Sunday, December 31, 2006

Edwards, Now Seasoned, Elbows His Way Into the Field

Washington Post Staff Writer
 
 With overflow crowds and his populist economic message and his Internet-friendly campaign organization, John Edwards signaled this week that, if he has anything to say about it, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination will be about more than just Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
Edwards 2.0 is a revised version of his beta candidacy of 2004. He begins his second campaign for the White House with the kind of self-confidence that comes only from having tried and failed once before. "My biased self-perception is that both the campaign and what's happened since then has had a maturing effect on me," he said in an interview here Friday, adding: "I think that it's just a calmness that's different.
There are also critical adjustments in his candidacy that position him to compete against Clinton and Obama, the party's two unannounced glamour candidates of the moment. Edwards will be able to run to the left of Clinton in a party whose base has shifted leftward during the Bush presidency. And this time, questions about lack of experience will go first to Obama.
The most significant change for Edwards comes in what was his most serious weakness -- foreign policy and national security. When he ran in 2004, his lack of foreign policy experience was magnified by the post-Sept. 11 focus on global terrorism. Like many Democrats interested in national office, he supported the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq.
In 2004, he did not walk away from that vote. But earlier this year he did, and he has not looked back. He calls the vote a mistake and says all politicians must come to terms with their past positions on the war, regardless of their rhetoric today. That represents a subtle challenge to Clinton, who has been reluctant to call her vote for the war a mistake.
Edwards also has joined the majority of Democrats in calling for the withdrawal of almost one-third of the U.S. troops currently stationed in Iraq. "What you begin with is a fundamental threshold question of what is the most effective way to put the burden on them to come to some political solution," he said in the interview. "My own judgment, and I think it's the judgment of many others, is the most effective way to shift that burden to them is for us to begin to reduce our presence there."
Edwards knows he will continue to get questions from reporters about his foreign policy expertise, as he did on Thursday when he launched his candidacy. Though he believes most Americans think someone who has been on a national ticket is qualified to be president, he knows that even minor mistakes on his part -- a slip of the tongue, the inability to answer an obscure question -- will be potentially damaging.
But he had a ready answer this week to the question of national security experience: Bush had the most experienced team in history, and still the United States ended up in a mess in Iraq. Experience, he said, is not a guarantee of good judgment.
As he did last time, Edwards is running on themes of economic populism, and given the success of many Democratic House candidates in this fall's midterm elections, those themes may have even more resonance today than they did in 2004.
Edwards has settled comfortably into the left-of-center position in the Democratic field, pairing positions that excite the party's liberal base with an upbeat message of hope and optimism. He has worked to deepen his relationships with organized labor, especially in Nevada, which is holding an early 2008 caucus, and he will challenge Clinton and Obama for the endorsements of key unions.
Edwards supports universal health care, which he said means health care for every American, not just most. "As you remember from 2004, there were a bunch of people waltzing around saying they had a universal health care plan that didn't cover everybody," he said. "Politicians tend to do that."
He said he is examining two ideas and weighing whether to support a more ambitious and costly plan or one that may be more politically achievable. But he said both would meet his test of universality.
Edwards also refuses to let his domestic ambitions be held hostage to the words "fiscal discipline." Though he acknowledges that the deficit has become a problem under Bush, he said the bigger priority is investing in health care, alternative energy sources, and programs designed to strengthen the middle class and attack poverty.
His ultimate goal may be to hold the deficit roughly where it is or slightly lower, rather than seeking a substantial reduction. "If we do energy, health care, serious middle-class poverty proposals, then I think we're talking about just trying to keep the deficit in check," he said.
Although he staged a scaled-down declaration of candidacy in New Orleans on Thursday, he drew large crowds at stops in Iowa and New Hampshire. Well over 1,000 people turned out Thursday night in Des Moines, and a crowd of that size or slightly larger showed up for his town hall meeting Friday in Portsmouth, where several hundred were turned away because there was no room.
Edwards rarely drew crowds that large in New Hampshire in 2004, except during the final few days of the primary campaign, and only after finishing a surprising second in Iowa. The reception he received on his announcement tour provided a reminder that Obama is not the only Democrat capable of attracting attention.
As he began his second campaign, Edwards did not mention his roots as the son of a mill worker, a staple of his message the first time around. Also gone was his campaign anthem from 2004, John Mellencamp's "Small Town." Even Edwards got sick of it.
Plenty of issues confront Edwards this time out. His people skills long have raised questions about whether there are heft and substance to complement his natural talents as a campaigner. His new emphasis on asking citizens to take action now, rather than waiting on government, leads one to ask exactly what he wants people to do to combat global warming, eradicate poverty and repair the damage along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Edwards said he no longer believes, as he once did, that presidential campaigns turn on issues and policy positions. Instead they are forums for demonstrating the capacity to inspire and lead. "I think presidential elections are a very different breed of cat," he said in June. "I think they're much more about character and leadership and integrity than they are about a particular issue."
Having been through an earlier campaign, Edwards now feels confident that he knows what to concentrate on. "I spent most of my time last time learning how to be a presidential candidate," he said this fall. "I didn't know how to do it. I woke up every day worrying about how to be a better candidate than I was yesterday. Now that's not what I think about. I wake up today thinking about what should the president be doing about these things. It's just totally different."
Edwards hopes that knowledge will help produce a different outcome this time around.
 
Source:
 
Watch The Video Of Edward's Announcement
 
 


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Ron Mills

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Did Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Commit A Crime?

Watch The Clip Of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Calling For Castro's Assassination...
 
 


A Holiday Gift For Everyone
A Free Cook Book
Ron Mills

The War on Christmas

The War on Christmas is one profitable venture.
The American Focus on Fallacies Assn., a conservative activist group, has rung up more than $550,000 in sales of buttons and magnets stamped with the slogan "Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying."
Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm affiliated with the religious right, has taken in more than $300,000 with its Help Save Christmas Action Packs. The kits include two buttons, two bumper stickers and "The Memo that Saved Christmas," a guide to defending overt religious expression, such as a Nativity scene in a public school classroom.
read on

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Most outrageous comments of 2006

Posted On MediaMatters.com
 
 

