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Ted,<br>
<br>
I don't mean to belittle the issues of a congressman using the page
system as Foley did for his own personal gratification, or of coverups
by either party. I guess I'm just getting sick of these kinds of power
plays.<br>
<br>
I know this is not what others believe, but I could for the most part
care less what sexuality, or level of sexual promiscuity, or whatever a
congressman has. I put the "for the most part" in there because of
cases such as this one where a law was broken. I didn't care about
what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky or cigars. If the page was 18 or
older, I wouldn't care much about how Foley IMs them either. I'd
rather judge them on the job they are doing as a government official.<br>
<br>
I'd rather we focus on the actual real damage that (I feel) is being
done to this country. Such as the warrant-less wiretapping, Patriot
Acts I and II, the new bill that McCain caved on that actually states
that someone who disagrees with the administration can be considered an
enemy combatant, the debate over torture and our needs as a country to
employ it wantonly, the secret prisons, the handing off of prisoners to
countries we know will torture them, the willingness of our telcoms to
have the NSA sniff every packet on the Internet, the disregarding of
intelligence before 9/11, the no-bid contracts to make those connected
in power wealthier, and the complete ignoring of the FISA rules even
when they are so broad as to be almost meaningless. Did I forget
anything? Oh yes, the war with Iraq when we knew it had no WMDs.
Anyway, you get the point.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
<br>
Ted Moffett wrote:
<blockquote
cite="midd03f69e0610071526q2c13f0cav4d8ad4f1e767f14a@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>All:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The case of former Republican Representative Foley's use of the
page system to sexually communicate with minor pages, using his
official tax payer supported influence, has implications that
are critical to basic democratic principles regarding the conduct of
government. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>As it's been said, the cover up is often worse than the crime,
and in this case the Republican cover up, with solid evidence it
extends back before the 2004 presidential elections, is a gravely
serious violation of the public right to know about the conduct of
public officials in government, not only because it allowed Foley to
continue this behavior in his official capacity in government, but
because the cover up was possibly aimed at deceiving voters in the 2004
election.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Foley's misconduct is central to illuminating the truth behind
one of the main propaganda tools utilized in the Republican rise to
power. The Republican party has made political gains opposing gay
rights, with grandstanding measures wasting the time of the US
Congress, and the tax payers dollars, with the proposed constitutional
amendment (and numerous state measures) to ban gay marriage. It is
political and poetic justice that we discover they hid the
inappropriate sexually oriented conduct of a gay member of their party
in the US Congress, allowing the misconduct to continue, exposing the
hypocrisy of their claim to the the party of "moral values," a dominant
propaganda tool they have used to exploit public unease with gay rights
issues for political advantage. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Secrecy and deception have been prominent tactics of the Bush
administration on many levels on many issues, violating a central
principle of how a democracy must function with transparency in
government. This pattern is exposed again in the Foley cover up, and
US House Speaker Hastert should be held accountable for complicity in
allowing Foley to continue in his powerful taxpayer and voter supported
role, without voters being immediately informed of critical ethics
violations involving Foley's official duties in government. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>If it is true that Hastert or other Republicans denied
voters critical information regarding Foley's conduct with
pages before the 2004 election, this is potentially a case of a cover
up to swing the presidency to the Republicans. Exposing Foley's
misconduct before the 2004 elections could have inflicted damage to the
aforementioned propaganda message of the party of "moral values." </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The documentation that Hastert, or his office, was informed of
Foley's questionable conduct with pages after 2004 is solid, though
Hastert says, "he does not remember."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I quote a few excerpts below from the news article at this link:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15063977/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15063977/</a></div>
<div>
<p class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span><b><strong>Speaker
doesn't remember discussion</strong></b></p>
<p class="textBodyBlack">Hastert said he does not remember talking to
Reynolds about the Foley e-mails, but did not dispute Reynolds' account.</p>
<p class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>"While the speaker
does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to
dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on
the problem and its resolution," Hastert's aides said in a preliminary
report on the matter issued Saturday.
</p>
<p class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>ABC News reported
Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant
messages with current and former teenage male pages. In one message,
ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?" </p>
<p class="textBodyBlack">-------------</p>
<p class="textBodyBlack">There is documentation that Hastert, and/or
his office, and/or other Republicans, were informed of Foley's sexual
advances to underage pages before the 2004 election. This evidence
supports the assertion of a possible cover up to influence the 2004
elections favorably for Republicans.
