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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	10/20/2006 4:50:03 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Enough already! By Mike Gallagher Townhall.com Columnist Friday, October 20, 2006 I’ve given up trying to figure out what to say about the Mark Foley situation. So I think I’ll say, “enough already.” In all the years I’ve hosted a radio show, I don’t think I’ve ever put a moratorium on any particular subject. I like the unpredictable nature of talk radio. The fact that those little blinking lights on my phone bank will produce a caller who elicits laughter, or a profound thought, or even a spirited argument, always reminds me why I got into the business in the first place. But the Mark Foley scandal is so out of control on the national airwaves, newspapers and internet that anything that’s said on my radio show can’t possibly benefit anyone except Democrats who desperately want to win the upcoming mid-term election. For one thing, it’s no secret that I hope and pray that Republicans shock everyone by managing to maintain control of the House and Senate after November 7th. The Foley story is a gift that just keeps on giving to gleeful Democrats who hope that enough voters will be sickened by the story that they’ll want to vote against Republicans in a few weeks. The scandal is so salacious that very few people are pausing long enough to consider a few facts. It is a fact that thus far, the FBI has been unable to find any instances of the disgraced ex-Congressman actually having any physical contact with Congressional pages. He apparently preferred to wait until a young man reached an age that was well beyond the age of consent before becoming physically intimate. So where are the gay activists who would typically condemn the persecution of a gay man? After all, everyone has “piled on” over the Foley story – “he’s a degenerate, a monster, a predator, and a creep”, etc, etc, etc. – when it appears that what we really have is a closeted gay man who is attracted to younger adults. Isn’t that something that most Democrats would defend? Oh, I forgot. This isn’t a gay Democrat like Barney Frank or the late Gerry Studds. This is a Republican. For activists, politics trumps consistency every time. Foley has announced that a Catholic priest sexually abused him about 40 years ago. Evidently, his explanation for writing dirty messages to teenage boys is that he was abused by some priest back when Foley was a teen. Again, gay spokesmen, where are you? Does the sexual abuse of a child lead that child to become a gay man who is attracted to younger men when he grows up? Funny, I’ve never really heard that kind of a connection before. It was only a matter of time before the media would discover the alleged pedophile priest. He’s some old man living near Italy. He told a Florida newspaper that he could understand why Foley might have had the “impression” that the priest acted inappropriately around him since the priest admitted to having given Foley a body rub while Foley, a young boy, was nude. Wow, imagine the surprise from this priest at the notion that some might consider it unusual for a grown man to give a young boy a naked massage. My Lord, I really don’t know how much sleazier this story can get. So I’ve decided I’ve had it with the Foley story. Every time I talk about it on my radio show, I’m playing right into the Democratic Party’s excitement over the possibility that the Foley scandal will drive Republicans right into the arms of the Democrats on election day. Meanwhile, we have a war to wage, an economy to consider, and the safety and security of every American man, woman and child at stake. The polls seem to suggest that Americans have forgotten Osama bin Laden’s prediction that the United States will lose its will and pull out of Iraq. Evidently, the Rosie O’Donnells of the world have absolutely no problem with wanting to grant Osama his wish. To me, it’s all pretty simple. Do we REALLY believe that America will be safer under Democratic Party control? If not, voting for a Democrat or staying home on November 7th as some kind of a protest vote is simply a dreadful, dead wrong thing to do. If the GOP loses the House or Senate, we’re going to be in for a positively miserable run. I don’t need some sordid Mark Foley scandal to make us take our eye off the ball. Mike Gallagher is a nationally syndicated radio host, Fox News Channel contributor and guest host and author of Surrounded by Idiots: Fighting Liberal Lunacy in America. townhall.com!