Most outrageous comments of 2006

How extreme were conservative commentators in their remarks this year? How about calls to nuke the Middle East and an allegation that a "gay ... mafia" used the congressional page program as its own "personal preserve." Right-wing rhetoric documented by Media Matters for America included the nonsensical (including Rush Limbaugh's claim that America's "obesity crisis" is caused by, among other things, our failure to "teach [the poor] how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter"), the offensive (such as right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel's question about "Barack Hussein Obama": is he "a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?"), and the simply bizarre (such as William A. Donohue's claim that some Hollywood stars would "sodomize their own mother in a movie"). Since there were so many outrageous statements, we included a list of honorable mentions along with the top 11, which, if not for Ann Coulter, we might have limited to 10.
The top 11 (in chronological order):
William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: "Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face." [2/9/06]
Fox News host John Gibson: "Do your duty. Make more babies. That's a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days. First, a story yesterday that half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call 'gabachos' -- white people -- are having fewer." [5/11/06]
Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on The New York Times' decision to report on the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program and a Treasury Department financial transaction tracking program: The Times had done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get [Julius and Ethel] Rosenberg[] executed." [7/12/06]
Coulter responding to Hardball host Chris Matthews' question, "How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton's gay?": "I don't know if he's gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore -- total fag." [7/27/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage: "That's why the department store dummy named Wolf Blitzer, a Jew who was born in Israel, will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King, who takes a close runner-up by the hair of a nose. The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." [8/7/06]
Coulter on Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), an African-American: "Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat. Waters also considers Joe 'soft' on the issue of the CIA inventing crack cocaine and AIDS to kill all the black people in America." [8/9/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, blaming America's "obesity crisis" on "the left," "liberal government," and "food stamps": "Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in -- is in government." [8/29/06]
Coulter on Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI): "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln." [8/30/06]
Conservative pundit and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan: "Look, [Rep. Jim] Kolbe [R-AZ] is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. [Rep. Mark] Foley [R-FL] was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages [Jeff Trandahl] was gay. Foley's administrative assistant, Mr. [Kirk] Fordham, The New York Times tell us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What's going on here, Joe [Scarborough, MSNBC host], is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party." [10/9/06]
CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN): "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " [11/14/06]
Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian ... is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?" [12/18/06]
Honorable mentions (also in chronological order):
Beck: "Cindy Sheehan. That's a pretty big prostitute there, you know what I mean?" [1/10/06]
Republican strategist Mary Matalin: "I mean, you know, I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists. And they're keeping constituency, they're keeping their neighborhoods and their African-American brothers enslaved, if you will, by continuing to let them think that they're -- or forced to think that they're victims, that the whole system is against them." [2/8/06]
Pat Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club: "But it does seem that with the current makeup of the court, they still don't have as many judges as would be needed to overturn Roe [v. Wade]. They need one more, and I dare say before the end of this year there will be another vacancy on the court." [3/7/06]
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program: "Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power." [3/17/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz on Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) hairstyle: "She looks like a ghetto slut. ... It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. ... She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. ... She looks like a shih tzu!" [3/31/06]
Boortz on McKinney's hairstyle (again): "I saw Cynthia McKinney's hairdo yesterday -- saw it on TV. I don't blame that cop for stopping her. It looked like a welfare drag queen was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building. That hairdo is ghetto trash. I don't blame them for stopping her." [3/31/06]
Limbaugh discussing a videotape released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq: "[I]t sounds just like the DNC [Democratic National Committee] is writing his scripts now." (4/26/06)
Beck: "Blowing up Iran. I say we nuke the bastards. In fact, it doesn't have to be Iran, it can be everywhere, anyplace that disagrees with me." [5/11/06]
Jonathan Hoenig, managing member of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC, on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto: "I think when it comes to Iran, the problem is we haven't been forceful enough. I mean if you -- frankly, if you want to see the Dow go up, let's get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat." [6/5/06]
Fox host Geraldo Rivera: "I've known [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA] for over 35 years. Unlike me, he is a combat veteran, so he gets some props. But in the last 35 years, I've seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry. And for a smart man like that in a political ploy to set a date certain only aids and abets the enemy, and the Democrats are at their own self-destructive behavior once again." [6/22/06]
Savage: "I don't know why we don't use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out with everyone in there." [7/21/06]
Boortz: "I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage." [8/3/06]
Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas on businessman Ned Lamont's victory in Connecticut's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate: "It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing. ... [T]hey have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to 'kill' one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe." [8/10/06]
Fox News host Sean Hannity, two months before the November midterm elections: "This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] doesn't become the [House] speaker." [8/29/06]
Beck: "The Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians. That's what I thought at 5 o'clock this morning, and I thought, 'Oh, geez, what -- what is this?' If they take over -- the barbarians storm the gate and take over the Middle East (this is what I'm thinking at 5 o'clock in the morning) -- we're going to have to nuke the whole place." [9/12/06]
Savage: "My fear is that if the Democrats win [in the November midterm elections], and I'm afraid that they might, you're going to see America melt down faster that you could ever imagine. It will happen overnight, and it could lead to the breakup of the United States of America, the way the Soviet Union broke up." [10/13/06]
Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Nancy Pelosi's appearance: "I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, 'You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go.' " [10/31/06]
Limbaugh on the Middle East: "Fine, just blow the place up." [11/27/06]
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (on his radio show): "Do I care if the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq? No. I don't care. Let's get our people out of there. Let them kill each other. Maybe they'll all kill each other, and then we can have a decent country in Iraq." [12/5/06]
New York Post columnist Ralph Peters on Iraq Study Group co-chairman James Baker: "The difference is that [Pontius] Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops." [12/7/06]
Conservative syndicated radio host Michael Medved on the animated movie Happy Feet: The film contains "a whole subtext, as there so often is, about homosexuality." [12/11/06]
Fox captions
Additionally, although these are not examples of specific conservative commentators making outrageous comments, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Fox News made a regular practice of attacking Democrats or repeating Republican talking points in on-screen text during its coverage of political issues. Some examples:
"All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" [2/23/06]
"Attacking Capitalism: Have Dems Declared War on America?" [2/18/06]
"Dems Helping the Enemy?" [5/22/06]
"A Lamont Win, Bad News for Democracy in Mideast?"
"Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?"
"Is the Democratic Party Soft on Terror?" [8/8/06]
 
"The #1 President on Mideast Matters: George W Bush?" [8/14/06]
"Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?" [8/16/06]


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Ron Mills

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Dems Ahead in 08 Race

Democrats Hold Edge in 2008

According to a new CNN poll, Democrats appear to hold an advantage at this point for 2008 presidential campaign, with 52% of respondents saying "they would either definitely vote for a Democrat or are leaning in that direction. Thirty-two percent said they were leaning toward the GOP or would definitely cast their ballots for a Republican candidate. Thirteen percent said they were not leaning toward either party."

Key matchups:
  • Clinton 47%, McCain 47%
  • Clinton 48%, Giuliani 46%
  • Clinton 57%, Romney 34%
  • McCain 47%, Obama 43%
  • Giuliani 49%, Obama 42%
  • Obama 51%, Romney 35%
  • Gore 47%, McCain 46%
  • Gore 46%, Giuliani 46%
  • Gore 53%, Romney 37%


A Holiday Gift For Everyone
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Ron Mills

Monday, December 18, 2006

The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006

Hackable Passports



In October, the U.S. State Department began issuing biometric “ePassports” that contain a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag under the back cover. The tiny chip holds the usual passport data, including a digital photo. The motive behind adding the chips is ostensibly good: to combat counterfeiting and illegal immigration.

But a German hacker quickly found a vulnerability. With a laptop and a chip reader he bought for $200, he was able to steal data from an encrypted RFID tag, potentially allowing him to clone an ePassport. And it’s not just Americans who are at risk. Twenty-seven countries (mostly in Europe) that participate in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program are required by U.S. law to issue the new electronic passports to their citizens. The Dutch and British media have already reported major security flaws in the new IDs.


So, what’s a security conscious citizen to do? Again, the answer may come out of Germany. A group of hackers there recommends that people microwave the new passports to destroy the chips. The State Department may want to go back to relying on a paper trail.




What’s Worse Than Bird Flu? The Cure.



M. Romana/AFP/Getty Images
In 2006, bird flu didn’t become the killer pandemic everyone feared. In fact, there were no confirmed deaths in developed countries from bird flu. But the alarm, stoked by Western media reports, led to an unexpected—and unfortunate—outcome: A rash of abnormal behavior, hallucinations, and even deaths attributed to Tamiflu, the medicine marketed as a key drug capable of fighting the disease. In November, the Canadian health ministry issued a warning on Tamiflu after 10 Canadians taking the drug had died suspiciously. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration received more than 100 reports of injury and delirium among Tamiflu takers for a 10-month period in 2005 and 2006. That’s nearly as many cases as were logged over the drug’s five-year trial period. For now, the cure seems worse than the disease.


Petro Powers Drop the Dollar



Juan Barretto/AFP/Getty Images
If you thought record oil prices this year were a pain in your wallet, there’s more bad news on the horizon. The latest Bank for International Settlements quarterly report, which tracks the investment trends of oil-producing countries, indicates that Russia and OPEC countries are moving their holdings out of dollars and into euros and yen. OPEC cut its holdings in the dollar by more than $5 billion during the first and second quarter of 2006. And Russia now keeps most of its new deposits in euros instead of dollars.