</p>
<p class="textBodyBlack">I have pasted in a few excerpts of this news
article offering information that Republicans knew of Foley's
misconduct before the 2004 elections below this link:</p>
<p class="textBodyBlack"><a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100400616.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100400616.html</a></p>
<p class="textBodyBlack"><strong>Ex-Aide to Foley Cites '03 Warnings<br>
</strong> By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington<br>
The Washington Post </p>
</div>
<div>
<p> Thursday 05 October 2006</p>
<blockquote><b><i>Former staffer says he alerted Hastert's office.</i></b></blockquote>
<p> A longtime chief of staff to disgraced former representative
Mark Foley (R-Fla.) approached House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office
three years ago, repeatedly imploring senior Republicans to help stop
Foley's advances toward teenage male pages, the staff member said
yesterday.
</p>
<p> The account by Kirk Fordham, who resigned yesterday from his
job with another senior lawmaker, pushed back to 2003 or earlier the
time when Hastert's staff reportedly became aware of Foley's
questionable behavior concerning teenagers working on Capitol Hill.
</p>
<p> It raised new questions about Hastert's assertions that senior
GOP leaders were aware only of "over-friendly" e-mails from 2005 that
they say did not raise alarm bells when they came to light this year.</p>
<p> Fordham says his warnings to Hastert's office dealt with a
different matter: reports of Foley's troubling interest in male pages
working in the Capitol Hill complex. He says he implored the highest
ranks of the GOP leadership to intervene to thwart behavior that he had
been unable to stop after multiple confrontations with his boss.
Sources close to the matter say a meeting took place between a senior
Hastert aide and Foley before Fordham's January 2004 departure,
probably in 2003, in a small conference room on the third floor of the
Capitol.
</p>
<p>-------------------------</p>
<p>If the Democrats had solid information about Foley's sexual
approaches to pages prior to the 2004 elections, this raises the
question why they would not have made it public then to attempt to
bring Foley and the Republicans down? The fact the democrats did not
expose Foley before the 2004 elections, arguably more critical than the
upcoming 2006 elections, suggests they did not know of Foley's ethics
violating conduct, or did not have enough documentation to make it
stick.
</p>
</div>
<div>Blaming Democrats, or the media, for sitting on the information
regarding Foley's misconduct, till weeks before the 2006 mid-terms,
smacks of the same tactics the Republicans mocked when Hilary Clinton
talked of the "vast right wing conspiracy" during the Clinton years.
Now we have a vast Democratic/media conspiracy to damage the
Republicans. Note that the facts that Foley for years has been using
the page system for his sexual advances on minors is so well documented
that many Republicans are agreeing this conduct occurred.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Shouldn't the Republicans pay a price for covering up Foley's
misconduct in this matter, even if the public release of this
information was planned to occur by political advantage seeking
Democrats, or the media, in the weeks before the 2006 mid-terms? Of
course many Republican party supporters would rather have more time to
distance themselves from this issue before the mid-terms. But given a
cover up by Republicans, this is not a case of Democrats or the media
taking the Republicans totally by surprise, even if the public release
of the information was opportunistically timed. Republicans were
hiding this information, no doubt hoping it would not come out before
the mid-terms.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If Democrats (or the media) sat on solid documentation regarding
Foley's misconduct with pages, waiting for when the information would
receive the most exposure, and do the most damage, then it is morally
questionable It allowed Foley to continue in his misconduct, with the
voters who supported him continuing to have the wool pulled over their
eyes. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Where is the documentation that the media or any Democrats had
solid evidence regarding Foley's misconduct, and hid this information
from the public, deliberately waiting to release it before the
mid-terms? Is it not possible some of this information was kept
hidden, hoping to keep it a "secret" till at least after the 2006
mid-terms, thus rendering it difficult for those looking for
politically damaging information to put it all together with enough
documentation to go public?
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>This case is more deserving of an independent counsel
investigation into Republican complicity in covering up Foley's sexual
approaches to pages, than there was in an independent investigation
into the Monica Lewinsky case involving Clinton, given the evidence
Republicans hid this information, from prior to the 2004 presidential
elections up until the information broke publicly recently. Clinton
paid a heavy price for his misconduct, but there was no cover up in the
Monika Lewinsky case by Democrats that influenced the outcome of a
presidential election in their favor. The Monica Lewinsky case was a
burden that Al Gore had to overcome in his 2000 contest with Bush, as
the Republicans campaigned in part on their claim to the the party of
"moral values," compared to the sexual scandal plagued Democratic party
represented by Al Gore.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ted Moffett</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/7/06, <b
class="gmail_sendername">Paul Rumelhart</b> <<a
href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I'd
actually classify myself as an independent right now. The Dem/Rep<br>
lines are too close in certain areas and differ too much in some areas
I
<br>
could care less about.<br>
<br>
It seems to me that the sides are even, if what this article said is<br>
true. Dems play their card that they have been sitting on for a while.<br>
Reps cut their losses. Why take it any farther?
