Foley just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser

[hootinholler]

So, If I have this straight, Lenny Disastert had Foley (MBLA candidate of the year, just wait) by the short and curlies and he gives him up now? Hmmm, maybe he didn't give him up? I wonder what this knowledge cost us that year.

Begs the question of who turned him in and why? Was he made an example of or just thrown under the bus?

While I'm just asking random questions, How long were Delay or Cunningham in the leadership's pockets?

Isn't this probable cause to have a Grand Jury check into? I think we need an amendment that creates a fourth branch that only investigates and prosecutes in the normal courts, elected officials and appointees. They would be allowed to view any document, or other correspondence.

What'sss in itsss pocketsss? Hmmmm? Apologies to Tolkien.

-Hoot

[babylonsister]

1. The repugs have known about this for a year? Why now?

Distraction at the expense of Foley? Against Iraq, Woodward, Abramoff? The mind boggles!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. its good blackmail stuff

and maybe there are others involved.

Some of you folks must not be aware of simliar but larger scandal
during the Reagan years, when young male prostitutes were given
a night time tour of the White House.

Sex scandal with the pages then. Bunches.

Get the Reps corrupted, then black mail them to vote
in favor of torture
in favor of HR 4844
in favor of medicare modernization
in favor of going to war against Iran

......

[hootinholler]

11. Bingo!

If I recall blackmail is a serious crime.

I remember the don't lend a Representative a book joke.

-Hoot

[americanstranger]

10. That couldn't be it.

Foley's seat was a gimme for the Rs. Now it looks like it'll be in play, because no matter who runs for it on the R side, the ballots are going to have Foley's name on them - and the Dem running against him was starting to make a race out of it.

Considering how the elections are shaping up, giving up a safe seat would be a helluva price to pay for a couple of days' distraction. These guys are positively obsessed with maintaining their majority status.

I'm thinking that a non-R let this drop. Or maybe the FBI, since they've been involved for a couple of months.

- as

[longship]

12. The dam just broke. No conspiracy bout this.

Not everything is part of a global conspiracy. Sometimes things just happen, in this case, in our favor.

These people are incompetence incarnate. All they know is "Stay the Course". If this is a distraction, it is one helluva damaging one. For one thing, the news is going to be all over the fact that the Repuke leadership knew about this for 11 whole months and covered it up.

[Fridays Child]

13. If there was enough suspicion that the kid's parents were contacted...

...and House leadership was notified 10-11 months ago, WHY was this allowed to continue for so long? Did Hastert care that other minors might be sexually assaulted while he did nothing? He knew for nearly a year and, in all probability, Foley was a known abuser for far longer than that. I know I read somewhere, today, that at least one entire class of pages was forewarned about his behavior.

At the very least, to turn a blind eye to the situation is to aid and abet the perpetrators. Is it even worse, though? Is the inside-the-beltway old boy network lousy with pedophiles? And one more question...

What does Karl know?

[hootinholler]

15. Exactly! and there's no honorable answer to that question.

My guess is blackmail. I'm fairly certain of that explanation for the inside the beltway crowd.

Why would the parents cooperate? Isn't *that* aiding and abeting? They are Florida residents aren't they? I think I saw a post that it's a crime in Florida to not report it. What kind of sickness causes that inaction?

-Hoot

[Occulus]

14. Wouldn't that make the kid 15?

And wouldn't that make them accessories to statutory rape?

IF they knew in advance of his legal age- or LACK THEREOF- and didn't tell anyone....

[shance]

2. Perhaps this is being used to distract from the Abramoff bombshell

The Abramoff information is huge. It potentially opens up the Pandora's box. At the least, it shows the repetitive pattern of George Bush knowing someone and then pretending he doesn't.

Lawrence O Donnell said on KO, that Jack Abramoff essentially 'ran' the White House.

I think the Foley thing was probably waiting to be utilized as cover for something larger. Otherwise, why would it not have been exposed earlier?

[shadowknows69]

3. Awesome idea hoot

"I think we need an amendment that creates a fourth branch that only investigates and prosecutes in the normal courts, elected officials and appointees. They would be allowed to view any document, or other correspondence."

We used to have the "fourth branch", it was the press.

[hootinholler]

8. Yes, leaving it out of government was an oversight I think.

But investigation isn't solely the purview of the press. I shudder to think of the government with it's own press. Yeah, right, I forgot for a minute.

Hindsight, I guess. The Fathers must have been thinking the men in government would be honorable.

-Hoot

[babylonsister]

9. Sort of sounds like the house voting on ethics. Of course,

it was shot down by repugs. I'm beginning to understand why.

[MrScorpio]

4. What's up, Bro?

Long time, no see!

[hootinholler]

5. Hello my friend.

Check the journal if you want to see what I've been up to.

I'm ok. You gonna be downtown on the 5th?

-Hoot

[MrScorpio]

17. No money

Can't make it

[hootinholler]

20. Dang, I thought you were local.

Let me know if you're in town.

-Hoot

[MrScorpio]

21. Next time I drive up from Newport News I will

Peace, Brother

[enigmatic]

7. there's alot of republican scandals converging right now

And in time for Election Day; it's almost too good to be true. I think we're going to see alot more Recpublican members of Congress involved w/ this, and it's going to come out soon.

I don't think anybody has a full understanding just how wide and deep the corruption (sex, money, and otherwise)is in the GOP leadership right now, even those of us who have been keeping abreast of this the past 10 or so years. It isn't Iraq or Torture that's going to bring them down, I think this will.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

16. When the media see blood in the water they get emboldened....

My guess is that they've known some of this stuff for a while and are now letting all the stuff they've been keeping back out.

Once they see that the public mood has soured - they feel emboldened to attack further. If they thought that public sentiment would be against it (like after 9/11) they keep it in.

How many times have we all here known about something for several months and then all of a sudden the media acts like it's some brand new thing (like with the CIA Leak). They sense when they can get away with it and the head honchos at the networks say let it fly.

[OneBlueSky]

18. there are surely people in government who understand . . .

what BushCo is doing to this country and want to help stop it . . . this information could have come from one of them as a way of devastating the Republicans before the election . . .

(or not) . . .

[NVMojo]

19. it appears that Foley was in the closet too. May the GOP gay haters

did it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30foley.html?th&emc=th