even more bizarre...Congress actually has a House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children ? Whats next? House Caucus on why water is wet and fire is hot?
Submitted by redmondkr on Fri, 2006/09/29 - 3:17pm.
A visit to Foley's web site would have you believing that he has been the spearhead for all of Congress' efforts to protect children. If the allegations are true, this could be another Clear Skies Initiative.
Lets just add him to the list of Republican Sex Offenders:
* Republican Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned from Congress after "sexually explicit" emails surfaced showing him flirting with a 16-year old boy.
* Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper was arrested for soliciting sex from a 13-year old girl on the internet.
* Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.
* Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
* Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
* Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.
* Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano was arrested for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl.
* Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
* Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
* Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.
* Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
* Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
* Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
* Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
* Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
* Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
* Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.
* Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
* Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
* Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.
* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
* Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
* Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
* Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
* Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
* Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
* Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
* Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl.
* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.
* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
* Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
* Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.
* Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
* Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.
* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
Submitted by tennesseevalues... on Sat, 2006/09/30 - 9:19am.
While I'm no friend of the "neo-cons" (I refuse to call them Republicans, because so many of them aren't. Have I mentioned lately that I miss the Republicans?), I would point out to gttim and others that sexual offenses are not exclusive to the Republican party. I'm sure one could compile a good long list of Democrat-affiliated folks (especially since the list reaches down to local offices like councilmen and county officials across the nation).
That argument is no more meaningful than the neo-con argument that Democrats or liberals are all unmarried gay athiests.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story. If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story. If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
Submitted by redmondkr on Sat, 2006/09/30 - 9:35am.
I believe the point that is being made here is the fact that a great number of so-called Republicans have been throwing a lot of rocks from their glass houses. Many, many Democrats have suffered from ethics problems, but the Democratic platform doesn't beat us with a holier-than-thou plank.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Sat, 2006/09/30 - 9:37am.
9 said: Bravo. At least one other person gets it.
There are at least two that don't.
Lemme see if this works: You like to boink underage boys and you are an over aged boy...you go to jail, not the US Congress. Your party's leadership covers for your tendencies. They should go to jail too. You should not grandstand and sponsor legislation to deal with child molestors while being covered for by your party's leadership while molesting underaged boys. You should not make speeches against gay marriage. You should not have your party's chairman make speeches supporting you party's stance against gay people while he himself is gay.
Submitted by redmondkr on Sat, 2006/09/30 - 10:33am.
"It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction." - Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach on the Clinton impeachment.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Sat, 2006/09/30 - 3:46pm.
Well, 9...None of the rest of us expected you to get that one. You are consistent if nothing else.
I'm happy about that...And...Ga Tech is leading Va Tech for now. May not last but then happiness is so fleeting and must be experienced for the ephemeral kiss that it is.
It's the cover up that is the story. Sure the guy was a predator (plenty of people on the Left who have be caught out too), but Hastert was actively covering this up.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
I would point out to gttim and others that sexual offenses are not exclusive to the Republican party. I'm sure one could compile a good long list of Democrat-affiliated folks (especially since the list reaches down to local offices like councilmen and county officials across the nation).
Well, put the list together. The only one I have seen attempted by a wingnut on Democrats was less than 12 names long, was mostly in the 80's and 90's, and was almost all consensual sex between adults- i.e. mistresses. With all the time wingnuts spend doing crap like this on the interent for their mass emails against any Democrat they do not like, if it was possible it would have already been done.
That argument is no more meaningful than the neo-con argument that Democrats or liberals are all unmarried gay athiests.
Yes it is. The incidents of high up Republicans who preach religion and family values being pedofiles is very high, and is certainly more than the general population. Crap it appears to higher than the incident of pedofiles amoung Catholic priests.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story.
The issue is that the GOP preaches one thing and does another, so it is a matter of what letter is behind their name. If one party tends to publically condem pedofiles while they are secretly pedofiles themselves, then this issue needs to be explored and addressed. This needs to be done in the GOP and the church.
If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
But because he is a Republican it was covered up and still would be covered up if it had not leaked by other means. If Hassert knew this about a Dem, he would have been calling press conferences last year. Clinton gets damned for having an affair with a consenting adult because he was a Dem but Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich get a walk because they are Republicans. Foley needs to be condemned for being a sexual predator, but the GOP needs to condemned for covering it up and for not calling the FBI on him when they learned of it only because he was a Republican.
All this was done to protect the Republican majority. Don't even get me started on the hypocrisy.
Submitted by redmondkr on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 1:21pm.
My sources tell me that Dennis Hastert had the solution to the Foley embarrassment in hand but the press beat him to the punch. He had been planning to announce at the close of the session that Mr. Foley had, regrettably decided to change parties and become a Democrat.
Now, instead, it seems that he is a "troubled young man" who surprised everybody in his party with this dastardly deed.
Faux News has analysts working overtime to ascertain Mr. Foley's exact ties with the Clinton Administration.
Submitted by Eleanor A on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 2:46pm.
A couple of the lefty blogs are making the case that Hastert, et al, covered this up because Foley had drawn a well-funded challenger - and it would have cost them a couple million dollars to come up with a candidate and start from scratch to elect him.
If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
That is ridiculous. The Republicans impeached a Democratic President for consensual sex, and you're trying to claim they wouldn't have brushed it under the rug were it one of their own? I think we've just seen crystal-clear evidence of exactly how that wouldn't have been the case.
I, for one, am tired of having my personal conduct, character, and morals smeared by the likes of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Frist, when between the three of them there's enough prescription medication and divorce paperwork to fill the Atlantic. Pretending the Republicans don't grandstand on some supposed moral weakness held by liberals is disingenous at best and malevolent at worst.
This after they allowed a male prostitute a blue-pass, top-secret credential to the West Wing of the White House. The hypocrisy is truly mindboggling.
Although, you know, actually, I'm enjoying this. The Republicans thought they'd control Congress forever, so they played partisan hardball and now they're crying like kindergarteners because they don't have any bipartisan support and they aren't getting cut any slack by opinion leaders. It'll be wonderful to watch Hastert and company so tied up defending their conduct on the Foley scandal that they don't have time to pile on October-surprise dirty tricks and personal-smear-style attack ads.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 3:31pm.
The Republicans impeached a Democratic President for consensual sex, and you're trying to claim they wouldn't have brushed it under the rug were it one of their own? I think we've just seen crystal-clear evidence of exactly how that wouldn't have been the case.
Here's a blast from the past:
Joe Scheidler isn't the only rightist miscreant for whom [IL Republican Henry "Youthful Indiscretion"] Hyde has sought lenient treatment. Another was his former Republican colleague from Illinois, Rep. Dan Crane, once a leading light of the new right.
In 1983, after a yearlong investigation by the House Ethics Committee, Crane was found to have engaged in an illicit sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl working as a congressional page. When the question of whether the House should expel, censure or merely reprimand Crane reached the floor, Hyde popped up to beg mercy for his friend.
"We sit here not to characterize the crime, the breach, the transgression, because we all know the transgression, which is admitted and it is stipulated as reprehensible." Even so, Hyde pleaded, "In searching our souls for the appropriate punishment, I ask the members to consider this situation in its totality, in its entire context."
Crane deserved mercy, Hyde explained, because he already had suffered enough. "He is embarrassed, he is humiliated, he is disgraced. And it endures; it is not over ... Every shred of dignity will be stripped away from Dan Crane, and it will endure." (Does any of this sound familiar yet?) Hyde concluded movingly, "I suggest to the members that compassion and justice are not antithetical; they are complementary. The Judeo-Christian tradition says hate the sin and love the sinner. We are on record as hating the sin, some more ostentatiously than others. I think it is time to love the sinner." Bowing to Hyde and others, the House voted to censure Crane rather than expel him.
Henry Hyde was the House prosecutor in the All-Monica-All-The-Time Theatre of the Absurd that was the 2nd Clinton term. This is the same man who helped manufacture the supposed distractions that "caused 9/11," if you believe these same Republican attack dogs.