That decrease is swift and significant—and helps to explain why the dollar recently fell to a 20-month low against the euro and a 14-year low against the British pound. Holding dollars while other currencies gain strength means less profit for oil producers. But if they rapidly divest themselves of dollars, it may weaken the currency and push up inflation in the United States. “This new trend may be bigger trouble for the United States than high oil prices and surging Chinese exports,” says Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. If this year’s move away from the dollar is a sign of future thinking by oil producers, the pain felt at the pump may soon be the least of our worries.



The Gender Gap Gets Smaller


S. D'Souza/AFP/Getty Images
It was a good year for women in politics. Female heads of state took office in Chile and Liberia, and Hillary Clinton and Ségolène Royal set tongues wagging in Washington and Paris over their own presidential prospects. But it was also a great year for future female leaders, especially those in poor countries.

A report released in February by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau found that the gender gap in secondary education is closing or has closed in most developing countries. Particularly in Latin America and Asia, girls are attending school at the same rate—or higher—than boys. In 1990 in China, for example, 75 girls attended secondary school for every 100 boys. Today, that figure is 97. In India, girls’ enrollment shot up from 60 percent to 81 percent. Though sub-Saharan Africa lagged behind the rest of the world, it too saw more girls in the classroom.


The shift isn’t due to an unexpected worldwide surge in favor of gender equality. The more likely explanation is that urbanization and economic development has boosted girls’ likelihood of attending school, as has a number of innovative government and private-sector programs. In India, for example, UNICEF credits basic sanitation and hygiene education programs in Alwar with increasing girls’ enrollment by 78 percent over a five-year period. Given the clear link between girls’ education and a society’s economic success, it’s good news everyone can celebrate.








The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006







Iran and Israel Hold Secret Talks


ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spent the better part of 2006 denying the Holocaust and threatening to destroy Israel, his country was sitting down with Israeli representatives to settle old debts. The clandestine talks, first reported by Israeli daily Haaretz this month, concern hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly owed to Iran for oil it supplied to Israel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran severed the two countries’ economic ties dating back to the 1950s. According to the report, negotiations over the debt have been on-again and off-again for nearly two decades, and the two sides met recently in Geneva in an attempt to reach an agreement.

It’s unclear why Israeli and Swiss officials are now willing to confirm that the talks are taking place. However, there is one leading theory: The leak was timed to embarrass Iran by publicizing its cooperation with a country it refuses to recognize. And the strategy may have worked. Iran swiftly and vehemently denied it’s secretly talking to the Jewish state. It just goes to show, money talks.



United States Funds the Taliban


SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty
The Taliban’s resurgence brought the ongoing war in Afghanistan back onto the front pages in 2006. From record opium production to suicide bombings, the outlook has only grown dimmer in the past 12 months. What you probably didn’t hear is that some of the money the United States is spending to combat the resurgence of the Taliban is winding up in the hands of . . . the Taliban.

As recently as November, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting revealed that villagers in Afghanistan’s war-torn south were handing over U.S. cash meant for reconstruction projects to Taliban fighters, who then use the money to purchase weapons, cell phones, and explosives. As part of an effort to stimulate economic development in the country, the United States had committed $43.5 million for reconstruction as of September. One Canadian officer charged with helping to distribute cash said that “millions” has already gone missing in the five years since coalition troops arrived. Why? According to the report, local mullahs have urged residents to fight the foreign occupation and hand over the money in the hopes of gaining back the security they’ve lost. Others say it’s simple extortion from Taliban thugs. Either way, the United States may inadvertently be aiding the enemy in a fight that will almost certainly become more costly in the year ahead.



Russia Fuels Latin American Arms Race


When Costa Rican President Oscar Arias spoke at a September conference sponsored by the Miami Herald, one sentence stood out: “Latin America has begun a new arms race.” He was referring to the sudden uptick in major arms deals in the region, largely between Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and their newest patron, Russia. The deals have left the region flush with shiny new tanks, fighter jets, and custom-built presidential helicopters.

The Latin arms trade is as much about politics as it is weapons. Not long after Brazil announced a deal to purchase roughly $300 million in Russian military equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would back Brazil’s bid for a seat in the U.N. Security Council. It’s not just Brazil’s military that has a hard time saying nyet to Russian firms. Venezuela inked a more than $1 billion deal in July for Russian jets and helicopters. There’s even talk of Moscow relocating Kalashnikov gun and ammo factories to Venezuela, next door to Colombia’s ammunition-strapped FARC rebels. With Venezuela’s populist anti-American president Hugo Chávez seeking to dominate Latin American politics, U.S. officials are concerned, especially given the United States’ sliding popularity in the region. More dangerous, though, is Latin America’s militarization. More guns and less butter is the last thing the troubled region needs.



Bush’s Post-Katrina Power Grab


MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
When U.S. President George W. Bush signed the $532 billion federal defense spending bill in October, there were the usual budgetary turf battles on Capitol Hill. But largely overlooked was a revision of a nearly 200-year-old law to restrict the president’s power during major crises. In December, Congressional Quarterly examined the changes, saying that the new law “takes the cuffs off” federal restraint during emergencies. Rather than limiting the circumstances under which a president may deploy troops to “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy,” the 2006 revision expands them to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident.” In other words, it’s now easier for the federal government to send in troops without a governor’s invitation.

Ostensibly, the move aims to streamline bureaucratic inefficiencies that left thousands of New Orleanians stranded last summer. Yet the Insurrection Act that existed when Katrina struck didn’t actually hinder the president’s ability to send federal troops. He simply chose not to.


Critics have called the changes an opening for martial law. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, one of the few to raise the issue in congress, says that “Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.” Is martial law more likely than before? Perhaps not. But the fact that the revisions were slipped into a defense bill without a national debate gives ammunition to those who argue the administration is still trampling on civil liberties five years after 9/11.








The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006







China Runs up African Debt


FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
The debt-relief deal struck at last year’s Group of Eight (G8) summit, where rich countries promised to forgive about $40 billion in debts owed by poor countries, was supposed to be a turning point in Africa’s development, a chance to wipe its economic slate clean. Then came China. The rapidly industrializing country has emerged as a top lender to poor African countries, and that has many international development organizations worried that years of campaigning for debt relief will be set back by a new wave of bad loans.

The World Bank estimates that Chinese loans for African infrastructure already total more than $12.5 billion. In November, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to provide another $5 billion in loans to Africa by 2009. Many of these deals are believed to be similar to commercial loans rather than the low-interest, long-term credits extended by multilateral development banks. It’s hard to know the full extent of the risk because China usually refuses to divulge the terms of the deals. Development experts now fear that aggressive lending by Chinese banks will land Africa back where it started—in the red.



India Helps Iran Build the Bomb, While the White House Looks the Other Way


RAVEENDRAN/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. government usually takes a hard line against countries that assist Iran with its nuclear program. In 2006 alone, Washington sanctioned firms in Cuba, North Korea, and Russia for making it a little easier for Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction. But, when the proliferator is a close American ally, the United States seems to take a different approach.

Just after the U.S. House of Representatives voted in July to support a plan to provide India with nuclear technology, the Bush administration quietly imposed sanctions on two Indian firms for supplying Tehran with missile parts. Nor was the White House forthcoming with congress about other blots on India’s proliferation record: In the past two years, two other Indian companies have been penalized for allegedly passing chemical weapons information to Iran, and two Indian scientists who ran the state-run nuclear utility were barred from doing business with the U.S. government after they allegedly passed heavy-water nuclear technology to Tehran. Far from scuttling India’s nuclear deal, the United States seems to have rewarded the country by overturning 30 years of nonproliferation policy in its favor.