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	10/20/2006 5:08:26 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Protesting a bit too much By Rich Galen Townhall.com Columnist Friday, October 20, 2006 The Mark Foley story appears to be losing some steam. I suspect the National Democrats are beginning to get some heat from Gay Democrats that this is getting pretty close to the kind of Gay bashing they have accused Republicans of waging for decades. Remember the outrage when the Boy Scouts of America decided that openly Gay men would not be permitted to be Scoutmasters? "BEING GAY DOES NOT MEAN BEING A PEDOPHILE" we were told day after day. That, as it happens, is a statement with which I agree. Pedophiles come in all shapes and sizes; Straight and Gay being two of them. The anti-Boy Scout sentiment ran so high among Liberals eager to protect the image of Gays that the BSA has been refused the right to use Federal land for their Jamborees. Ok. Gay does not equal pedophile. Got it. No prob. In the frenzy which followed the Foley resignation, the news media went after Rep. Jim Kolbe - an openly Gay Republican from Arizona - for having gone on a camping trip with FORMER Pages; the implication being he might have been preying on them. Let's get this straight: Gay does not equal pedophile. Perfectly OK to have a Gay Scoutmaster. But Jim Kolbe - one of the true gentlemen in the US House, by the way - must have had wicked intentions when he took that camping trip. The Foley story is spinning out of the control of the Democrats and their allies in among the Gay Left were getting concerned. So now … We are back on National Security. And National Security is absolutely the last issue on which the Democrats want this election to turn. The other day on CNN, occasional debate opponent Paul Begala was in a projectile sweat about the warning that someone had posted a threat against seven NFL stadia this week. Begala was adamant that this was a story planted by the Bush Administration solely for the purpose of reminding America that we are at war. Put aside the fact that every single person who has drawn a Federal paycheck over the past six years is on record saying that they put no credence in the warning, but that they felt it was prudent to make it public. The media, not the Bush Administration picked up the story and have been lateralling it, like a football with no time left on the clock, back-and-forth down the field trying keep the story alive. Paul, methinks, was protesting a bit too much. The Democrats want to keep this election from sliding back into a referendum on who can best protect America from where they have it now: Who can best run the House Page program. Yesterday, I got a call from a senior political reporter asking if I thought the Democrats were taking a harder line on Iraq and whether that would help them. I said that would play directly into the hands of Republicans locked in close elections. There is, I continued, a strong feeling among Americans away from the two coasts that there is a strong "peacenik" strain which has never been fully bred out of the DNA of the National Democrats. If the Dems make Iraq the centerpiece of their closing strategy, they will be seen - well, described by people such as me - as adopting the dreaded cut-and-run strategy. If that happens, all a Republican candidate has to say is: See? Vote for my Democratic opponent and that's what you'll get: The Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Al Sharpton foreign policy. Begala is a smart guy. He is trying to send a message to Democratic candidates to stay away from this being a referendum on national security. New Topic: The Palm Restaurant in Washington has, as do all Palm Restaurants, caricatures of people from the area. As it happens, my caricature is on the wall just as you enter the restaurant. As it also happens - although I didn't notice this until Wednesday when it became more-or-less a running joke - my drawing is right next to that of … Mark Foley's. I'm going to say this one last time: I never had … On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to Hamlet; a Mullfoto over which I laughed out loud; and the Catchy Caption of the day which is the wall at the Palm Restaurant. Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich and is a regular columnist for Townhall.com townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	10/26/2006 5:16:59 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

