Sickening
If you haven't heard of this already, you obviously don't pay any attention to politics. I'd rather not repeat the horrible things that Republican Representative Foley (bottom right)did that made him decide to resign after being caught, but here's a quick summary of what happened just to give you context:Foley, the Republican representative from Florida resigned from office as he was exposed this week as a child predator. Various emails and instant messages surfaced with graphic sexual overtones that he had been sending to a 16 year old boy. The kicker is that Foley has been a strong advocate of harsh laws on child predators, specifically internet predators. What's truly sick about this is the outright hypocrisy of representative Foley and the tenacity of thinking that he would never be caught. It's yet another example of the two-facedness of our republican leadership.
It gets worse. According to the Washington Post, Republican leaders knew of Foley's inappropriate contact with children.
WP:
The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.
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Many predictions have already been made by political analysts as to how this will affect the mid-term elections. Some say it will discourage voters in general from voting. Others say it will discourage voters from voting republican specifically. Let's hope it's the latter. Let's get these sickos out of congress, they don't deserve to be making the decisions that affect all of us on a daily basis.
posted by Matt @ 4:14 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Republican leaders didn't know about the IMs, they never saw them until later.
Yet another example of lies and misinformation being spread by the left. Do you want to read what the Republican leaders did know? Here are teh emails. When Rep. Reynolds, et al (not including Speaker Denny Hastert, who never saw them at all) read them, there were no accompanying text messages... he had to make his decision solely on the basis of these (the typos and other mistakes are in the original):
E-mail 1:
Glad your home safe and sound...we don't go back into session until Sept 5...si it's a nice long break...I am back in Florida now...its nice here...been raining today...it shounds like you will have some fun over the next few weeks...how old are you now?
E-mail 2:
I just emailed will...hes such a nice guy...acts much older than his age...and hes in really great shape...i am just finished fiding my bike on a 25 mile journey now heading to the gym...whats school like for you this year?
E-mail 3:
I am in North Carolina...and it was 100in New Orleans...wow that's really hot...well do you miss DC...its raining here but 68 degrees so who can argue..did you have fun at your conference...what do you want for your birthday coming up...what stuff do you like to do
E-mail 4:
How are you weathering the hurricane...are you safe...send me a pic of you as well...
And that's it. That is all that the GOP leadership had in 2005 when they made the decision to brief Hastert's staff (but not Hastert himself until later) and to counsel Foley rather than open an entire investigation over this garbage.
From Big Lizards:
He's not a "child molester," as has been repeatedly claimed by Democrats -- who, by the way, never said any such a thing about Gerry Studds, who boffed a 17 year old male page back in 1973 (he took him to Morocco to evade American law), admitted it in 1983, and was censured by the House; but who refused to resign, was re-elected six times after that incident, and who was never cast out of the Democratic caucus.
Foley (and Studds) are in fact ephebophiles, adults who are sexually attracted to post-pubescent teenagers. Many heterosexual men are attracted to "Lolitas," while many gay men are attracted to "twinks." This is utterly alien to those adults who are sexually attracted to actual, pre-pubescent children.
Society considers sex with teenagers younger than 18 "statutory rape" (which is why Studds took his page to Morocco to have his fun); but anybody who cannot morally distinguish between having sex with a 17 year old and raping a 7 year old is himself morally diseased. It's like the difference between punching someone in the mouth during an argument -- and getting a gun and shooting him.
And
The point is that the Republicans who were told about these e-mails either saw none of them at all, or else they only saw the "over-friendly" thread; nobody says he saw the "explicit" thread until ABC published them and they were on the internet... and no Democrat actually claims to have any evidence that any Republican knew about the "explicit" thread. This is important: they don't even pretend to have evidence that anyone actually knew that Foley was into twinks.
Yet even so, the Democrats are trying to make it appear as though Reynolds knew Foley was sending explicitly sexual correspondence to a minor -- when in fact, the Democrats are well aware that Reynolds knew only about non-sexual e-mails that were oddball but not threatening.
I'm sure you've read more than just those emails. The instant messages are the icing on the cake. We're talking about the MSM here, come on now. They want ratings, and the only place you'll find someone whining about what the democrats did 25 years ago in a similar situation is fox. The fact of the matter is that Hastert was warned repeatedly by GOP leaders that Foley was a problem and that he was a possible pedophile. From the Washington Post:
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."
-You're defending a man that LIED about what he did or did not know. Now, you'd think that information like "one of your colleagues is acting strangely towards 16 year old pages" would stand out in someone's mind. Especially the speaker of the house's mind. The, "sorry, I didn't remember" argument is extremely suspect. Even if him 'not remembering' the accusations is true, that's still grounds for attacking him. Hastert of all people! The head of the majority of the house... the speaker for the republicans, the party with the MORAL HIGHGROUND! The protectors of our nation's children. You would think that he would concern himself with something like pedophilia within his ranks.
Accuse the democrats of playing politics all you want. Point your finger all you want, scream and whine all you want because you know this is damaging to your beloved grand old party. Are you telling me that if a democrat were in a similar situation right now, the GOP wouldn't tar and feather him, burn him at the stake? You should thank yahweh for the democrat's utter silence on this entire issue. Your real beef is with liberal bloggers like me and the mainstream media... not democrats.