The grand finale of three days of arguments to remove the president from office came from lead prosecutor and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep Henry Hyde. He said that as "the trustee of the national conscience", Bill Clinton had shattered the trust of the American people, debased the office of the president and made himself unworthy of the honour to lead.
"No greater harm can be done than breaking the covenant of trust between the president and the people, between the three branches of our government and between the country and the world," he said.
In an attempt to reclaimed the gloss and lustre that many said he had lost in the partisan House debates, Mr Hyde addressed accusations that the prosecutors' motivations were purely political.
"These are not trivial matters, these are not partisan matters. These are matters of justice," he intoned. "It is not a question of who we hate. It's a question of what we love.
"And among the things we love is a rule of law, equal justice before the law and honour in our public life."
Submitted by redmondkr on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 3:58pm.
Just in the last few weeks Hyde made the statement that the only thing he regretted about the Clinton impeachment mess was the fact that his own extramarital dirty laundry was displayed to the world.
I just don't have the same partisan obsession fervor as you do Andy. Foley is responsbile for his actions. So by agreeing with TennesseeValues I become a "useful idiot"? Ok, carry on.
Submitted by Eleanor A on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 5:02pm.
You're also an apologist for the Republican leadership that knew all about Foley propositioning an underage boy, for at least a year, and chose to do nothing about it. What's worse is that they didn't even slyly maneuver him out of the cochairmanship of the committee that, in front of God, Uncle Sam and your grandmother's apple pie, called itself the nation's first line of protection against those who would carry out their perversions on those least able to defend themselves.
So, where's the usual pithy Republican comeback from the folks around here? I'm sure Les is already formulating a post about how this episode isn't really important because we liberals are always crying about how draconian social policies affect women and children the most.
You're also an apologist for the Republican leadership that knew all about Foley propositioning an underage boy, for at least a year, and chose to do nothing about it.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 5:20pm.
So by agreeing with TennesseeValues I become a "useful idiot"? Ok, carry on.
No. By your willful ignorance, you become a useful idiot.
Foley's "Republican-ness" has everything to do with this story.
Witness the destruction of our discourse for political purposes by the Republican Party during the Clinton Administration. Now witness those self-same morons clustering around Foley for over a year and letting him victimize God knows how many other children who were sent to Washington to work pro bono publico. And you claim Foley's party has nothing to do with this scandal??? I'll use bold letters like you do, so this point will be skull-thumpingly obvious: The GOP wittingly enabled a child predator for over a year so they wouldn't look bad in the press.
Oh, I forgot -- it's all the media's fault for pointing these things out, right?
Claiming that there's no difference between this man's alleged crimes against children and any ol' schmuck's alleged crimes against children ignores the fact that he was doing this under the aegis of Republican Congressman, with your tax money and my tax money.
If he was a Democrat, he'd be hung up by his thumbs -- just like they do at Guantanamo. To pretend any different is to be a useful idiot.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Submitted by Eleanor A on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 5:30pm.
What, I'm full of shit for calling you an apologist - which is pretty clear from what you've posted today - or for saying the Republican Congressional leadership knew about Foley's emails propositioning a kid in 2005?
I hardly think I need to Google this for you. But just in case you're somehow keyboard-impaired:
Hastert did not mention e-mails from Foley to another 16-year-old page, from Louisiana, in 2005 that triggered the initial focus on the Florida congressman. That exchange, which is not as sexually explicit as the 2003 communications, was made public on Thursday by ABC News. Hastert's office has acknowledged knowing about the 2005 incident.
Hastert's office claims these IMs "aren't as bad" as the ones from 2003. But how "bad" do they need to be? Any suggestive material aimed at an underage child under the protection of a government-sanctioned internship program is "bad" enough. Period.
This man should have at the very least been banned from contact with young people, which is what happens to any average Joe under a credible allegation of possession of pedophilic material on a computer - much less one who's suspected of actual suggestive interaction with an underaged boy.
The GOP wittingly enabled a child predator for over a year so they wouldn't look bad in the press.
Anyone of either party that knew of this behavior and did not report it should be removed from office. Anyone, like Hastert, notified of this that took no action should be removed from office. If there are laws that have been broken such as obstruction of justice they should be indited for breaking those laws.
If you will look at this thread you will notice I posted the actual emails. Pedophilia is not limited to just one party.
I would not have written the title as "Maybe Democrats will take back Congress even before the election..." with the subtitle "Another Republican resigns!". I would have written it as "Alleged pedophile cover up in Congress" with a subtitle "How can this happen?"
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
While I sympathize with your disdain for partisanship in principle, the sad truth is the Republican party has proven itself utterly incapable of policing itself. At this point there seems to be no hope for finding justice by any means other than giving Congress back to the Democrats.
How much Republican criminal behavior has gone unpunished in the Bush era? Purging of thousands of valid voters in Florida 2000, statistical vote suppression in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, state officials responsible for overseeing and certifying elections in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 also co-chairs of Bush campaign in those states, three Supreme Court Justices with conflicts of interest ruling in Gore v. Bush, installation of unreliable electronic voting machines in many states, long-term no-bid military contracts for Halliburton inked during the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks, wars prosecuted with an unprecedented level of private contracting, billions vanished, violent prison guards rejected from public prisons contracted to run military prisons, sanction and proliferation of torture, invention of arbitrary rules for detainees that contradict centuries of tradition in Western jurisprudence, unsupervised wiretapping, invention of a Pentagon office magically inserted into the intelligence hierarchy above every intelligence agency, Iranian double agent seated next to Laura Bush at 2003 SOTU and later put in charge of Iraqi oil ministry, transparently trumped-up rhetoric used to justify unprecedented pre-emptive invasion, rewriting of history as invasion rationale crumbles, stockpiles of candy and flowers intended for liberators inadvertently destroyed during "shock and awe", intelligence conduit to Middle Eastern oil industry sacrificed for political revenge, soldiers' caskets treated as public relations tokens, male prostitute passed off as a White House press corps journalist, bribery on the floor of Congress to pass health care bill, relief supplies for Gulf Coast detained and rerouted, censorship of federal scientists, abuse of signing statements, capricious reinterpretation of clean water laws in favor of mining industry and, of course, flagrant dumbfuckedness (see Branding and Public Ridicule Act of 1822).
Wow. You're right, there are more important issues than Republicans just being creeps.
Claiming that there's no difference between this man's alleged crimes against children and any ol' schmuck's alleged crimes against children ignores the fact that he was doing this under the aegis of Republican Congressman, with your tax money and my tax money.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 7:01pm.
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
Now see? Surely you can make the connection between not enabling a corrupt Republican regime and Dems taking back the Congress? And Senate, too, it's starting to look like.
Solve the iraq war problem? Dunno if the Dems can do it but the Repulicans certainly cant'.
Healthcare? ditto...
Torture? America's standing in the world? The economy? National debt? War profiteering? K street corruption?
And so on down the long list...When you get to the end of our Nations troubles, there is nothing that can be made better by keeping Republicans out of Jail. So there's not really anything more important.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 8:49pm.
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
Now where did I claim that, #9?
I did say that this scandal is a Republican scandal. I didn't "clap my hands" and certainly not with "glee." Nor did I say the Democrats could take back Congress as a result.
C'mon. You can do it. Fair and balanced.
Pedophilia is not limited to just one party.
Sure. But if a pedophile was discovered in office diddling pages (especially, but not limited to, pages of the same sex) it would not be tolerated or covered up or excused. That is what makes this case particularly abhorrent.
Look at what happened to Clinton. He had a consensual affair with an adult and the Republican party spent $70 million to prosecute him for it. And now they try to blame that persecution for the events of 9/11.
There is a difference there, and it's not a nominal difference. The fact that you refuse to see it is beyond pathetic.
