Saturday Night Open Thread
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newsweek has excerpts from woodward's book, state of denial. they are of course mind bending:
incompetence beyond imagination
a brief purvue of recent news articles found on google news seems to indicate pugthugs are saying (surprise, surprise) one thing and doing quite another. at the local level they're claiming to be distancing themselves from the idiot-in-chief while at the same time on the national level, they're giving him everything he wants. they need to be called out on this particular bit of hypocracy-as-usual. has the rnc and kkkroverbutt sent out the word that anyone voting against dunce-in-charge will be toast in 2008?
The slower job growth regime marches onward
by Jared Bernstein with research assistance from Yulia Fungard
Employment continued to grow at a moderate pace last month, as payrolls expanded by 128,000 overall, and 111,000 in the private sector, according to today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Average hours worked per week also fell slightly, while the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged, down a statistically insignificant one-tenth of a point to 4.7%.
Over the past five months, job market activity has slowed in tandem with the rest of economy, as higher interest rates, energy costs, and now the slumping housing market have dampened hiring. The monthly growth in payrolls since April has averaged 119,000, well off the pace of the 206,000 of the prior five months.
Excluding government employment from the analysis provides a clearer look at labor demand generated by the private sector. As shown in the chart below, which compares the last five months to the prior five, monthly job growth has slowed by about half.
As for another sign of weakening demand, average hours worked fell back slightly last month, both for weekly hours and for total hours worked by the private, non-supervisory workforce. The average workweek fell by one-tenth of an hour, as most industries cut back on weekly hours. Professional services, an important bellwether of service-sector strength, cut the workweek by 0.3 tenths of an hour.
Total hours worked, a measure of aggregate demand, fell by 0.2%, the largest decline in a year. Slower job growth and flat weekly hours in recent months is showing up clearly in this series: on a quarterly basis, total hours worked are up at an annual rate of 1.2%, the slowest growth rate in over a year (excluding the months affected by Hurricane Katrina).
The recent indicators of sharp weakening in the residential housing market make it a sector worth extra scrutiny. After falling by 17,000 over the prior three months, jobs in this area (residential building, contractors, real estate, and mortgage brokers) rose by 10,000 last month, including 4,000 added jobs in home building. Still, over the year thus far, these industries have contributed 5% of private sector job growth, compared to 17% in 2005.
Factory payrolls slid by 11,000 last month, following a 23,000 job loss in July. Though the manufacturing sector has had a few positive months lately, the level of manufacturing employment—14.2 million—is 2.7 million below its level at the peak on the last business cycle in March 2001.
The long employment slide in this key sector is also evident in the hourly wage trends of blue-collar workers. Despite the fact that manufacturing productivity has soared since 2000, up 29%, wage growth has slowed sharply. The chart below shows annual nominal wage changes for production workers in manufacturing since 2000. Over the past year, wages for these workers are up 1%, far behind inflation, and the slowest annual growth rate since the 1940s.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20060901
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Yeah, that's one helluva of an accomplishment Brownie (oh I mean Bushie ... is there any difference?).
a brief purvue of recent news articles found on google news seems to indicate pugthugs are saying (surprise, surprise) one thing and doing quite another. at the local level they're claiming to be distancing themselves from the idiot-in-chief while at the same time on the national level, they're giving him everything he wants
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Stick it to them. The best way is with LTE's. I even read one Repug supporter claim today that Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) really is a liberal. What a hoot! This is a man who voted to raid social security trust fund 9 times, approves of the Iraq war, approves of Bush's tax cuts for billionaires, approves of corporate welfare for oil & gas companies, voted to prevent Medicare from lowering prices through bulk purchases, is against embryonic stem cell research, is anti-choice. But, his supporters have the gall to claim that he a liberal that doesn't rubber stamp Bush. Call them out!
White House in crisis over 'Iraq lies' claims. Watergate journalist's new book threatens to demolish Bush's credibility and boost Democrats ahead of mid-term elections.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1884879,00.html
What's with this sex pervert Frosty-Bean-Bags? Everytime another Republican pedophile gets exposed, he starts howling, "It's OK to have sex with anyone older than ten!" What's up with that cretin?
On the way out, Bush slapped Garner on the back. “Hey Jay, you want to do Iran?”
What's up with that cretin?
****
domingo,
The Frosted Bean Bag gets off on the pervo stuff.
Most Iraqis Favor Immediate US Pullout, Polls Show
By Amit R. Paley
slime bites rove
by anna shane [Subscribe]
Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 05:40:15 PM PDT
Rove has his hands filled this time, trying to spin a failed state, keeping Bush from disintegrating on screen, while worrying about indictments to come. The tactics were broadcast, encourage voter machine tampering, suppress anti-bush voting, and dig up slime on every Democrat. That last one hasn't worked out.
anna shane's diary :: ::
Unfortunately for the Republicans 'going negative' is ending up biting them harder. Now their poster boy for caring about kids turns out to be a pedophile. And if that's not enough, we learn there was even a cover up. Reminds one of the pedophile priests, getting transferred from church to church. Hypocrisy isn't a partisan affair, but this year it sure seems like it. All that sanctimony just attracts perverts, go figure.
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Yep, attracts perverts and GOOPER trolls that defend them (or is it admire them?).
President Carter: Bush Has Brought US "International Disgrace"
The Associated Press
re: plame, libby argued in court this week that if he is prosecuted for lying to the fbi he will try to give up state secrets while defending himself. some may have given up on fitzmas but i still believe...
Baghdad - A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.
In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.
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Can you blame them? Our presense in their country is just making matters worst. The Iraqi have consistently said from the start that they are glad Saddam is gone but they want us out fast as well. Give these people their country back you GOOPER hypocrites. If the GOOPER's really believe in the "freedom agenda" then they should start by giving the Iraqi their freedom. But they won't because they are hypocrites, liars, torturers and perverts.
When the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan visited the United States last week, they got into an ugly public spat over who was to blame for a Taliban resurgence that has killed hundreds of Afghans this year and shaken confidence in Afghanistan’s new government. Full story:
Fun in the 'Burbs meme: Pedophile Republicans
by mcd [Subscribe]
Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 05:33:35 PM PDT
Being urban Democrats, we happened to go out to a social event in the burbs today, knowing that some of these folks are pretty strong republicans. Kept the message pretty simple: "Have you heard about Congressman Foley and the Hastert Coverup? Even Boehner and Roy Blunt probably knew. It's time to get rid of these pedophile republicans." Jaws dropped, but even the GOP'ers couldn't disagree--and many agreed. Link 'em all and sink 'em all.
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Stick it to them! This is it. The issue that finally breaks their backs. They said for years that they are the party of "family values". Now, the truth is out there that they are the party of slime.
I feel I have to let everyone know how upset I am that the horrendous detainee bill passed - with the vote of my 2 NJ Senators (to whom I e-mailed my displeasure). It is a shameful piece of legislation. It is nothing more than a power grab by a terrible administration. The dangers to all of us are suddenly getting much too real. I want us as Democrats and as Constitutional believers to start opposing such shredding of our liberties and not cave in because we fear being labeled "soft on terror". I'm not so concerned about terrorists now; I'm more concerned about tyranny at home.
INDEPTH: AFGHANISTAN
In the line of duty: Canada's casualties
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/casualties/total.html
"Mission Accomplished"
Politicians and military experts have been responding to a warning from a senior diplomat that civil war is more likely in Iraq than democracy.
and dig up slime on every Democrat
Posted by rjsnj on September 30, 2006 at 09:16 PM
and they don't even need to dig up 'real' slime. they just make some up and because they think everyone other than themselves is dumb, gullible, and stupid, repeat it over and over as if it were truth. forget doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. try, do unto others what ever you want...again, and again, and again....
I'm not so concerned about terrorists now; I'm more concerned about tyranny at home.
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I am glad to hear you say that. I say that it takes real courage to stand up for civil liberties. It's just so darned hard to fight for that issue. People think that you are worrying about something that will never effect them. The problem with that line of thinking is that once it bites them, it's too late.
Republicans: Party of Pedophilia and Torture
by maxschell [Subscribe]
Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 04:29:08 PM PDT
The Republicans have seen fit to destroy our liberty and desecrate our Constitution.
They have sought to cover up and validate the Executive Branch's power grab, while at the same time covering up and legitimizing torture done in OUR name with OUR tax payer dollars.
Now, it turns out, in addition to covering up for Bush and his torture squad, they are covering up for the pedophiles in their midst.
It is time to link these issues. Republicans Torture. Republicans are Pedophiles. They must be stopped.
and they don't even need to dig up 'real' slime. they just make some up
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It's easy to do that when there is a pro GOOPER media echo chamber.
