Quoting from the September 30th, 2006 article by SFGate.com, along with excerpts from an article written on The Blotter on the 29th of September regarding Republican House Representative of Florida just one day prior, I would like to add my comments as I think that there is some rather interesting details hiding between the two.

SFG -In a scandal guaranteed to anger parents, a prominent House Republican has resigned after the revelation that he exchanged raunchy electronic messages with a teenage boy, a former congressional page.

Please note that he did not offer his resignation until a second batch of explicit emails showed up and his media hitmen had already rushed to assure the public that this was a non-issue.
As reported by ABC's Blotter's contributors, Rhonda Schwartz and Maddy Sauer:

Foley's office acknowledges that Foley wrote the e-mails to the young man but says they were completely innocent and that Foley is at most guilty of being "too friendly and too engaging" with young people.

The Blotter then listed a series of innocuous sounding remarks in emails from Foley to the under aged intern, i.e. "did you have fun at your conference..what do you want for your birthday coming up...what stuff do you to do." Then they followed those up with this: "The young man forwarded that e-mail to a congressional staffer saying it was "sick sick sick sick sick."

The Blotter Congressman Foley's e-mails were entirely appropriate and that their release is part of a smear campaign by his opponent.

By the way, the Blotter is a blog like site associated with ABC News.
You know, the same people who aired 'Pathway to 911'.
So keep that in mind as we compare their version of the facts.

SFG Rep Mark Foley, R-Fla, who is single, apologized Friday for letting down his family and constituents.

Note that he made no mention of the reason for his quick departure.


SFG Once his resignation letter was read to the House late Friday afternoon, Republicans spent the night trying to explain - six weeks before congressional elections - how this could have happened on their watch.

No doubt they discussed ways in which they might be able to blame Bill Clinton for this as well.

SFG Near midnight, they (the House) engineered a vote to let the House ethics committee decide whether an investigation is needed.

Not only are they allowed to investigate their own, they can decide whether they want to bother with it at all.
So I say, lets let the mob decide whether they want an FBI investigation, or not.
Better yet, let them investigate themselves. Then when they find themselves innocent, we should all pipe down and leave them to their business.

SFG Among the Republican explanations during the night (Friday night):

- The congressional sponsor of the page, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., said he was asked by the youth's parents not to pursue the matter, so he dropped it.

- Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the Page Board that oversees the congressional work-study program for high schoolers, said he did investigate but Foley falsely assured him he was only mentoring the boy. Pages are high school students who attend classes under congressional and work as messengers.
So Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. says he DID investigate? He turned up nothing after an exhaustive effort? Oh wait, the guy he was investigating assured him that he was not guilty.
I see, so he took the word of the alleged pedophile over the word of the alleged victim.
Great work. This is a brilliant example of our tax dollars at work.

-The spokesman for Dennis Hastert, Ron Bonjean, said the top House Republican had not known about the allegations. Shimkus said he learned about them in late 2005.

Either Hastert is:
a. A ninny who is not keeping an eye on his Congressional body,
b. Shimkus was withholding crucial information, or
c. Hastert is lying.

Now why would that be?

SFG Just as Shimkus' explanation was released, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California proposed to the House that its ethics committee investigate and make a preliminary report in 10 days. She demanded to know who knew of the messages, whether Foley had other contacts with pages and when the Republican leadership was notified of Foley's conduct.

Oh splendid, Nancy. You want the same ethics committee who tried to block an investigation into Tom Delays dealings, to now launch an investigation into allegations concerning one of their own?
And as if that weren't enough, you're giving them 10 days?
Geeze, that ought to give them just enough time to destroy evidence and twist a few arms.

SFG Majority Republicans engineered a vote to allow the ethics panel to decide whether there should even be an investigation.

I must reiterate, 'why would that be?'

SFG Foley's departure sent Republicans scrambling for a replacement candidate.

Foley, 52, had been a shoo-in for a new term until the e-mail correspondence surfaced in recent days. The page was 16 at the time of the correspondence.

Hastert said Friday he had asked Shimkus to investigate the page system. "We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe," Hastert said.

Really?! Where were you for nearly a year?

SFG Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect.

Does this smack of privileged priests and trusted Boy Scout leaders or what!

The Blotter finished it's article with this paragraph: Elizabeth Nicolson, Foley's Chief of Staff, said they believe the e-mail exchange began when the page asked Foley for a recommendation and that the subsequent exchange was totally innocent.
She said Foley's office believes the e-mails were released by the opposition as part of an "ugly smear campaign."


It came as little surprise during my review of the comments that followed The Blotter article, that most of the readers seemed to think that this whole business was either over-blown media hoopla; or that it was some sort of prank orchestrated by the young man to whom Foley had written these particular emails.

Mission Accomplished.