They can't prosecute child predators in their midst -- there's an election soon. They can't withdraw from the failure that is Iraq -- there's an election soon. They can't purge their ranks of corrupt officials knowingly aligned with Jack Abramoff -- there's an election soon. They can't take responsibility for the failures before and after Katrina -- there's an election soon. They can't release the visitor logs for the White House to see when and with whom Abramoff and Jeff Gannon/Guckert met -- there's an election soon. They can't force Rumsfeld to resign despite his demonstrated incompetence -- there's an election soon. They can't call for a full accounting of all the money they've thrown down the shitter in the Middle East -- there's an election soon.
I'll tell you what. If this was a Democratic congressman, Rep. Boehner would be on the stump saying that anyone that didn't agree with him and his party was "objectively pro-molestation." You're either with us, or you're with the child predators.
See the difference yet? C'mon. Fair and balanced...
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
Now where did I claim that, #9?
Did not write that you did. It was a reference to the title of the thread written by WhitesCreek. You just want a fight and cannot find one.
What part of this do you not understand:
Anyone of either party that knew of this behavior and did not report it should be removed from office. Anyone, like Hastert, notified of this that took no action should be removed from office. If there are laws that have been broken such as obstruction of justice they should be indited for breaking those laws.
Submitted by Bbeanster on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 9:30pm.
Nine, surely you are aware that you're overlooking the fact that one party has appointed itself the conservator of all that is moral, right and holy, and, in fact, seeks to impose its alleged ideals on the rest of us -- whether we like it or not.
Therefore, it would be a great boon to get some relief from them.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 8:56pm.
Now did I claim that Andy? No, I didn't.
You claimed:
Neither party has much on the ball on Morality and Family Values.
As far as I've seen, only one party is implicated in covering up this man's alleged crimes for well over a year and allows him to remain in office, where he would continue to be allowed access to America's children -- our next generation of political leadership, for what it's worth.
And you think that "Neither party has much on the ball" is an excuse?
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I do not understand people that carry partisanship to the point of mental illness. The idea that either party is morally superior to the other is crazy. With the problems that have happened you would think there would be requirement that these pages be at least 18 years old.
Submitted by Number9 on Mon, 2006/10/02 - 10:36pm.
Nine, surely you are aware that you're overlooking the fact that one party has appointed itself the conservator of all that is moral, right and holy, and, in fact, seeks to impose its alleged ideals on the rest of us -- whether we like it or not.
Therefore, it would be a great boon to get some relief from them.
Of course the Republicans are hypocrites of historical and epic proportions. But are the Democrats much different? By the way, isn't the outrage over the hypocrisy short lived until the next hypocrisy?
You are correct that no party should try to be the moral judge imposing its “alleged ideals” on the individual citizen. But each party does it.
Isn't it just polling and marketing? The polls say this is what people want to hear and then the marketing guys write the copy. You don't really believe any of these people do you?
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Tue, 2006/10/03 - 7:42am.
But are the Democrats much different?...
...You don't really believe any of these people do you?
Yes they are and yes I do!
9, I think this is the core of the problem. I have yet to find one single Republican I believe when it speaks. It's all about "Me" and my friends to them, with friends meaning the "folks who help me make money."
I have seen nothing about caring for others... Protecting others...Working for the greater good...and certainly nothing whatsoever about sacrifice for the common welfare in the Republican actions.
Do I think Democrats lie? Some of them but most don't. When someone speaks a great truth in this nation, they get branded a "liberal". Liberals play fair and conservatives don't. I have chatted with Hopward Dean and I think he tells the truth, period. I have talked with John Edwards and I think he tells the truth, period. You may not like it and you may prefer to sieze upon the twisted sound bites that make Fox news, thinking that is what was actually said but it rarely is.
You owe your country more than to be a parrot for the things you hear on right wing radio and tv...If you can't evolve beyond repeating things and not investigating things for yourself to discern truth, you will take down your own country as well as your own welfare.
Start with this big lie and figure it out for yourself, "Democrats are as bad as Republicans"
...No they are not!
Are they perfect? Hell no. Do they need a knot snatched in them for being pussies? Hell yes! Are Democrats the way out of this mess...For now, they are the only way.
In truth, I see the United States as a battleground for Corporatists and Humanists...It will be a sad eternity if the Corporatists win.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Tue, 2006/10/03 - 8:10am.
Of course the Republicans are hypocrites of historical and epic proportions. But are the Democrats much different?
Yes.
Invertebrate at times, perhaps. Overly eager to sell out their constituents for lucre, sure. Easily bullied, definitely. Corruptible, granted. I could go on at length.
Hell, I was a Naderista for a time. I bought this "not a dime's worth of difference" line of bull in 2000 and cast my lot with St. Ralph. The problem with that, however, was that I ignored the bright line of difference between the team that Al Gore would have brought to bear as President, and the team that George W. Bush brought to bear.
They dreamed of a thousand years of Republican rule, and over-reached, constantly, acting from that center of hubris. And this is yet further evidence of the fact that their reach has exceeded their grasp at every damned step. Republican success has meant American failure, in a great number of ways.
If you take an honest look at this story, and drop this foolish pretense of impartiality, the difference should be readily apparent.
Just as it was when a drunken Nixon was conducting desperation bombings during Christmas of 1972, all the while conspiring to eavesdrop on his Democratic opponents... just as it was when a drunken Joe McCarthy was persecuting "communists" which he saw under every rock...
The difference is "a sense of decency."
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Nah. The difference is external. The military, judiciary and DOJ won't bend as far over for a Democrat as for a Republican, so Democrats have to aim lower and tread more gently in their corruptions. Corporate media revels in Democratic transgressions and dodges or mourns Republican misdeeds.
Decency is a rare commodity among those who can raise the funds needed to obtain federal office, and it exists largely by accident where it exists at all.
Submitted by Eleanor A on Tue, 2006/10/03 - 9:36am.
Of course the Republicans are hypocrites of historical and epic proportions. But are the Democrats much different?
Yup. Gee whiz, you know, I confuse that darn Henry Hyde and Al Gore all the time.
I'll grant that both parties are way too beholden to corporate special interests, and when viewed from a certain angle there are definite similarities. However, one doesn't have to look too far to find differences in the two parties' governing philosophies, which are stark.
I suppose I'll post a laundry list of 'em when I get a few minutes, but in a nutshell: it's truly theater of the absurd. The Republicans claim to be the party of staunch individualism, and yet they just can't stop themselves from taking government off your back and putting it under your bed. They claim to be the party of fiscal moderation, and yet they've run up more debt than any Administration in three decades.
I dunno about y'all, but I miss a Congress that still had an Ethics Committee (which the Republicans disbanded, and which could have derailed this Foley incident). I miss a government that cared about healthy air and safe food. In the era of big-business run amok, I hardly think I can count on any of that any more.
Submitted by Number9 on Tue, 2006/10/03 - 11:06am.
Not trying to pick a fight here but what happened to the big tent? I know Reagan is not the hero of many here but he did understand how to bring the country together. When you refer to people of either party as "it" instead of they that is not big tent thinking. How do you bring people to your side by insulting them? How does that work?
I am neither a Republican or a Democrat but I don't see any solutions with demonizing either party. I do not see a difference between the parties. You can call me immature or make fun of me but I do not see that you have made your case.
Why were the Foley emails sent to the press? Who sent them to the press?
Shouldn't there have been an internal Congressional investigation along with a simultaneous FBI investigation? Why was there not an FBI undercover operation to catch Foley? This is a crime. If Joe Blow did this he would be in a jail somewhere not in rehab.
On the Hastert issue, he has to go. But there should be an investigation of all leadership on both sides of the aisle. Do you support a full investigation?
Again, not trying to start a fight, but did high ranking Democrats know about this Foley issue?
Will Foley serve time? Doubtful if the past is our guide. These people are above the law because we allow it.
In 1983, then-Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts was caught in a similar situation. In his case, Studds had sex with a male teenage page — something Foley hasn't been charged with.
Did Studds express contrition? Resign? Quite the contrary. He rejected Congress' censure of him and continued to represent his district until his retirement in 1996.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Tue, 2006/10/03 - 1:27pm.
