GOP House page board chair may have helped cover-up Foley scandal

1. Roll call reports that Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who chairs the House page board, met with Foley in 2005 to investigate the creepy email exchange with the 16 year old page.

2. What was the extent of Shimkus' investigation of whether a member of Congress was soliciting sex with a minor, or at the very least bordering on sexually harassing a minor? Shimkus asked Foley if he was hitting on the kid, Foley said no, so Shimkus said "okay," and let it go. Obviously sex with children is a real big concern to the Republican house. Here's what Shimkus had to say tonight:

In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page's well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph. When asked about the email exchange, Congressman Foley said he expressed concern about the Page's well-being and wanted a photo to see that the former Page was alright.

First off, nice that Shimkus, who according to the Associated Press wrote this statement with the help of GOP Speaker Denny Hastert's office, after avoiding reporters for hours, spins Foley's creepy emails to sound totally benign. In fact, Shimkus doesn't bother mentioning the most damning parts of the email exchange, Foley commenting on the underage kid's apparently underage friend's hot body, and also somewhat creepy, asking the kid for a picture and asking how old he is. I'm sure it was an oversight. Oh that's right, there is no oversight in the Republican house. You simply ask someone a question and believe whatever answer they give you, then the investigation is over.

Interesting that the pages now say they were routinely warned about Foley by their page overseers. Did Shimkus bother talking to the page overseers, or any of the pages, to find out what was up with Foley? How is it that in just 24 hours ABC was able to get a copy of Foley's sex-talk instant message chat with an underage page, yet Shimkus found nothing?

3. Shimkus never told the Democratic member of Congress who serves on the page board. Why?

Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), who serves on the page board, was never told of the interview with Foley.

"I became aware of it this afternoon when [Shimkus] came by my office. I think we should have had a page meeting right away," Kildee said, referring to last year's discovery of Foley's e-mails.

When asked if was upset about being excluded, Kildee said yes, adding, "I've been on the page board for 20 years."

4. More from Roll Call, "According to a senior House GOP leadership aide, Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) office was informed of the interview shortly after it occurred, but Hastert himself was not told." Right. A male Republican member of Congress is being investigated for possibly sexually harassing an underage male page and Denny Hastert's office is notified and nobody tells Hastert? Right. And the matter is considered so important that the Clerk of House gets involved and joins in the interview with Foley. Yet still no one tells Hastert. Uh huh.

5. We still don't know when the kid's congressman, Rodney Alexander (R-LA), was told about the incident, and what he did about it. He claims he found out from a reporter. But at the same time he says his staff found out when the kid contacted them and was creeped out. Which one was it? Did Alexander sit on the information until the press finally contacted him and he was forced to act?

6. What are the House procedures for dealing with an allegation of this kind? Simply to pass it to the Page Board, having Foley's own Republican peers investigate him? There are no House rules whatsoever about having someone independent look into whether a member of Congress sexually harassed a minor page? Here's what CREW has to say, per the AP story:

"The House of Representatives has an obligation to protect the teenagers who come to Congress to learn about the legislative process," the group wrote, adding that the committee "must investigate any allegation that a page has been subjected to sexual advances by members of the House."

7. So the Republicans are telling us that they never heard anything else about Foley in all the time he was in Congress. Very interesting. Because I certainly heard some rumors about Foley over the years, and when I got a copy of these emails several months ago, the rumors were not inconsistent. But to House Republicans, family value Republicans, this story wasn't important enough to even go beyond asking the perpetrator if he was really guilty.

Nice.

Final update, perhaps. Nancy Pelosi introduced a resolution calling for an investigation. It passed, we hear, unanimously:

And late Friday night, the House passed a resolution directing the ethics committee to begin an inquiry into Foley's behavior. The committee has 10 days to report back to the House.

"I'll just simply say that the House has given us direction to look into this matter and we intend to do so," said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the ethics panel.

Ranking member Howard Berman (D-Calif.) added that they will do it "quickly."

Read the rest of this post...

House GOP story on Foley gets murkier and murkier. What did they know about Foley and when did they know it?

The story about just what the House GOP leadership knew about Mark Foley's online sexual exploits, and when they knew it, is getting more and more contradictory by the minute.

