search=

I must congratulate my fellow TPMCafers, no one seems to be saying, "oh well, they all do it, so let's move on" , like the reaction to the Congressional bribery that hit the news a few months ago.  Unfortunately, this is a likely rationalization that will allow Florida voters to vote a replacement Republican into Congress.  After all, we all know, don't we, that Republicans are all deeply religious, family values oriented folks? 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Duration of the story depends on which version is reported. Based on a bunch of the MSM articles I've read it are bad but not as awful as reading a couple of the conversations available at BrowardPalmBeach.com .  Reading the exchanges leads to a way different reaction to the story.

When all is said and done, it will probably come to light, that being a Page in Congress is easy, if you are a gay.  Just like most things in the 'gay world' that are known to gays and not necessarily to mainstream non-gay America. It was the same culture that created a haven for gay men to be priests.

It is clear that pedophilia consistently overlaps with homosexuality and that boys are basically turned out by adult homosexual males. What is troublesome is the vehement denial of pedophilia and the  homosexuality  predilection when it comes to promoting the gay agenda.

America does not care about children when it comes to homosexuality, not even in the church are children safe from homosexual pedophiles.  Adults do not wake up one morning as homosexuals. the vast majority of  homosexuals were approached as young pubescent adolescents and exposed to the deviant sex. Young males are seduced, coerced and molested into homosexuality, and that is why as adults they see nothing wrong with preying on other young males, since that was how their own initiation came about.  It is thus, the natural course for many, many, many adult homosexuals to do onto other young adolescent males what was done onto them.

It is absolutely disgusting how adults in America will not stand up for the rights of children.

Each and every homosexual, pedophile and child molester,should be expelled from Congress or the page program should be abolished. The Halls of Congress simply are not safe for minors to learn about the legislative process, until these sexual deviant miscreants are purged.

There is no excuse for any adult to not renounce these despicable predatory acts on our children...none.

If ever there was a time that Democrats could stand up and represent the morality of America and be a voice for the safety of our children ...this is it.

deleted post

No; politics is the creation, capturing and consolidation of power. Memory simply allows one to excersize that power wisely.

This event while much less serious in the damaging of our nation is the kind of slime people understand cannot be allowed to exist. People understand that one person doing someone morally questionable is going to happen, that the leadership would cover it up is a signal of a larger kind of problem. THAT, is the direct blow to the base of republican power.

First - We must hold all adults to the same standard -

What makes you think we do not?

In this respect the law does not and should not care why an adult abused a child just that they did. This should be the focus of our effort to protect children

I agree. Nevertheless, understanding that individuals who engage in deviant behaviors have a greater predilection to pedophilia is simply prudent and wise, when it comes to protecting children. Just as we do not allow children to ride their bikes everywhere any longer or play outside at night. Adults in this society must not see anything wrong with identifying dangers that obvious when it comes to protecting children. We do this when it comes to drugs and sexual predators should not be given a free pass simply because they happen to be homosexual.

As to your comments on homosexuals you are not more persuasive when you speak with such venom.

Please identify this venomous accusation you make. What is venomous about acknowledging that certain sexual behaviors have a much higher association with child molestation, abuse and predacious acts?  Do you feel it is venomous when you are warned that cholesterol and high fat foods are much more associated with heart attacks than low fat low sugar diets?  Do you consider it venomous when warned that drinking and driving are associated with higher traffic fatalities?  Do you consider it venomous when warned that being obese has a higher risk of mortality?  If you do not find those assertions about the risks of specific behaviors being deleterious to your health than you should certainly not feel that it is venomous to asset the same when it comes to the correlation between homosexuality, pedophilia and child molestation. 

Do you want to make homosexuality a crime?

No. But we do have laws against drinking and driving. We know that alcohol impairs driving ability and society needs to recognize that homosexuality and pedophilia and child predators are much more associated than it is with heterosexuality. Awareness is not a crime. But the specific behavior that should be a crime is already known.  Folks, use to not have a problem with allowing a friend to drive drunk or even riding with their drunk friends. Nowadays, they do.  Homosexuality should be treated the exact same way when it comes to protecting children. Not allowed, period.

If so how will the government find the transgressors? I don't see how you can want government intrusion into our private lives since to find the homosexuals they potentially can peer into any of our private lives.

You do not have to intrude into people's private lives to protect children from homosexuals.  Just as we do not intrude into people's private lives to protect them from other deviant behaviors, such as obesity, drugs, and alcohol.  What we do instead is inform the public of the risks, and help parents teach their kids what to look for as well as minimize the risk of exposure by limiting access.

Well, can we condemn the group for knowiong about the sins of one and ignoring it and covering it up? Keeping the one Democrat on the page committee from knowing about it? Doing nothing for over a year, despite apparently criminal behaviour. All the while for spewing values and morality that was contrary to their actions.

