This is amazing - everyone who knew needs to resign.

We need an outside special counsel to make sure the investigation isn't a whitewash.

evening. We've diaried here (7:37PM) and Daily Kos and Booman Tribune

Republican led Congress, SteveWFP!

Iknow the democrats have never really done an Oct Surprise- but when they do them damnnn- they do them right.

The Republicans might as well forfeit the election if Hastert resigns.  

Ongoing investigation, yada, yada, yada.

The crucial distinction is between the email communication, which is arguably harmless, although exhibiting poor judgement, and the instant messages which are scabrous and probably kiddie porn in their own right if not interstate solicitation and god knows how many other federal sex crimes.

Hastert claims that the leadership knew about the emails but not the IMs. These are seriously gross and should be sent to every parent in America with the instructions "do not read if you are easily shocked." (a guarantee that they will be read). Example: Foley, like a trial lawyer, interrogates one teenager extensively about his masturbation practices, asking him at one point, "where do you unload?"

Nice, Congressman. Real nice.

My question: How many people knew Foley's screen name and how did they know?

Question #2: Why do the other media have such shitty sources? ABC is making a monkey out of everybody.

Every Dem running in every race should call on their opponent to demand Hastert's resignation.

This is the most straightforward, and entirely above-board way to nationalize the elections, just as they should be, since the GOP now runs Congress like a national parliament.

BTW, as I now read this scandal, it seems marginally possible that Hastert didn't know about the emails, because he knew about Foley 5 years ago or more, and had explicit instructions out to insulate him from any further information.  Which is about as damning as anything he could have possibly done.

From now onward, all the drama about the last 11 months should be viewed in that context--with the assumption that all the major actors knew what was up with Foley, and were trying to limit their own exposure from the get-go.  And the real primary focus should be on the years in which Foley's behavior has been known and covered up.

We're not supposed to get our hopes up. Some folks
love to descend on optimistic posters to denounce
them for being overoptimistic.

Yeah, right. Bring 'em on. I'm HUGELY optimistic.

Bowers says, "simply no way that we lose FL-16 now."

Well, is that assessment cautious enough?

Starting in Florida, how can this not be a huge boost
to Davis, the Dem nominee, in his race for Governor?
Voters in FL-16 will look at their ballots and see in the
Republican column for U.S. Senator, Katharine Harris,
and for the U.S. House, Mark Foley. Just the thought
of it will keep some voters at home. Others will vote
and they will vote against everyone in the same party
with Mark Foley.

Not to overlook the fact that Chris, the (R) candidate
for Governor is, like Foley, an unmarried man, and,
uh, I'm not for gay-baiting, but I'm just saying this
is not a good year to be an unmarried (R) candidate
in Florida.

And other Florida (R) House members? There's enough
blame and suspicion to go around here. Voters will
be asking, "You didn't know what your colleague was
up to? Or you did?" And I don't think they have a good
answer. So two or three Florida seats just got a lot closer,
along with many others all across the country.

Meanwhile, here and at Kos and other sites, and in our
mailboxes, we've received end-of-quarter-deadline
appeals for contributions.

Well, you know, the (R)s sent out appeals just like
our team has done. Wonder what they raised in
the last two days before the midnight deadline?
I mean, party loyalists will watch the TV news about
a middle-aged (R) Congressman chasing teen-aged
boys through the halls of Congress, and they will
sign a big check to the RNC? Maybe, but maybe NOT.
I'd love to see how the (R)s online fundraising has
gone vs their targets over the past few days -- and
the next week, too.

We'll have to wait until Nov to know how many votes
were swung by this latest Republican sex scandal,
but I think we'll see a difference in the funds raised
as soon as the Sep 30 figures are released. The (R)
figures will be, uh, less than they expected, and the
(D) figures will look great.

And tomorrow morning, every K St lobbyist and his
corporate client will have to figure that odds of the
(D)s winning control of Congress took a big jump.
They'd better write another check to the Dems, and
a fat one, or surely be out in the cold after the Nov
returns come in.