Earlier today, ABC reported that the 16 year old page who received Foley's creepy emails last year had forwarded the emails to "congressional staffers," telling them "this freaked me out" and the emails were "sick sick sick sick sick." Which staffers? With whose office? Who did those staffers then tell about the emails, and what did those people do, if anything about it? Okay, update, it was Alexander's staffers - so, what, they didn't tell their boss that one of their own underage pages, a constituent, mind you, might have been sexually harassed by another congressman? Oh bull.

Alexander said the boy notified a staffer in his office about the e-mails. The congressman said he learned of it from a reporter 10 or 11 months ago and promptly called the boy's parents.

Then later today, an Associated Press article on the SF Chronicle's website reported that the kid's congressman, Rodney Alexander (R-LA), found out about the story ten or eleven months ago and contacted the kid's parents and the House GOP leadership. Alexander said that the kid's parents wanted to let the matter drop. What did Alexander tell the parents, and did that influence their deciding to let it go? Who else did Alexander tell about this? Why didn't he take further action since he knew Foley would continue interacting with pages, continued to chair the House caucus on missing and exploited children, and that Foley continued to remain in the House leadership?

The Associated Press now has an updated story saying that Rep. Alexander now says he found out about the allegations "some months ago" from a reporter. Bull, it sounds more like he found out from his staff, did nothing, then found out from a reporter and didn't have a choice but to act. When did the kid email the staff, and when did the reporter contact the congressman - how much time lagged in between?

Another odd point. In the earlier story, Alexander says he told the House leadership about the incident. Now, in the updated story, Alexander says that he passed the information along to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization (perhaps that's what he means by "leadership," or perhaps he's changing his story to protect Hastert). It's a bit odd that he'd report this to Reynolds, since Reynolds is in charge of re-electing Republicans to congress. Why tell him? Was this an effort to help Foley find a way to defend against these charges should they come up during his next election? And in any case, we're to believe that Reynolds didn't tell Hastert about this?

Now the AP reports the following from the GOP campaign group run by Reynolds:

Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds learned from Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter. Forti said, however, that the matter did go before the House Page Board — the three lawmakers and two House officials who oversee the pages.

It went before the page board? But only today Denny Haster asked the people overseeing the pages, specifically Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who runs the page board, to investigate the situation and make sure other pages weren't harassed or abused. There would be no need for Hastert to ask them today to investigate if this if the same page board that had already been notified months ago by Reynolds. Are we to believe the page board didn't tell the speaker that they were looking into a member who may have been soliciting sex with underage pages? And that this is the first time Denny Hastert heard of this? Not to mention, the page board already did their review, so why ask them to do it again, pretending like it's the first time?

So what's going on here? The page board also includes the Clerk of the House and the Sergeant at Arms, both Republican appointees. Did they know about this months ago or not? Did they do anything about this? Did they tell the speaker or anyone else in the House?

ABC said tonight that pages said they were warned about Foley and his antics. Really? But Foley was still left to interact with pages, still left in his leadership spot, and still left chairing a caucus overseeing the issue of missing and exploited children. If Foley was this well known a problem, what exactly did or didn't the page board do about it? Who did they tell, and what did those people do?

This goes far beyond Mark Foley. It now seems to involve quite a few senior Republicans. Why didn't any of them do something about this earlier? Or does the sexual exploitation of children only matter when there's not a big R in front of the exploiter's name? Read the rest of this post...

TODAY GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert asked for an investigation as to whether other pages were abused, why didn't he do this a year ago?

ABC reported this evening that GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert has asked for an investigation to make sure other pages weren't sexually harassed or abused. But the House leadership was told almost a year ago about Mark Foleys' hanky-panky online communications with underage pages and Hastert did nothing. Why didn't Hastert do an investigation at the time to make sure the pages were all right? Why did Hastert leave Foley in charge of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children when he knew Foley had some possible personal issues involving the exploitation of children? Why did Hastert let Foley remain in the House leadership for a good year after he knew about these accusations? Cruising underage kids isn't a disqualifier for being in the House leadership? Why did Denny Hastert let Foley remain anywhere near underage pages at all?