Is George Bush Being Spooked

by William Hughes
"Myths which are believed in tend to become true." - George Orwell

Since the release of the Iraq Study Group report, have you noticed how President George W. Bush, is displaying more often those wild, piercing eyes? Can you see the fear? He's like a character in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment," who has claimed special privileges for himself--like a license to commit crimes--but has been found out! What might be spooking Bush? Could it be his coming impeachment trial by the U.S. Congress? Impeachment is a train without any brakes that has long since left the station. And, with the revelation of every massive lie of the Bush-Cheney Gang, the train picks up even more speed.

Keep in mind, that former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) of Watergate Congressional fame has cautioned that the momentum for impeachment takes time to build. (1) However, House Speaker- Designate, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), shouldn't use that as an excuse to block the clear will of the voters as expressed in the election results of Nov. 7, 2006. The people have demanded change, with accountability. Green Party activists in San Francisco are saying that if Pelosi fails to pursue impeachment, then she will have "betrayed her oath of office." If she wants to serve more than one term as House Speaker, she better start listening.

The second item that may be scaring the bejeezus out of Bush is that splendid activist: Cindy Sheehan. My theory is this: Sheehan is the mother of U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, who was killed in action in Iraq, at age 24, on April 4, 2004. She is also the co- founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. In the summer of 2005, Sheehan decided to "camp" outside the Crawford, Texas ranch of President George W. Bush. She was looking to confront him personally over the death of her dear son, her first born, whom she has described as "my sweet boy." (2) Bush, supposedly, one of the most powerful men on the planet, declined to meet with her saying that he had "to get on with his life." (3) Sheehan then moved her In-Bush's- Face campaign to Washington, D.C. She can be seen regularly protesting the blood stained Iraqi War outside the White House and/or in the halls of the U.S. Congress. She has been arrested a couple of times for her antiwar activism. Bush, on the other hand, thinks nothing of sending young Americans to die in Iraq for a rotten pack of lies. (4) Yet, he is afraid to take on a housewife, age 49, a mother of four, from Vacaville, California. What is it about Sheehan that spooks the President of the United States? (5)

Does Bush know, at some place in his badly-warped psyche, that he's a pathological liar? I suspect that he does. He also does feel guilt about leading the country into an immoral and illegal war. Sheehan reinforces Bush's guilty feelings by pointing the finger at him--by demanding a face to face meeting with the person she rightly holds responsible for her son's death. For Bush, however, a personal confrontation with her is out of the question, nor for that matter, will he consider meeting with any other outraged parent who has lost a son or daughter in Iraq. President Bush isn't afraid of Sheehan for who she is. He's in fear of her for what she represents to him, at a deep level, although I doubt he is conscious of that. Sheehan is a symbol to him of an ultra powerful image, wrapped in an ancient myth. From a mythological perspective, she is an "Earth Mother" figure. (6)

In many cultures, the Earth Mother was esteemed by the masses as an archetypical female icon. She was also seen as a fierce seeker of justice and as a protector of the weak. The Earth Mother was capable, too, of counteracting evil. No wonder poor Dubya is shaking in his cowboy boots! He's up against someone, who will not accept anything less than full justice for the wrongful death of her son. You go Cindy girl!

"Earth Mother" Sheehan is something for Bush to worry about. But, there is another more imposing figure from the ancient past shaping up in the hinterlands, and urban centers, of the nation, to take Dubya down for his wrongdoings. Let's call him/her the "Hero/ Patriot." Joseph Campbell wrote a lot about that persona. In the halcyon days of Rome, he was Cincinnatus, who left his farm, to take over the army to save the Republic from its enemies. This Hero/ Patriot represents a growing community-an awaken populous--who are sick and tired of the crimes of the Bush-Cheney Gang. He/she want their America back from the War Party, the Wirepullers, the Neocons and the Plutocrats.

The spiritual roots of the Hero/Patriot can be traced back to the gallant Continental Army at Valley Forge and the horrific winter of 1777-78. (7) He/she was on the blood stained battlefields of the Civil War, like Clara Barton, tending the wounded. He was at the memorable "Sit-Down Strike" at Flint, Michigan, in 1936-7, (8) and on the picket line during the "Great Waterfront Strike" of 1934. (9) She's Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony. He's Eugene Debs, Joe Hill, Harry Bridges, John L. Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Phil Berrigan, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar E. Chavez. They are the names of just a few of the Hero/Patriot types, who are part of our inspirational wellspring.

In the vanguard for democracy and justice in this country are the activists of the the Anti-Iraqi War and Pro-Impeachment Movements. (10) Daily, more people around the country are joining them in their noble enterprises. Workers displaced by out sourcing and angered by unfair tax policies which favor the grasping rich have had enough of Vulture Capitalism. (11) Ninety-five percent of the wealth of the country is held by only one percent of the population. (12) Environmentalists concerned about global warming want effective policies implemented now to save the planet. People on Social Security are wondering why their benefits are taxed, while many mega corporations pay little or no taxes. (13) Forty eight million people in this country don't have any health care. (14) The cost of the Iraqi War in innocent lives and wasted money persists, with no end now in sight. Over 650,000 Iraqis are dead, 2,937 American troops have been killed and 22,000 or more wounded. (15) Bush has created a hellish Civil War in Iraq. Now, he wants to "stabilize" it by sacrificing more of our sons and daughters, while the Neocon and Globalist schemers, including Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, cheer him on. (16) One U.S. Senator, a Republican, Gordon Smith (OR), now believes the present policy in Iraq may even be "criminal." (17)

Finally, millions of people in this country are determined to see to it that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are impeached and removed from public office. (18) Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) introduction, on Dec. 8, 2006, of "Articles of Impeachment" is symbolic of that fact. (19) Some also intend to ship the dangerous duo of Bush and Cheney off to "The Hague" to stand trial on war crime charges. The people, propelled by the mythical figures of old, and the heroes of our past struggles for social and political justice, will not be stopped in their pursuit of justice.

Notes:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwiSyIbeYjI
 
7. African-Americans made up about "ten percent" of General Washington's military manpower at Valley Forge. A "hefty" percentage of the troops belonged to the Irish, with the Germans "not far behind," according to Thomas Fleming's compelling "Washington Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge." Almost all the soldiers there, he wrote, were "in their teens or early twenties, unmarried and poor."
15. http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php? option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182   and http://icasualties.org/oif/
18. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/ 2006/11/28/p12500#more12500   
19. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/16232  

� William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of "Saying 'No' to the War Party" (Amazon.com). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net. 

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Sunday, December 17, 2006

Davis Swanson On Impeachment

Silence shifts to conflict, as the impeachment movement advances. Hannity and Colmes take on Elizabeth Holtzman and David Swanson on the topic of impeaching Bush and Cheney.
 
View The Video:


A Holiday Gift For Everyone
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Single Payer Health Coverage

With quasi- and pseudo-single-payer proposals floating around now, this message from Health Care NOW is worth a read:
 
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
 
 
AFTER THE SMOKE HAS CLEARED: The Latest View from Healthcare-NOW
It is now clear that our victory at the polls didn't move the Congress immediately to take up national single payer healthcare for all – not yet. However, there are dozens of incremental healthcare plans being proposed all over the place. It is no surprise that people are scurrying to make proposals since the voters were so clear that healthcare is our #1 domestic priority.
There are quite a few Congress Members who have put forward their own partial plans – to fund a few States to do studies, find out what is wrong with healthcare in their particular State and try out a solution; to provide Medicare for All and let people buy into it if they wish or buy into private for-profit healthcare insurance, perhaps leaving the hardest and most expensive cases for the public to pay for. All kinds of State by State by State plans are being proposed – most of which are not single payer, most of which would spread thin coverage over the uninsured and leave millions insecurely underinsured while adding more expenditures from workers' pockets. Congressional leaders are thus far offering coverage for all children and negotiating down the costs of Medicare Part D as the only healthcare legislation planned at this time. And there is no denying the desperate need for each of these proposals. Unfortunately, infusions of lobbying dollars keep many Congress Members from being bold and challenging the industry.
 