HRC Fires Staffer Who Orchestrated Foley Scandal Statement Raises More Questions About HRC’s Involvement Posted by GayPatriot This is a stunning development in efforts to peel back the onion of the Mark Foley scandal and expose who knew what and when they knew it. I have been flying back to Charlotte for most of the day, so I have been unable to “elevate” the comment by Brad Luna of the Human Rights Campaign to a full posting. I emailed Brad last evening asking the HRC to respond to Dan’s posting challenging Joe Solmonese to respond to the accusations that the entire Foley affairs orginated at the Human Rights Campaign. <<< “The email exchanges in question between former Congressman Mark Foley and a House page have been in the possession of bloggers and media outlets for some time now. Yesterday, it came to our attention that an HRC employee, hired just last month to work for us in Michigan, was responsible for initially posting these emails on his blog. We investigated the matter, determined that HRC resources had been inappropriately used, and let him go. No one at the Human Rights Campaign, other than this individual, had any knowledge of his activities,” said Brad Luna, Spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign. >>> Luna’s statement was also emailed to the blogger of “Stop October Surprises” who is the first to connect the dots linking the Human Rights Campaign to the bogus blog “Stop Sex Predators”. SSP, you will recall, was the blog set up to leak out the details of the Foley connected the dots. We now know that a former employee at HRC was behind the entire affair. I have repeatedly highlighted the HRC’s involvement in the Foley affair from the start. Many of you dismissed it. But the HRC has finally admitted it. So my questions now are the following: - What is the name of the fired HRC employee? - When did the HRC employee come into possession of the Mark Foley emails? - Why did he hold them until October, instead of going to the proper authorities immediately if he truly wanted to expose a potential sex predator? - What did the officials at HRC know about the Foley matter before today? - What connections might the fired HRC employee have with the two-year old “outing” campaign targeting gay Congressional staff? - Were other HRC employees involved in this conspiracy? - Does this former HRC employee have any connections to Democrat Party officials? Finally, it is worth noting that one of the central figures in the Foley affair is also a Board of Directors member of the Human Rights Campaign — Jeff Trandahl, the former Clerk of the House. I think the HRC needs to come clean and fully explain to those of you who give them money exactly what the hell they are up to. This entire matter has put every gay American into a bad light by equating child predators with being gay. The HRC has a responsibility to tell us what they know and when they knew it. They are now directly responsible for the anti-gay atmosphere that has emerged from the scandal that one of their own employees helped launch. UPDATE – The New York Times has picked up the story. <<< A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation. A spokesman for the group, the Human Rights Campaign, said it first learned of its employee’s role this week and immediately fired him for misusing the group’s resources. The scandal surrounding Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, has been a burdensome distraction for members of his party in the month before the midterm elections, and some Republicans have speculated that the e-mail messages were planted by a Democrat. The rights campaign’s spokesman, David Smith, said the employee, whose name he declined to disclose, was a junior staff member hired last month to help mobilize the organization’s members in Michigan. “The minute we learned about it we took decisive action,” Mr. Smith said. The Miami Herald and other news organizations have acknowledged obtaining copies of the same e-mail messages months ago but declining to publish them because of their potentially ambiguous contents. >>> Ummm.. I thought the Hypocrite Rights Campaign was “bi-partisan”? (LMAO). And, thank goodness for the bloggers who alerted the HRC this week about their rogue employee doing all of these things mysteriously with no knowledge of the HRC hierarchy, according to them. (Yours truly was one of the bloggers who put the HRC’s feet to the fire, thanks to Dan’s post.) Finally, wthere is smoke there is fire…. keep watching the truth come out over at StopOctoberSurprises! That’s where this HRC bottom-feeding was uncovered. This is the HRC’s version of Rathergate. Let’s see how the largest gay rights group in America handles their worst scandal. Many deep pockets will be watching. gaypatriot.net gaypatriot.net stopoctobersurprises.blogspot.com hrc.org citizenchris.typepad.com nytimes.com topics.nytimes.com topics.nytimes.com hrc.org gaypatriot.net stopoctobersurprises.blogspot.com