I am neither a Republican or a Democrat but I don't see any solutions with demonizing either party. I do not see a difference between the parties. You can call me immature or make fun of me but I do not see that you have made your case.
Dude, I think it's better for all concerned that we ignore you. Maturity doesn't enter into it. Neither does cheap sport.
I've seen many discussions with you here and on the Blab and never, not once, have I seen you retract a position or admit that you learned something.
You don't want to see a difference, therefore you don't see it.
That's the textbook definition of willful ignorance.
I know Reagan is not the hero of many here but he did understand how to bring the country together.
See, you try the "reasoned, impartial" act and then you completely blow whatever credibility you're attempting to build by foisting this load of horseshit into the discussion.
Reagan as uniter is a myth perpetrated by the GOP. He was a dottering old fool who wasn't fit to hold office by the end of his second term due to the advance of senility. His administration sold out this country's interests to advance his pet crises in Central America by selling weapons to Iran (the same Iran who we're now trying feverishly to disarm). He then sat on the witness stand and claimed he knew nothing about it all, despite the fact that his NSA chief, his head of Central American intelligence, a full-bird colonel, and numerous other warhawks in his White House were willingly violating the Boland Amendment and selling weapons to a sworn enemy of the US.
There were more indictments in the Reagan White House than there were in the Nixon White House. Only Bush II is putting them both to shame (if they had any, that is).
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Dude, I think it's better for all concerned that we ignore you.
Okay. You did that on the Blab.
We were having a discussion and you walk away. Again. All I said was Reagan united the country and you take your ball and go home.
It takes a big tent to solve the problems we have Andy. I hope you will come back. It will take every person we can find to get this country back on track.
"All I said was Reagan united the country and you take your ball and go home."
I come from a family where my grandfather would not allow Ronald Reagan's name to be mentioned in his presence because he considered him a draft dodger. Pops had the credentials to back up the claim in re WWII. Of course, he was also a dyed-in-the-wool trade union man who read three newspapers a day and wouldn't cross a picket line even if it meant he couldn't go to hospital (actually happened). Hell, he makes me look like Barry Friggin Goldwater.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 7:52am.
Ronald Reagan was one of the best liars we've ever had as president. Insiders considered his ability to believe his own lies to be his best trait as a conservative politician. Conservatives have been striving ever since to match Reagan's amazing ability to live in an alternate universe with no relationship to reality.
9, even though we can tell that you are trying really hard, you'll never live up to expectations.
Hell, he makes me look like Barry Friggin Goldwater.
Did you see the Goldwater film on HBO? Goldwater said in the future people would consider him a liberal. Take out his ideas on nuclear weapons in Vietnam and he did have some liberal viewpoints from today's perspective.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 9:40am.
Did you see the Goldwater film on HBO? Goldwater said in the future people would consider him a liberal. Take out his ideas on nuclear weapons in Vietnam and he did have some liberal viewpoints from today's perspective.
That's a convenient rescribbling of history.
Sounds a lot like, "If you take the mass slaughter of the Cambodian people out of the picture, Pol Pot was actually pretty moderate."
Of course, it's always types like Goldwater and Nixon who get the post-mortal hagiography treatment. Even McCarthy (Joe, not Eugene) has avid fans nowadays.
If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern--but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.
Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.
Over the top, perhaps. But honest.
I've been waiting for some time for Kissinger to kick the bucket. Of course, few will mention "war criminal" in his passing, but he's one guy who has to be really careful flying into Europe for fear of being busted by Interpol.
Of course, aside from his role in encouraging the assassination of the democratically elected leader of Chile and illegally expanding the Vietnam War into Cambodia, he was an OK Joe! Right?
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Submitted by Eleanor A on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 9:52am.
Bob Woodward was just mentioning the two dozen or so meetings Bush has held with Kissinger in the last couple of years on Larry King. Not that that info ought to surprise anybody.
Reagan managed to singlehandedly undo most of this country's consumer protections and Great Society programs nearly overnight. Excuse us if we're not falling all over ourselves singing his praises.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 7:53am.
We were having a discussion and you walk away. Again. All I said was Reagan united the country and you take your ball and go home.
I didn't take my ball anywhere. You didn't bother responding to what I'd said until yesterday. I'd posted what I had to say about it on Monday. I have this thing called a job and sometimes I don't have the time to respond to every specious and spurious thing to escape your festering maw.
I just said it would be better for all concerned if you were put out on an ice floe and left floating with your collection of hobby horses. Why anyone bothers (me included) remains a mystery.
It takes a big tent to solve the problems we have Andy. I hope you will come back.
Like I said, I never left. It'll take more than an intellectually stunted troll or a couple of pseudo-libertarian gun nuts to drive me off of this site.
What "big tent" do you offer? All I've seen is your ideal of a diseased Reagan and the Big Lie that he brought us all together. If that's your idea of a big tent, I think I'll look elsewhere. If the only tent available has the three ring circus of Ten Commandments, trickle-down, and torture, it isn't my bag.
It will take every person we can find to get this country back on track.
Especially when we have Reaganite brownshirts ripping out the rails every time we make actual forward progress.
It's morning in America again!
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On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I didn't realize the mere mention of the name Reagan would invoke such a reaction. So Andy if someone doesn't agree with you they become a "intellectually stunted troll" or "pseudo-libertarian gun nuts". Is there a third choice?
The point overlooked in the Reagan hysteria is that one way or another people need to come together. A big tent or a new third party that actually works are the only two solutions I see. But if you cannot recruit people to your side of the aisle and you are unwilling to cross the aisle perhaps a third party is the only solution.
I don't know if you saw the debate last night at West High School. Two Republicans were trying to see who was the most Republican. One of them is a Democrat. Still maintain there is a difference between these two parties?
Submitted by Eleanor A on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 9:16am.
I just don't get this attitude from people around here who lump all lefties into this "weak-kneed, cowardly liberal" category. Yet, they never seem to think their attitudes are anything other than uniquely their own, and yet with a dash of rakish independence.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 9:22am.
"The problem with House Republicans is that they just can't get on the same Page."
9, It's not the name Reagan that sets me off. It's the moronic suggestion you made that he "brought the country together"...Reagan's gift to the right wing was that he was willing to sell out to enough members of the lunatic fringe that he managed a coalition of enough high percentage voting blocks to win elections. That coalition is crashing down around the republican ears as we type, because of it's inherent incompatability.
I, for one, plan to enjoy the spectacle while working to save what's left of our country.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 9:21am.
I didn't realize the mere mention of the name Reagan would invoke such a reaction.
a) "Mere mention?" Nah. It was the assertion coupled with it.
If you said, "Reagan was a mentally impaired God botherer who saw fit to sell us out to a rogue state," I would have agreed with you.
Rewriting events is something you're pretty handy at. You sure you don't work for the Knoxville News Slantinel?
b) You knew 100% well that you were trying to provoke a reaction. So stop with the clutching of the pearls. This ain't no Margaret Mitchell novel.
So Andy if someone doesn't agree with you they become a "intellectually stunted troll" or "pseudo-libertarian gun nuts". Is there a third choice?
No, if someone is a pseudo-libertarian gun nut, they become a pseudo-libertarian gun nut. If someone is an intellectually stunted troll, they become an intellectually stunted troll. This is "calling 'em as I see 'em."
But if you want to go for monomaniac wanker, neo-con apologist, Reaganite brownshirt, blathering inbreed, overstimulated talk-radio patsy, delusional forum sidemouse, or Boortzian blowhard again, go for it. The world is full of options for you.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Submitted by Number9 on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 10:01am.
Rewriting events is something you're pretty handy at. You sure you don't work for the Knoxville News Slantinel?
No one will ever mistake you for a moderate Andy. Your black and white views don't make a lot of sense. Republicans are evil and Democrats are pure is a tough pitch.