What's really sick about all this is that coulter, hannity, beck, o'reilly, etc. are out there saying things like "this kid must've been a democrat"... and, "he was egging foley on!"... as if pedophilia is somehow okay as long as you're a republican.
The real politilization of this issue happened a long time ago when instead of trying to get to the bottom of Foley's promiscuous nature towards minors, leading republicans attempted to cover it up as if nothing at all happened. Now that's what I call playing politics.
Pedophilia or paedophilia (see spelling differences) is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent or peripubescent children. Persons with this attraction are called pedophiles.
16 is not prepubescent. He is not a pedophile.
Hastert didn't see anything BUT the emails until ABC broke the story...so he didn't lie. I don't think you even read my response.
The kid wasn't 16, he was 10 days from his 18th birthday when this stuff happened.
And, as far as I can tell, there was no sex. So he isn't a child molester.
Words have meanings, they are important. It makes a difference; a wierd guy having "odd" conversations (see emails) with a 16 year old page is not the same thing as a guy having sex with a 7 year old boy.
An adult having sexually explicit conversations over IM, too, is not child molestation.
The side playing politics is the Dems, making a scandal where, honestly, there should be none. This is one man's problem, not a party corruption issue.
Wow, you sure do know your pedophilia! I'm sorry to have to bring this up, but it must be done. In your third post on your blog you and I debated about the morality of homosexual marriage. You do realize that you're now defending the actions of a homosexual congressman who attempted to make contact with more than one minor under the age of 18. In this country, that is against the law, and if it were up to many factions within the right wing world, homosexualism in itself would be against the law. Now we find them all standing up in defense of foley and leading republicans who turned a blind eye.
Yes, Hastert did lie... he lied about being notified of anything even relating to this situation, even though his colleagues have stated otherwise. I guarantee you that when this is all sorted out, and a formal investigation is conducted, it will show that Hastert and other gop leaders were notified of these kinds of things years ago.
The main issue here isn't the attempted sexual contact with minors, or the cover-up. I wrote about this specifically stating that what made me really sick was the fact that Foley was in charge of an internet predator committee. He publicly advocated harsher laws on internet predators and when he got home he stalked pages on the internet. HYPOCRISY... that's what really gets my blood boiling. THis is hypocrisy at it's absolute worst. It's disgusting. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if this was flipped and it was a Dem in the same position, you would take the exact same position as me, only you would be much angrier and much more upset than I am.
I don't mind your being upset at Foley. I'm not defending the guy, he's clearly got some issues and I do not agree with what he's done, nor do I condone it.
However, I think it is very important that we talk straight here. Trying to use this as some sort of scandal to impugn all Republicans in congress and imply that he is a pedophile, a child molester, or anything else he isn't is flat out lying. Condemn him for his homosexuality, condemn him for inappropriate advances with a minor. But don't imply that he is equivalent with a rapist.
You really should stick to facts, as your first post was (deliberately?) misleading.
Excuse me? My post isn't misleading and for you to imply that it's deliberately misleading offends me. There isn't one thing in that post thats misleading. You need to stop reading those nutty right wing sites that you frequent and swallowing them whole. I reported exactly what happened and cited a washington post article that questioned whether or not hastert knew. How is that misleading? How is that being deliberately misleading? I think you need to read it one more time, you're reading inbetween the lines way too much because your seeing something that isn't there. The post is 100% factually correct. Find me one thing in there that isn't.
You can say whatever you want. But don't imply that I would knowingly mislead anyone. I resent that.
It gets worse. According to the Washington Post, Republican leaders knew of Foley's inappropriate contact with children.
That is a misrepresentation.
Children were not involved. A 16 year old is not a child.
Republican leaders didn't know about the IMs, only the emails. Your post does NOT mention that, and that is a crucial point. Those emails are nothing bad, only a little odd. The IMs are another story. I think it is misleading.
Let's get these sickos out of congress
Which sickos? Because this story is, I thought, only about one guy -- Foley.
Okay kaggie, thank you for the clarification. I wasn't aware of the republican talking points when I typed up the post originally. You know why? Because it took them a week to get their act together and present a uniform message to rebut the accusations. I mentioned in my post that this is another example of the hypocrisy of republicans. On top of the abramoff scandal, the plame scandal, the cunningham, delay, ney scandals.... it makes me sick to my stomach, therefore I refer to corrupt politicians as sickos. Republicans have shown such disregard for law and for their own supposed "morals" that I will promise you, everytime something like this happens you can count on me to exploit it as much as possible.
Boehner knew of inappropriate contact with children/adults, teenagers. Whatever you want to call it, the kid was a 16 year old. In the eyes of the state, that is a child because he is still dependent upon his parents. The key argument I'm making here is that the HEAD OF AN INTERNET PREDATOR COMMITTEE WAS IN FACT AN INTERNET PREDATOR HIMSELF. How can that not anger you? And if it's possible that his colleagues knew of his promiscuous nature towards minors and still let him head that committee, that's completely unforgiveable.
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