<p>Party of Family or Moral Values, in name only…not action, as has been indicated again, and again, and again, and again…</p>
<p>^^^–^^^</p>
<p>As opposed to party that stands for [giant blank]? </p>
<p>Again, what good does it do to make this a partisan issue. Foley is a scumbag and shouldn’t have been allowed in a public position. But, since when does the party of nothingness have a monopoly on acceptable behavior? The issue is rather simple: our country keeps on electing less than honorable citizens to elected positions. It starts at the local levels and only gets worse as the responsibilities rise. </p>
<p>The only answer is zero tolerance, but we all know how that is accepted among the liberals. FWIW, I think that you can’t participate in this lynchmob parade of righteousness and not recognize that the bad behavior transcends party lines, and that “your” party has long supported organizations that openly advocate for “acceptance” of morally dubious positions, deviant sex practices, and alternatives lifestyles … as well as alternative family compositions. And I am not talking about Appalachians family values!</p>
<p>I’m no champion of the Democrats, Xig. I just don’t see them trotting out the “Moral Values” platform. </p>
<p>Incidentally, “morally wrong positions, deviant sex practices, and alternatives lifestyles … and alternative family compositions” are opinions all in the eye of the beholder. So YOU see them as morally wrong, but doesn’t mean said positions actually ARE morally wrong. That’s the thing about values…they’re individual, as they should be.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>See post #340…</p>
<p>Allmusic, it seems that individual “alternative” choices also happen to be … illegal in many states or countries. Go figure! </p>
<p>We all know what’s wrong when we see it; many of us prefer closing their eyes and refusing to see the roots of the problems that lurk in the shadowy parts of our society.</p>
<p>As opposed to party that stands for [giant blank]? </p>
<p>Already said - “Party of the Clueless”.</p>
<p>Unlike the party of Ney, Giuliani, Foley, Gingrich, Abramoff, Delay, Taylor, and the Mullah Omar lover, the party of the clueless does not hate America.</p>
<p>They can’t even find it.</p>
<p>“See post #340…”</p>
<p>that explanation doesn’t completely mesh with the known timeline.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which part doesn’t mesh?</p>
<p>Maybe “mesh” isn’t the right word. I think “explain” would be better.</p>
<p>We know that these emails/IMs have been known since 2005 and prior to the Pages sending the messages to Ross, IMs were also obtained by that blogger who disappeared (whose site was set-up in July), and by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which posted some of the emails. It just seems to me that it wasn’t a matter of the Pages providing info to Brian Ross that he jumped on immediately, it seems to me that there was a lot more going on prior and simultaneous to that.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/10-06/10-03-06/13world-nation.htm[/url]”>http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/10-06/10-03-06/13world-nation.htm</a></p>
<p>WASHINGTON — The issue of who knew what and when about Rep. Mark Foley’s contacts with House pages is at the crux of a still-evolving investigation and political storm engulfing Republican leaders.
While new details and disclosures are likely, below is a timeline of what’s come out about the matter so far.
2001 — A former page who worked in the House in 2001-2002 says a Republican staff member warned pages “to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley.” He says they were told “don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff.”
2003 — Foley has sexually explicit instant-messaging exchanges with at least one underage boy who had worked as a congressional page. Two other former pages have reported they were aware of suggestive e-mails being sent to “three or four” pages from the 2001-2002 class.
August/Summer 2005 — Foley sends e-mails to a 16-year-old Louisiana boy who had been a page. Among other things, he asked the boy what he wanted for his birthday, talked to the teenager about another boy being “in great shape” and asked the former page to send him a photo.
September 2005 — The Louisiana boy contacts staff in the Washington office of his congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., about the e-mails from Foley. He forwards them, calling them “sick” 13 times and saying “This freaks me out.” Alexander contacts the boy and his parents.
September 2005 — Royal Alexander, the congressman’s chief of staff, calls Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant to House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, informing him that he had an e-mail exchange between Foley and a former House page that was of concern, but does not reveal the specific text.