My own seat of the pants hunch, unknowable and
unprovable, but a swing of at least $5 million  in
campaign contributions in favor of the Democrats.
Pour that money into a few more districts and see
some longshots become contenders. It's more,
much more, than simply FL-16.

The extraordinary thing is that it may be the Foley email scandal that cripples the GOP in the coming elections, rather than the torture legislation that they just passed this week.

What a sick country this is at the moment...

What's with this Republican White House and Congress and their infatuation with teenage and young adults genitalia?

The President's torture bill is predicated upon nudity and sexual assault on those being tortured.

Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY 4-CD) sponsored a strip search bill of public school students. (Davis' own children are home schooled.) Kentucky's Republican Lieutenant Governor Steve Pence has jumped on the strip search bandwagon of Rep. Davis.

Why all this interest in stripping and searching the young? What's with the Republicans and their zeal for the genitalia of the young?

The President recently asked for and got $14 million for urine testing of public school students. That's more exposure of the genitalia of the young.

Rep Foley's penchant for teen genitalia is well documented. Now we've got word that the Republican coverup may have been going on for five years with House Speaker Dennis Hastert's knowledge. Is Hastert the mastermind of the coverup?

Wow. So much for the republican October surprise.

People who don't understand lobbying rules and campaign finance limits understand this:

1)  Everybody connected Republican on Capitol Hill knew Foley was a chicken hawk ass pirate for 5 years.

2)  They had paper evidence of his inappropriate relationship with 10th grade pages a year ago, but kept him in the Republican leadership.

3)  When caught, the Republicans leaders [sic] began to cover ass and blame each other.

Chickenhawk asspirate, Known, Passing the Buck.  All they need is a picture of Dennis Hastert in a bishop's clerical garb.

Hell, maybe I will make one.

All I can say is Wow.  Totally unbelievable.  I have found this completely disgraceful and disturbing in so many ways.  

This is not going away and is in fact getting worse.  The defeaning silence from the usual defenders tells you they don't know what to do or say.  I cannot see any circumstances under which the Rs keep the House now that this has broken.  

I feel like. . .we're gloating about this.  I know I have been.  It's a great windfall for Democrats, from one perspective, but it's also a mtter of several teenage boys having been subject to predation by a man who purported to protect them.  This isn't a cause for celebration.  If anything, we should be weeping that this went as long as it did.

We need to be careful that we don't start to celebrate these things.  Yes, this only highlights the deep-seated corruption at the heart of the Republican leadership, but at its core this is a story about multiple adolescents being, at best, put in very uncomfortable situations by a man who held power over them.

Gay Groping Grappler a Secret Sissy?

You heard it here first, on the QT, confidential, and very Hush-Hush!

Maybe the old wrestling coach was up to some other sports in the high school locker room showers. You know what I mean?

That was the rumor spread about the good Foley (Speaker Tom), lo these 12 years ago.

What was it Sam Rayburn said? What goes around comes around?

Yeah, that was it.

You need to pay attention to how this is playing in the mainstream media as opposed to the blogsphere. Here it's plainly obvious that the Republicans launched an immediate cover-up. Numerous blogs noted that Hastert's office was calling this whole scandal a Democratic invention until the whole thing exploded on Thursday. But, of course he knew a year ago about Foley, because Rep. King told him.

But here's how the same story's playing in the Chicago Tribute for instance. Two lead articles in this morning's paper: 1.GOP Defends Handling of Scandal

and just for a topper:

2. Read Dennis Hastert's Letter.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/natio nworld/chi-061001hastert-letter,1,734040 6.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Yup. That would be the same letter that has already been exposed as a tissue of lies, when it was blatantly contradicted on key points by other Republicans even before the ink was dry.

But, hey! The Republican Congressional Leader said it so that's good enough for us at the Tribune!

Now tonight we learn that the entire debate so far is all B.S. to begin with. Pages were being warned 5 years ago about Foley, so basically it was common knowledge back as far as 2001.