Posted by rjsnj on September 30, 2006 at 09:32 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Frightening Balance Sheet
By Pierre Haski
Libération
Thursday 28 September 2006
A European diplomat assigned to Baghdad recently summarized the situation in Iraq: "If the Americans leave, it's a disaster; if they stay, it will get worse … "This choice between two bad solutions provides a measure of the trap into which George W. Bush has jumped all by himself and which - unable to extricate himself - he pretends to perfectly master. With aplomb, the American president continues to proclaim that he is winning the "war against terrorism" when his own intelligence services assert the opposite. With the midterm elections in his sights, George W. Bush still succeeds in lulling a segment of public opinion, while the number of American victims in Iraq has just exceeded 2,700 and the civil war - whether you call it that or not - rages between communities and within each community. Only Kurdistan is getting what it wants from the situation and is gently putting off to sea, at the risk of exploding the Iraqi Federation. The balance sheet would already be damning if it were limited to the domestic Iraqi situation alone. It becomes frightening when one analyzes the regional and international consequences of the Iraqi fiasco: a gift given to Iran in its quest for power and a serious boost for the jihadist movement in the world. George W. Bush and his never-changing accomplice Donald Rumsfeld have undoubtedly committed a profound historic mistake, dragging a few of their allies along with them, like Tony Blair. A mistake that the Iraqi people - who briefly believed themselves liberated from a sinister dictator - pay dearly for today. And the negative impact of which the world is not finished suffering.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
****
Amen Pastor ... history has a way of repeating itself.
Torture breeds terror
Published: September 30 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 30 2006 03:00
For decades, America was the moral leader of the world on the laws of war. But now President George W. Bush has traded that moral high ground for a few paltry votes - maybe not even enough to save the Republicans from losing the House of Representatives in the coming elections.
Earlier this week, he strong-armed his own party and terrified the Democrats into passing a new military tribunals law that gives him the power to detain indefinitely anyone who meets a shockingly broad new definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant"; strips detainees in US military prisons of the sacred right of "habeas corpus", or the right to challenge their detention in federal court; and immunises US officials from prosecution for the worst of what they did at Abu Graib, or in the secret prisons where the most valuable captives were held.
Of course, in America's divided system of government, neither the president nor even the Congress has the last word: the new law will certainly be challenged in court, perhaps all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Ironically, one of the first detainees to challenge it could be Salem Ahmed Hamdan, the man who made history in June by persuading the Supreme Court to declare Mr Bush's military tribunals illegal in the first place.
The Supreme Court told Mr Bush to go away and get congressional authorisation for the tribunals, which he had tried to set up on his own. But the court did not give him or the Congress carte blanche to write whatever rules they wanted - and many, perhaps a majority of the justices, will not like what he came up with.
They are likely to be particularly concerned by the provisions stripping detainees of the right to go to court. That part of the law could face an almost immediate test, as Mr Hamdan - whose case is now back in a federal district court - will almost certainly claim that it violates the US constitution. His case could end up back before the Supreme Court, some time in the next couple of years.
But if, as seems likely, a protracted court battle still lies ahead before any of the detainees can actually be tried under the new military tribunals law, one can be forgiven for wondering what all this haste has achieved. Even if it saves a few Republican seats - which is far from certain - it will surely do little to help bring terrorists to justice.
Indeed, it could do quite the opposite. Intelligence assessments leaked in the US and Britain, just as Congress was putting the final touches to the new bill, should have forced legislators to think about the unintended consequences of their actions.
Those assessments argued persuasively that America's war on terrorism has so far done little more than radicalise an entire generation of Muslims around the world. The new bill may accentuate that trend: how else can young Muslims be expected to react to a bill that legalises the torture of their compatriots?
Mr Bush seems genuinely to think he needs these measures to protect Americans from terrorism. But he is wrong. Ordinary Americans will be paying for decades to come for the short-sighted strategies of their president and his party, and the failure of the Democrats to stand fast against a law that is certainly immoral and possibly unconstitutional.
The courts may strike down big parts of the new law, but the damage has already been done.
Financial Times editorial
rjsnj...your LTE suggestion isn't a bad thing and more of us should write to our editors. but given my personal predispositions, i lack a certain amount of tact. we should all exercise a bit of restraint when publically exposing repugs to riducule regarding their actions. many people who have defined themselves as republican are, in fact, descent and worthwhile human beings who vote their conscience and need only to be shown another more just way. it doesn't help our cause to lump them all into the same garbage bag. don't get me wrong...i still think we should "give 'em hell!" at every opportunity.
evening all, drifting thru and after scanning the comments came to a thought... it's time to counter the faith based moron idiot trying to play commander and chief with his slogan of "cut 'n run" with one of our own...
the moron: SPENDIN' AND BLUNDERIN'
have a nice evening. our finest in iraq are having one hell...
AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is president there. Michael Ratner, your response, as we speak with the senator about this groundbreaking legislation?
MICHAEL RATNER: Well, I think Senator Leahy really got it right. I mean, what this bill authorizes is really the authority of an authoritarian despot to the president. I mean, what it gives him is the power, as the senator said, to detain any person anywhere in the world, citizen or non-citizen, whether living in the United States or anywhere else. I mean, what kind of authority is that? No checks and balances. Nothing. Now, if you’re a citizen, you still get your right of habeas corpus. If you’re a non-citizen, as the senator pointed out, you’re completely finished. Picked up, legal permanent resident in the United States, detained forever, no writ of habeas corpus.
It was incredibly shocking. I watched that vote yesterday. I had been in Washington for two or three days trying to line up the votes for Senator Leahy’s amendment that would have restored habeas. We thought we had them. We lost at 51 to 48. I have to tell you, Amy, I just -- I basically broke down at that point. I had been working like a dog on this thing. And there I saw the President come to Capitol Hill and persuade two or three or four of the Republicans who we thought we had to vote to strip habeas corpus from this legislation. It was a shock. I mean, an utter shock.
So you have this ability to detain anyone anywhere in the world. You deny them the writ of habeas corpus. And when they're in detention, you have a right to do all kinds of coercive techniques on them: hooding, stripping, anything really the president says goes, short of what he defines as torture. And then, if you are lucky enough to be tried, and I say “lucky enough,” because, for example, the 460 people the Center represents at Guantanamo may never get trials. In fact, only ten have even been charged. Those people, they’ve been stripped of their right to go to court and test their detention by habeas corpus. They’re just -- they’ve been there five years. Right now, under this legislation, they could be there forever.
Let me tell you, this bill will be struck down and struck down badly. But meanwhile, for two more years or whatever it’s going to take us to litigate it, we’re going to be litigating what was a basic right, as the senator said, since the Magna Carta of 1215, the right of any human being to test their detention in court. It’s one of the saddest days I’ve seen. You’ve called it “groundbreaking,” Amy. It’s really Constitution-breaking. It’s Constitution-shattering. It shatters really basic rights that we've had for a very long time.
the issue is not that foley is gay. the issue is that foley used his position of power to sexually solice and harass high school kids.
rjsnj
AMEN.....outta here for the nite..............
g'nite dems.....it can only get better from here............
Greetings gregg,
Is it solace? He did sound as if he would help with the raging hormone thing.
Bush economy pays off, we have 100 more BILLIONAIRES, YIPPIE!!!
by PLS [Subscribe]
Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 06:20:41 PM PDT
Common Dreams has an opinion piece that finally shows that Bush has done a bang up job on the economy. It has been growing amazingly, as a matter of fact, Bush's policy has created 100 new billionaires. Or his "base", as he calles them, the "have-mores". Aren't you happy that you gave up wage increases, job security, a living wage, and health care now? It has made us more competetive remember, so we can compete in the global marketplace. I am willing to bet that America is beating the pants off of the "civilized world" in one area, that being how many billionaires we have.
The piece starts out by observing;
Millionaires are so last millennium. The new Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is Billionaires only.
****
Yep, that's the Bush economy. It's feudalism. That's why they are creating laws that give the government totalitarian power. They know that this upside down economy will eventually collapse and the billionaires at the top want to protected from the angry "mobs".
geez tom i really do need to edit don't i? meant to write solicit of course.
Things are getting scary out there.
The torture bill.
Our seperation of Church from State is in danger.
But...I do think that the American People are coming around.
I wish everyone could hear the special commentary that Olbermann (MSNBC) made on Monday in regards to the Wallace interview. But unfortunately not everyone will hear it. Instead they hear Katie C. calling it a Tantrum and slapping the hands of everyone who is finger pointing.
Scary times indeed.
I wish everyone could hear the special commentary that Olbermann (MSNBC) made on Monday in regards to the Wallace interview. But unfortunately not everyone will hear it. Instead they hear Katie C. calling it a Tantrum and slapping the hands of everyone who is finger pointing.
****
Katie Couric is a corporate media shill. It was a great commentary.
Middle-Class Families in Worse Shape Than Ever
Reuters
Thursday 28 September 2006
Typical families have not stashed enough money; struggling to pay for home, insurance, and education according to Center for American Progress.
Washington - The typical double-income family is worse off financially than ever, a study released Thursday said, warning that few Americans have saved enough to brace for financial setbacks.