Having lived through both Carter and Reagan terms how do you see that the country did come together during Reagan's term? Was it just happenstance or do you reject completely that the country came together in those eight years?
I still don't get how you plan to achieve your objective. You will not go to the other side and you will not recruit people to your side. So what is your purpose?
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 10:37am.
No one will ever mistake you for a moderate Andy. Your black and white views don't make a lot of sense. Republicans are evil and Democrats are pure is a tough pitch.
It sure is. And never once did I make that pitch.
Go back and read what I actually wrote. I even admitted to voting for Nader.
Having lived through both Carter and Reagan terms how do you see that the country did come together during Reagan's term? Was it just happenstance or do you reject completely that the country came together in those eight years?
Why don't you tell me how the country came together. You made the assertion. Aside from his electoral college margin against Mondale, I have no idea where you get this idea that Reagan united America.
I still don't get how you plan to achieve your objective. You will not go to the other side and you will not recruit people to your side.
You know nothing of my "objectives" and "purposes."
I believe you simply make the mistake of thinking that my participation here is the be-all and end-all of my political existence.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Submitted by Number9 on Wed, 2006/10/04 - 11:24am.
Why don't you tell me how the country came together. You made the assertion. Aside from his electoral college margin against Mondale, I have no idea where you get this idea that Reagan united America.
The point was that Reagan found a way to get people, Democrats, to walk across the aisle. Yes, that was a reference to Mondale but it was also to Carter. As inflation and gas prices came down and people could buy houses and cars the mood of the country improved significantly. It was more than just the two elections.
I can see the good that both Carter and Clinton did. I can also see the harm that Reagan did. I didn't vote for Reagan the first term. Really disliked him back at that time. Really liked Carter when he was President.
That's an unfounded rumor!!!!!
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Wow.
---
SayUncle
Can't we all just get a long gun?
even more bizarre...Congress actually has a House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children ? Whats next? House Caucus on why water is wet and fire is hot?
A visit to Foley's web site would have you believing that he has been the spearhead for all of Congress' efforts to protect children. If the allegations are true, this could be another Clear Skies Initiative.
Whats next? House Caucus on why water is wet and fire is hot?
No. Republicans are all about Morality and Family Values. Haven't you been paying attention?
Sick stuff.
This is old hat and non-partisan. Here is the brief history of the others. Neither party has much on the ball on Morality and Family Values.
Neither party has much on the ball on Morality and Family Values.
No, but one party sells itself almost solely on the premise that they and only they do. On that and national security. Heh.
_________________________________
Bush cut and ran from Afghanistan
Like he did the Guard in Alabam'
_________________________________
Never has the left been so right.
Previously:
"Congressman Mark Foley's office says the e-mails were entirely appropriate and that their release is part of a smear campaign by his opponent."
"Congressman Mark Foley's office says the e-mails were entirely appropriate and that their release is part of a smear campaign by his opponent."
This may throw a bit of light on this "smear campaign".
Lets just add him to the list of Republican Sex Offenders:
* Republican Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned from Congress after "sexually explicit" emails surfaced showing him flirting with a 16-year old boy.
* Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper was arrested for soliciting sex from a 13-year old girl on the internet.
* Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.
* Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
* Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
* Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.
* Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano was arrested for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl.
* Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
* Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
* Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.
* Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
* Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
* Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
* Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
* Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
* Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
* Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.
* Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
* Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
* Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.
* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
* Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
* Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
* Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
* Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
* Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
* Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
* Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl.
* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.
* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
* Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
* Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.
* Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
* Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.
* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
I'm going to need more memory!
gttim, Your list makes it kind of sound as if the Republican party is a front for a child molestation ring.
While I'm no friend of the "neo-cons" (I refuse to call them Republicans, because so many of them aren't. Have I mentioned lately that I miss the Republicans?), I would point out to gttim and others that sexual offenses are not exclusive to the Republican party. I'm sure one could compile a good long list of Democrat-affiliated folks (especially since the list reaches down to local offices like councilmen and county officials across the nation).
That argument is no more meaningful than the neo-con argument that Democrats or liberals are all unmarried gay athiests.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story. If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story. If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
Bravo. At least one other person gets it.
I believe the point that is being made here is the fact that a great number of so-called Republicans have been throwing a lot of rocks from their glass houses. Many, many Democrats have suffered from ethics problems, but the Democratic platform doesn't beat us with a holier-than-thou plank.
9 said: Bravo. At least one other person gets it.
There are at least two that don't.
Lemme see if this works: You like to boink underage boys and you are an over aged boy...you go to jail, not the US Congress. Your party's leadership covers for your tendencies. They should go to jail too. You should not grandstand and sponsor legislation to deal with child molestors while being covered for by your party's leadership while molesting underaged boys. You should not make speeches against gay marriage. You should not have your party's chairman make speeches supporting you party's stance against gay people while he himself is gay.
You're gay? No problem.
You're a Hypocrite?...You Suck!
"It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction." - Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach on the Clinton impeachment.
You're a Hypocrite?...You Suck!
Steve, your problem is that you are not very happy.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite.
Well, 9...None of the rest of us expected you to get that one. You are consistent if nothing else.
I'm happy about that...And...Ga Tech is leading Va Tech for now. May not last but then happiness is so fleeting and must be experienced for the ephemeral kiss that it is.
It's the cover up that is the story. Sure the guy was a predator (plenty of people on the Left who have be caught out too), but Hastert was actively covering this up.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
I would point out to gttim and others that sexual offenses are not exclusive to the Republican party. I'm sure one could compile a good long list of Democrat-affiliated folks (especially since the list reaches down to local offices like councilmen and county officials across the nation).
Well, put the list together. The only one I have seen attempted by a wingnut on Democrats was less than 12 names long, was mostly in the 80's and 90's, and was almost all consensual sex between adults- i.e. mistresses. With all the time wingnuts spend doing crap like this on the interent for their mass emails against any Democrat they do not like, if it was possible it would have already been done.
That argument is no more meaningful than the neo-con argument that Democrats or liberals are all unmarried gay athiests.
Yes it is. The incidents of high up Republicans who preach religion and family values being pedofiles is very high, and is certainly more than the general population. Crap it appears to higher than the incident of pedofiles amoung Catholic priests.
At some point, we have to address issues and not simply attack people because the wrong letter appears in parentheses behind their name in the press story.
The issue is that the GOP preaches one thing and does another, so it is a matter of what letter is behind their name. If one party tends to publically condem pedofiles while they are secretly pedofiles themselves, then this issue needs to be explored and addressed. This needs to be done in the GOP and the church.
If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
But because he is a Republican it was covered up and still would be covered up if it had not leaked by other means. If Hassert knew this about a Dem, he would have been calling press conferences last year. Clinton gets damned for having an affair with a consenting adult because he was a Dem but Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich get a walk because they are Republicans. Foley needs to be condemned for being a sexual predator, but the GOP needs to condemned for covering it up and for not calling the FBI on him when they learned of it only because he was a Republican.
All this was done to protect the Republican majority. Don't even get me started on the hypocrisy.
My sources tell me that Dennis Hastert had the solution to the Foley embarrassment in hand but the press beat him to the punch. He had been planning to announce at the close of the session that Mr. Foley had, regrettably decided to change parties and become a Democrat.
Now, instead, it seems that he is a "troubled young man" who surprised everybody in his party with this dastardly deed.
Faux News has analysts working overtime to ascertain Mr. Foley's exact ties with the Clinton Administration.
A couple of the lefty blogs are making the case that Hastert, et al, covered this up because Foley had drawn a well-funded challenger - and it would have cost them a couple million dollars to come up with a candidate and start from scratch to elect him.
If guilty Foley deserves all the scorn and punishment to be heaped upon him but it should be because he's a potential child molester, not because he's a potential Republican child molester.
That is ridiculous. The Republicans impeached a Democratic President for consensual sex, and you're trying to claim they wouldn't have brushed it under the rug were it one of their own? I think we've just seen crystal-clear evidence of exactly how that wouldn't have been the case.