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	10/27/2006 11:10:35 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Ex-Dem staffer behind get-Foley nysterious blog? Thomas Lifson The American Thinker 10 27 06 John Cook of Radar has put a name on the mysterious person who seems to have set up the bogus Stopsexpredators blog that was instrumental in outing Mark Foley in a premature October Surprise op. The Human Rights Campaign was quick to disavow and fire the (at the time) unnamed worker for it. But through research, Cook discovered that the only person who fit the description offered by HRC (incidentally, a Soros-funded operation) was Lane Hudson. There is no firm confirmation, but only one person meets the description. And Lane Hudson turns out to have a history as a staffer for Democrat office holders! <<< Hudson, a onetime staffer to Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) and former Democratic South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, is 29. Calls to the HRC and to Hudson were not returned. >>> To repeat a demand of many Democrats about 911, “connect the dots!” Hat tip: Clarice Feldman Update from Clarice Feldman: per a researcher at Just One Minute: Lane Hudson of SC is referenced in a 2003 Kerry speech as, <<< ”...former Governor Jim Hodges of South Carolina, and his staffer Lane Hudson…”. A Lane Hudson was also listed as staff in this report from the 2001-2002 Congress. >>> Lane Hudson is evidently on staff with HRC, or at least has an email address through them and organizes event(s) for them. Per Radar, this connection may now be defunct. If I read the abstract on this (now expired) link, Lane Hudson of SC is 27 and in real estate. sacbee.com—ElectionDelegate status: Congressional District … T. Lane Hudson , Charleston, S.C. , 27, real estate. I don’t know if this is the same Lane Hudson that is affiliated with HRC and hosted at least 2 HRC events in Michigan this week. If SC Hudson is a former staffer of the Dem governor, that would seem to indicate a possibility that he was also a Democrat Senate staffer in 2001-2002 and a Democrat delegate in 2004. Is it possible that the “leaked emails” routed not through a former page but a Democratic staffer / operative who may also be a gay activist working for HRC? Posted by: Dave in W-S \| October 26, 2006 at 08:43 PM oops…Link (below) for the 2001-2002 Staff reference. You have to do a search and find,; it’s buried in a list. Posted by: Dave in W-S \| October 26, 2006 at 08:45 PM Update: The Texas Rainmaker may have found a picture of Lane Hudson. texasrainmaker.com americanthinker.com radaronline.com vote-smart.org americanthinker.com mailto:des16@hotmail.com justoneminute.typepad.com americanthinker.com”http://www.govrecords.org/2001-2002-cong-dir-new-york/deldelcongressional-106.html” mailto:des16@hotmail.com justoneminute.typepad.com

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	10/28/2006 12:47:10 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Questioning the timing, or it's the thought that counts By Jay Tea on Politics Wizbang Yet again, I find I need to spell out exactly what I'm thinking about the Mark Foley scandal. Foley (the Florida Republican) was doing things of disgusting morality, indisputable impropriety, but apparently not legally prohibited. He was exploiting his position and power and prestige for his own selfish needs, preying on those far younger and accustomed to deferring to him. For that, he needed to be exposed and driven from his position of public trust. As of now, it appears he didn't quite do anything illegal, so criminal prosecution seems unlikely. The person who exposed him publicly -- apparently a now-former employee of the Human Rights Campaign -- did a public service. That is indisputable. But that does not excuse him from questions -- and criticism. It appears that the gentleman in question had the explicit instant messages (not the somewhat creepy but not actionable e-mails) for some time, but "sat on them" and did not publish or release them for some time. In fact, they were not released until after the deadline for replacing Foley's name on the ballot had passed. Coincidence? I'm not sure. But I find the timing far more questionable than the vagaries of rising and falling (and, apparently, rising again) price of gasoline, and Bush gets routinely blamed for that. So, Foley's exposer apparently had the goods on Foley, but held off on them for some time. What's the big deal? As long as it got out, who cares about the details? I do. And so should you. Foley, as I understand it, was creepy and disturbing and wrong, but not a raving, slobbering, uncontrollable sexual predator. Had he not been exposed, he might have stayed at the "creepy" stage the rest of his life. Or he might have crossed over into outright illegality and started assaulting young boys to sate his desires. We'll never know now. Let's suppose that the guy from HRC sat on the information for three months before releasing it. If during those three months Foley had snapped and assaulted (or even killed -- it's happened before) a child, then the HRC guy would have some of the blame on him. Because he put his own motivations and goals and aspirations take precedence over protecting the public. Foley's gone. Politically, he's dead; his body just hasn't stopped moving. And good riddance. It should have happened a long time ago. And anyone who had access to those e-mails showing his active sexual pursuit of barely-legal former Congressional pages, but held them back for political gains, should also be shunned. (And before anyone asks, when I say "anyone," I include any members of the Republican leadership, who apparently knew about Foley's tendencies and creepy e-mails, if they also knew about the instant messages or had other solid evidence of just how far he was going.) feeds.wizbangblog.com en.wikipedia.org