Middle-class families are struggling to pay for a home, health insurance, transportation and their children's college with wages that have not kept pace with higher prices, according to the study by a think tank headed by a former top aide to President Bill Clinton.
The middle class's financial condition has been a key issue ahead of the November elections, as Democrats warn that this group is fast losing economic ground amid skyrocketing prices and tax cuts that offer them little benefit.
"In our estimates, it's becoming harder for families to afford what we consider a typical middle-class lifestyle," said economist Christian Weller of the Center for American Progress, the political think tank headed by John Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff.
Weller cautioned that while Americans are taking on more debt to cover higher costs, wages have not kept pace.
The majority of Americans have not socked away enough money to brace for financial setbacks such as a job loss or a medical emergency.
According to the study, less than a third of all American families have accumulated income equaling three months of their wages. The trend is particularly pronounced among the 60 percent income distribution that makes up the middle class: those with dual incomes earning from $18,500 to $88,030 a year.
From 2001 to 2004, the proportion of middle-class families that has saved three months' worth of income dropped to 18.3 percent from 28.8 percent, the study said.
Higher prices for a range of things - including health care, energy, transportation, food and education - have put Americans in this position as corporate profits have risen, the study said.
It said, that five years into the current economic recovery, average job growth is one-fifth that of previous business cycles and wages are flat when inflation is factored into the equation.
To maintain day-to-day consumption, families have taken on a record amount of debt, equal to 126.4 percent of disposable income in the first quarter of 2006, according to the study.
Commenting on the study, SEIU Labor Union President Andy Stern said, "Of the total amount of our economy and income, we have the greatest share going to profits in modern history and the least amount going to wages in modern history."
"For most working Americans, things are far worse than any time certainly in recent history and at a time of an incredibly growing economy." said Stern, whose union represents 1.1 million health care workers.
Health care industry leader Abbott Laboratories Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Guidant Corp. edged higher late Thursday in New York.
****
More evidence of the crappy Bush economy.
I was glad to see President Clinton get in Chris Wallaces face and really lay it on him.That network (FOX) under Murdocks control and agenda is always a tilted, slanted and otherwise republican spin organization.Mr. Clinton, keep on keep'in on, for the good of the people of this country
This is kinda weird:
Wal-Mart launches registration drive
By Jonathan Birchall in New York
Published: September 29 2006 18:34 | Last updated: September 29 2006 18:34
Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, on Friday launched a drive to encourage its 1.3m employees to register to vote, in the biggest operation of its kind ever by a US private employer.
The company has begun distributing voter registration packages – including postage-paid application forms – to more than 17,000 employees at its stores and warehouses in Iowa, with other states due to follow.
I was glad to see President Clinton get in Chris Wallaces face and really lay it on him.
****
Me too. I said it's about freakin time that someone blasted these right wingers at Faux News.
if the fundgelicals are right and the 'rapture' is upon us, then it must be coming in november! i'm outta here, g'nite all.
G.O.P. Leaders Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail
By CARL HULSE and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: October 1, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.
The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager. But news reports about the exchanges have led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.
....overly friendly...nice. i can smell hastert's ass on fire from new york....and the smell ain't pretty.
Replacing the Big Three
By Robert Reich
TomPaine.com
Tuesday 26 September 2006
Once it gets through its latest round of job cuts, Ford will have fewer American workers than Toyota. General Motors has become a shadow of its former self. The only car on its drawing board that has a chance of big sales will be built in South Korea. Meanwhile, Chrysler is swimming in red ink and planning major plant closings. By the way, Chrysler is now part of Daimler-Chrysler, headquartered in Germany.
Detroit's Big Three are shrinking into the Small Three. They now employ 15 percent fewer workers than they did a decade ago, and half the number they employed forty years ago. Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are the New Three. Toyota is inching up on GM, and Honda is surpassing Chrysler.
But here's the truly stunning thing: Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are making most of the cars they sell in the United States here in the United States, with American workers. And they're building new plants in the US as fast as they can. In a few years more Americans will be working for Japanese automakers than work for American.
Does it really make any difference? Maybe to our national pride.
But, hey, we have the largest retailer in the world, don't we? Wal-Mart now employs more people than does the entire US auto industry. We also have the world's largest and most expensive health care industry and biggest military. Over the last five years, health care and the military have been responsible for almost all the net new jobs created in America.
But the real issue isn't the number of jobs. It's their quality, and that's the big problem. Detroit's Big Three paid wages, health and pension benefits that together amounted to about $80 an hour in today's money. The Japanese transplants in America pay half as much. Wal-Mart pays less than a quarter as much. Meanwhile, hospital orderlies and elder-care workers don't come near matching the United Auto Workers at the old Big Three. And military work is just plain dangerous.
So as the Big Three shrink, we ought to be making up for the good jobs we're losing. One place to start would be for the nation to invest in emerging industries like bio-technology, non-fossil based energy, new materials and nanotechnologies. Out these could come the good middle-class jobs of the 21st century - technician-type jobs involving upgrading, installing, repairing, injecting, testing, or improving upon a host of products designed to prevent the spread of dread diseases, give us energy without further warming the globe, and improve the speed and durability of countless items.
Even now, there's a large and growing demand for pharmacy technicians, lab technicians, hospital technicians, and office technicians. In this post auto-worker age, young people need some education beyond high school to get these and other technical skills of the future.
The sad fact is they aren't getting them. According to a recent report of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the post-boomer generation is less educated than the boomers, and less able to afford college. Their families can't afford the cost. And government isn't filling the gap. Pell Grants for college are less available than they were a decade or two ago. Colleges are less affordable. Federal money for job training is drying up.
There's no bringing back the Big Three. But shame on us for turning our backs on the big picture.
****
First Mr. Reich, you need to get rid of the GOOPERS. They are anti-science, anti-government research. They are against stimulating the economy by demand side economics. They lie to the public about supply side economics - meaning giving tax breaks to billionaires. They tell the public this create jobs. It's a blatant lie. There is no economic evidence to support this claim. The record speaks for itself. Bush has the worst job creation record in history.
The Globalization Excuse
By Susan B. Hansen
TomPaine.com
Friday 22 September 2006
Last week, the Chicago City Council failed to rally enough votes to overturn Mayor Daley's veto of a "living wage" ordinance. The measure, first passed by the council in July under national media attention, would have required big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to pay a higher minimum wage. Opponents of the minimum-wage hike claimed it would cost Chicago jobs. Businesses wouldn't be able to compete with other states and cities that don't have a high minimum wage, they fretted. The evidence suggests otherwise.
The old "high wages will make us less competitive" excuse gets trotted out whenever there's a move to increase the minimum wage. And it works. This year, Congress again failed to raise the federal minimum wage of $5.15, which has not been increased since 1997. And the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that median hourly wages have declined despite gains in productivity. Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of GDP since 1947, while corporate profits are at record highs. Put another way: Citizen earnings are at historic lows, while corporate earnings are way, way up.
To rationalize this lopsided state of affairs, the "global economy" is often blamed. We often hear that in an increasingly integrated world economy, American workers must accept lower wages, fewer benefits and less job security in order to compete with China, India or other developing countries. But what we don't often hear is that the costs and benefits of globalization represent concrete political choices, not economic inevitability. Many countries - and some American states - have successfully combined international competitiveness with decent living standards for their workers. On the other hand, some places that have cut wages and benefits have not only failed to become more competitive in the international market, but have suffered adverse social and political consequences.
My recent research on American states provides evidence to support these claims. In the United States - unlike other more centralized European countries - many policies that influence labor costs are determined at least in part at the state level. Examples include so-called right-to-work laws, legal provisions affecting employment at will, unemployment insurance eligibility and benefit levels, and workers' compensation. Twenty-two states now have minimum-wage laws above the federal minimum.
In America, the cost of labor - that is, workers' wages and benefits - has dropped dramatically over the past 30 years. A comprehensive index of what employers pay for labor per state shows a decline in labor costs of 25 percent since 1970, and economic factors - loss of industrial jobs, international competition - are certainly part of the explanation. But politics matters as well; I found that the best single predictor of trends in state labor costs was voter turnout! States with low and declining labor costs, such as Kentucky, Nevada, and South Carolina, have experienced a falloff in voter turnout. But where ordinary citizens vote in larger numbers, aided by competitive political parties and grassroots labor organizations, labor costs - both manufacturing wages and benefits - have actually increased. In states with referenda, such as Florida and Nevada, ballot measures to increase the state minimum wage have passed with significant majorities.
So have international markets punished the states where labor costs have remained high? On the contrary; states leading in manufacturing exports - such as Washington - or foreign direct investment - California and New York - are the states that pay higher wages. But states such as Arkansas, Idaho and West Virginia - which have cut their labor costs most drastically since the 1970s - rank in the lowest quartiles in terms of exports. Higher state labor costs are also associated with faster growth in gross state product, education levels, productivity and personal income.
