Gambling? At Bushwood?!?!? I'm SHOCKED!

What I want to know is how do weirdos and freaks like this get elected to be fricken' Congressmen?!? Is it that easy?

I see your point Nats Dad. It is a very good point. Does any one have the time line that the IM's were sent. I assume after the emails. the emails were in the FBI hands since july but no action was taken. suddenly the IM text is presented to ABC news against the parents wishes. this would seem to rule out the parents involvement. so what is the source of the IM's (which were sick and twisted) release to ABC and when were the IM's sent. we need paul harvey to tell us the rest of the story.

A five term Congressman, no less. One that had senate aspirations.

ANYONE that sat on this no matter what their race, religion, sex, or political party, should be relieved of whatever responsible position they hold.

Right now we know that group includes Hastert, Reynolds, and Boehner (all of whom are furiously pointing the finger at one another).

Rick's speculation about some Democratic conspiracy is just that. If it get beyond speculation, I'll be the first to condemn anyone that sat on this.

Although the age of consent in D.C. is 16 I don't think that matters. Foley didn't have sex with the boy. Also the boy is 16 now, but was 15 at the time of the emails. The real issue is Foley sent some email and text messages from Florida where the age of consent is 18, and by state law it is unlawful for an adult to communicate with a minor about sex. According to a legal analyst they had on the radio this morning Foley may be in legal trouble in Florida due to the worst of the instant messages discussing sexual acts. It really it depends on how aggressive the prosecuter is because since none of the messages released to date solicited sex; they only discussed sex. In practice they always go after those who solicit sex, but just discussing sex is more of a grey area.

So I figure if the prosecutor is a Republican he's OK. If he's a Democrat he's going to be charged. This is politics as usual after all.

The age of consent is irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is that when parents send their 16 year old kids to be Congressional Pages, some 54 year old sleazeball Congressman doesn't try to blow them.

That this went on for as long as it did is a leadership problem, as the finger-pointing leaders all admit. They just won't take personal responsibility, they want to give responsibility to the other leader(s).

The only persons assigning NO responsibility to leadership, as far as I can tell, are daddy and Joe.

The timing of this doesn't pass the smell test, so, it makes sense that more heads need to roll.

The IMs were sent in 2003. From Rodeo's PDF link on the ABC site, it says 02-02-03. I believe the e-mail was actually later, in 2004. They were separate events to separate pages as far as I can tell.

Again, the questions I have are these:
1). Who saved these IMs? I'm sure there is some way to save them or get a copy, but I would guess you have to specifically ask for them. Was it the 16 year old page? Maybe...maybe not.
2). Who kept the IMs private for 3 years? The page again? If the page kept them private for 3 years, who got ahold of them and gave them to ABC?
3). Most importantly--Why were they given to ABC in October of an election year when they are 3 years old? How long did someone sit on them?

I think it is obvious to anyone watching that the timing of this event is highly suspect and the Democrats stand to gain here. Obviously this was released to hammer the Republicans right before an election which means SOMEONE used this abuse for political purposes and most likely sat on the info for some period of time before releasing it.

The investigation should be interesting, I hope the FBI compels ABC to give up their source.

Watch for the Pages' class action lawsuit seeking restitution for those who got "Foley'd."

Never understood the draw of soap operas when real life is so much more entertaining.

So far I don't see how they can be blamed for this ...no.

Do you want to oust everyone that was in power during the Studds deal? They let that happen as well, hell they supported him for re-election.

People are responsible for their own actions Rodeo.

If they had any real evidence that he was targeting the youth for sexual purposes they would have acted (we know this because they did as soon as they had proof).

I bet the difference is that I've heard Hastert first hand explain his knowledge and I believe him. You've only read about it.

I just saw this:

"A senior congressional aide says he alerted House Speaker Hastert's office two years ago about worrisome conduct by former Rep. Mark Foley with teenage pages... "

If this is what it sounds like I'll be in your corner.

Hastert is either so far out of the loop or he's negligent. Niether is good. He sounds like he's adopting the Ken Lay defense.

If all he knew was that he asked for a picture(and got a plausible explanation from Foley)....and the House had previously determined it was AOK to knock the bottom outta the pages then no I don't think he(Hastert:)) did anything wrong.

But if he was warned of actual abuse and did nothing...throw the bum out.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Time.com has a internet timeline for this scandal and links to the various sites.

Here is the site where the e-mails were first posted:

http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com/

Notice anything strange?

1). The blog is started in early September with a few vague messages about stopping predators and a link to some story about female interns wearing skimpy clothes in Washington.
2). The blog goes quiet for several weeks and then BOOM! Three e-mails about Foley out of the blue. These are followed by several other e-mails including the scanned copies of e-mails.

Someone orchestrated this. A random blog that has two messages on it and was started a month ago is somehow randomly chosen to post the biggest breaking political scandal since Lewinsky?

It gets better. Someone with a screen name of WHInternNow posted to the DailyKOs website back in early September about Foley "hitting" on pages and then posted a link to the e-mails on DailyKOs the SAME DAY they went up on this obscure blog that had been operating for one month and had 2 previous posts on it. WHInternNow said he found it through Google :rolleyes:. WHInternNow disappeared after two posts, never to be heard from again...

This blog (probably conservative, but still has info) has done some investigation:

http://www.blogpi.net/real-scandal-fake-blog/

I smell a rat...

You might enjoy reading this roundup here:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/if-gay-activists-democrats-knew-of.html

I did a quick read and it doesn't say antyhing about pages...it is about him being gay. There is a difference in holding back "outing" info about someone for political purposes and someone holding back info about a possible crime for that reason...

This is worse. If true, this, in fact, may be the nuke of this year for the Republicans: From CNN

Kirk Fordham, a former aide to ex-Rep. Mark Foley, said he alerted the office of the Republican leader of the House of Representatives two years ago about worrisome conduct by Foley with teenage pages, AP reports.

At least it adds fuel to the cover up fire.

Ah, but if you click one little linky in that article you get to this:

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52270

In another post, Rogers admitted he had possession of the lurid Foley e-mails before they were posted on the Web.

"As people know, it's not always possible for me to disclose my role in some of the activities.
I can say this. I had the emails before they were on the net. Additionally, I had the additional emails, written by the page to a friend. The story was being written by a number of outlets and I provided additional information to reporters involved in the breaking of this story.

Was (I) the central figure in reporting on Foley’s latest scandal? Never said I was. Was my work on the case important to helping make sure it came out before the election? Yes.

Did I have any idea that the GOP leadership was engaged in a cover-up? Nope. Do I love the fact that they are trying to spin this as "naughty emails?" Yup. because it shows how out of (touch) they are about queer closet cases."

Stinky stinky stinky.

Yea I read that the last time you posted it ... it's a false lead. Just a gay site complaining about a closet, speculating that more info about his lifestyle might surface in the course of his reelection campaign.

But Rogers isn't an elected official (nor does he work for one). Sure, he should have done the right thing, but he is not held to the same standard as a congressman and their staff.