Originally Posted by Chief Bones

This is some of what is NOW being investigated. Where your argument breaks down, is that some of the charges that are being looked at, fall under 'federal' statutes NOT under 'state' statutes. Most of the 'sex' crime federal statutes, set an 'age of consent' at 18 years of age.

I am setting here in front of my television set at 1345 hours local (NOT in a vacuum), and this whole mess is being discussed ... NEW revelations are surfacing as I set here (at present we are waiting for Speaker Hastert to make some 'breaking' major announcement) ... so AGAIN, I reiterate what I posted before. IF you are so in need of references, tune into almost ANY channel on your television dial, and you can receive the same reports that I do (almost on the quarter hour).

You posted assumptions of what you thought was going to happen and what could be revelead. That is all I am getting at again you are in err on the 18 years of age federal crime thing.

This explains it without me having to go into detail
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15126151/

Here is an exerpt dicussing that 18 is not the case

Investigators could consider federal obscenity laws, experts said, but the law prohibiting disseminating obscene material to children applies only to those under 16.

Again simply refuting my request and telling me to tune into a TV, which obviously I have been following this hence the above link, does not justify assumptions being portrayed as facts.

have you heard the official excuse? He was drunk.

According to Bob Ney (senator from my area, which is CentralOhio), he was also drunk when he asked for a multi-million dollar golf outing to St. Andrews in Scotland (WHICH HE GOT.). He will start his prison term before 2008.

Originally Posted by The Other Guy

have you heard the official excuse? He was drunk.

According to Bob Ney (senator from my area, which is CentralOhio), he was also drunk when he asked for a multi-million dollar golf outing to St. Andrews in Scotland (WHICH HE GOT.). He will start his prison term before 2008.

He may be in rehab for alcoholism but he should be in one for perversion. I've been drunk before but I never considered molesting a child, male or female. I just don't think there's that much alcohol in existence.

Foley seems to have lots of excuses.

A. He was Drunk
B. He is gay
C. He was molested as a child.

How about

D. He's a pedophile

Donkey
I won't get into an argument with you about the law. I watched a 'talk' show where they had a 'law' expert and he basically said some of the same things that you did (however), he also said that when you start dealing with the Federal Sex Crime statutes dealing with phone and internet crimes, MANY of the statutes have 'multiple' levels of the age of consent for the purpose of deciding which crime a 'person' can be charged with.

His explanation seems to indicate that the decision as to which age of consent statute is to be used, is a lot more complex than either one of us first thought.

A lot of the decisions as to which crime has (or) has not been committed, depend on whether the conversation was 'across' state lines ... or ... what state the conversation was carried out in ... or ... what 'kind' of exchange was carried out by the perpetrator, etc, etc, etc.

About the ONLY real agreement you and I have to have, is the agreement that at this time, nobody really knows what crimes (if any), have actually been committed.

I 'suspect' that there has been a cover-up ... but ... how severe a cover-up, I don't know.

Originally Posted by Chief Bones

Dateline: 10.02.06
Hastert is in trouble.
The party of 'Family Values" Speaker of the House (Hastert), has FINALLY admitted that he was informed of the Foley situation "earlier in the year" after having FIRST denied any knowledge of Foley's emails to a young male page. I noticed Hastert's clenched jaw at the end of a prepared statement by a Republican spokesman on C-SPAN, when reporters asked Hastert (as he was scooting out the door), why he won't answer ANY of their questions. The temperature must be finally getting to him.

One of our Local News reporters put it succinctly ... "It appears that it was more important for the Republicans to try to keep a House seat, than to deal with the problem". So much for taking the highroad ... the Family Values party blew their chance ... it took the story breaking in the MSM to get them to do anything.

Before you start tossing around accusations of 'partisanship', the story is telling itself very well WITHOUT a single Democrat really having to climb on their soapboxes, even though the Republicans deserve some of their own medicine. From the first time that GW ran for President, the mantra from the Republicans has been that they were the 'morals' party ... the "Family Values" party, and the Democrats weren't. Now, to find out that the Republicans seem to have done the very thing that they accused a Democratic President of doing (cover-up), is vindication for many people (not all of them die-hard Democrats).

It remains to be seen where this story is ultimately going ... it is up in the air. Investigations are being called for from BOTH sides of the aisle to find out who know what, when they knew it and what did they did when they found out (if anything). NOTE: A bi-partisan request.