We're just waiting for confirmation that the entire Republican leadership knew all about Foley and were not a bit surprised when this scandal broke. They just tried desperately to cover everything up in the usual manner. The only difference is that this time it failed miserably.

So, now they're like cockroaches when the kitchen light comes on scrambling around desperately to find cover.

If we had a functioning media in this country that held Republicans accountable in the same way they hammered on Clinton the election would be a total wipeout where about 1/2 the Republicans would lose their seats.

But the vast majority of voters will probably never hear most of the pertinent details about this scandal, such as the fact that it's being ongoing for about 5 years for instance, because the media they listen to won't bother to tell them.

I believe that after about a week this story will disappear from the mainstream media leaving blogsphere to howl in impotent rage amd demand investigations that never happen. While the TV news moves on to the next Lacy Peterson type story.

Perhaps I'm just cynical, but it's been happening for such a long time that it'd be foolish not to expect the same thing now.

The emails themselves are comparatively harmless. The Reps are looking to build a firewall between the emails and the IMs.

If others knew that Foley wrote those ABC-quoted IMs, they are potential criminally liable for conniving in serious perv.

A lot of the media are dancing around for fear of libel. They don't have ABC's sources on the IMs, and if it turns out Foley didn't really say that shit, well fuck us for saying he did.

BTW, the poster above who recommends the phrase "tenth-graders" to characterize the victims is onto something. They could just as easily have been someone's daughter as their son, and this broads the scope of the scandal. The issue is kiddie porn and child abuse, not homosexuality.

anonymous page's book might be:

Hot Sweaty Nights with Republican Rep.

Or:

Hot. House. HiJinks!

Or:

Garglin' a Fundie!

Or:

Foley Gave Me the Feeling.

REPUBLICANS PROTECTED A CHILD PREDATOR

1. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La, NO Democratic challenger.

2. John Shimkus, R- Illinois's 19th, oversight for the House Page Program.

challenger, Dan Stover
 http://www.stoverforcongress.us/

3. Majority LeaderJohn Boehner (R-Ohio, 8th)

challenger:  Morton Meier
http://www.victimsofjohnboehner.org/

4. Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)

challenger:  John Leasch
http://www.john06.com/home

5. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y. 26th)

challenger: Jack Davis
http://www.jackdavis.org/new/

Two quick points.

A) How incovenient at this moment for Speaker Hastert that his established tag line bio has been "genial, former small-town high school wrestling coach".

B) If the Dems do take acheive a slim majority in BOTH houses, could you expect any party defections from the remaining Republican members?  Hadn't heard anything about it.  

The House leadership knew about Foley's emails for five years! He should have been forced to resign years ago. We have seen the lack of accountability from the GOP since 2000. It would the celebration of the year if Hastert loses in November. He's too self centered to resign.  

It is time to use part of this for a new ad

List the problems Republicans have cause

Loss of Jobs
The War in Iraq
Lack of Port Security
Tax breaks to the Rich
Oil secret deals of Chaney

Etc.

especially ending with

Now the Republican leadership belated removed (Foley's name plate being remove)a sexual preditor

Isn't it time we remove them all from leadership in Congress.
(Flash Hastert and other name plates with adaptation per state)

It is time to vote for a new Democratic Team

(show it in all 50 states with as many Democratic candidates that can make the group photo)

o1 o2 o3 o4 o5 o6 o7 o8 o9 o10 o11 o12 o13 o14 o15 o16 o17 o18 o19 o20 o21 o22 o23 o24 o25 o26 o27 o28 o29 o30 o31 o32 o33 o34 o35 o36 o37 o38 o39 o40 o41 o42 o43 o44 o45 o46 o47 o48 o49 o50 o51 o52 o53 o54 o55 o56 o57 o58 o59 o60 o61 o62 o63 o64 o65 o66 o67 o68 o69 o70 o71 o72 o73 o74 o75 o76 o77 o78 o79 o80 o81 o82 o83 o84 o85 o86 o87 o88 o89 o90 o91 o92 o93 o94 o95