And for the record, how does this scandal of gay predation in the Republican party relate to other gay or sexual predator Republican scandals that always seem to evaporate.

- Jeff Gannon - Male prostitute, Internet porn-boy, Fake reporter and frequent semi-documented white house visitor.

- Homeland Security - and the battery of sexual predators who were discovered using the internet to lure teen and pre-teen girls.

- Joe Scarborough - having a sexual affair with an intern who winds up dead, a suspiciously botched autopsy is performed, and Scarborough then abruptly leaves politics.

- Strom Thurmond - getting a black daughter off his maid as a young man.

- Henry Hyde - with an adult illegitimate child.

- Newt Gingrich - semi-public blow jobs in the vicinity of children from his girlfriend, dropping divorce papers on his wife while she's suffering from cancer. Cheating on that wife. Cheating on his second wife while impeaching Clinton for a blow job.

- There's that 'call girl/call boy' operation run on behalf of Abramoff, in which guys like Duke Cunningham were involved, which supplied apartments, bedrooms and partners for Republican congressman.

- I've probably missed quite a few more.

Hell, I'm amazed that the list was so long, and its not even thorough. This was just off the top of my head as I began to think about it

The amazing thing with all of these scandals is how quickly they melt away, like dew in the morning. Straight down the memory hole after that, no one ever refers to it again.

Any Democrat foible is revisited at every opportunity. But instances of republican sexual misconduct just... vanish.

What was it you were saying about condemning the group for the sins of 'one.'

Wait, wait, wait!!! Let's condemn the whole fucking (and for once, the word is used correctly in context) group as a pack of immoral, dissolute, sexual predators and hypocrites who engage in or tolerate behaviour among themselves, some of which (rape, sexual harassment, statutory rape, predation) that they rail and spew morality and values about.

Is the American attention span really only fifteen minutes long? 

Thinking about a response to this, I was considering the....

OOOH LOOOOK!!!

Shiny things!!! Gotta go...

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Adults do not wake up one morning as homosexuals. the vast majority of  homosexuals were approached as young pubescent adolescents and exposed to the deviant sex.

Sigh.....

Dissent Protects Democracy.

 Add Dennis Hastert to those being investigated - knowing a Congressman from his party was violating the sexual predator laws, why didn't he at least demand his resignation a year ago, let alone why didn't he report him to the Capitol Police as he should have done?  So many Republicans in the Congress committing crimes - my memory lacks sufficient capacity to store that much information.  How about my next door congressman Doolittle using campaign donations as personal income?

Hoppy in Sacramento

Foley's is the district of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. A number of the rich and famous live there. I am not sure of the exact boundary but it is one of the wealthiest districts in the nation. While it is clearly a Republican district, I don't think Palm Beach/West Palm Beach/Jupiter/Jupiter Island are home to very many evangelicals. I think you will find the residents in that district are predominately economic Republicans. Many are retired. Others are refugees from the North East. A lot of the others are folks who serve the retired and New York refugees.

Ron Byers

Not to defend Foley, but I haven't yet read whether or not he just led a fantasy life or actually engaged in sex with minors. It is illegal to engage in sexual fantasy talk with minors as he did, but on a moral scale, actually raping children is closer to the absolute gutter. So, I think his resignation from Congress in disgrace, plus a fine, would be adequate punishment for him. And, of course he should have to register as a sex offender, just as older teen age boys who have sex with younger teenage girls have to. Hastert and the other Republicans who winked at Foley's behavior deserve to be removed from Congress by the voters, if not by Congress itself.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Any word yet on whether the Democratic Party leadership has decided to "keep our powder dry" on this scandal?

sPh

As I said, I had no special urge to get involved in this discussion. In my experience, it never leads anywhere. But I did have to reply to this little bon mot:

but also from my own experiences as a prosecutor in the criminal law, and as barrister and solicitor for child and family service agencies

Well, this lacks weight in terms of credibility, given that the legal system is notorious for prosecuting crimes disporportionately when it comes to race and the incidence of drug abuse, alone.

Well, its personal observations and experience from actually being on the front lines and dealing with cases in real life.

And statistically, crime and child and family services data have been reliably extrapolated to the general population. And the assessments and tests of that extrapolation seem to suggest a certain amount of validity.

If you'd like to argue that the criminal justice, law enforcement, and child and family services systems are all captured by the 'Homosexual Agenda' and witting or unwitting agents .... well all I can say is that you might as well start marching in gay pride parades right now, because obviously, the 'Homosexual Agenda encompasses a vast hidden conspiracy of such awesome scope and magnitude and of such thorough breadth and width that us poor heterosexuals have no chance at all. It's a gay world after all.