I don't care whether you are from either party (or) not ... this is one story that better NOT be swept under the carpet (even if the boy's parents are uncomfortable with the investigation or not) ... the Congressmen and Congresswomen are responsible for protecting ALL of the pages that serve the House and IF they have dropped the ball, then someone else's head should roll (not just Congressman Foley's).

ABC NEWS reported tonight (10.2.06), that more pages have told them that Foley was NOT the only Congressman that was a predator ... I daresay that some of the charges that end up surfacing MAY very well be about Congressmen who have made passes at young girls.

It doesn't (and won't), change the lowlife factor any at all ... a pass at a young underage girl is just as slimy as a pass at a young boy. These kids (in most states), are underage for consensual sex of any kind.

Let's see where the NEXT shoe will drop ... and ... it WILL drop.


The fallout factor:
The Republicans have pushed this 'moral' party crap down everybody's throats, and NOW it's biting them in the arse. How does it feel to be on the other end of the 'moral disgust and indignation' power curve? They and the rest of the 'shame shame' and 'hallelujah' crew, are now having to protect and make excuses for some of their own political leaders. Hastert and some of the other leading Republicans knew about this crap months ago, and sat on their backsides and allowed this 'predator' free rein to continue to pursue his debased behaviour ... and ... DIDN'T report it to the authorities (or) even admonish him in any way. They didn't even hold a 'closed door' session to handle this in house. I guess that you have to be a Democratic President, and have a sexual liaison with a consenting ADULT (not your wife), before the Republicans can muster enough moral disgust to take action (or have a public disclosure that shames them into action that should have been taken the minute this behaviour came to their attention).

It shouldn't have required a media report to have gotten action.

WHAT A BUNCH OF POLITICAL HYPOCRITES AND POLITICAL COWARDS.

What do you think about this debacle?

Republicans sure do stink at the moment. Good on you Chief Bones. Sorry about your little holiday recently. You didn't deserve it my good man.

Democrats: 2 Republicans: 1

Gerry Studds (D-Ma) among first gays to wed



By KAREN ESCHBACHER
The Patriot Ledger

The first openly gay member of Congress, former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, quietly married his long-time partner one week after same-sex marriages became legal.

Studds and Dean Hara, who have been together since 1991, applied for a marriage license on May 18 and were married in Boston on May 24.

The Rev. Thomas Green, a minister in the United Church of Christ, officiated at the ceremony in his apartment on Beacon Hill., across from the Boston Common.

Although Studds wears a wedding ring, until now the marriage has not been reported. He is the most prominent of the 12,284 gays and lesbians who have married in Massachusetts in the past year.

Studds, a Democrat, represented the South Shore, Cape Cod and Islands in Congress from 1973 to 1996. He was a longtime Cohasset resident.

The couple lives in a $1.4 million condo in Boston's South End, where their neighbors include TV newscaster Natalie Jacobson, sports talk show host Eddie Andelman and former U.S. Attorney Wayne Budd.

Reached Friday at home, Studds and Hara declined comment.

Studds publicly acknowledged he was gay in 1983 after being censured by the House for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page.



Congressman Barney Frank (D-Ma)

By Christina B. Gillham
Newsweek
Updated: 2:22 a.m. ET July 25, 2004

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July 21 - Democratic Rep. Barney Frank is known for his witty candor and his dedication to liberal causes, particularly gay rights. One of the few openly gay members of Congress, Frank had been in Washington six years before he came to out to his colleagues, and the nation, in 1987. Two years later he found himself embroiled in a sex scandal with a male prostitute named Stephen Gobie that thrust him into the spotlight—and before the House Ethics Committee. But Frank's constituency, Massachusetts's Fourth Congressional District, voted him back into office despite the scandal and the House of Representatives' reprimand. He has handily won every election since. In 1998, Frank fervently defended President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment trial that followed. A film chronicling Frank's role during that time, "Let's Get Frank," directed by Bart Everly, played at a number of film festivals over the past year. It was released in New York City last Wednesday. Frank remains one of the Democrats' most respected members and continues to fight for gay rights, including same-sex marriage, an issue that has recently been in the news again.


A country deserves the politicians it elects but I hope it all stops with Foley.

Well said Padre.

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Well said Padre.

Maybe I missed something here but the problem as I saw it wasn't that he was gay but that he was (possibly) preying on minors?

Did either of the democrats do that?

Because if the only moral objections people have here stem from his sexual orientation then I would suggest people need to reassess their values.

YES MONTY, YOU DID MISS SOMETHING

YOU SEEMED TO HAVE MISSED THIS FROM MY POST ABOVE...........

.....Studds publicly acknowledged he was gay in 1983 after being censured by the House for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page.