International data support these conclusions as well. According to the World Competitiveness Index, the most competitive country in the world is Finland, and the other Scandinavian "welfare states" with generous unemployment and health care policies also rank in the Top 10. Countries such as Estonia, Ireland, Singapore, and South Korea, which have invested heavily in education, have also attracted high levels of foreign investment.
What about jobs and employment? My research showed that trends in state labor costs have little impact on unemployment rates, which remain higher in central cities and in isolated rural areas. Despite its drastic cuts in state labor costs, West Virginia still has the nation's highest unemployment rates. Job growth is modestly greater in states with lower labor costs. But many of these jobs are part-time, low-paid and offer few, if any, benefits. Thus declines in state labor costs are associated with a number of negative social outcomes: higher rates of crime, poverty, suicide, divorce and births to single mothers. Creating a few more low-paid jobs does not counter these adverse trends.
Congress and the presidency, firmly under Republican control, may invoke international competition and "globalization" to justify their refusal to raise the minimum wage and for shifting the tax burden from wealth and capital to workers' wages. But in many states, political officials have made other choices: to increase the state minimum wage, to enact the Earned Income Tax Credit to benefit the working poor, to expand rather than restrict access to workers' compensation and unemployment benefits. The global economic system is not a static, immutable force over which we are powerless. Indeed, it is the officials we elect who can influence how the costs and benefits of globalization are distributed.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.
****
Hastert, Reynolds and Alexander are co-conspirators. They all must go.
oh well...one more comment. last night, mclaughlin said the clinton/wallace 'slap down' (my term, not his) was a net gain for democrats! embolding dems is a good thing and we need more of it. ok, now i'm gone.
Pages are high school students who attend classes under congressional supervision and work as messengers.
"It looks to me that it was more important to hold onto a seat and to hold onto power than to take care of our children," Mahoney said. "I think that's wrong. I think that's what's wrong with Washington."
Posted by gregg on September 30, 2006 at 07:26 P
Why in the world are high school kids being privately supervised by individual congressmen? This wouldn't be allowed in a regular high school.
What sickens me the most about this is that the same stuff Foley was suggesting to those House Pages is exactly what "The Professionals" were doing to Iraqi boys at Abu Graibe and probably in secret Pentagon gulags around the globe. And now the whole world knows where it got its inspiration....and why the Bush Torture bill passed so easily this week in the GOP controlled Congress.
Our Nation's reputation as a civilized country now lays in shreds with blood and semen on the hands of the GOP in both the White House and Congress. Foley was put in charge of child abuse legislation in the House, when Hassert knew for over a year what was going on?
The 24/7 media divas will be salivating over this like mad dogs for the next few weeks giving the Undecided and Soccer Moms plenty to think about as the election approaches.
Will the Christian Right try to sweep this under the rug? Is this what our troops are fighting for in Iraq? Weren't all those poor children neglected by FEMA after Katrina bad enough?
Are America's moral majority going to continue to allow GOP pedifiles and their GOP leadership protectors to run wild in the Halls of Congress?
These and other searching questions will be asked by alarmed media divas like Oprah, Katie Couric, and Tucker Carlson in the coming weeks. There isn't going to be any clever slogans or catchy Karen Hughs publicity phrases to hide behind on this one.
Does Osama Bin Lauden look so frightening, when we have compassionate conservatives like Foley secretly approaching our kids on the internet in the cloak rooms of Congresss?
Just how much lower can these Republicans and their appologists sink?
This is John Laesch, the Democratic candidate running against Dennis Hastert.
Our campaign office reports that the phone has not stopped ringing all day and the Inbox on our e-mail account is exploding.
We know that Dennis Hastert has been the "cover-up" guy for everything that is wrong in Washington. Hastert has been cleaning up messes all the way from this Wednesday's "get out of jail free" detainee bill that he gave to George Bush to gutting house ethics rules after Tom DeLay was indicted.
I am currently working with Danny Stover who is running against Shimkus in Illinois' 19th District to hold a near-term press conference. If you want to help Danny Stover get a $400 plane ticket to Chicago, you can donate here
It is time for both of these gentlemen to do the right thing for America and resign.
John Laesch's diary :: ::
This morning we held a press conference in St. Charles, IL and I basically said that it is time for Dennis Hastert to resign. If he does not do the honorable thing then voters should fire him on Nov. 7th.
I started my speech with some of Hastert's own words from a 1998 press conference.
"Even though our children may be at home with the doors locked,"
"that doesn't mean that they are safe. We must continue to be proactive in warding off pedophiles and other creeps who want to take advantage of our children...It's not infringing on liberties, it's about protecting our kids."
Apparently proactive in Washington means waiting 11 months...
Exactly one month ago today Dennis Hastert made the front page of the Kane County Chronicle, a local paper, that covered Dennis Hastert's town hall forum on Internet safety.
Protecting children is OK for Dennis Hastert when it is earning him votes, but he doesn't give a damn when it is a page working on Capital Hill.
The fact that Hastert tried to cover this up is reason enough for him to resign.
The fact that Hastert is playing dumb means that he does not plan to go quietly into the night.
I am going to be reading all of the posts from Kossacks tonight and I cannot sit around too much longer. Please continue to offer advice and vote in our poll.
Well I've read one of the chats that Foley was involved in and it's rather disgusting.
You know if he were a Dem they'd have already gave him the lethal injection.
Well I've read one of the chats that Foley was involved in and it's rather disgusting.
****
Indeed it was! I wouldn't even post a link to it.
Hastert, Alexander, Reynolds should all resign now.
Posted by rjsnj on September 30, 2006 at 10:19 PM
rjsnj, notice how polite Reich offers up his critism? What in the world is wrong with Democrats? Can't they get excited and angry about anything? If we "lost our tempers" more often, voters might actually begin to think we might do something if they voted for us.
Well over on the CBS News blog more people were posting about how they understood why Clinton got angry and they didn't see it as a tantrum.
I'm tired of this President who smirks and slouches over the podium as he talks to his subjects.
I'm also tired of these reporters (least ways that's what they considered theirselves to be) who are actually corporate servants.
Just how much lower can these Republicans and their appologists sink?
Posted by SandyH on September 30, 2006 at 10:26 PM
I'm praying not much. But watch out for home-grown McVeigh types to be flushed out of the woodwork and forests by this constitution trashing bill.
Bring some troops home for marshal law protections?
John i hope you'll do your best and defeat Mr Magoo in the upcoming election and you becoming the new majority leader in the house. Go John.
Good evening to everyone!!!
Wow, a lot of good posting happening here tonight!!
rjsnj, I'd slap you a high-five, but not sure how to do that over the internet. I can feel the heat on this cold night. Keep it burning!!!:)
In my opinion, legalizing kidnapping and torture by our government, with no legal recourse, is the third most shameful thing the USA has done.
The other two are: fire and atom bombing cities of civilians in WWII.
And:
No group of people faced more prejudice and discrimination than California's native people. In the onslaught of the Gold Rush and the American settlement, which followed, many Indian tribes were forced from their ancestral lands. The natural resources they depended upon for food and shelter were destroyed. Laws were enacted that prevented them from voting, owning property or weapons of any kind, serving on a jury, or testifying in a court of law. Eventually there were bounties placed on their heads, and legally-sanctioned massacres of defenseless villages. The editor of the San Francisco Bulletin spoke for most white Americans: It is a painful necessity of advancing civilization that the Indians should gradually disappear.
Ultimately, there was an organized campaign that was explicitly designed to hunt and kill Indians, with bounties placed on their heads. The expenses of these paramilitary efforts were covered by the federal government and by the sale of state bonds. By 1866, newspaper articles endorsed the action. The Chico Courant proclaimed: It has become a question of extermination now. It is a mercy to the red devils to exterminate them. Treaties are played out. There is only one kind of treaty that is effective - cold lead. California's Indians very nearly did disappear. By 1900, their population had been reduced from 300,000 to only 16,000.
http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/fever16-di.html
peace
this election stuff is getting to feel like being on that runaway train with john voigt and eric roberts. hoping for a different ending this time of course.
Dear Democrats:
If you fail to make the Foley fallout part of a broader narrative about how it is just another example of the way the GOP conducts business, you are fools.
Think of the many many examples of warnings or information that was ignored, led to disastrous consequences, then was covered up or the blame pointed elsewhere by the GOP. 9/11. Failure to warn about or protect workers from toxins at WTC site. Failure to send enough troops to Afghanistan to catch bin Laden/secure the country from the Taliban. Failure to listen to generals regarding troop levels needed for occupation of Iraq. Failure to plan for occupation, or even read plans previously prepared. Failure to prepare for Katrina.
This is the way the GOP operates. That's your narrative. Don't miss the opportunity to slip that in, now that you finally have the media's attention because there's a salacious sex angle. Don't let it become just a "sex" story or the media will start equivocating and bringing up Monica Lewinsky. Don't listen to the pundits or consultants who advise you to avoid the story because the GOP and media will try to make it about Monica. Pre-empt them, and make it about the GOP pattern of ignoring, covering up, and shifting blame. Stay on topic. This is about the party of the Underpants Gnomes, whose every scheme seems to follow this script: 1) Ignore warnings, information, or good advice....3) SUCCESS!!!