So far, their proposals don't get us much closer to a national non-profit healthcare system for all people in this country. They don't cut the costs and provide better healthcare for everybody. They are not secure. They don't provide improved and enhanced benefits for all. Non-profit, single payer is the only plan that will do that – H.R. 676. is the starting point.
Unfortunately, some citizens will buy into these less comprehensive plans hoping that, finally, they are supporting healthcare security for all or thinking it is just the best we can get. As we know, that is not the case. The voracious greed of the healthcare industry knows no bounds. They will not stop until we stop them. As their profits and their control of the system go up, so do the costs of healthcare for all of us. That cost is now 16% of our U.S. gross domestic product. Will it have to go up to 25% before we say, "No more! We are sick and tired of being sick and tired!" as Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer used to say. We must be clear that we won't continue paying twice as much as the dozens of advanced countries who have better healthcare."
 
SO – HERE's OUR STRATEGY:
Here's the Biggie. We want you and the others in Healthcare-NOW to hold 1,000 Healthcare-NOW Truth Hearings all over the country in every nook and cranny. These hearings have been tremendously successful during the past two years in building this movement. Now, we must continue this strategy until everyone understands the issue. We need you to plan for one or more hearings in your community providing testimony from the people who are hurting and DYING for a national healthcare system. Your hearing (s) could be before or after the April 4th month of Healthcare-NOW activities. They could be small or large. They could be on a radio program or in your church or union, library or home. Be creative. But don't delay. We need to start setting dates now. Please let us know what you are thinking and how we can help you get started. See our website for more information. www.healthcare-now.org Call our office to talk about it: 1-800-453-1305.
 
[snip 1-4, which ask for $]
5. Right now, this week, send a note to your Member of Congress and ask him or her to get ready to sign onto H.R. 676 in January. On January 6 or 7th call and remind him/her. Everyone will need to endorse the bill again as we move into the new Congressional session. *
6. Write a letter or a fax to Congressman Charles Rangel, new Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Ask him to call official hearings on H.R. 676 during the week of April 4th, the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorating his commitment to universal healthcare for all. *
7. Write similar letters to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Pete Stark who heads the Health Sub-Committee of Ways and Means.*
8. Your organization can endorse H.R. 676 and Healthcare-NOW. Your group can sign on and help win quality healthcare for everybody. You can go to the endorsement page on our website: http://www.healthcare-now.org/endorse676.php. This would be a good way to start off the New Year.
 
The warmest of best wishes and love to all of you during this season of contemplation and joy from all of us here at Healthcare-Now.
Marilyn, Tresa, Georgette, Ajamu and Thelma
 
P.S. HEALTHCARE-NOT WARFARE! We saw a button the other day that said "And I am opposed to the next war too!" We can choose as a nation what our priorities will be. We can choose to fully fund education, people's pensions and healthcare, housing, jobs, Social Security and Medicare or we can choose war. Support a healthy country. Join the "Grannies' Peace Brigade" in Washington, D.C. on January 18th – "to restore citizen participation to the corridors of the U.S. Congress."
Call 212-533-2125 for more information.
* WRITE TO CONGRESS - You can write letters to Congress through our website: "Look at http://www.healthcare-now.org/action/write.htm and stay in touch…
Healthcare-NOW, info@healthcare-now.org, 1-800-453-1305, www.healthcare-now.org


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Saturday, December 09, 2006

McKinney , Smith, Bush, and Impeachment

McKinney , Smith, Bush, and Impeachment
 
By David Swanson.
 
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has introduced articles of impeachment [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/mckinneyarticles.pdf ]against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice.  In doing so, she alone has spoken for the 51 percent of Americans who Newsweek says want Bush impeached.  A considerably higher percentage of Americans would, if asked, almost certainly acknowledge that the abuses with which McKinney charges Bush et al. have, in fact, been committed by them and are impeachable offenses.  That is to say, there are those who recognize the grounds for impeachment but don't want to see them pursued.  There are even those who want impeachment pursued but wish it were not being pursued by McKinney
 
McKinney charges that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld manipulated intelligence and lied to justify war, and that Bush has engaged in illegal domestic spying.  The former charge has been extremely well documented, [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments ]  and the latter proudly confessed to.  The former charge was central to the concern of those who included impeachment in the U.S. Constitution.  The latter charge is one of openly violating a law that was established in response to President Richard Nixon's impeachable offenses. 
 
So, why aren't all impeachment advocates thrilled?  Because McKinney 's courage and leadership are overpowered, in their minds, by their own fears.  They're afraid that impeachment will be painted as radical and that other people less insightful than themselves will, as a result, oppose it.  They fail to recognize that silence is more damaging to the cause of justice than are attacks by its opponents, and that other Americans are just as smart (although just as scared) as they are.  McKinney has put impeachment where Speaker-Designate Nancy Pelosi said it could not go: on the table.  This can only benefit the cause of impeachment. 
 
The media attacks on McKinney have begun, and rather than joining in them by condemning her for bravely doing what we know needed to be done, we should be defending her with a barrage of letters to editors and phone calls to radio shows.  [ http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=9196431&type=ME ]  And we should be urging every member of Congress to join her.  [ http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition ] Associated Press reporter Ben Evans has published a vicious attack on McKinney in which he alleges that
 
"The legislation has no chance of passing and serves as a symbolic parting shot."
 
But in which Evans does not comment on public support for the action or the merits of the case.  Instead, he suggests that McKinney has launched an attack directed as much at Pelosi as at Bush.  But McKinney said nothing about Pelosi and accused Bush of the highest possible crime.  Where are Evans' priorities?
 
Evans does not even say what the charges against Bush are.  Rather he launches into an attack on McKinney :
 
" McKinney, a Democrat who drew national headlines in March when she struck a Capitol police officer, has long insisted that Bush was never legitimately elected. In introducing her legislation in the final hours of the current Congress, she said Bush had violated his oath of office to defend the Constitution and the nation's laws." 
 
And she said nothing of the legitimacy of his election.  McKinney was tried and convicted in the press, and was never indicted.
 
Evans later writes:
 
" McKinney … has increasingly embraced her image as a controversial figure."
 
How has she done that?  By acting on behalf of a majority of Americans using a tool that appears centrally and in six places in our Constitution, a tool that has been vital to U.S. and British democracy for 700 years?
 
Evans isn't done yet:
 
"She has hosted numerous panels on Sept. 11 conspiracy theories…"
 
McKinney hosted a day-long briefing that included academics, authors, and former government and intelligence professionals, some of whom questioned the work of the 9-11 Commission, but none of whom presented theories.
 
"…and suggested that Bush had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks but kept quiet about it to allow friends to profit from the aftermath."
 
McKinney asked about the reports that over a dozen foreign intelligence agencies had provided early warnings.  She did not say that Bush kept it quiet to allow friends to profit.  She asked whether his associates were making a profit, as of course many of them are through the "war on terror."  Greg Palast has produced a film called "American Blackout," which addresses the media's misquoting and misrepresenting of Congresswoman McKinney on this issue.
 
Evans keeps going:
 
"She introduced legislation to establish a permanent collection of rapper Tupac Shakur's recordings at the National Archives and calling for a federal investigation into his killing."
 
The Tupac Amaru Shakur Records Act did not establish a permanent collection of his music at the Archives or create an investigation, but required the release of all government records relating to his life and death at federal, state, and local levels.
 
Evans persists:
 
"But it was her scuffle with a Capitol police officer that drew the most attention. McKinney struck the officer when he tried to stop her from entering a congressional office building. The officer did not recognize McKinney , who was not wearing her member lapel pin."
 
A Grand Jury heard these charges and dismissed them. 
 