I, for one, am tired of having my personal conduct, character, and morals smeared by the likes of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Frist, when between the three of them there's enough prescription medication and divorce paperwork to fill the Atlantic. Pretending the Republicans don't grandstand on some supposed moral weakness held by liberals is disingenous at best and malevolent at worst.
This after they allowed a male prostitute a blue-pass, top-secret credential to the West Wing of the White House. The hypocrisy is truly mindboggling.
Although, you know, actually, I'm enjoying this. The Republicans thought they'd control Congress forever, so they played partisan hardball and now they're crying like kindergarteners because they don't have any bipartisan support and they aren't getting cut any slack by opinion leaders. It'll be wonderful to watch Hastert and company so tied up defending their conduct on the Foley scandal that they don't have time to pile on October-surprise dirty tricks and personal-smear-style attack ads.
Here's a blast from the past:
Link...
Henry Hyde was the House prosecutor in the All-Monica-All-The-Time Theatre of the Absurd that was the 2nd Clinton term. This is the same man who helped manufacture the supposed distractions that "caused 9/11," if you believe these same Republican attack dogs.
Link...
These people have no shame.
And Number 9 is a useful idiot for the shameless.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Just in the last few weeks Hyde made the statement that the only thing he regretted about the Clinton impeachment mess was the fact that his own extramarital dirty laundry was displayed to the world.
And Number 9 is a useful idiot for the shameless.
I just don't have the same partisan
obsessionfervor as you do Andy. Foley is responsbile for his actions. So by agreeing with TennesseeValues I become a "useful idiot"? Ok, carry on.You're also an apologist for the Republican leadership that knew all about Foley propositioning an underage boy, for at least a year, and chose to do nothing about it. What's worse is that they didn't even slyly maneuver him out of the cochairmanship of the committee that, in front of God, Uncle Sam and your grandmother's apple pie, called itself the nation's first line of protection against those who would carry out their perversions on those least able to defend themselves.
So, where's the usual pithy Republican comeback from the folks around here? I'm sure Les is already formulating a post about how this episode isn't really important because we liberals are always crying about how draconian social policies affect women and children the most.
You're also an apologist for the Republican leadership that knew all about Foley propositioning an underage boy, for at least a year, and chose to do nothing about it.
You are full of shit. Prove it.
No. By your willful ignorance, you become a useful idiot.
Foley's "Republican-ness" has everything to do with this story.
Witness the destruction of our discourse for political purposes by the Republican Party during the Clinton Administration. Now witness those self-same morons clustering around Foley for over a year and letting him victimize God knows how many other children who were sent to Washington to work pro bono publico. And you claim Foley's party has nothing to do with this scandal??? I'll use bold letters like you do, so this point will be skull-thumpingly obvious: The GOP wittingly enabled a child predator for over a year so they wouldn't look bad in the press.
Oh, I forgot -- it's all the media's fault for pointing these things out, right?
Claiming that there's no difference between this man's alleged crimes against children and any ol' schmuck's alleged crimes against children ignores the fact that he was doing this under the aegis of Republican Congressman, with your tax money and my tax money.
If he was a Democrat, he'd be hung up by his thumbs -- just like they do at Guantanamo. To pretend any different is to be a useful idiot.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
What, I'm full of shit for calling you an apologist - which is pretty clear from what you've posted today - or for saying the Republican Congressional leadership knew about Foley's emails propositioning a kid in 2005?
I hardly think I need to Google this for you. But just in case you're somehow keyboard-impaired:
Link...
Hastert's office claims these IMs "aren't as bad" as the ones from 2003. But how "bad" do they need to be? Any suggestive material aimed at an underage child under the protection of a government-sanctioned internship program is "bad" enough. Period.
This man should have at the very least been banned from contact with young people, which is what happens to any average Joe under a credible allegation of possession of pedophilic material on a computer - much less one who's suspected of actual suggestive interaction with an underaged boy.
The GOP wittingly enabled a child predator for over a year so they wouldn't look bad in the press.
Anyone of either party that knew of this behavior and did not report it should be removed from office. Anyone, like Hastert, notified of this that took no action should be removed from office. If there are laws that have been broken such as obstruction of justice they should be indited for breaking those laws.
If you will look at this thread you will notice I posted the actual emails. Pedophilia is not limited to just one party.
I would not have written the title as "Maybe Democrats will take back Congress even before the election..." with the subtitle "Another Republican resigns!". I would have written it as "Alleged pedophile cover up in Congress" with a subtitle "How can this happen?"
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
While I sympathize with your disdain for partisanship in principle, the sad truth is the Republican party has proven itself utterly incapable of policing itself. At this point there seems to be no hope for finding justice by any means other than giving Congress back to the Democrats.
How much Republican criminal behavior has gone unpunished in the Bush era? Purging of thousands of valid voters in Florida 2000, statistical vote suppression in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, state officials responsible for overseeing and certifying elections in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 also co-chairs of Bush campaign in those states, three Supreme Court Justices with conflicts of interest ruling in Gore v. Bush, installation of unreliable electronic voting machines in many states, long-term no-bid military contracts for Halliburton inked during the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks, wars prosecuted with an unprecedented level of private contracting, billions vanished, violent prison guards rejected from public prisons contracted to run military prisons, sanction and proliferation of torture, invention of arbitrary rules for detainees that contradict centuries of tradition in Western jurisprudence, unsupervised wiretapping, invention of a Pentagon office magically inserted into the intelligence hierarchy above every intelligence agency, Iranian double agent seated next to Laura Bush at 2003 SOTU and later put in charge of Iraqi oil ministry, transparently trumped-up rhetoric used to justify unprecedented pre-emptive invasion, rewriting of history as invasion rationale crumbles, stockpiles of candy and flowers intended for liberators inadvertently destroyed during "shock and awe", intelligence conduit to Middle Eastern oil industry sacrificed for political revenge, soldiers' caskets treated as public relations tokens, male prostitute passed off as a White House press corps journalist, bribery on the floor of Congress to pass health care bill, relief supplies for Gulf Coast detained and rerouted, censorship of federal scientists, abuse of signing statements, capricious reinterpretation of clean water laws in favor of mining industry and, of course, flagrant dumbfuckedness (see Branding and Public Ridicule Act of 1822).
Wow. You're right, there are more important issues than Republicans just being creeps.
Claiming that there's no difference between this man's alleged crimes against children and any ol' schmuck's alleged crimes against children ignores the fact that he was doing this under the aegis of Republican Congressman, with your tax money and my tax money.
Now did I claim that Andy? No, I didn't.
Fair and balanced, you can do it.
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
Now see? Surely you can make the connection between not enabling a corrupt Republican regime and Dems taking back the Congress? And Senate, too, it's starting to look like.
Solve the iraq war problem? Dunno if the Dems can do it but the Repulicans certainly cant'.
Healthcare? ditto...
Torture? America's standing in the world? The economy? National debt? War profiteering? K street corruption?
And so on down the long list...When you get to the end of our Nations troubles, there is nothing that can be made better by keeping Republicans out of Jail. So there's not really anything more important.
Now where did I claim that, #9?
I did say that this scandal is a Republican scandal. I didn't "clap my hands" and certainly not with "glee." Nor did I say the Democrats could take back Congress as a result.
C'mon. You can do it. Fair and balanced.
Sure. But if a pedophile was discovered in office diddling pages (especially, but not limited to, pages of the same sex) it would not be tolerated or covered up or excused. That is what makes this case particularly abhorrent.
Look at what happened to Clinton. He had a consensual affair with an adult and the Republican party spent $70 million to prosecute him for it. And now they try to blame that persecution for the events of 9/11.
There is a difference there, and it's not a nominal difference. The fact that you refuse to see it is beyond pathetic.