If you want to make it about anything else, make it about this: A party that would ignore or cover up the actions of a sexual predator they know is targeting minors, just to protect and hold onto political power, is not a party that can be trusted on ANY issue.
Can a party that can't be trusted to protect your kids from someone they suspect to be a sexual predator be trusted - really - to protect you from terrorists? How can a party that consistently ignores warnings protect anyone from anything?
There is a lot of hay to be made here. Don't blow your chances.
Even though our children may be at home with the doors locked,"
"that doesn't mean that they are safe. We must continue to be proactive in warding off pedophiles and other creeps who want to take advantage of our children...It's not infringing on liberties, it's about protecting our kids."
---------------
It seems as though the pedophile republicans are the ones enjoying their freedom, while we're behind our locked doors with our children. It's past time that this situation got turned around. We, and our children, should be enjoying our freedom, while the republican pedophiles are behind the locked doors.
mal, as i drove past some farms around here i saw a number of democratic congresstional candidates out in the fields pitchforking accusations like hay onto the wagon and singing zip da dee doo dah zip da dee dah...
You're invited to the liveblog tomorrow morning for the Meet the Press Debate between Sherrod Brown and Mike Dewine.
www.debatescoop.org is launching with expert coverage in a blogger-friendly scoop software environment. Previews are up now.
Register there to comment and write diaries. Check out the "About Us" page.
We are the one and only site collecting the nation's expertise on political debates, but the expert opinions are worth little without your questions and comments.
gregg - yeah, well, Timmy Russert and the rest of the Sunday morning gang hasn't had a chance yet to try to warn them about how they will make it All About Monica if Democrats don't play nice and forget about it. Just tune in tomorrow and see if you don't hear variations on that theme being played far and wide.
My point was, anyone who pays any attention to them is a fool. Obviously not all Republicans are pedophiles; that sounds like a lame argument a Republican would make, kind of like claiming that covering up a consensual sexual affair constitutes a "high crime". No one but the loony 30% buy into those kind of blanket statements, though the media is all too willing to repeat them ad infinitum. And that's where the issue ends unless there's a clear narrative to cast it as an example of a much larger pattern. So the opportunity to make it about the pattern of incompetence, inaction, and poor judgement shouldn't be missed.
malcontent on September 30, 2006 at 11:22 PM:
Right on the mark! Frustration is a terrible thing that sometimes leads to improper classification. Thanks for setting the issue straight.
Republican Cut and Run
Cut taxes for the rich
run up the deficits for children
meanwhile back in the reality based community the plot thickens...back biting and in fighting, man it was real exciting!
GOP Leader Rebuts Hastert on Foley
Reynolds: Speaker Knew of E-Mails in Spring
By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A01
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week.
Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully.
Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, became the second senior House Republican to say that Hastert has known of Foley's contacts for months, prompting Democratic attacks about the GOP leadership's inaction. Foley abruptly resigned his seat Friday.
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert.
Yesterday's developments revealed a rift at the highest echelons of House Republican ranks a month before the Nov. 7 elections, and they threatened to expand the scandal to a full-blown party dilemma.
Only after Reynolds's definitive statement did Hastert concede yesterday that he may have been notified of some of the questionable activities of Foley, 52, who had co-chaired the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. Hastert said, however, that he knew nothing of the sexually explicit instant messages that became public Friday when ABC News and other news outlets reported them. The messages apparently were exchanged with youths other than the 16-year-old.
Hastert's aides learned in the fall of 2005 only of e-mail exchanges that House officials eventually deemed "over-friendly" with the Louisiana teenager, the speaker's office said yesterday in a lengthy statement. "While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation" with Reynolds, the statement said, "he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds's recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution."
Boehner and Reynolds said their offices learned of the Foley e-mails months ago from Rep. Rodney Alexander (R), who sponsored the page from his northeastern-Louisiana district.
"Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of the e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander's," Reynolds said yesterday. "Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me."
GOP leaders have said they referred the matter promptly to Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), who heads a three-lawmaker panel that oversees the House page program.
Shimkus questioned Foley, but at that time, he had seen only suspiciously friendly e-mails, not the explicit instant messages revealed recently. In one e-mail to the former page, for example, Foley asked for a picture of him. The boy reportedly told an associate that he considered the request to be "sick," but Foley convinced Shimkus that the exchanges were innocent, Shimkus and Republican leaders said.
Republicans appeared to have kept the matter under wraps. Rep. Dale E. Kildee (Mich.), the only Democrat on the House Page Board, said yesterday: "I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House page, and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter."
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, questioned yesterday why Alexander had gone to the House Republicans' chief political operative, rather than to other party leaders. "That's to protect a member, not to protect a child," Emanuel said.
With his statement, Reynolds, who is locked in a difficult reelection campaign, signaled he was unwilling to take the fall alone amid partisan attacks that were becoming increasingly vituperative. The Democratic National Committee yesterday issued a statement asking "Why Did Tom Reynolds Cover Up Congressman's Sex Crimes?" It continued: "While the shocking [online] exchanges produced an immediate uproar that cost Congressman Foley his job, at least one member of the House Republican leadership had known about the situation for months and did nothing about it: . . . Reynolds."
Foley Built Career as Protector of Children
The Republican congressman who resigned Friday following the discovery of sexually explicit Internet messages he sent to teenage boys was a gregarious and charismatic lawmaker who built his political career in large measure on legislative proposals meant to halt the sexual predation of children and...
Republican insiders said Reynolds spoke out because he was angry that Hastert appeared willing to let him take the blame for the party leadership's silence.
A House GOP leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that Reynolds realizes he has taken a shot at his leader but that it is understandable.
"This is what happens when one member tries to throw another member under a bus," the aide said.
Last night, Hastert, Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in a statement that Foley's communications with former pages are "unacceptable and abhorrent," and that his resignation "must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system." The statement did not suggest how that might happen, but added that the three have "asked for the creation of a toll-free telephone number for House pages, parents, grandparents and staff to confidentially report incidents of concern."
The House clerk's office "has taken possession of Congressman Foley's office, and Capitol police officers have been posted in front of his office around-the-clock" to preserve Foley's records and correspondence, said Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean.
Foley's actions have jeopardized a House seat that Republicans had considered safe this fall. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) headlined a fundraiser yesterday for the district's Democratic nominee, Tim Mahoney, whose race has rocketed to national prominence with Foley's resignation. Charlie Cook, editor of a nonpartisan newsletter that tracks congressional races, said that if Foley's name stays on the ballot, "it's going to be hard for Republicans to hold on to the seat." But a GOP loss might last only two years, he said, since the district typically votes Republican in presidential races.
The chronology released by Hastert's office begins in late 2005, after Alexander had alerted colleagues of Foley's e-mail exchanges with the former page, who had returned to Louisiana. Hastert aide Tim Kennedy "immediately discussed the matter with his supervisor, Mike Stokke, Speaker Hastert's Deputy Chief of Staff," the statement says. Also brought into the talks were Hastert's staff attorney, Ted Van Der Meid, and the House clerk.
The clerk and Shimkus "immediately met with Foley to discuss the matter," the chronology says, and they told Foley "to immediately cease any communication with the young man. . . . Mindful of the sensitivity to the parents' wishes to protect their child's privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities," it says, "Kennedy, Van Der Meid and Stokke did not discuss the matter with others in the Speaker's Office."
Republicans fear the scandal, coming in the wake of indictments of three GOP congressmen this year, might add to the public's unrest at the party's image and conduct, and some House members yesterday joined in the chorus of dismay and scorn.
"I don't think it will be just conservative voters that will shake their heads when they hear about this," said Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.).
"As the author of laws designed to protect children on the Internet, I was appalled at the recent revelations that a member of Congress engaged in reprehensible behavior toward young people connected to the congressional page program," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). "Congress should thoroughly investigate this matter and, in cooperation with law enforcement authorities, support all proper legal action."
Rich Galen, a Republican political strategist, worried that voters might lump Foley's name with former representatives Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), all of whom were forced to resign or were indicted amid various scandals this year.
"This sense of entitlement that members of Congress can do anything to anyone or for anyone has got to end," Galen said.
Staff writer R. Jeffrey Smith and staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
TomN,
The way affairs are running in the Beltway, I think the McVeighs will be going after the the GOP pedifiles instead of liberal Democrats. What did those immates do to a convicted pedifile this week....tatoo his victim's name on his forehead?
How about tatooing "Abu Graibe" or "Katrina" on Bush's forehead? On the head of every GOP Congressional incumbent?
Does anyone think our troops would want to fight their countrymen back here at home, when they're so lucky to be fighting the terrorists over there? Has Rumsfeld given them the resources to do either?
It's time the citizens of this nation stood up and took responsibility for voting this crowd of GOP degenerates out of power.
