And their leader? Waterboarding George!

emptywheel, do you know when the 16-year old first reported the e-mails to another congressional staffer, and whether there was an investigation? The e-mails he reported date to 2005. Maybe there was a cover-up?

Dang. They just read his resignation letter on the floor.

coloradobl

The guy first complained to Foley’s Chief of Staff, so yes, this has been in the works for a while. Add in the allegations that there are more, and I suspect it likely that this was somewhat known.

It’s not just projection of their predatory instincts. People who can’t acknowledge that they don’t come up to their professed standards project hatred onto those who share the characteristic, in this case being gay. The harder they repress stuff, the weirder they get. Dems are more easygoing, so less repressed and less sick, in general.

And then there is GOP cynicism to consider. Rules are for little people.

Steve

Agree

Though it may be more along the lines of Foley being a widely-acknowledged closet case (like David Dreier) that the GOP always just don’t talk about (their own version of don’t ask, don’t tell, I guess). And thus far, the allegations against Foley amount to sexual harrassment, not criminal pedophilia. It’s not like the GOP is particularly good at responding to harrassment, of any kind, anyway.

I have been waiting for this one to emerge since about 1990. For many years I have wondered about whether or not it was possible that there was a child pornography problem in the republican party. Very often the most loudly moral are the ones hiding immoral behavior. Back then there were lots of allegations that were pure baloney and no one believed the victims because (guess what?? they live a life of petty crime and were not credible…so is often the case). Both of the kids who testified about this ring had mental health issues and one was a female in trouble for writing back checks.

The one thing that made it impossible for me to just dismiss the possibility over the years was this fact. Michael Jackson made a pit stop in Omaha after a performance in K.C. (I don’t remember the year but it was early 1990’s) He actually went to the house of this man who it was later alleged was part of this child porno ring and a big fundraiser for the republicans. Franklin stole a lot of money and was prosecuted for embezzling from a credit union much later. The rumor (no credible facts) was that the teenagers had testified that they had been brought to the white house as part of this ring and that this Franklin guys often sponsored these â€partiesâ€.

In the end the only republican prosecuted was Franklin, and not related to child pornography. The consensus was that the kids had made the story up. However, this Franklin guy had become an insider with the party very quickly and no one was sure how or why. His story was a lot like Gannon’s. When Gannon appeared on the scene, my thought was that a pattern was emerging, again. How does a nobody from omaha end up singing at the RNC?? When I connect the dots, it makes me really wonder if there is more to the story.

At the time, allegations about a child porn ring run by â€the republicans†were brushed off as preposterous, but one of the investigators died in a plane crash, and the whole thing took on a larger than life conspiracy story. But the part that stuck in my craw was, why did Michael Jackson stop in Omaha, not to perform but to attend a party at this republican fundraiser’s house (Franklin) It was a special stop, no performance and he left town that same evening. It was a big deal for him to stop in Omaha. At the time everyone thought it was very weird that Micheal was visiting this Franklin Mansion. This was before the stories about children and sex parties emerged. (none of these stories was ever verified) At the time of the visit, no bells went off because we didn’t know about Michael’s problem. In retrospect it is very weird indeed that he stopped to visit the Franklin mansion and then hurried out of town.

The whole story was put to bed and brushed under the carpet. I have no idea about the truth of the allegations, but with the spring bust of the administration official (blank on title or name) busted as part of a sting, this bust with the e-mails, Gannon, then linking back to the early 1990 allegations under Bush 41. I wonder. I re-read some of the material on the Franklin case and it’s hard to slodge through because clearly the story has been blown out of proportion. Some of it, is like reading from the national inguirer. But I wonder what would be rendered today under a really good investigation.

The Johnny Gosch connection to all this is fascinating for anyone out there who knows who he was (a 10 year old boy abducted from Des moines IA back in 1979/80)…and the fact that his mother recieved those photos of boys tied up on a bed just recently. She maintains it’s her son, (check out her website) despite news reports and a statement from an investigator who says the photos are not Johnny Gosch. She comes off like a hysterical mom, but she thinks her son was kidnapped into a child porno ring. The pictures even if it wasn’t her son were disturbing and were dated to the proper time frame. Why did the pictures come out now? Could it be her son? Or could it be someone who wants us to look at the issue??? Gannon really bothered me. What the hell was that??Franklin, same thing. I could be just imagining…but sometimes where there is smoke there is fire.