After consulting with Hastert’s counsel, the speaker’s deputy chief of staff, Mike Stokke, meets with Alexander’s chief of staff, but again does not discuss the specific content of the e-mail. Stokke arranges a meeting between House Clerk Jeff Trandahl and Royal Alexander, but Alexander, citing the boy’s privacy concerns, declined to show the text, and described the exchange only as “over-friendly” and said the family wanted the contact to stop. Trandahl asked if the e-mail exchange was sexual in nature and was assured it was not, according to Hastert’s official account of the handling of the matter.
September 2005 — Trandahl, who is in charge of the page operation, contacts Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board, to discuss the matter. They set up a meeting with Foley and tell him that to avoid any appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, to cease any communication with the young man. Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan, the only Democrat on the page board, is not informed about the matter.
November 2005 — Copies of the e-mail exchanges with the former page and Foley are given to the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Editors assign two reporters to investigate. They talk to the boy and his family, but the family refuses to allow the boy to be identified by name. The paper decides not to publish such serious allegations using an unnamed source.
February-March 2006 — Rep. Alexander tells Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, about "the existence of e-mails between Foley and the former page from Alexander’s district. Reynolds tells Speaker Hastert about the e-mails and about his conversation with Alexander, and tells Hastert that the actions by the clerk and Shimkus had resolved the matter.
May 10, 2006 — Reynold’s personal political action committee, TOMPAC, donates $5,000 to Foley’s re-election campaign
July 21, 2006 — The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, sends the suggestive e-mails via the Internet to a special agent in the FBI’s Washington field office. CREW said it had received those e-mails that same day from a “third party” who had received them from a congressional staffer.
July 27, 2006 — Foley’s political action committee donates $100,000 to the Republican congressional campaign committee chaired by Reynolds.
July 27, 2006 — Foley, as co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, attends a signing ceremony at the White House for the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which he helped author.
Sept. 28, 2006 — ABCNews.com publishes e-mails between Foley and the former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations that have been given the material move on the story, which Foley initially dismisses as a smear effort by his Democratic rival.
Sept. 29, 2006 — ABC and Internet blogs publish sexually explicit instant messages between Foley and several former pages. Foley abruptly sends a letter of resignation to Hastert, who initially says he was not aware until the week before of allegations of improper behavior by Foley.
Sept. 30, 2006 — Hastert issues a detailed account of how House officials handled the e-mail complaint about Foley from the Louisiana page. It concludes: “No one was ever made aware of any sexually-explicit e-mail or text messages at any time.”
Hastert and other House Republican leaders issue a statement calling Foley’s communications with former pages “an obscene breach of trust” and call for the House Page Board and the House ethics committee to take additional actions.
Oct. 1, 2006 — Hastert, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that notes Foley is now out of the reach of Congress to investigate, asks for the Justice Department to examine “Mr. Foley’s conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law.” In a second letter, he asks Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to see if any state laws were broken.
Oct. 2, 2006 — After meeting with Shimkus to discuss possible additional safeguards for pages, including a hotline to report misconduct against them, Hastert says: “Congressman Foley duped a lot of people. I’ve known him for all the years he has worked in this House and he deceived me, too.”
Oct. 2 — Foley, through an attorney, announces that he has checked himself into a rehab facility “for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems.”
Oct. 2 — CREW sends a letter to the inspector general of the Justice Department requesting an investigation into why the FBI did not initiate an investigation of Foley’s contacts with minors until now.</p>
<p>(the FBI was informed in July)</p>
<p>Hey CGM, thank you for posting that. I do appreciate it.</p>
<p><a href=“HeadlineAlley”>HeadlineAlley;
<p>Hastert said his top aides and Rep. John Shimkus, a fellow Illinois Republican overseeing the page program, acted appropriately by trying to resolve the matter as an internal GOP problem rather than mounting a more formal investigation that would have involved Democrats.</p>
<p>Hastert says neither Shimkus nor his own aides saw the 2005 e-mail, noting that it was far less sexually explicit than the electronic messages that ABC News revealed last week.