We have a GOP President and Vice President who have ignored the laws of the land whenever they chose, while they emptyied the national Treasury for war profiteering and tax cuts for their rich benefactors. Gee, aren't they real patriots?
Then we have a GOP Majority leader who had to resign and is on trial for at least two offenses with more indictments on the way.
We have a GOP Senate Majority Leader who is under investigation for insider trading.
We have a former GOP House committee chairman in jail for taking bribes and a whole bunch more forced to resign as they are indicted or put under investigation in the Abramoff grand juries.
All these "honorable men" and their rubber stamp GOP coharts are so fond of reminding us of their moral leadership? Oh, yeah, they're keeping our children safe. Democrats could never protect them in the way they have.
What was Hassert waiting for?
Spare us from their 9/11 terrorist scare talk, we have more things to worry about from the Grand Olde Party. Do you know where your GOP congressmen are tonight and whether they are approaching your child with some pretty ugly suggestions?
No wonder they've been helping the drug industry legalize all kinds of sex enhancement drugs and allowing date rape drugs to be mass produced. Now it all falls into place.
Sorry I've bitched so much tonight. I'm cutting out, too, before the trolls come in and tell us it's all Clinton's fault that Foley acted on his impulses.
Tomorrow should be a talking head's dream: Legalized Presidential torture and Congressional pedifilia. Can't wait to see how Russert and the rest of the media whores handle it. Will they even mention that things are going so well in Iraq that marshall law had to be imposed over the weekend?
I feel sorry for the silent majority. They got exactly what they most feared. Will they have the courage to confront their abusers this election and send them where they belong? Throw the bums out.
Good night.
SandyH, Goodnight!!
I, too, am out to bed. You know, I think my mind is successfully blown. I try to rationalize this weeks events and cannot come up with anything except, sick,sick,sick.
Our democracy sinks into despotism, and the leaders find ways to improve upon their own personal modus vivendi. I just do not know what to make of it anymore!:\
All have a good night.
Malcontent,
I think you have the ball on this one, and it is the one in which we all should carry.
Please pass this along to your Democratic friends.
**
5 Steps for Taking Back Our Country
1) Keep it simple. Paint the issues with wide, bold strokes. Nuance is important when dealing with foreign interests, but not when describing situations to your constituents. One of the reasons the GOP has been so successful the past 2 decades has been because they aren’t afraid to generalize, boiling down their point of view to simple, easily-repeatable soundbites.
2) Be aggressive. Go on the offensive and do not back down. Your well-funded opponent won’t concede – why should you? One of the reasons long-time Democratic voters are frustrated with Democratic candidates is that they give up too easy. Both Kerry and Gore conceded when they should have fought back harder and earlier to win the minds of all Americans. Nobody likes a sucker who’s afraid to defend himself. Stop bringing a knife to a gunfight, and get serious about winning. If you act like a winner and don't admit defeat, you'll encourage others to back you up.
3) Frame the debate. I’ve watched us lose control of the South the past 20 years because we’ve allowed the religious right to define the terms of the argument. This must stop. Make your opponent respond to your terms, rather than you responding to his.
4) Be prepared. Your opponent is going to make up stuff about you that is not true or is unfair, and he’ll dig through your statements and actions to find a way to paint you as a tax-and-spend liberal who is soft on crime, drugs, illegal aliens and terrorists. Make sure you have developed a series of easily-remembered and glib responses to these false accusations, then turn around and paint him as a member of a do-nothing congress who failed to capture Bin Laden, dug a $500 Billion debt for a war in Iraq on false pretenses, who squandered our largest national surplus ever under Clinton by giving handouts to the wealthy, the oil companies, the polluters who are increasing global warming, all while causing the greatest increase in unemployment and housing foreclosures since the Great Depression.
5) Hold your moral convictions high and bright for all to see. Be honest in what you do and what you say. Stand up for yourself as well as for the little guy – that’s the great Democratic way. Don’t follow that worn-out habit of trying to be a bigger person by ignoring all the bad things your opponent says about you. Stop being a pansy, and forthrightly accuse your attackers of hurting America, making us less safe, and yes, even endangering Democracy itself by going against your ideas which are better, smarter, and stronger for making us all safer.
Posted by TexasLane on September 30, 2006 at 11:52 PM Republicans Cut and Run - Cut taxes for the rich - run up deficits for our children
excellent.
The Foley Scandal
It's not just about Rep. Foley.
THE SUDDEN resignation of Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) involves more than an obviously troubled man who sent sexually suggestive e-mails to underage congressional pages. Numerous fellow lawmakers, including Republican leaders, apparently had at least partial knowledge about Mr. Foley's disturbing conduct.
RobertFrosty on October 1, 2006 at 12:38 AM,
You cannot compare Foley with a fairy. Your word choice is disconcerting. Pedophiles are criminals. I presume your word choice is reference to the gay community. Their currently is no legal restriction of being gay. Unless, of course, one desires to be married, but that is not the topic of the discourse concerning Rep. Foley. I sincerely hope, if you have kids, they never meet up with the likes of Rep. Foley. Stangely and sorrowfully enough our world it seems is being overrun by these pedophiles. For one to be in the halls of congress is a disgrace.
That is all I can make of this travesty at the present time. Politics be damned!!
House Republican leaders admit they knew about Foley e-mails for months
The House voted late Friday to turn the matter over to the Ethics Committee before Congress adjourned for the fall election campaign season, hours after House leaders acknowledged they had known about the e-mails for months.
....
In the post World War II era, Democrats controlled the House for four decades before losing it in the momentous 1994 election, which brought Foley into office along with 53 other Republican freshmen.
Once an embodiment of the "Republican Revolution," Foley in this year's elections has added to his party's woes.
SandyH,
thanks for the eloquent indignation. I do feel like some democrats have tatooed "shame" on their own foreheads, and by more than my imagination on mine.
Vote all the bums out. Bring back honor and self-respect to America.
Totally tired,
The Foley Coverup Timeline
2003 — Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) has sexually explicit IM exchanges with an underage boy who worked as a Congressional page.
SEPTEMBER 2005 — Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), who sponsored the page, learns “of the e-mails from a reporter.”
FALL 2005 — “Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant in the [Speaker J. Denis Hastert’s] Office, received a telephone call from Congressman Rodney Alexander’s Chief of Staff who indicated that he had an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House page…[Mike] Stokke [Deputy Chief of Staff for Speaker Hastert] called the Clerk and asked him to come to the Speaker’s Office so that he could put him together with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff.”
....
The GOP has made applying the death penalty to child molesters a center piece of their election strategy widening the scope of the death penalty beyond murder.
Death Penalty Being Invoked Against Child Molesters
NEW YORK (Special to the NNPA from IPS/GIN) - Politicians in primarily southern U.S. states have passed laws that expand the use of the death penalty to include repeat child sex offenders-a move mental health professionals say is ineffective in stopping molestation and abolitionists believe ultimately will be ruled unconstitutional.
Iraqi Journalists Add Laws to List of Dangers
By Paul von Zielbauer
Iraqi Journalists Slaughtered Suppressed for Speaking Against Government
Letter From Ned Lamont to Sen. Lieberman: National Intelligence Estimate Finds the War in Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe:
Diane Farrell (D) for Congress. Read the endorsements Diane has recieved:
What Others Are Saying about John DeStefano (D)
Learn why he is the right choice for CT:
Blind as a Moonbat
Bush hails liberation of Afghanistan as a "great achievement"
WASHINGTON - Amid signs that the Taliban insurgency is regaining strength, President Bush on Friday defended his efforts to stabilize war-savaged Afghanistan and blasted critics who charge that his policies there are failing.
Afghanistan is reeling from its worst bloodshed since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention as the Taliban and allied warlords tie down 42,000 American and NATO-led troops and President Hamid Karzai struggles with colossal corruption, record opium production and nose-diving popularity.
...
The president acknowledged setbacks, such as faltering police reform.
But he made no mention of the key reasons for the Taliban's resurgence: the diversion of U.S. troops to Iraq; America's failure to make good on a promise of a reconstruction program akin to the rebuilding of post-World War II Europe; endemic corruption; and the support the Taliban receive from Pakistan. Bush instead praised Pakistan as a strong ally in fighting terrorism.
Pakistan 'Selling' Innocents To U.S.?
Amnesty International: U.S. Bounties For Terror Suspects May Be Creating Trade In False Suspects
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/29/world/main2051638.shtml
Chinese government bestows top awards on foreign experts
From over 200,000 foreigners working in China, 49 foreign experts were chosen to receive the Friendship Award on Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The award, the highest honor that the Chinese government can confer on foreigners, is given annually to foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to China's economic and social progress.
An especially nice article about Howard Dean was posted at Kos tonight from the St. Pete Times.
I think we need to take a look back as a reminder of the Bush/Cheney lies told about Iraq and what others have said. The voters need to be reminded.