Why, they've even succeeded in infecting homosexuality into the animal world.

Did you know that ants and bees are nothing but armies of sisters, the few heterosexual males hanging around kept merely for their breeding utility.

And did you know that 17% of seagulls have been found to nest in homosexual or lesbian pair bonds. It's worse for penguins, up to 30%, but then, who can tell with penguins.

Don't even get me started on those wicked self pollinating flowers.

Anyway, much as I might enjoy having this debate with you, I don't think I'll bother. Have fun hiding under the bed. I'll be out there in the real world plowing my way through legions of willing adult women, engaging in consensual activities and keeping up the flag (so to speak) for heterosexuality.

Toodles.

Well, that's just the thing. I didn't even do any work. I mean, if I were to actually sit down and research, I suspect I might be pretty horrified.

But as it was, I figured, I should just mention the Homeland Security boys, then Jeff Gannon popped into my head (ugh!), and then another and then another.

And it occurred to me that they had a lot in common. The consistent collusion of Republicans all around them, at the centre and the edges, who had to have been in the know, but instead helped to cover it up or ignore it.

The amazing penchant for the media to drop these stories rapidly, and then to simply cease to ever refer to them. Down the memory hole.

So, frankly, I will condemn *all* the self proclaimed morals and values folks. Because these folks seem to show a consistent double standard, overtly and covertly.

Hell, look at the hatemongering spew of guys like Dobson, Swaggart, Falwell and Robinson. Not (except for Swaggart) deeply into sexual peccadillos. But they all have records of deeply morally offensive acts and words.

Remember Falwells blood libel on lesbians and feminists causing 9/11?

Remember Pat Robertson, in bed (metaphorically) with Charles Taylor and Mobutu Sese Seko, using charitable donations to fund his mining operations, calling for the deaths of Supreme Court Judges and Foreign Heads of States...

And yet Falwell and Robertson are welcomed back to the fold. Hell, they never left. Somehow, no matter their outrages, Falwell and Robinson are always welcome at the table.

This seems to be a way of life with the values and morals crowd. They roar and rowl and growl and spew.

But when push comes to shove, they seem happy to ignore the most offensive conduct. They're happy to turn a blind eye, conceal it, cover it up, ignore and forgive, and instantly forget.

And every once, once in a while, one of them gets caught red handed in something so outrageously hypocritical that it takes the breath away...

And what do they do? Nothing. The result is an embarrassed silence. The perpetrator crawls off in guilty shame. And then after a dignified period, they pretend it never happened and commence once again to rowling and growling, shouting and spewing.

Well screw that.

I'll tell you something. I've dedicated my life to living a moral life. I know a lot of people who live moral lives. But I don't yap about it. And neither do the moral people I know. We don't go around 'self proclaiming' it. We don't go on and on about how noble we are. And we don't go around shouting out judgements of others.

Well, forget it. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. I'm condemning the whole 'moral values' crowd as a nation of fools, hypocrites, accomplices and criminals. That's four categories to put them all in, and not a single one more.

The day I see Pat Robertson selling pencils on the street because his people woke up and took a good look at him, that's the day I'll change my mind.

"Of girls being molested by lesbians is, as far as I can determine, nonexistent." Sadly, it's does exist.

There aren't many reasonable explanations why Republican leaders allowed Foley to take and keep a committee assignment related to the exploitation of children, given that they were apparently aware
of his advances toward underaged male pages. A possible rationale: his committee work would provide legal access to child pornography, so that if this material were found in his office, his home, his car, it could be explained as part of his official duties. He got access to material that would otherwise be illegal, and the Republican Party got a hedge against potential scandal if it was found in his possession.

Speaking out of both sides of my mouth I want diverse views here and in the rest of my life, EXCEPT when they cut to the core of what I believe. WRB hit that core when he got on plain old homosexuality. 

So to be fair I cannot say "sadly" unless I want people to give up their beliefs because I say so. Wrong in principle and I am not about to be told what I should believe.

It strikes me that the test of opinions is a willingness to examine them and change them when facts or arguments demand.

WRB on this subject shows no such willingness. Not much of an opinion.

Grown men having sex with teenagers is fairly grotesque. It is not actually illegal, provided that the teenager is above legal age. A congressman in a position of power and influence having sex with a male or female page is utterly inappropriate, and frankly, I think at the very least it opens up to civil liability. In Canadian jurisdictions, persons in positions of power and influence having sex with people within their power may be liable to criminal charges. Not so in America, apparently.

While the first two men, a Republican and a Democrat, have an unsavoury and repulsive conduct, it is not apparently illegal. They should have been punished by the voters.

Republican Lukens