They can't prosecute child predators in their midst -- there's an election soon. They can't withdraw from the failure that is Iraq -- there's an election soon. They can't purge their ranks of corrupt officials knowingly aligned with Jack Abramoff -- there's an election soon. They can't take responsibility for the failures before and after Katrina -- there's an election soon. They can't release the visitor logs for the White House to see when and with whom Abramoff and Jeff Gannon/Guckert met -- there's an election soon. They can't force Rumsfeld to resign despite his demonstrated incompetence -- there's an election soon. They can't call for a full accounting of all the money they've thrown down the shitter in the Middle East -- there's an election soon.
I'll tell you what. If this was a Democratic congressman, Rep. Boehner would be on the stump saying that anyone that didn't agree with him and his party was "objectively pro-molestation." You're either with us, or you're with the child predators.
See the difference yet? C'mon. Fair and balanced...
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I think it is just a little sick to clap your hands together with glee and think only of how the Democrats can take back Congress. There are more important issues involved.
Now where did I claim that, #9?
Did not write that you did. It was a reference to the title of the thread written by WhitesCreek. You just want a fight and cannot find one.
What part of this do you not understand:
Anyone of either party that knew of this behavior and did not report it should be removed from office. Anyone, like Hastert, notified of this that took no action should be removed from office. If there are laws that have been broken such as obstruction of justice they should be indited for breaking those laws.
Nine, surely you are aware that you're overlooking the fact that one party has appointed itself the conservator of all that is moral, right and holy, and, in fact, seeks to impose its alleged ideals on the rest of us -- whether we like it or not.
Therefore, it would be a great boon to get some relief from them.
You claimed:
As far as I've seen, only one party is implicated in covering up this man's alleged crimes for well over a year and allows him to remain in office, where he would continue to be allowed access to America's children -- our next generation of political leadership, for what it's worth.
And you think that "Neither party has much on the ball" is an excuse?
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I do not understand people that carry partisanship to the point of mental illness. The idea that either party is morally superior to the other is crazy. With the problems that have happened you would think there would be requirement that these pages be at least 18 years old.
"I do not understand people" who cannot deal with the facts and have to resort to name calling to the point of mental illness.
9..." It's the Hypocrisy, Stupid!"
A visit to Foley's web site
The site has been pulled. A visit to house.gov with a search for Foley, Mark shows a vacancy. These guys work fast.
Washington Post
The House leadership will be facing some interesting questions the next few days.
Time for another terror alert?
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Nine, surely you are aware that you're overlooking the fact that one party has appointed itself the conservator of all that is moral, right and holy, and, in fact, seeks to impose its alleged ideals on the rest of us -- whether we like it or not.
Therefore, it would be a great boon to get some relief from them.
Of course the Republicans are hypocrites of historical and epic proportions. But are the Democrats much different? By the way, isn't the outrage over the hypocrisy short lived until the next hypocrisy?
You are correct that no party should try to be the moral judge imposing its “alleged ideals” on the individual citizen. But each party does it.
Isn't it just polling and marketing? The polls say this is what people want to hear and then the marketing guys write the copy. You don't really believe any of these people do you?
But are the Democrats much different?...
...You don't really believe any of these people do you?
Yes they are and yes I do!
9, I think this is the core of the problem. I have yet to find one single Republican I believe when it speaks. It's all about "Me" and my friends to them, with friends meaning the "folks who help me make money."
I have seen nothing about caring for others... Protecting others...Working for the greater good...and certainly nothing whatsoever about sacrifice for the common welfare in the Republican actions.
Do I think Democrats lie? Some of them but most don't. When someone speaks a great truth in this nation, they get branded a "liberal". Liberals play fair and conservatives don't. I have chatted with Hopward Dean and I think he tells the truth, period. I have talked with John Edwards and I think he tells the truth, period. You may not like it and you may prefer to sieze upon the twisted sound bites that make Fox news, thinking that is what was actually said but it rarely is.
You owe your country more than to be a parrot for the things you hear on right wing radio and tv...If you can't evolve beyond repeating things and not investigating things for yourself to discern truth, you will take down your own country as well as your own welfare.
Start with this big lie and figure it out for yourself, "Democrats are as bad as Republicans"
...No they are not!
Are they perfect? Hell no. Do they need a knot snatched in them for being pussies? Hell yes! Are Democrats the way out of this mess...For now, they are the only way.
In truth, I see the United States as a battleground for Corporatists and Humanists...It will be a sad eternity if the Corporatists win.
Steve
Yes.
Invertebrate at times, perhaps. Overly eager to sell out their constituents for lucre, sure. Easily bullied, definitely. Corruptible, granted. I could go on at length.
Hell, I was a Naderista for a time. I bought this "not a dime's worth of difference" line of bull in 2000 and cast my lot with St. Ralph. The problem with that, however, was that I ignored the bright line of difference between the team that Al Gore would have brought to bear as President, and the team that George W. Bush brought to bear.
They dreamed of a thousand years of Republican rule, and over-reached, constantly, acting from that center of hubris. And this is yet further evidence of the fact that their reach has exceeded their grasp at every damned step. Republican success has meant American failure, in a great number of ways.
If you take an honest look at this story, and drop this foolish pretense of impartiality, the difference should be readily apparent.
Just as it was when a drunken Nixon was conducting desperation bombings during Christmas of 1972, all the while conspiring to eavesdrop on his Democratic opponents... just as it was when a drunken Joe McCarthy was persecuting "communists" which he saw under every rock...
The difference is "a sense of decency."
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
The difference is "a sense of decency."
Nah. The difference is external. The military, judiciary and DOJ won't bend as far over for a Democrat as for a Republican, so Democrats have to aim lower and tread more gently in their corruptions. Corporate media revels in Democratic transgressions and dodges or mourns Republican misdeeds.
Decency is a rare commodity among those who can raise the funds needed to obtain federal office, and it exists largely by accident where it exists at all.
Of course the Republicans are hypocrites of historical and epic proportions. But are the Democrats much different?
Yup. Gee whiz, you know, I confuse that darn Henry Hyde and Al Gore all the time.
I'll grant that both parties are way too beholden to corporate special interests, and when viewed from a certain angle there are definite similarities. However, one doesn't have to look too far to find differences in the two parties' governing philosophies, which are stark.
I suppose I'll post a laundry list of 'em when I get a few minutes, but in a nutshell: it's truly theater of the absurd. The Republicans claim to be the party of staunch individualism, and yet they just can't stop themselves from taking government off your back and putting it under your bed. They claim to be the party of fiscal moderation, and yet they've run up more debt than any Administration in three decades.
I dunno about y'all, but I miss a Congress that still had an Ethics Committee (which the Republicans disbanded, and which could have derailed this Foley incident). I miss a government that cared about healthy air and safe food. In the era of big-business run amok, I hardly think I can count on any of that any more.
Bill Clinton left this country with a budget surplus, and stayed out of your bedroom.
Well, unless you were cute. Or at least available.
Not trying to pick a fight here but what happened to the big tent? I know Reagan is not the hero of many here but he did understand how to bring the country together. When you refer to people of either party as "it" instead of they that is not big tent thinking. How do you bring people to your side by insulting them? How does that work?
I am neither a Republican or a Democrat but I don't see any solutions with demonizing either party. I do not see a difference between the parties. You can call me immature or make fun of me but I do not see that you have made your case.
Why were the Foley emails sent to the press? Who sent them to the press?
Shouldn't there have been an internal Congressional investigation along with a simultaneous FBI investigation? Why was there not an FBI undercover operation to catch Foley? This is a crime. If Joe Blow did this he would be in a jail somewhere not in rehab.
On the Hastert issue, he has to go. But there should be an investigation of all leadership on both sides of the aisle. Do you support a full investigation?
Again, not trying to start a fight, but did high ranking Democrats know about this Foley issue?
Will Foley serve time? Doubtful if the past is our guide. These people are above the law because we allow it.
What happened with Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts?
Dude, I think it's better for all concerned that we ignore you. Maturity doesn't enter into it. Neither does cheap sport.
I've seen many discussions with you here and on the Blab and never, not once, have I seen you retract a position or admit that you learned something.