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
$330 Million Settlement Deal in Katrina Oil Spill
MSNBC News
Judge must still approve what Murphy Oil, plaintiffs' lawyers agreed to.
RobertFrosty on October 1, 2006 at 04:23 AM
most of your post are total bs. this one gave me information i didnt know. I do think they should go after the leadership though and the reason is that Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, and others are required by law to report when they suspect child abuse (any yungun under 18). Even though this didnt constitute child abuse we still should hold congress to a higher level.
I don't give a rat's a** if Foley is dem/repug or from Mars.
My questions
1 -Have his computers been confiscated?
We have had several child porn cases lately in our area and that is the first thing law enforcement does. He does not deserve any special treatment.
2-If not, why not?
Cover up continuing?
TomN- to clarify for you,when any part of this bill is struck down the entire bill goes into the trash.It has no future except for use in the trial of bush,for that reason I hope he signs it.Dixie- I'm sure his computers have been seized and that the timing of the FBI was such that it maximized the evidence against the others that tried to cover it up.There are plenty of people in every agency that are working for the downfall of bush.
Without computer check, how do we know what he was doing?
Let's see if Nancy Grace goes after this?
Michael Ratner is incorrect-citizens are stripped of their habeus corpus rights if bush deems them "enemy combatants"even just for thinking(and speaking out)that this war on terror is wrong.That means all of us.Since it cannot stand I'm not worried,I convert any actions against me for political gain and usurp the powers of those responsible.
ER
You have a lot of faith in Jusitce Kennedy. He appears to be the new swing vote. I haven't researched his decisions, have you?
Poor frosty,he hasn't figured out that the gay cheerleader character that will ferrell played is based on "lips" our moron president.And he's going to be devastated that alito is a closet queer like mcgreevey was.Just wait till he comes out or is outed.
I actually supported roberts and I don't give any of the justices any credit for the way cases are decided.I put my faith in the constitution because that document decides the cases.Various interpretations aside the judges have little power to themselves,It's can they read or can they not.When the justices stray from their mandate to follow the law,the unintended consequences are severe.What's good for the goose is good for the gander.I'd like to see all supreme cases on c-span,so everybody can see the twisted and failed logic of activists like scalia and thomas.Scalia is so afraid of being found out that he won't even let people record speeches he makes in public!
Television in the supreme court, I hope I live long enough to see that.
I would recommend another hunting trip for Scalia with Chenney, but that might give GW and his bobble headed congress another nominee - Gonzalez next time??
It may not be quite what you expect - a team of Iraqi Kurds teaching explosives clearance techniques in the bombed-out villages of southern Lebanon - but here they are.
The men have been flown out by the British charity Mines Awareness Group (MAG), the only non-commercial munitions clearance body in Lebanon, a country still littered with unexploded devices more than a month after the recent war with Israel.
Salaam Muhammad, a moustached, 40-something Iraqi Kurd, was supervising a group of Lebanese volunteers, sifting through the leaves and earth, on the look-out for unexploded devices.
"We learned a lot during Iraq's war of 2003," Salaam told me. bbc
It isn't great that we have given Iraqi Kurds a skill they can use.
Morning, Dems. Sunday talk lineup from Kos
This Week: BOOOYAAA!!! Smash Mouth Football with Jack Murtha vs WH Creep Dan Bartlett
60 Minutes: Woodward speaks to Mike Wallace about Bush's Lies and Rice's Incompetence - or is that the other way around? Actually, BOTH!
Using electrical impulses to cure clinical depression.
Suburban teens who prey on urban homeless.
MTP: The Ohio Senate Debate: Sherrod Brown vs Rubberstamp Dewine.
Pervez Musharraf on his disgusting dinner with "Full-Mouth" Bush; what kind of wood Karzai was whittled from; and his recent peace treaty with Al Qaeda.
CNN: Outgoing Chairman Dick Lugar vs Incoming Chairman Chris Dodd.
The besieged Zal Khalilzad on the attempted military coup.
Heavyweight, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski vs Indochina war criminal and American traitor, Henry Kissinger.
More bull shit Bartlett.
Cry-Baby News: Mr. Sex Scandal(s) himself, Newt Gingrich vs Baaadaaasss Jane Harman.
Then they attempt to escape the quicksand with Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden Unit (the unit Bush and Cheney recently closed down) and Daniel Benjamin, former NSC member under Pres. Clinton. Give it up Ailes, you guys shot yourselves, really good.
Face the Nation: Biden vs bull shit artist Dan Bartlett
Until Friday Mark Foley has been my "representative" for the last twelve years, I've never voted for him. He actually wasn't horrible he helped my county after Hurricane Charlie, the forgotton Hurricane, nearly wiped us out, we are still rebuilding after two years.
I could care less who anyone sleeps with, as long as no one is getting hurt I consider it none of my business. Foley did vote against the gay marriage Descrimination Bill apparently voting against his own interest for political reasons. What makes this so bad is Foley targeting minors while Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Council! The republican "leadership" knew of this problem for a year and did nothing except reward Foley by allowing him to keep his chairmanship. Gay,straight, black, white, republican or democrat is irrevelant when it comes to exploiting children.
The republicans have become the party of cronyism and coverups their only real agenda is keeping power no matter the cost to our nation's children, after all the "children" will be paying for all the messes the republicans have left them. It's pitiful!
Tim Mahoney (D) 16th District should win Foley's seat and hopefully bring some sanity, oversight and honesty to the House.
peace
Good Morning Everyone!
:)
I don't jnow about anyone else,but I'm still shocked about Fmr.Rep Foley.Does anyone know if he's Catholic? Just asking.
Also,Woodwards book has the Republicans scurrying like roaches.I have'nt seen them act out in such a paranoid manner since the Censure Resolution.
sally is so funny. anything the republicans do wrong he has an excuse. delay, libby, rove, abramoff, cunningham, cheney, rummy, condi, ney, and now of course foley....all great leaders and citizens.
ms. duckworth got to respond to the dummies radio address yesterday and she...took no prisoners:
Candidate wounded in Iraq: Bush offers 'shallow slogans'
POSTED: 11:56 p.m. EDT, September 30, 2006
Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Illinois congressional candidate who lost both her legs during combat in Iraq said Saturday that President Bush has no real strategy for securing the war-ravaged nation, just political talk designed to appeal to voters.
"Instead of a plan or a strategy, we get shallow slogans like 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Stay the Course,"' former Army Capt. Tammy Duckworth said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "Those slogans are calculated to win an election. But they won't help us accomplish our mission in Iraq."
Duckworth's address served as a response to the president's weekly radio talk and gave the Democratic Party a chance to showcase one of its strongest candidates as it seeks to regain control of the House in November's elections.
Duckworth, who copiloted a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed while under a rocket grenade attack almost two years ago, also criticized Bush and others in his administration for accusing anyone who challenges the president's policies of "cutting and running."
"Well, I didn't cut and run, Mr. President. Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed," Duckworth said. "My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed 'mission accomplished."'
At a GOP fund-raiser Thursday in Alabama, Bush said, "The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."
Duckworth is seeking the suburban Chicago seat being vacated by conservative Republican Rep. Henry Hyde. She is running against Illinois state Sen. Peter Roskam, the man Hyde has endorsed.
In her address, Duckworth, now a major in the Illinois National Guard, also lashed out at the GOP-led Congress for refusing to do its job of holding the Bush administration accountable for its flawed Iraq policy.
"We need a Congress that will ask the tough questions and work together for solutions rather than attacking the patriotism of those who disagree," she said. "It is time to encourage Iraqi leaders to take control of their own county and make the tough choices that will stop the civil war and stabilize the country."
the rats are scurrying around the ship's flaming deck not wanting to jump off into the sea and yet not wanting to stay and burn up...
GOP Lawmaker: Hastert Knew Of Messages
Congressman Says He Told House Speaker Of Concerns About Rep. Foley Months Ago
(CBS/AP) Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Speaker Dennis Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow GOP lawmaker had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Hastert's office said aides referred the matter to the proper authorities last fall but they were only told the messages were "over-friendly."
Reynolds, R-N.Y., was told about e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley and is now defending himself from Democratic accusations that he did too little. Foley, R-Fla., resigned Friday after ABC News questioned him about the e-mails to a former congressional page and about sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages.
"The improper communications between Congressman Mark Foley and former House Congressional pages is unacceptable and abhorrent. It is an obscene breach of trust," Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a written statement Saturday evening. "His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system."
On Friday, Boehner told The Washington Post he had learned about Foley's e-mails in late spring and that he told Hastert soon after. Boehner said Hastert appeared to know already of the concerns surrounding Foley. However, shortly after his interview with the Post, Boehner told the newspaper he was unsure if he had spoken with Hastert.
rats
Hi Gregg,
I just wrapped up reading all the posts from the weekend and I have to say,how "unsuspecting" can some of our regulars be to not see that they have been communicating with the that troll "Sally"? I mean, I just don't get it.WTF is RobertFrosty? I mean, come on.