Republican Party Boy-Child Molester Organization.

Let’s not go overboard here and make this in any way a â€gay†thing.

What does the Republican Party do, after all, except claim to be protecting everything that is the most pure and valued in America, all the while they’re raping it? Our children, our ethics, our security, our values. All abused in the name of protecting them.â€

So dead-on-the-mark, ew. Thanks.

Looks like he may be prosecuted.

Some of the IM’s

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

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

Another message:

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

And this one:

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

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

Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley’s prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.
ABC 9/29/06

There is a HUGE difference between gay and pedaphile. Gay means no victim, no perpetrator. Gay means legal. Gay means grown ups.

Pedaphile means an obsession with children and teens. There is always a victim. It is never legal.

After commenting here I went and read the e-mails, and did some research.
Hmmmm. A Congressional page has to be 16 or older. The age of consent (sexual
consent) varies, the median age in most places is 14-16. So one could say the
page is a teenager/adolescent past the age of consent.
But, considering Foley’s job (!), and considering the page, and considering
the content of the e-mail conversation (diacussing the page’s masturbation
positions and frequency, etc.), I have to confess, that as a 60 year-old
father, and out homosexual, I have to conclude Foley is at least a
CHICKEN-HAWK. Not too cool for someone in Congress to be, especially as
chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.
This regardless of Foley’s gender, sexual preference, age, or party affiliation.
Bottom line, he just looks like a PERV who got owned. Pardon the colloquialisms,
but sometimes one is forced to use them to pin certain behaviours not clearly
defined elsewhere.

He is a criminal. It happens.

You are wasting your time trying to indict the entire Republican Party and indeed Conservatives in general as Peodophiles.

It will be pointed out that (unfortunately for our children) is that it was a Republican this time engaged in Gay Sex and with children.

I could be wrong but the usual impression is that Dems are most often involved in scandals like this.

Perhaps some of you number’s keepers and watchers have a tally for both sides, and we can determine which party is in the lead.

In that case, what party was Michael Jackson affiliated with?

Today the wires carried notice that the Los Angles diocese is trying to negotiate a 60 million dollar settlement with the claims against their assets and insurance by the ignored and violated in that diocese.

That settlement is much too low given the problems, but it gives an estimated value of the material costs of this sort of thing as these things are bid commercially. LA should be worth about four times the initial offer.

As I recall the writer Hunter Thompson had some part in the whole scandal as well. He died (was it last spring) committed suicide. I have wondered about his death and whether it would prompt more information coming out. I don’t think that George is a pedaphile but I think pedaphiles often hide under the skirts of the loudly moral, the criminal and the liars. It’s a perfect place to be. Yep, I always knew that the republicans made such a stink about Clinton because they were â€projecting†about their own secrets. That’s the way it works.

Katie

I hope I misunderstood your post, too, but when you wrote â€Gay means no victim, no perpetrator. Gay means legal. Gay means grown ups,†you ignore the fact that gay people do, in fact, have sexual feelings before the age of consent (which is still 18 in a lot of places).

Just like straight teenagers, gay teenagers talk about sex, and begin experimenting with and exploring their sexuality as teenagers long before the age of consent. All of that is completely normal, at least in my book. Unfortunately, absolutist statements about gay teenage sexuality — that there is â€always a victim†and such underage activity is â€never legal†— don’t leave a lot of wiggle room for normal gay teenage sexual exploration, even between gay teenagers. Note that I am not defending Foley, or man-boy relationships, or chickenhawks, or anything else — I think it was right Foley resigned. But I’m shocked by the ignorance and vitriolic homophobia this scandal has unleashed, including a good bit of it on this thread.

emptywheel

Have you considered what might have preceded the exchange between Foley and the unnamed page (in 2003), and what we aren’t reading here? For example, the fact that the boy contacted Foley on his own, and has (by his own admission) previously described to Foley the dimensions of his erect penis? Have you given thought to how the IM exchanges were archived, how they were discovered or turned over, what the parents did about them, and why they chose not to press a case? There are a lot of unknowns here, and for what it’s worth, it’s quite obvious to me there’s a larger context, perhaps one that some people are wilfully ignoring in the service of righteous indignation.

The quality of education is, is not lower than 15 years ago