Evans says as much, but twists this fact with the words that follow:
 
"A grand jury in Washington declined to indict McKinney over the clash, but she eventually apologized before the House." 
 
Now, what does any of that have to do with whether our President used fraud to take us into the current war?  Nothing, of course.  But in the U.S. corporate media it is only those who supported the war who have the right to speak against it.  If you opposed the war from the start, if you saw through the lies while it still mattered, you are disqualified now from commenting further. 
 
Matthew Daly, another Associated Press reporter, wrote an article on Friday that contrasted with the one by Evans.  The headline was "Smith says Iraq war may be 'criminal'".  And the article began:
 
"Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who voted in favor of the Iraq war and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is 'absurd' and 'may even be 'criminal.'"
 
Of course, it is.  But Smith called it such in the vaguest of terms.  McKinney laid out the evidence in an Article of Impeachment.  Look at the treatment the AP gave Smith:
 
"In a major speech on the Senate floor, the Oregon senator called for rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq and said he would have never voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate."
 
Why was his speech "major"?  Because he supported a criminal war on the basis of evidence that millions of us and half the Democrats in Congress saw through at the time.
 
The article went on to quote Smith on his reasons for charging that the war is criminal, but added nothing about his embracing controversy, splitting with the Republican party, or having done anything unpopular in the past:
 
"Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the nearly 3,000 American deaths, Smith said, 'I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. So either we clear and hold and build or let's go home.'"
 
This treatment continued for seven more paragraphs. 
 
Congresswoman McKinney is not only a more intelligent and responsible public servant than Senator Smith, but she is also someone who foresaw the current attacks on her record and forged ahead anyway.  She understands her role as public servant to involve serving the public.  And, in the long run, she is serving the interests of the Democratic Party, whether everyone in that party grasps the point or not.  She's stuck her neck out for us, for our democracy, for the rule of law under our Constitution.  Now, we need to support her.
 
Sunday, December 10th, is Human Rights Day, the 58th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that lays out, in 30 short articles, rights that every human should have protected.  Eleven out of the 30 have clearly been violated in the United States by President Bush and his administration, rights including:
 
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
 
Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
 
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
 
Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence….
 
This Human Rights Day, many of us have worked to organize rallies for impeachment all over the country.  They will now also be rallies to honor and thank Cynthia McKinney.  Find an event near you:


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Thursday, December 07, 2006

URGENT ACTION NEEDED ON RYAN WHITE CARE ACT



Call Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner
 
 
Your calls are working!  Because HRC members’ calls were so successful, a key ally on the Hill has asked us to call Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Republican Majority Leader John Boehner and deliver the same message: Time is running out to pass the Ryan White CARE Act, and it is shameful that the Republican leadership has allowed a life-saving program to be caught in a web of politics.
 
Speaker Dennis Hastert (202) 225-0600
Majority Leader John Boehner (202) 225-4000
 
"I am calling to urge the Republican leadership to allow consideration of the Senate Version of the Ryan White CARE Act on the House Suspension Calendar.  Americans across the country living with HIV depend on this program for access to life-saving treatment and care. The time to pass the Ryan White CARE Act is now."
 
Background: Yesterday, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act.  In order for this critical bill to pass, however, the House MUST consider the identical bill before it adjourns tomorrow.
 
The Ryan White CARE Act provides critical care and treatment to low-income Americans living with HIV and AIDS. For communities across the nation to continue providing access to life-saving primary medical care and supportive services, the Act must pass now.



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Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The Foley Trail

Don't Ask … Don't E-mail

The half-open closet in which Mark Foley spent his life was a recipe for disaster, say those few who tried to intervene. Investigating Foley's pre-teen seduction by a priest, the "ladies' man" mask he wore in Palm Beach society, and his love-hate relationship with the gay community, the authors uncover the ambition, delusion, and hypocrisy that corroded both the politician and his party.

by Gail Sheehy and Judy Bachrach

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, former representative Mark Foley, President Bush, House majority leader John Boehner, and Representative John Shimkus.

Everyone knew Mark Foley was gay. Everyone. And everyone who had a stake in his success—party, press, parents, staff, supporters, and pages—conspired for their own purposes to keep the closet half closed.

Born at the peak of the baby boom, in 1954, he grew up near Palm Beach, in the scrappy little town of Lake Worth, Florida, which in recent years has become a popular refuge for gay retirees. That subculture most likely did not enter into the consciousness of his parents, Irish Catholics from Massachusetts. "One of the biggest psychological problems for him was he was never able to be who he was with his parents, and they were his No. 1 campaigners," says Eric Johnson, the openly gay chief of staff for Florida congressman Robert Wexler and an old friend of the Foley family's.

In the early 70s, Foley developed the veneer of a charming, heterosexual party boy, and a high-school yearbook caption depicted him as "noted for—being a ladies man." But the formative experience of his passage through puberty, as the world now knows, was his seduction by an authority figure whose attentions may have been a guilty pleasure. A priest at the Sacred Heart Catholic School took him biking and skinny-dipping and massaged him in the nude, often bringing him to saunas for fondling. Unlike a peer of his who ran away from another priest's overtures, young Foley apparently did not resist. The Reverend Anthony Mercieca, who was 17 years older than Foley, claims they became "attached to each other .… almost like brothers." Foley's mother welcomed the priest into their home for Christmas dinners and his parents allowed him to take their adolescent son to the beach and on sleepover trips to New York and Washington.

The priest rejects Foley's latter-day charge of abuse and defends their relationship as one of "naturalness.… For some people, it's molestation. Maybe for other kids, it's fun, you know?" This arrested sexual development, with its titillating mix of secrecy and shame, Foley would reproduce in his adult years. And just as his parents had been totally unaware of the sexual advances to which their son was surrendering, right under their noses, so, years later, were Foley's "girlfriends" and his longtime gay partner unaware of his adult addiction to fraternizing with and fantasizing about sex with teenage boys. Foley was able to juggle a triple life—as a political chameleon, a semi-closeted gay power broker, and a secret sexual predator.

Trapped in the Closet

Mark Foley's ambition to be a politician became the family dream. He was always in a hurry. His doting parents had no problem with his dropping out of Palm Beach Junior College at age 20; they helped him open a diner in downtown Lake Worth and turn it into the platform for his grandiose goals. "Mark never actually did any work at the Lettuce Patch, no cooking or busing. He was the face, while Mom worked like a slave in the sweaty kitchen, making pies; Eddie, his older brother, worked the cash register; and his dad managed the business," according to Rodney Romano, who twice presided over Lake Worth as mayor and knows the Foley family well. In his early 20s, even before he won his first local election, Foley was telling people he planned to be a U.S. senator by age 50. He joined a circle of idealistic progressive Democrats, all under 30, who became known as the Kiddie Car Gang. "I also see myself married with a family," Foley proclaimed publicly back then, in 1976. But his personal life took a very different course.

Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner, remembers first hearing about Foley's sexuality back in the 80s, when "the rumor mill already had it that he was gay." At the time Foley was close to a very well-known man, Roy Talmo, the chairman of First American Bank and Trust in Lake Worth. Talmo, like Father Mercieca, was a powerful man, more than 20 years older, who lavished attention on Foley. "Mark was known as one of 'Roy's boys' in his 20s," says a friend of Talmo's. "Roy was the go-to guy in this county for whatever you needed, either financial or political," says André Fladell, a well-connected chiropractor in Delray Beach. Talmo put young Foley on the board of his bank, which became the largest stockholder in Cenvill Development Corporation, builder of Century Village, a chain of the biggest retirement communities in southeast Florida. Talmo's bank went under during the savings-and-loan debacle of the late 80s, and Cenvill went bankrupt. But not before Talmo reportedly put Mark in a number of high-stakes real-estate deals and taught him the art of the quick flip. Foley's most spectacular land shuffle was in 1986, when Talmo lent him $2.45 million to buy an abandoned golf course to turn around and sell to the school district for $2.91 million. In a matter of hours, Foley walked away with nearly a half-million dollars.

