Rolling Stone Gets Really Shrill

Wow, The new issue calls the current republican Congress the worst one ever. From Rolling Stone via Attaturk:

“These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.”

The issue also goes on to name the Ten Worst Congressmen in this Congress which doesn't include those who didn't even make it the full term such as Duke Cunningham (Convicted, In Prison), Bob Ney (Convicted, Sentenced, Awaiting Prison, Yet to Resign), Tom Delay (Indicted, Awaiting Trial, Resigned), and Mark Foley (Resigned, Under Investigation).

Note: This post was stolen almost in its entirety from Attaturk, except that he actually took the time and effort to post the cover of this issue of Rolling Stone, something I'm too lazy to do. If you don't read Attaturk, do yourself a favor and read him.

NRCC Cash Coming To Town

The NRCC has just released $7.8 million in expenditures for November's election and nearly a million of those dollars are going to be spent in Ohio. Steve Chabot will receive $201,262 for issue ads and phone banking, Deb Pryce will get $206,650 for issue ads, and Joy Padgett will be funded by a whopping $552,043 for ads, mailings, and phone banking.

You may recall that the NRCC has steadfastly refused to return the $100,000 that Mark Foley contributed to their coffers and are actively seeking to gain control of the $2.7 million that remains in his campaign account.

As for the head of the NRCC, it seems that we may not have Tom Reynolds to kick around much longer, a new poll out today shows him trailing Jack Davis 48-33. It is a Zogby poll, but no poll is ever off that much. Reynold had been considered a shoe-in prior to the Foley scandal.

Kirk Fordham Shown The Door

Well, it wasn't long after Kirk Fordham, the chief of staff for republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, went blabbing to the press that he was shown the door by Reynolds. The republican smear machine also started annoynomously telling ABC that Fordham in fact begged republican leaders not to tell the page board about Mark Foley's dalliances. Fordham's people told ABC that he is being used as a scapegoat.

There is something smelly about this chapter of the scandal and it is pretty difficult to get a read on it. One of two possibilities is probably the truth.

Perhaps the smearers are right. Kirk Fordham was a long time advisor to Foley and would have been in the perfect position to know of his former boss' predilections. Following his tenure with Foley's office, he left to take a chief of staff job for the head of the page board, Tom Reynolds. It is the perfect position to protect his former boss from, if he still held allegiance to Foley, which he apparently did as it has been reported that Fordham advised Foley over the last weekend.

On the other hand, Fordham is possibly telling the truth and would have been in the best position to get resolution to the matter and possibly told Reynolds and other republican leadership to do something about it which they did not.

It is however, irrelevant to the overall matter at hand, because whichever account is correct, both agree that Fordham told the republican leadership which did nothing about it. Whether Fordham pleaded or prodded does nothing to allow Denny Hastert to escape culpability on the matter as a whole. In fact, I'm not sure which version makes Hastert look worse.

Translating Denny

I'd like to translate Denny Hastert's answer to this question into plain English. From TPM:

Q Mr. Speaker, on that question, I mean is it sufficient that they just went and asked Foley, hey, we have this e-mail that has set off some worries with the parents, is this a problem or not? And he says no. So should it have stopped there?

Mr. Hastert. Well, let me say this, and again I want to refer you to the report, but what I want to say is that the parents didn't want to -- I mean, first of all, there was nothing explicit in this e-mail that I understood. And the parents didn't even want -- I don't even know if they showed the e-mail -- actual e-mail to Mr. Shimkus. I don't know. But his parents were protective of this thing, and what they wanted was Mr. Foley, and my understanding was, Mr. Foley to stop contacting their son. I think that is what the purpose of it was and I think the reports that I got back recently is that is what happened.

Look, the kid and his parents were willing to play ball and shut up. As for protecting the rest of the pages from Mark Foley's dalliances, Foley pushes a lot of coin into GOP coffers. In fact, Foley has given $100,000 to the NRCC just this cycle. Do you think the rest of the page corps could have raised that kind of money?

By the way the NRCC is still trying to get its grimy hands on the last $2.7 million of perv money in Foley's now dead campaign account.

Bye John, Bye Denny

ABC news has just put up this exchange between Mark Foley and one of the teenage House pages that he had inappropriate contact with. From ABC News:

Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun

The messages also show the teen is, at times, uncomfortable with Foley's aggressive approach.

Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see

I don't know about you, but that sounds exactly like a man soliciting sex from a minor to me, and Hastert and Boehner covered up for this guy. They might not have known the depths of his depravity at that time, although I'm guessing that they did given the very short amount of time it took Boehner to try to throw Hastert under the bus.

It doesn't matter, they are both toast. They may stumble through re-election, but they have no shot whatsoever of returning to the republican leadership and as I wrote about Tom Delay, once you're on top, nobody goes back to being a lowly member of Congress. Only chumps do that.

What Are You Wearing

Well, well, well. It looks like the republican House leadership has been covering up for a known predator of children for over a year. US Rep Mark Foley resigned on Friday after it was reveled that he had sent sexually explicit IMs to several underage male pages. Not content with fucking this country's youth thirty years in the future with massive deficit spending, Foley decided to amp up the process.

There is no doubt in my mind that the entire republican House leadership knew about this. John Boehner basically admitted as much when he said that he had talked to Denny Hastert about it in April and Hastert was taking care of it probably in an attempt to throw Hastert under the bus to move up in the leadership in the next Congress, a statement he later retracted.

Well Mr Boehner, whether you talked to Hastert himself or just his office as you now state, after six months it was plainly obvious that it wasn't being "taken care of" and yet you were silent on the issue. You knew, you did nothing. That makes you complicit in covering this matter up. A leaders job is to, in fact lead, and with regards to this matter you showed none of the qualities one is to expect of a leader. Instead, like an ostrich, you shoved your head in the sand, most likely to try to hold seats in this election. You sir, should also resign.

This is what the republican party has become, partisanship above even protecting children from predators. Never again should these people be allowed to rule us.