Would you let your kids near someone like Foley if you had been warned a year ago? Then why did Denny Hastert? The parent of every kid who was a page in the last year should be livid at the Republicans right now.

And where is our wonderful religious right? Or doesn't the sexual exploitation of children bother them when it's their own politicians who are doing the exploiting and the covering up? Read the rest of this post...

House GOP Leadership knew about Foley almost a year ago, let Foley remain in House leadership, let him remain as chair of House sex offender caucus

UPDATE: Foley's "instant message" communications with yet another underage boy, circa 2003, have now been posted by ABC. They are horrendous. I cannot believe that Denny Hastert knew about Foley using the Net to chat-up underage boys a year ago and DID NOTHING (you'll recall that the email conversations we posted earlier were around the time of Hurricane Katrina last year).

Tell me why Denny Hastert shouldn't be forced to immediately resign. They left your kids with this man AFTER they knew what he was doing. They let him stay in the GOP leadership. They let him remain the chair of the child sex offender caucus. Jesus Christ.

From ABC News:



Does House Republican leader Denny Hastert have a soft spot for child sex offenders?

Seems so. Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert has some serious explaining to do, after today's revelations that they knew about ex-Congressman Mark Foley's sexscapades a good year ago, and did nothing.

Whether or not the kid's parents were fine with letting it go, which the story says is the case, why did Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert permit Foley to remain in the House GOP leadership for almost a year after they knew he was having sex talk with minors online, minors he met on the job?

Why did Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert leave Foley as the co-chair of the House body in charge of child sex offenses for a good year after they knew?

Why did Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert permit Foley to stay in the House at all, where he would be around other pages every day all day long?

And just as importantly, why did Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert let Foley lie publicly yesterday about the emails, claiming they were innocent, and simply a dirty attack from the Democrats, when the House leadership knew the real story?

And finally, we find out that the FBI was contacted two months about this story. Was there any follow-up from the Bush FBI? Or did they just let this potential case of child sex offense go by the wayside because it involved a friend of Bush?

From from the SF Chronicle:

The page worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen's parents. Alexander told the Ruston Daily Leader, "We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem," a reference to the House's Republican leaders.

Foley was a member of the Republican leadership, serving as a deputy whip. He also was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

It's interesting that Republican Speaker Hastert's home page says Mr. Hastert is having a community meeting about "Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace." Here's one way: Next time someone tells you one of your friends is soliciting sex with a minor, do something about it.

Read the rest of this post...

ABC: If guilty, Foley could be sentenced to years in prison

Foley shit.

They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided to ABC News.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Another message:

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you....

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.

Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.

"Adds up to soliciting underage children for sex," said Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and now an ABC News consultant. "And what it amounts to is serious both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years."

Read the rest of this post...

Foley: Do I make you a little horny? Teen: A little. Foley: Cool.

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny ?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

From ABC News:

Congressman Mark Foley, Republican from Florida, resigned today just hours after ABC news questioned him about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving current and former underage male Congressional pages. Foley used the login name Maf54.

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny ?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

Foley was the chairman of the house caucus on missing and exploited children and has long crusaded for tough laws against those who use the Internet for sexual exploitation of children.

Read the rest of this post...

Foley's name must stay on ballot

Wonder what happens if he wins? Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING NEWS: Foley Resigns, GOP congressman caught in creepy email exchange with underage page

UPDATE FROM ABC: "Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts."

UPDATE: Okay, latest AP story says "effective immediately." He's gone.

Holy crap. This was a safe Republican seat. We just got one step closer to taking back the House.

Oh, and how's this for creepy:

H.R.5749
Title: To amend title 18, United States Code, to protect youth from exploitation by adults using the Internet, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Foley, Mark [FL-16] (introduced 7/10/2006)

Read the rest of this post...

Intelligence and foreign policy issues continue to dominate the debate

Yesterday I posted on Democratic leadership on security and defense issues on the Hill, but good leadership isn’t limited to elected officials. Earlier this week, a group of leading Democratic foreign policy officials announced the launch of a new organization, the National Security Network, which is the first Democratic group I'm aware of bringing together policy, messaging, and local outreach on issues of national security. There have always been highly capable Democrats in the policy realm -- they're all at various think tanks and consulting firms, biding their time until they can get back into the NSC and State Department. There are also capable Democratic candidates, campaign staff, and activists. There is, however, an unfortunate disconnect between policy and politics on security and foreign policy issues, a disconnect that the NSN aims to resolve.

