Day: September 29, 2006

This Just In: Foley Resigns After Approaching Underage Male Intern

Trish

Just this morning, I was thinking there was nothing to the story circulating around Florida of U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Palm Beach) being improper toward a male teenaged former page in email.

And when I’m wrong, I’m wrong big.

ABC is reporting Foley just resigned.

Here’s the background:

The boy served as a page to a Louisiana congressman last year and came to know Foley, 52. He sent the congressman a thank-you note when his term as a page ended. After the boy returned to his home in Louisiana, Foley used his personal e-mail account to correspond with the teen.

Under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, Foley made repeated references to sexual organs and acts

In the exchange, Foley asked the boy about weathering Hurricane Katrina and wrote, “send me an e-mail pic of you.” In another e-mail, Foley told the boy he was on a break from Congress and was in Florida. He asked the boy, “how old are you now?”

The boy forwarded excerpts from the e-mails to congressional staffers and said, “Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously. This freaked me out.”

The boy, who is not being identified because of his age, told the St. Petersburg Times in an interview last November, when the Times first learned of the e-mails, that he cut off correspondence with Foley.

“I thought it was very inappropriate,” the boy told the Times. “After the one about the picture, I decided to stop e-mailing him back.”

…ABC News reported that Foley’s office said he routinely asked interns and job applicants for photographs. But when the Times asked Foley about the e-mails nearly a year ago, he did not mention that practice. He said he was merely trying to be friendly and did not mean to make the boy uncomfortable.

Foley has had e-mail exchanges with at least one other former page who told the Times he was surprised to get an e-mail from a congressman.

So check this out:

Saying he was “deeply sorry,” Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress today, hours after ABC News questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former congressional pages under the age of 18.

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

In a statement, Foley said, “I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent.”

Did you get that? The chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children?! Man, those Republicans are sick puppies.

Update: Here’s some of the text of the emails/instant messages. Maf54 is Marky Mark.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.
…
Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.
…
Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

Investigation Finds HUD Secretary Might Be Kind of Guilty

Buck Banks

Faction Jackson: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson got in trouble in May for telling a Dallas business meeting that loyalty to President Bush was a prerequisite for receiving HUD contracts. Pensito Review covered the first report of the speech here and Jackson’s half-assed mea culpa here.

‘People [expletive] dog-out the president but still want contracts and money from the administration.’
— Alphonso Jackson

A recent investigation into HUD’s procurement policies and political culture was not conclusive, but suggested that Jackson might be a little guilty. And, while it could not turn up a specific instance where a contract had not been awarded because of the recipient’s lack of support for Bush, it would appear that Jackson was at least not completely fabricating his “fabricated” Dallas anecdote. It must have been frustrating for investigators not to find definitive evidence:

Assistant Deputy Secretary Aronetta “Jo” Baylor recounted an incident in which she and Jackson ran into Brian Maillian of Whitestone Capital Group in the HUD lobby. Her account of that meeting partly mirrors the anecdote Jackson told the business group — that Maillian thanked the secretary for a contract he had struggled for years to win, and said he did not support the president.

But Baylor said Jackson said nothing to the man on the spot, instead complaining privately to her afterward “that people [expletive] dog-out the president but still want contracts and money from the administration.”

Maillian told investigators that he did not recall such a meeting, and Maillian’s contract with HUD has since been extended.

Investigators also heard from two senior staff members — Chief of Staff Camille Pierce and Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi — that Jackson told political appointees at a staff meeting that it was important “to consider presidential supporters” in the award of “discretionary” contracts. Other officials said they had not heard Jackson make that remark.

Another official, General Counsel Keith Gottfried, said he had heard rumors that Jackson tries to help his friends win contracts, though he said he had never heard of contracts being rescinded or terminated as a result of the secretary’s actions.

The full report is secret, but a 340-page executive summary was leaked, and you can find a link to the PDF here.

Some aids on Capitol Hill were making noise about Democratic Senators calling for investigations, but those boys have been spanked one too many times this week. And with a two-month hiatus for the midterms, Jackson’s actions will likely be forgotten by the time Congress reconvenes in December.

Is It Me, Or…?

Trish

…Every time you hear Bush say he’d rather fight them “over there” than here, do you cringe at the effect these words must have on every Iraqi who hears them? I mean let’s just come right out and say to these people who have lost thousands of friends and family members — not to mention life as they knew it — that it’s better to destroy their lives and their country than ours. Jeez.

…Does it seem like there are a lot more books exposing the dirty workings of the Bush administration than any other, including Nixon’s and Clinton’s? Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t publish a new tome. Do you, like me, suspect that people are writing books instead of news stories because news stories get no play?

…Do you have trouble finding the patriotism in boycotting Citgo, which employs 4,000 Americans, because it’s owned by Venezuela? “Yeah, we’ll show those Bush-hatin’ commies. We’ll buy more oil from the Middle East. ‘Cause they love us over there!”

Cold War Officially Over – U.S. Withdraws Troops from Iceland

Buck Banks

‘g skil ekki: It’s official – the Soviet Union no longer poses a threat to Iceland, and, as of tomorrow, the U.S. military presence that held Nazism and Communism at bay for 65 years will end. Despite the fact that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, heralding the break-up of the USSR, the U.S. has maintained a troop presence in Iceland for … some reason.

According to the Armed Forces Information Service’s press release, we’ve kept troops in Iceland because of the contemporary threats of terrorism, international crime and drug trafficking. And, while those threats still persist, it appears the need for more cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan outweighs the threat to our NATO ally Iceland.

Bless, Reykjavik!

Play ‘Rank the Presidents’ at AOL

Jon Ponder

AOL has an online poll up in which you are asked to rank the last four presidents from best to worst. As of 5:40 AM Pacific, Ronald Reagan was ahead of Bill Clinton but George W. Bush was safely last, behind his father.

History has been kind to Reagan. Personally, I found it hard to maintain my dislike of a man who suffered for so long — I even developed some sympathy for Nancy. And, frankly, dying has helped his legacy. But the Reagan was always a lucky S.O.B. and the luckiest thing that ever happened to him was the presidency of George W. Bush, which has been such a disaster that even the Reagan presidency looks good.

Still, there is no comparison between what President Clinton accomplished in his eight years and the meager results of the Reagan years — on the economy, foreign relations, social issues and the rest. Even on the scandal front, there were nearly 200 prosecutions for malfeasance in the Reagan Administration, but onlya handful of prosecutions of Clinton officials, despite the vast rightwing conspiracy’s multimillion dollar, multi-year investigations into so-called scandals.

It’s Friday, you’re at work. How better to waste a minute and a half than by giving Bill Clinton his due.

Go here: AOL Rank the Presidents.