“There wasn’t much there other than a friendly inquiry,” Hastert said of the 2005 message from Foley, R-Fla., described as “sick” by the boy. The message asked for a photograph and mentioned a different teen who was in “great shape.”</p>
<p>( Hastert saw the email as a friendly inquiry, but then he never read them at the time…so…)</p>
<p>“sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick” is not a synonym for “overly friendly”.</p>
<p>Except maybe for the party of family values.</p>
<p>welcome…its a good timeline and from a neutral source, i think</p>
<p>I wonder why they never read the emails…names could have been blacked out, along with email address, so am wondering what the real reason was for not reading them</p>
<p>how much time would it have taken to copy emails, take a black marker, cover name, and show to Clerk of the House, who asked to see them…privacy my foot…and for them to not read them…that is disgraceful</p>
<p>If I had to choose between the two, I would definitely prefer a hypocrite to a reprobate since the former at least gives lip service to morality.</p>
<p>“welcome…its a good timeline and from a neutral source, i think”</p>
<p>Very much so. I just can’t wrap my feeble brain around this whole thing, I really can’t. It’s unacceptable, of course, but parts of the story are just plain weird.</p>
<p>
Kluge,</p>
<p>First, I was troubled by the clear dichotomy Conyat created in what she viewed as my opinion. On the one hand, she assumed I could be a heartless person who has no feelings or concerns for innocent Congressional pages because my views might put them at risk. On the other hand, she postulated that I might be woefully ignorant of predatory grooming and my comments reflected my ignorance. Being the gracious person she is - and I mean that sincerely - Conyat assumed that my comments resulted from ignorance. It seems that neither you nor she can comprehend that how I feel about this isn’t the issue. People can have opinions about public policy that are based on logic, not feelings.</p>
<p>I feel bad for the pages. I feel bad for their parents. I would be upset if I were in their position and I would hope that my elected leaders (and particularly those in my party) would feel an obligation to take care of and protect young people. However, for me, that does not translate into an “It takes a village” mentality. I prefer to set up and refine our systems to protect people, including considering the relevance of options like term limits. I also encourage every page who received inappropriate contact to come forward and empower others not to condone this disgusting behavior in the future.</p>
<p>Second, on a lighter note, it’s good to learn that Conyat is actually Conyers. Could it possibly be John?</p>
<p>term limits would do nothing to stop this…how in the world would it?</p>
<p>“What would the republicans gain by covering up for Foley for all this time?”</p>
<p>I think the current situation speaks for itself as to why this might have been done. </p>
<p>We in the name of “polictics” have often overlooked things, if the politics were right. What is interesting would be to see if Foley ever voted against the party line. It appears he’s given money to other gop campains. </p>
<p>The question becomes “why out the guy, if you own him?”</p>
<p>If you never have to worry about dissent from this party member and can count on this member to buck up when ever asked, why would you disgrace him and the party by outing him? </p>
<p>That’s what is going to come out in the wash. </p>
<p>There was never a good time for the gop to let this information out. It never would have seen the light of day, if not for an outside source creating it. Foley would have continued on, gotten re-elected and voted the party line for many more years. And he would have always been a great source of cash. </p>
<p>I have to think that maybe Foley wanted to get caught because unlike Ted Stevens, he should know the internet is more than a series of tubes.</p>
<p>CGM,</p>
<p>Obviously, terms limits won’t stop child predators. However, term limits would take the focus off re-election/incumbency and theoretically could cause the elected official to be more responsive to the voters. If political office is not a guaranteed career, as it is for many politicians today, it’s harder for individuals to reach elite status and it minimizes corruption. It’s also easy to envision contrary arguments. </p>
<p>This thread isn’t about term limits but my point is there can be institutional answers to problems.</p>