Former UN Ambassador and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former State and Defense Department official Les Gelb, and Congresswoman Jane Harman (ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee) all made brief remarks, speaking to the importance of bringing together policy and politics for effective campaigns and effective governance. Each was highly critical of the Bush administration and hopeful for a Democratic majority and, soon, president, and its clear that the foreign policy establishment is highly invested in this election.

I was particularly impressed with Rep. Harman, who continues to demonstrate acumen and passion in her statements on Iraq and intelligence issues. She called for the declassification of Aprils National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s effect upon the terrorist threat, and she hit hard on continued foreign policy failures by the Bush administration and the rubber-stamp Republican Congress. She also said she believes there's a National Intelligence Estimate specifically on Iraq that's being kept in draft form so Congressional Intelligence Committees can't see it before the elections. Unreal.

The counter-terrorism NIE clearly repudiates the entire Bush administration on Iraq and counterterrorism, and it's good to see Democrats recognize an issue that is so important for both policy and politics and then actually run with it. I hope the American people get a chance to see a similarly unclassified summary of Iraq's status as well, though I'm not holding my breath. Read the rest of this post...

Waterboard GOP Rep. Mark Foley

GOP Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was caught initiating a rather creepy email exchange with a 16 year old boy, a former congressional page. The emails include Foley discussing what a great body a teenage friend of the boy had, and asking the boy for a "pic" - or "picture" in America Online "pick up" vernacular.



Foley's office claims that there was nothing wrong with what Foley did. It was part of his normal outreach, they say. The boy begged to differ. He found Foley's emails "sick, sick, sick, sick, sick."

Foley's response to the scandal means Foley would do it again if given the chance. He thinks there is nothing wrong with what he did. He thinks it's part of his congressional outreach to email young boys and ask them about their friends' bodies. If given the chance, he would continue to solicit creepy email exchanges with underage boys.

We need answers.

The Co-Chair of the US House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus cannot be someone even under the appearance of possibly being a potential child sex offender (soliciting a minor is a crime). No one is saying Foley is a child sex offender, but his email exchange has raised understandable concerns in some minds. It's time to get to the bottom of this, for the sake of our children. It's time to waterboard GOP Rep. Mark Foley.

Why shouldn't we waterboard Mark Foley? Is there anything more important in America, and to our future, than our children? Is the molestation of a child somehow less a crime than terrorism. Aren't they both really a form of terrorism against the innocent, the weak? Isn't protecting those who can't protect themselves what America is all about? You know, putting the rights of the victims before the rights of the criminals?

Our law enforcement should be given all the tools they need to keep our homeland safe, to keep our children safe. After all, under the new pro-terror legislation that Mr. Foley voted for, Mr. Foley is guaranteed adequate rights while not hindering interrogations. We are dealing with an enemy at war with our children. As GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter said, "In time of war it is not practical to apply the same rules of evidence that we apply in civil trials.” Our nation is facing a faceless and brutal enemy that lurks in the shadows, requiring a new way of thinking on the part of the United States and giving new importance to the ability to freely interrogate them.

“Information is the key weapon we have to prevent them from killing us and prevent them from attacking others in the future,” said Representative Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas. And he's right, God bless him.

In America, children and family are paramount. Nothing is more important to the Republican agenda than family values. It's time to defend those family values and protect our children from potential sexual predators.

It's time to waterboard Mark Foley.

And if he has nothing to hide, no harm no foul. After all, it's not like it's torture.

(Thanks to the NYT for liberally contributing content for this story.) Read the rest of this post...

Bush is on the attack -- against Democrats

Bush is on live on CNN giving that same political campaign speech about terror -- and he's already invoking "September the 11th." (We know why FOX, as the GOP network, covers every utterance from Bush. But why do CNN and the other cable networks carry this same political speech over and over and over?)