Anyway,what I find disturbing is what people are saying about Fmr.Do-Nothinger Foley.I don't understand why people aren't talking this more serious than it really is.Look,I don't care what the persons age is,Sexual Harrassment is Sexual Harrasment, period.All one needs to do is walk into their place of Employment and look at the damn EEOC Laws posted right next to the Time Card machines to know that Republican Foley Sexually Harrassed that Page.I don't care if he was 12, 55 or 92.The Page was Sexually Harrassed.
"Any UNWANTED gesture made in a sexual nature"
"SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK"
clearly suggests to me that those e-mails were UNWANTED Gestures.
I mean,shet.The family meeds to sue.They have to sue.They just gotta sue.
Good morin' Dems. It's a rainy day here in NJ but even more rainy for the GOOPIE party.
Get this one - Abramoff knew ahead of time about plans to attack Iraq. Clearly, he was already lining up war profiteers:
From: Jack Abramoff
To: 'octagon1'
Monday, March 18, 2002 8:31 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday
I was sitting yesterday with Karl Rove, Bush's top advisor, at the NCAA basketball game, discussing Israel when this email came in. I showed it to him. It seems that the President was very sad to have to come out negatively regarding Israel, but that they needed to mollify the Arabs for the upcoming war on Iraq. That did not seem to work anyway. Bush seems to love Sharon and Israel, and thinks Arabfat [sic], is nothing but a liar. I thought I'd pass that on.
I don't jnow about anyone else,but I'm still shocked about Fmr.Rep Foley.Does anyone know if he's Catholic? Just asking.
Also,Woodwards book has the Republicans scurrying like roaches.I have'nt seen them act out in such a paranoid manner since the Censure Resolution.
*****
FOS - the truth is catching up with them. You can only lie so much before it comes out no matter how secretive you are.
The GOOPIES deserve to be kicked out of Congress.
Poll: 71% Iraqis want withdrawal, 53% favor timeline
by ManfromMiddletown
Sun Oct 01, 2006 at 02:49:06 AM PDT
The Program on International Policy Attitudes released a new new poll Friday showing that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis feel that that the continued presence of US troops in Iraq is destablizing the country.
****
Get out of Iraq now. There is no good solution. There is no reason to continue to waste money and blood in occupying a nation.
sally is so funny. anything the republicans do wrong he has an excuse. delay, libby, rove, abramoff, cunningham, cheney, rummy, condi, ney, and now of course foley....all great leaders and citizens.
****
You mean Frosty the bean bag! He's in a position where he has to apologize for pedophiles and those that cover for them.
The Palm Beach Post reports that ABC has as many as five pages that have come forward on Mark Foley.
From the story:
His sudden resignation as a Congressman, a position he loved, came only hours after he was confronted with e-mails and AOL instant messages he had exchanged with a pair of teenage boys. ABC News since has reported that as many as five boys -- all congressional pages -- have come forward.
Foley is also supposed to be an emotional wreck:
Foley left Washington on Saturday for an undisclosed location. He is said to be an emotional wreck. His older sister, Donna, who always has been by his side during his political campaigns, is with him.
****
So clearly it's not an isolated case. That's makes Hastert, Alexander and Reynolds even more culpable as they knew a year ago that this was going on. By covering up, they enabled Foley to commit more disgusting acts of harrassment.
Hastert, Alexander and Reynolds (and anyone else who knew but covered up) must resign now. This is a national disgrace.
fos, sometimes many of us grow weary of sally and engage with it. it is always a mistake which is why ice cream allotments are dependent on one's strength in resisting the temptation.
foley's crimes are both---sexual harassment in that they are were unwanted advances in a job setting and that he used his power and position to manipulate these kids and...
child abuse in that these were high school kids under the age of consent ( unless i am missing something about what the age of consent is ). so no matter how you cut it foley violated some rules and laws, those who knew but did nothing and were in positions of leadership are in the soup as well as you know from your job. if you tell your boss someone is harassing someone else he or she is required to take action....so yeah, this is a big deal and it couldn't come at a better time for a better crowd of folks.
great poster from jesus' general:
are you the enemy---who me?
fos, sometimes many of us grow weary of sally and engage with it.
****
sally / frosty the pineapple / frosty the bean bag is unimportant. I find him an interesting example of how warped many GOOPER apologists really are.
What's important is that the mask has been ripped off the GOP. For years they accused Dems of being immoral because of Monica. But, what Foley and those who covered up for him - Hastert, Alexander and Reynolds at the very least - did is way worst. A sexual predator was allowed to legislate in our nation's capital. This person even had the gall to head up committees that are writing legislation to protect children. The truth is that children need protection from the GOP! Throw all of the low life bums out.
Hey you two.New Thread is open.I responded to you there.
great poster from jesus' general:
****
Good work! That is the problem with that awful legislation. It gives one man the power to throw anyone in jail, torture them, use "information" gathered under coercion against them, keep them in jail indefinitely without even knowing the charges. In short, it's fascism unleashed.
The GOP are not tough guys as they try to act by passing such legislatioon. They are cowards, perverts, liars and crooks.
Foley on Clinton:
"It's vile," Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
****
So now the nation knows that these GOOPERS are dirtbags. What Foley did was the worst scandal ever in Congress. The GOOPER leadership covered up for him making it an even bigger scandal.
Faux News will try to down play this. The media and the GOOPERS will try to spin. But, the truth is out. The GOOPERS have no moral high ground - they never did!
Hastert Knew
by craigb
Sun Oct 01, 2006 at 03:40:15 AM PDT
Washington Post reports this morning that Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) has said that Hassert and senior Republicans knew of Foley's emails last year.
Currently the marching orders of the House Republicans are to show disdain and demand that Foley be turned over for immediate criminal investigation and prosecution.
****
Don't let them lie and dissemble. They will try to do that today on the Sunday pundies. Our best anecdote is letters to the editors!
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NEW THREAD, NEW THREAD, NEW THREAD, NEW THREAD,
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Sunday Talk - Kitty Litter
by Al Rodgers
The Sunday Pundies:
I posted on the Foley scandal last night, and I see quite a few posts since then that I don't believe would serve the Democrats in their messaging on this issue, so one by one:
Foley's sexual orientation is not an issue. You'll recall that there have been whispers for years that he's gay; it kept him out of the Florida Senate race. Our issue is not with Foley's sexual orientation. Millions of gay men and women manage to live their lives without sexually harrassing or preying on people under the age of consent.
Secondly, it's not necessarily about pedophilia, though clearly, Foley knew he was contacting boys under the age of consent, so perhaps it doesn't matter. But as of now, there's no evidence that he ever actually had sexual contact with anyone under the age of consent. What Foley did (that we know of), as another poster pointed out, could best be classified as sexual harrassment - unwanted sexual attention directed at boys under the age of consent. Even at that, I'm not sure that making comments of a sexual nature to a 16 or 17 year old is quite the same as molesting little kids. So I would hesitate to label the guy a full-blown pedophile.
The issue instead is, was he directing sexual attention at people he knew were not of legal age? Clearly, he was, which makes those actions ILLEGAL, regardless of his sexual orientation or his status as a true pedophile. What he was doing was illegal. And he knew it.
More to the point, the House Republican Leadership knew that what he was doing was illegal, or that at the very least, it skated right up to the edge of what is legal and could easily cross that line. And they chose to do nothing about it. They chose to keep it quiet in the hopes that Foley would be re-elected and they would hold on to one more seat in the House.
This follows a larger pattern of Republican behavoir - when confronted with actions they know to be illegal, they ignore them or cover them up. Like they did with Abramoff. When caught red-handed, as the president has been on the issue of torture, they retroactively change the rules. Had Bush been the one contacting the young men via email and IM, who can doubt that the action of the Republicans in Congress would have been to try to change the law to lower the age of sexual consent retroactively? This is their typical response to Republican illegality exposed - not to condemn and punish it, but to legalize it so as to escape punishment.
They do this, repeatedly, because they are not responsible people. Their pattern over and over again has been to ignore the law, break it repeatedly, cover it up, then change the law to cover their tracks and escape punishment. Just as their other pattern has been to ignore warnings and information, allow the inevitable to occur, then cover up the warnings they got and attempt to blame anyone other than themselves.
These are people for whom no principle or standard trumps the desire for power - even up to and including putting minors at risk to sexual predation. People who would turn a blind eye to a man hitting on your teenager in order to cling to power are not the kind of people you can trust on any issue at all. They have talked a good game on "values", but by their actions have shown that the only value they hold is the lust for power - regardless of at what cost to you or your family.
This issue isn't really about Mark Foley at all when it comes right down to it; after all, he has resigned his position and if there is further fallout for him personally as a result of his actions, he will be addressing those as a private citizen. Make it about Mark Foley, and it's over as an issue. And it shouldn't be, because beyond Mark Foley, it's about the absolute lack of a moral compass within today's Republican party leadership. That is what needs to be said on the topic of Foley. That's the issue.
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