<br>
<br>
Just to be clear, I condemn the behavior of sitting on something like<br>
this because of political motivations. Whether it was democrats waiting<br>
for the right time to strike or republicans that were trying to avoid a
<br>
scandal, I condemn it. Obviously, I also condemn the behavior of trying<br>
to come on to underage pages. I just think pushing it farther in the<br>
political arena is a waste of resources.<br>
<br>
Funny that we're talking about trust here when discussing an article
<br>
that claims to have information on a subject but doesn't actually<br>
present it as fact. Trusting innuendo and gossip isn't much better than<br>
whatever trusting you are accusing me of. I have a naive wish to go<br>
along with my naive ability to trust, though: I wish the people we<br>
elected into office would spend 1/10th the amount of time they spend on<br>
political maneuvering on actually trying to make this country a better<br>
place.
<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
g. crabtree wrote:<br>
<br>
> Spoken like a trusting Democrat. I agree about the creepy &
stupid<br>
> part but, if the DNC or democrat operatives were aware of this<br>
> situation months or even years earlier and waited till six weeks
out
<br>
> from the mid terms to spring the nasty news for the advantage it
would<br>
> bring then I think that that has its own stink of nastiness (if not<br>
> criminality) and deserves to be made public.<br>
><br>
> gc
<br>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Rumelhart"<br>
> <<a href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</a>><br>
> To: "vision2020" <<a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">
vision2020@moscow.com</a>><br>
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 11:37 PM<br>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Scandals<br>
><br>
><br>
>> So responding in sexually-explicit ways to an underage staffer
is<br>
>> somehow ok if it's really a joke that's being played on
you? How is
<br>
>> this an improvement? Now he's both creepy and stupid at the
same time.<br>
>><br>
>> Anyway, he's resigned. That should be the end of it as far as
I'm<br>
>> concerned, at least from a political standpoint. This arguing
about who
<br>
>> knew what should stop.<br>
>><br>
>> Paul<br>
>><br>
>> Pat Kraut wrote:<br>
>><br>
>>> On the front page of the local newspaper tonight there is
talk of<br>
>>> scandals...but what scandal?
<br>
>>> This is from a blog and makes me question who started this
and what<br>
>>> and when<br>
>>> did they know??<br>
>>> Foleys a slime, no question but what is the rest of the
story??
<br>
>>> Dirty tricks<br>
>>> to change the election?? I think dems should be put under
oath also.<br>
>>><br>
>>> After the Frenzy<br>
>>> 10/05 03:13 PM<br>
>>> This is why it pays to wait and get more facts before
joining the
<br>
>>> chorus of<br>
>>> pundits and operatives demanding resignations. I will
revisit this<br>
>>> later.<br>
>>> XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON OCT 5 2006 2:53:48 ET XXXXX<br>
>>>
<br>
>>> CLAIM: FILTHY FOLEY ONLINE MESSAGES WERE PAGE PRANK GONE
AWRY<br>
>>> **World Exclusive**<br>
>>> **Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**<br>
>>><br>
>>> According to two people close to former congressional page
Jordan
<br>
>>> Edmund,<br>
>>> the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that
led to the<br>
>>> resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank
that by<br>
>>> mistake got<br>
>>> into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE
REPORT can
<br>
>>> reveal.<br>
>>><br>
>>> According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page
very well,<br>
>>> Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded Foley to type
embarrassing<br>
>>> comments that were then shared with a small group of young
Hill
<br>
>>> politicos.<br>
>>> The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into
the hands of<br>
>>> political operatives favorable to Democrats. This source,
an ally of<br>
>>> Edmund,
<br>
>>> also adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a
homosexual.<br>
>>> The prank<br>
>>> scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The news come on the heels that former FBI Chief Louis
Freeh has
<br>
>>> been named<br>
>>> to investigate the mess.<br>
>>><br>
>>> Developing...<br>
>>><br>
>>> =======================================================<br>
>>> List services made available by First Step Internet,
<br>
>>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>
>>> <a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a><br>
>>> mailto:<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">
Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
>>> =======================================================<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>><br>
>> =======================================================
<br>
>> List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>
>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>
>> <a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a><br>
>> mailto:
<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
>> =======================================================<br>
>><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
<br>
=======================================================
<br>
List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>
<a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a><br>
mailto:<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">
Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
=======================================================<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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