To: Sully- who wrote (23266)	12/11/2006 10:31:09 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Greenwald Pounds Emanuel By Captain Ed on National Politics Captain's Quarters In the wake of the final Ethics Committee report on the Mark Foley scandal, we have discovered what we expected -- that the Republicans shrugged off the scandal until it blew up in their faces, and that the Democrats knew about it long before the October Surprise release (in September, in this case) prior to the midterms. It shows both parties in a poor light, both of them sublimating ethical concerns and the safety of the pages to electoral interests. On page 76 of the report, the Ethics Committee makes clear that the Democratic House leadership had copies of the e-mails as early as October 2005 -- and withheld them. Today, no lesser liberal blogger than Glenn Greenwald blasts the Democrats, and especially Rahm Emanuel, for lying about their involvement in the scandal: <<< At the height of the Mark Foley scandal in October -- when Democrats were pounding Denny Hastert and company on a daily basis for having taken no action despite knowing about the emails sent by Foley to at least one page (and for lying about their past knowledge) -- Democratic Congressman (and DCCC Chair) Rahm Emanuel went on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (along with GOP Rep. Adam Putnam). I haven't been able to find a full transcript, but the full video is (linked below), and this article provides an account of the segment. All week long, Republicans had been insisting that the Foley scandal was a Democratic "dirty trick," speculating that Democrats -- specifically the DCCC of which Emanuel was the Chair -- were just as aware of the Foley e-mails as various GOP House Leaders were, and they accused Democrats (with no evidence) of being responsible for engineering the story. ... Emanuel would likely say that he did not "lie," because each time he was asked whether he was "aware" of the e-mails -- which he plainly was -- he never denied being "aware" of them. Instead -- he would likely argue -- he changed the subject by denying that he ever "saw" the e-mails, a fact which appears (based on what we know) to be true (or at least not demonstrably false). Therefore, in the narrowest and most technical way, an argument could be constructed that Emanuel did not actually "lie" in his responses. But that argument, ultimately, is nonsense. If you listen to the video, there is little doubt that Emanuel was lying in every meaningful sense of that word. He not only denied having "seen" the e-mails, but also interrupted Stephanapolous's first question about whether he was "aware" of the e-mails with an emphatic "no," and at least on one other occasion, denied not only having seen the e-mails, but also having been aware of them. Those denials were just outright false (i.e., "lies"). Independent of the question of whether Emaneul "technically lied" -- and far more important -- is the fact that Emanuel was clearly and deliberately misleading. Any reasonable person would have come away from that interview (as I know I did) with the strong impression that Emanuel was completely unaware of any e-mails sent by Foley to the pages, and that he had no reason to know anything was amiss with Foley until ABC broke the story. >>> Please read the entire post, as Greenwald has lots of citations and an excellent argument to tie them altogether into a damning indictment of Emanuel. I don't think anyone was terribly surprised by this development, but the chutzpah of Emanuel might set a few new lows for Washington in this regard. Emanuel, Greenwald reveals, relied on a Clintonesque rhetorical dance to deliver the impression that he had no knowledge of the Foley matter before ABC News broke it and Foley resigned -- which Greenwald rightly suggests amounts to a flat-out lie. Will Emanuel pay any price for his dishonesty? It's doubtful; by the time of the next election, this will be old news that neither party will want to revisit. Still, kudos to Glenn for getting tough with his own party on dishonesty and political cynicism of the highest order. captainsquartersblog.com house.gov glenngreenwald.blogspot.com abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com