What Foley's office didn't seem to realize was that the damaging e-mails were waiting in the wings for their debut.
You see, Naomi Seligman, a spokeswoman for CREW, (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) had posted the e-mails on CREW's website on Friday the 29th, saying that the group also sent a letter to the FBI after it received the e-mails.
However, CREW did not post their copies of the e-mail until ABC News reported them, instead waiting for the investigation.

Pretty clever, yes?



The e-mails that were sent to the FBI were a whole lot more explicit than first reported.
As a matter-of-fact, ABC News said that they could not read them on the air due to the content.



Now here's what I'd like to know.

• Are we looking at a long list of enablers here?
  
• Was aiding and abetting involved?
  
• Who else might be practicing what appears to be a tradition amongst many GOP big boy type officials?
  
  If you doubt that last statement, take a look at Public Records and you'ill see what I mean.

Remember the horror of the oppressive Pinochet era in Chile when people were routinely swept off the streets or yanked from their home by the government, never to be heard from again?

Well welcome to the Bush era.

Bushes Congressional lackeys have cleared the way for Emperor Bush. He alone can now decide to have you or I removed and silenced and forgotten for reasons he alone need know without any sort of pesky oversight from Congress or the courts.

What a convenient way to eliminate those who would oppose you. Yes?

In Bush's world, you can be tortured freely and no one can raise a hand to help you.

In Bush's world, George cannot be tried for crimes he has already committed, or even those he's readying to commit!

Although Congress has handed him the power to do whatever he wants to anyone he chooses, worldwide, do not be fooled into thinking that just because you were born in the USA, you will somehow be immune to his unchecked tyranny.

The 'Military Commissions Act of 2006’ has, now reduced the firewall of Habeas Corpus that has kept US citizens relatively safe from governmental abuses of the despot kind, to a highly inflammable curtain wall.

IF you aren't already frightened by this extreme shift of power - you ought to be.

Photo from memberpictures.aol.com

Quiz for you: Which of these three statements is true?

A. Karl Rove is a practicing political bully, AND simultaneously holds an intense erec.... eh.... fascination for GWBush.

He sucks dosen't he?

B. Global warming is rapidly melting the polar ice caps; creating environmental havoc throughout the world; and generally threatening our very existence.

If you can actually disagree with this one, please raise your arm over your back and start waving for help.
Hopefully, someone will be kind enough to assist you in removing your head from your behind.

C. Computer programmer Clinton Curtis testified at the December 13th, 2004 Congressional hearing in
Columbus, Ohio naming Republican Congressman Tom Feeney of Florida as the person who hired him to prepare vote-rigging software. Yet little to no action has ever been taken up regarding this incident; nor has the MSM bothered to mention it.

Hmmm

D. All of the above.

Tic ... toc ... tic ... toc ...

Times Up! Put your pencils down!

For those of you who answered letter 'D': All of the above - you're right and will be spared from a slap-happy remark.

However, if you got it wrong, well ... perhaps you should go back to bed and set your snooze alarm to 'eternity'.

For the rest of us who are finding it more and more difficult to get a restful night's sleep as world events shave yet another layer of sheathing from our last quivering nerve, I want to bring your attention to (C). I've brought this issue up in the past and have promised to continue to do so until someone does something about it.

So for those of you who haven't yet witnessed this, please turn your page to : Computer Expert Testifies Elections in Florida Were Fixed

Please feel free to share the above video with others.
Please.

Although I wrote of this back in 2003, I think that it is worthy of a repeat post because it was given a 'pass-go' card.

Crime Pays
02/05/2002

The Baton Rouge Advocate "In Arkansas, Secretary of State Bill McCuen pleaded guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes and accepted kickbacks.
Part of the case involved Business Records Corp. (now merged into Election Systems & Software), a Dallas company that sold Arkansas computerized systems for recording corporate and voter registration records. "Arkansas officials said the scheme involved...then-BRC employee, Tom Eschberger...Eschberger got immunity from prosecution for his cooperation. Today, he's a top executive of ES&S." (ES&S as in 'Elections Systems & Software')

This was written on Journal Online by Lynne Landes back on April 28, 2004:

Voters can run, but they can't hide from these guys. Meet the Urosevich brothers, Bob and Todd. Their respective companies, Diebold and ES&S, will count (using both computerized ballot scanners and touchscreen machines) about 80 percent of all votes cast in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Read More

I'm glad to see that Muslim's, as well as other fellow citizens of this world, are not accepting Pope Benedict XVI's slick maneuver to quash the uproar that followed his inflammatory statement in which he quoted from a Medieval text suggesting that some teachings by the Prophet Muhammad are "evil and inhuman."

For myself, I was reminded of a moment when someone tried to brush me off with a fake apology. But by doing so, they only managed to add ill-will to their initial offense.

Here is what I heard coming from the lips of the Pope.

"I'm sorry you got all bent out of shape over some little thing I said a while back.
Now get off my back and move on."