The Prez sure is talking tough these days. But it's all politics. The man cannot find the time to devise a strategy for Iraq. He can't even be honest about the quagmire. But he can launch vicious political attacks like this one from a speech yesterday:

"Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on the American homeland in our history, Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing," the president said.

Endless second-guessing? It's called oversight and the failed Iraq policy and the botched war on terror desperately need some second guessing. Bush wants to stay the course. That's his whole agenda...well, that plus ugly political attacks.

Bush is playing politics with terror against the backdrop of increased violence in Iraq, a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and a growing jihadist movement inspired by his invasion of Iraq. If the White House put as much energy in to their anti-terror strategy as they did in to their political strategy about terror, we might make some progress -- and save some lives. Read the rest of this post...

Rumsfeld impeded and Rice ignored terror fight in 2001

The New York Times got an advanced copy of Woodward's new book, "State of Denial." The book contains a number of bombshells about the failures of the Bush administration. It's as bad, if not worse, than we all thought:

The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.

There is also confirmation that the Bush administration failed to deal with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda back in 2001:

Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.

On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.

Condi cried crocodile tears after Clinton smacked the Bush team for failing to deal with Bin Laden. Woodward confirms that Clinton was right. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Now that Bob Woodward's latest book, State of Denial, basically says Bush is a liar, will the rest of the media clue in? Iraq's a disaster and getting worse. And, Bush won't be honest about it.

Note to media: Read the House report on Abramoff and his 485 contacts with the Bush team. Looks like the White House has been lying about that, too. By the way, that means Rove and Mehlman.

40 days til the elections. Do something every day between now and then to change the Congress. Read the rest of this post...

Iraq reconstruction on par with Iraq war

How do these companies stay in business with such sorry results? What I find disturbing here is that they have not be sacked due to incompetence and sued for ripping off taxpayers but I guess when you splash around contributions to everyone, you can get away with just about anything. While the companies actions are bad, I think that it is just too easy to blame them for everything because isn't Congress supposed to be doing something to oversee such critical programs? Congress is supposed to be involved here but it looks like they had more important tasks such as protecting the flag, bashing gays, stripping the Constitution and supporting torture.

In a House hearing on what has gone wrong with reconstruction contracts in Iraq, Parsons Corp. quickly became the focus, taking bipartisan heat for its record of falling short on critical projects. The Pasadena, Calif., firm was supposed to build facilities at the heart of the $21 billion U.S.-led reconstruction program, including fire stations, border forts and health-care centers. But inspectors have found a litany of flaws in the firm's work. The one project reviewed by auditors that was being constructed correctly, a prison, was taken away from Parsons before its completion because of escalating costs.

In a report released yesterday, inspectors found that the Baghdad Police College posed a health risk after feces and urine leaked through the ceilings of student barracks. The facility, part of which will need to be demolished, also featured floors that heaved inches off the ground and a room where water dripped so heavily that it was known as "the rain forest."

The academy was intended as a showcase for U.S. efforts to train Iraqi recruits who eventually are expected to take control of the nation's security from the U.S. military. But lawmakers said yesterday they feared it will become a symbol of a different sort.

"This is the lens through which Iraqis will now see America," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. "Incompetence. Profiteering. Arrogance. And human waste oozing out of ceilings as a result."

Yep, this surely is how Iraqis see America and I might add that this is pretty much how the American public sees the GOP-run Congress, who continue to have approval ratings in the mid twenties. Just throwing money at everything without any oversight and just hoping that somehow things will just miraculously work out. What a brilliant strategy for success. Surprise, surprise...it's not working.

Read the rest of this post...

Ok, that's funny, I was just on Nightline...

Just brushed my teeth, came out of the bathroom, and there I was on TV. I was going to give you guys a heads up, I taped this a few days ago about the phone records privacy issue - you know, the issue where the Senate Republicans are now trying to kill the legislation that would make stealing your phone records illegal. You may recall that I bought General Wesley Clark's phone records this past January to prove how easy it was to do so. They originally thought the show would air tonight, but then I heard that Nightline was going to be about the school shooting tonight, so I figured the show got pulled. It didn't.

Anyway, I taped it, just on the off chance it ran anyway, and will post it tomorrow. And I guess this means on the west coast it will still be on later tonight. Read the rest of this post...