You don't want to see a difference, therefore you don't see it.
That's the textbook definition of willful ignorance.
See, you try the "reasoned, impartial" act and then you completely blow whatever credibility you're attempting to build by foisting this load of horseshit into the discussion.
Reagan as uniter is a myth perpetrated by the GOP. He was a dottering old fool who wasn't fit to hold office by the end of his second term due to the advance of senility. His administration sold out this country's interests to advance his pet crises in Central America by selling weapons to Iran (the same Iran who we're now trying feverishly to disarm). He then sat on the witness stand and claimed he knew nothing about it all, despite the fact that his NSA chief, his head of Central American intelligence, a full-bird colonel, and numerous other warhawks in his White House were willingly violating the Boland Amendment and selling weapons to a sworn enemy of the US.
There were more indictments in the Reagan White House than there were in the Nixon White House. Only Bush II is putting them both to shame (if they had any, that is).
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Dude, I think it's better for all concerned that we ignore you.
Okay. You did that on the Blab.
We were having a discussion and you walk away. Again. All I said was Reagan united the country and you take your ball and go home.
It takes a big tent to solve the problems we have Andy. I hope you will come back. It will take every person we can find to get this country back on track.
"All I said was Reagan united the country and you take your ball and go home."
I come from a family where my grandfather would not allow Ronald Reagan's name to be mentioned in his presence because he considered him a draft dodger. Pops had the credentials to back up the claim in re WWII. Of course, he was also a dyed-in-the-wool trade union man who read three newspapers a day and wouldn't cross a picket line even if it meant he couldn't go to hospital (actually happened). Hell, he makes me look like Barry Friggin Goldwater.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Ronald Reagan was one of the best liars we've ever had as president. Insiders considered his ability to believe his own lies to be his best trait as a conservative politician. Conservatives have been striving ever since to match Reagan's amazing ability to live in an alternate universe with no relationship to reality.
9, even though we can tell that you are trying really hard, you'll never live up to expectations.
Hell, he makes me look like Barry Friggin Goldwater.
Did you see the Goldwater film on HBO? Goldwater said in the future people would consider him a liberal. Take out his ideas on nuclear weapons in Vietnam and he did have some liberal viewpoints from today's perspective.
That's a convenient rescribbling of history.
Sounds a lot like, "If you take the mass slaughter of the Cambodian people out of the picture, Pol Pot was actually pretty moderate."
Of course, it's always types like Goldwater and Nixon who get the post-mortal hagiography treatment. Even McCarthy (Joe, not Eugene) has avid fans nowadays.
Me, I always liked this eulogy for Richard Nixon:
Over the top, perhaps. But honest.
I've been waiting for some time for Kissinger to kick the bucket. Of course, few will mention "war criminal" in his passing, but he's one guy who has to be really careful flying into Europe for fear of being busted by Interpol.
Of course, aside from his role in encouraging the assassination of the democratically elected leader of Chile and illegally expanding the Vietnam War into Cambodia, he was an OK Joe! Right?
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Bob Woodward was just mentioning the two dozen or so meetings Bush has held with Kissinger in the last couple of years on Larry King. Not that that info ought to surprise anybody.
Reagan managed to singlehandedly undo most of this country's consumer protections and Great Society programs nearly overnight. Excuse us if we're not falling all over ourselves singing his praises.
I didn't take my ball anywhere. You didn't bother responding to what I'd said until yesterday. I'd posted what I had to say about it on Monday. I have this thing called a job and sometimes I don't have the time to respond to every specious and spurious thing to escape your festering maw.
I just said it would be better for all concerned if you were put out on an ice floe and left floating with your collection of hobby horses. Why anyone bothers (me included) remains a mystery.
Like I said, I never left. It'll take more than an intellectually stunted troll or a couple of pseudo-libertarian gun nuts to drive me off of this site.
What "big tent" do you offer? All I've seen is your ideal of a diseased Reagan and the Big Lie that he brought us all together. If that's your idea of a big tent, I think I'll look elsewhere. If the only tent available has the three ring circus of Ten Commandments, trickle-down, and torture, it isn't my bag.
Especially when we have Reaganite brownshirts ripping out the rails every time we make actual forward progress.
It's morning in America again!
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
I didn't realize the mere mention of the name Reagan would invoke such a reaction. So Andy if someone doesn't agree with you they become a "intellectually stunted troll" or "pseudo-libertarian gun nuts". Is there a third choice?
The point overlooked in the Reagan hysteria is that one way or another people need to come together. A big tent or a new third party that actually works are the only two solutions I see. But if you cannot recruit people to your side of the aisle and you are unwilling to cross the aisle perhaps a third party is the only solution.
I don't know if you saw the debate last night at West High School. Two Republicans were trying to see who was the most Republican. One of them is a Democrat. Still maintain there is a difference between these two parties?
I just don't get this attitude from people around here who lump all lefties into this "weak-kneed, cowardly liberal" category. Yet, they never seem to think their attitudes are anything other than uniquely their own, and yet with a dash of rakish independence.
"The problem with House Republicans is that they just can't get on the same Page."
9, It's not the name Reagan that sets me off. It's the moronic suggestion you made that he "brought the country together"...Reagan's gift to the right wing was that he was willing to sell out to enough members of the lunatic fringe that he managed a coalition of enough high percentage voting blocks to win elections. That coalition is crashing down around the republican ears as we type, because of it's inherent incompatability.
I, for one, plan to enjoy the spectacle while working to save what's left of our country.
a) "Mere mention?" Nah. It was the assertion coupled with it.
If you said, "Reagan was a mentally impaired God botherer who saw fit to sell us out to a rogue state," I would have agreed with you.
Rewriting events is something you're pretty handy at. You sure you don't work for the Knoxville News Slantinel?
b) You knew 100% well that you were trying to provoke a reaction. So stop with the clutching of the pearls. This ain't no Margaret Mitchell novel.
No, if someone is a pseudo-libertarian gun nut, they become a pseudo-libertarian gun nut. If someone is an intellectually stunted troll, they become an intellectually stunted troll. This is "calling 'em as I see 'em."
But if you want to go for monomaniac wanker, neo-con apologist, Reaganite brownshirt, blathering inbreed, overstimulated talk-radio patsy, delusional forum sidemouse, or Boortzian blowhard again, go for it. The world is full of options for you.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Rewriting events is something you're pretty handy at. You sure you don't work for the Knoxville News Slantinel?
No one will ever mistake you for a moderate Andy. Your black and white views don't make a lot of sense. Republicans are evil and Democrats are pure is a tough pitch.
Having lived through both Carter and Reagan terms how do you see that the country did come together during Reagan's term? Was it just happenstance or do you reject completely that the country came together in those eight years?
I still don't get how you plan to achieve your objective. You will not go to the other side and you will not recruit people to your side. So what is your purpose?
It sure is. And never once did I make that pitch.
Go back and read what I actually wrote. I even admitted to voting for Nader.
Why don't you tell me how the country came together. You made the assertion. Aside from his electoral college margin against Mondale, I have no idea where you get this idea that Reagan united America.
You know nothing of my "objectives" and "purposes."
I believe you simply make the mistake of thinking that my participation here is the be-all and end-all of my political existence.
____________________________
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning. --H. Thoreau
Why don't you tell me how the country came together. You made the assertion. Aside from his electoral college margin against Mondale, I have no idea where you get this idea that Reagan united America.
The point was that Reagan found a way to get people, Democrats, to walk across the aisle. Yes, that was a reference to Mondale but it was also to Carter. As inflation and gas prices came down and people could buy houses and cars the mood of the country improved significantly. It was more than just the two elections.
I can see the good that both Carter and Clinton did. I can also see the harm that Reagan did. I didn't vote for Reagan the first term. Really disliked him back at that time. Really liked Carter when he was President.
Did you hear Reagan didn't win the Cold War? The official scorer said he just earned a save.
Congratulations on your promotion.
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