Before he turned 30, Foley was already driving a Mercedes and offering to be the gofer and fund-raiser for Democrat Dennis Koehler, who was running for Congress. Sean Strub, Koehler's campaign manager, welcomed Foley as a fund-raiser because he had lucrative social connections. "Mark invited me to fancy society parties," Strub recalls. "I'm very much driven by my passion for issues and wanting to change things. Mark had a very different set of values. He wore gold chains and liked to go to parties. He was about his ambition and his Mercedes. It was clear that, more than anything else, Mark wanted to be a player."

According to Strub, Foley volunteered that he was bisexual, but hastened to add he was never going to act on it. "It was apparent that he saw his sexuality as an impediment to his career in the same way he saw being a Democrat at that time as an impediment to his career." (Strub later became an openly H.I.V.-positive congressional candidate and founded Poz magazine, for people with H.I.V. He recalls that Foley, as a congressman, was one of the few Republican members to support needle exchange to curb the spread of the disease among drug users.) Strub says he once later saw Foley in a Key West gay bar on Duval Street. "That was the Aha! moment," he says.

In 1984, when Foley ran for county commission, despite proclaiming he was a committed Democrat and outspending his primary opponent, the party slapped him down and told him, "It's not your time," according to Rand Hoch, a Democratic Party activist. Months later, Foley switched opportunistically to the Republican Party, accepting the price to his private life. At a gay party in Palm Beach Gardens in the late 80s, Foley recognized Hoch. He crossed the room, according to Hoch, and blurted, "I wish I could be out like you are and [still] involved in politics. But I can't because I'm a Republican." Hoch told him that of course he could come out, but Hoch himself didn't believe it. "Palm Beach is somewhat accepting of alternative lifestyles, but you don't talk about the gay elephant in the room," he says.

Foley collected an A-list of rich Palm Beach supporters, some of them Democrats, who spent lavishly to throw him fund-raising parties. He always wanted to be in the picture. And his picture was seldom missing from "The Shiny Sheet" (as the Palm Beach Daily News calls itself), in which he cozied up to visiting celebrities, from Sly Stallone and Clint Eastwood to the Clintons and President George H. W. Bush. He started quietly dating a wealthy and attractive dermatologist, Dr. Layne Nisenbaum, who owns a popular anti-aging institute in Palm Beach, but he was always careful in the early years to appear at events with beautiful women.

Robin Bernstein, a vivacious socialite, who worked on Foley's fund-raisers in 2000, accompanied him to many political functions. "He was the perfect date—debonair, articulate, and there wasn't a charity he didn't help," she says. Another favorite escort was a gorgeous former Miss Germany, Petra Levin. "Mark thought it was useful to take me out as 'a mask,' but he didn't make me feel like that," says Levin, a nearly six-foot slender blonde, in her mid-40s, who dresses like a model and drives a sapphire-blue Aston Martin convertible. "The moment I met Mark, there was an instant chemistry," she says emphatically. They were introduced by Dr. Nisenbaum, who was her new neighbor. Immediately she and Foley were talking and laughing, and he began calling to ask if she would like to "go along" to some of his political events. "I'd say, 'Is it one of the boring ones?' He'd say, 'No, this one might be exciting.'" She had zero interest in politics, but as a divorced mother new to town, she welcomed invitations to the Red Cross Ball and glamorous events at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Once Foley was elected to Congress, she would stay over at his Washington town house when he wanted to be seen with her at fashionable restaurants or at parties with celebrities. "He talked from the beginning about wanting to be a senator," says Levin. "He was really politically ambitious."

Petra Levin, like many others who spoke for this article, says she never raised the issue with Foley of whether he was gay, "but I knew it right away. He was very flirtatious. If people watched me with Mark—we'd hug each other, he'd give me a kiss and hold me—they'd never think he was gay."

"See, that's what puzzles me about this whole thing," says Hoch, who founded the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, a gay-rights organization, and seems comfortable in his own skin. "I never regarded Mark really as being in the closet. Whenever I bumped into him, whether it was at a gay event or just at City Place, our outdoor mall in West Palm, he was pretty aggressive about going for whatever he wanted It's not like the party structure here didn't know [he was gay], but they didn't care because he got them access and social connections. He was excellent at networking."

On the rare occasions when Foley took Nisenbaum to a dinner event, they sat discreetly at separate tables. Appearing as handsome single men, they were always welcome additions. When they were photographed, there was usually a buxom babe between them. This fiction was duly noted and appreciated by local Republican Pooh-Bahs, including the current chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, Sid Dinerstein, who says, "If Mark Foley had his boyfriend and lived a committed monogamous life, he could have been elected until he couldn't walk anymore."

The Secret Lives of Congressmen

In 1994, Foley was swept into Congress with Newt Gingrich's right-wing revolution, and he worked hard at making a mentor of Gingrich. It would be 10 years before Florida senator Bob Graham's seat would open up, but Foley hired a chief of staff to help him begin long-range planning for ascension to that higher body. Kirk Fordham, who was openly gay, found his new boss to be "notoriously friendly all across Capitol Hill. I was always conscious of the fact because he was gay; if he struck up a conversation with a younger staffer or intern or an assistant in Congressman DeLay's office and lingered too long, I would nudge him."

"I did see him with younger men, riding bikes or at the gym," realizes Petra Levin in hindsight. "It angered him that his lives had to be so separate."

The earliest complaint by a page was in either 2000 or 2001, when a young man went to Arizona Republican congressman Jim Kolbe's office to describe an e-mail from Foley that had made him uncomfortable, and asked that something be done. Kolbe has said he recalls notifying both Foley's staff and the page clerk's office, but saw no evidence of any follow-up. Fordham recalls that "Foley never, ever went to gay bars in Washington. He had a limited number of gay friends in D.C. My suspicion is that part of the reason he engaged in some of the late-night instant-messaging is because he could never have a healthy, out gay social life."

A very different picture is suggested by Eric Johnson, who says, "Kirk was a not-want-to-know-about-it conservative. It was common knowledge Mark was very flirty and promiscuous in Washington; it was only gossip fodder because everybody knew he had a partner in Florida. But I didn't know his interest went to 16-year-olds."

In a later interview, Fordham expressed his own frustration: "Mark is a caring, compassionate, real guy, but there was also a dark underside that he never let anyone see."

Foley often held fund-raisers at his Washington town house. Once, when Fordham showed up early to check on the caterer, he found Foley hanging out in the kitchen with two good-looking young guys. One of them, Fordham says, was the head of the College Republicans at his school and clearly gay. "I gave the congressman that You-oughta-know-better kind of look. Lobbyists were already arriving. He gave me that sheepish grin—half See-what-I-found and half I-shouldn't-be-doing-this. Stuff like that was stupid, reckless, and unnecessary." Fordham says he was aware that Foley continued to be friendly with the student, "but I have no idea if there was any physical contact."

Foley also resisted repeated exhortations from his gay political friends to declare himself honestly. Fordham explains, "He was always concerned about being referred to as 'Mark Foley, comma, openly gay Republican congressman,' much like he perceived [Massachusetts congressman] Barney Frank and Jim Kolbe as being identified first as being gay rather than by what issues they were advancing." Voters and colleagues have long since seen beyond Frank's sexual orientation, but Foley's folly was to hide his sympathies by voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Perhaps cowed by threats from some in the gay community to expose his hypocrisy, Foley went on to support various pro-gay measures, voting to expand health benefits for homosexual couples and include gays in federal hate-crime legislation, among others. "It became a love-hate relationship between Mark and the local [Palm Beach] gay community," says Hoch.

Romano, the former Lake Worth mayor, who is revolted by the dishonor Foley has brought to his town, acknowledges, "He didn't stand for anything—he toed the party line—but you couldn't beat him as a politician. Plus he had a built-in campaign team in his family. His parents never missed a local event." Foley's married sister, Donna Winterson, 60, spent every weekend during campaign seasons traveling around the state with him, employed as his paid political director after years of working for him on a volunteer basis. "She liked seeing him successful," says Levin. "That was her success."

While Foley was still deliberating whether to run for the Senate, Fordham says he wrote him a long memo warning him to expect people going through his garbage, and private investigators hired to follow him home and hunt for men he may have had encounters with. "He came back to me saying, 'Do you really think they would do all that?' I think part of him was still in denial that they would really go to those lengths."

The Kids Aren't All Right

In 2002, Congressman Foley was re-elected with an astounding 79 percent of the vote and appeared to be on top of the world, which he traveled both freely and for free. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a popular speaker, he was royally entertained by private organizations and interest groups that paid for his travel to destinations such as Scotland and Pebble Beach, California. "I don't feel any embarrassment about doing the trips," he has said. Since he never took Nisenbaum, he would take his parents. He was especially proud of bringing them to see the Vatican.

With a wealthy boyfriend and without the burden of the bills of a family man, Foley enjoyed two houses of his own—a prized historic town house a short walk from his Washington office, and a condominium near West Palm Beach, which was perhaps for appearances only, since most weekends he stayed over in Nisenbaum's luxurious Palm Beach home. Sources say the couple was recently considering buying a summer home in the gay-friendly resort of Ogunquit, Maine.

By now, apparently believing he was totally protected by his institution—like the depraved priests protected so long by the Catholic Church—he was using his position to repeat with congressional pages the priest-pupil dynamic of power and control. Around 2003, Fordham recalls, he took a call from Jeff Trandahl, then clerk of the House: "We have a problem The congressman showed up at the page dorm last night. He appeared to have been drinking, and he was turned away at the door." Fordham remembers agonizing with Trandahl over what to do about this overt display of uncontrolled behavior. Obviously his mild warnings to Foley were not having an impact. Fordham asked for a private meeting with Scott Palmer, chief of staff to Speaker Dennis Hastert. According to Fordham, Palmer said it didn't bother the party that Mark was gay: "We think he's a rising star here, he's got so much potential, and he's great on television." Fordham says of the meeting, "We sat facing each other. It was pretty uncomfortable. I'm going behind my boss's back. I knew that Scott knew that I was gay. I told him I was concerned that Foley seemed to be too chummy with pages, interns, and young male staffers I asked Scott if he wouldn't mind either speaking with the congressman himself or having Speaker Hastert have a chat with him. That might alarm him enough to realize other people were watching, and not just his staff." A couple of days later, Fordham says, he checked back with Palmer to see if he had met with Foley: "He said he had taken care of it, and he had brought the Speaker in the loop. I believe it happened, but apparently it didn't have any effect." (Trandahl and Palmer did not respond to requests for comment.)

Matthew Loraditch, now a senior at Towson University, in Maryland, who worked as a page from 2001 to 2002, has said that a supervisor told him Foley was "a little odd" but never warned him to stay away from the congressman. He claims he later saw sexually explicit messages that Foley had sent to former pages after they left the program. Perhaps on some deep, subconscious level Foley understood that his compulsions were leading him toward certain self-destruction.

Most perversely, Foley took up the cause of protecting youngsters from predators, becoming a particularly vocal and punitive member of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, which he co-founded in 1997. He referred to pedophiles as "America's most depraved." Psychologists see reactions like Foley's as classic—publicly criticizing the selfsame unacceptable behavior he was committing, which he could not personally control. More recently, he helped to write the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which President Bush has said would "make the Internet safer for our sons and daughters." It became law two months before Foley's downfall.

By the time, in 2003, Foley began full-time campaigning to unseat Senator Bob Graham, the periodic threats from his opponents to out him reached a peak. After a Florida alternative newsweekly reported he was gay, he called an unusual press conference in May of that year specifically to address the issue, but refused to reveal his sexual orientation. He suggested that Democratic activists were behind the mounting rumors. The Palm Beach Post chose not to make mention of the press conference, later writing that their policy was to report on a politician's sexual orientation only when it was "relevant to a news story." Eric Johnson was astonished. "I thought the media made a real mistake in keeping Mark's secrets for him. They played into his sense of invulnerability."

That summer, Foley's Senate primary campaign looked like a sure winner. A statewide swing with his sister in August brought even some conservative Republican state officials on board. Then, it seems, national G.O.P. officials got wind of Graham's intention to retire, so the seat was more seriously in play. Out of the blue, at summer's end, Foley stunned just about everyone by withdrawing from the race. He called political editor Brian Crowley at The Palm Beach Post and gave as his reason the health of his father, who was in the hospital with prostate cancer. (Edward Foley died in November.)

"For the real political types, it just didn't ring true," says Sid Dinerstein, the chairman of the Republican Party in Palm Beach County. "The reason he wound up with a couple of million dollars in campaign money was because we [the state party] were funding his Senate bid. He barely had opponents." Even this passionate party man is among many who speculate that the White House shut down Foley's campaign. "Maybe there's a belief by the powers that be, which is code for Karl Rove, that a gay couldn't win a Senate seat in Florida," says Dinerstein. (A spokesperson for Karl Rove says, "Not only did Karl never say that, he doesn't believe that to be true, either.") "One could argue it's untrue, since there's plenty of rumors about Charlie Crist. [Crist, Florida's governor-elect, has publicly denied he is gay.] But there were enough whispers that the Foley campaign could have produced embarrassments—and maybe the same embarrassments that we just saw, maybe exactly the same." Commissioner McCarty goes even further: "I believe somebody took him into a room and showed him a videotape or something pretty definitive, because without a smoking gun, he would have denied it." Eric Johnson believes the White House possibly knew something about the messages to pages and cut a deal with Foley and Fordham. "Then Foley could stay in the House, Martinez would run in his place [Mel Martinez, who later won the Senate seat], and Kirk could move into a Senate race [by becoming Martinez's finance director]." Fordham, however, says, "No one ever called—the president, or Karl Rove, or the head of the Republican Party—to discourage him in any way from running."

After 25 years in public life, Foley had hit the glass ceiling, and he still couldn't be himself. Within a week, back in his office on the Hill, after the summer recess, he began brooding on the scuttlebutt that he had dropped out because he couldn't deal with the gay rumors. In front of his sister and Fordham, he broke down. He sobbed out the story of "repeated abuse that he had received from the priest at his church"—not in anger, according to Fordham, but in shame. One thinks of the priest's version: For some people, it's molestation. Maybe for other kids, it's fun, you know? That conflict is precisely what breeds the toxicity of shame, and shame is what spilled out 35 years after Foley's first gay encounter, when the psychological barriers between his public self and his shadow self began to dissolve. He reportedly tried to tell the story to his parents. His mother could not believe such a thing of a Roman Catholic priest. His father refused to acknowledge the conversation. "[Foley] went into a funk," says Fordham. "He was disengaged from his job. He had in some ways lost his purpose for serving"—his purpose having been to get to the top of the power structure.

Foley was struggling. Fordham, his chief of staff and confidant, had deserted him. Some in his party were shunning him. "I think it started unraveling for Mark when the White House didn't support him in running for senator," says Robin Bernstein. Petra Levin, now remarried, says she noticed that Foley was drinking a lot around this time, privately, when he would be at her house playing cards with Nisenbaum. "I don't know if the drinking stopped when he went home," she says. Foley had always liked a glass or two of red wine, says Fordham, and kept a wine-storage cooler in his kitchen. But Levin, who is on the board of the Renaissance Institute, an addiction-treatment center in Palm Beach, was keenly aware of alcoholic patterns and at this point she thought of suggesting to her friend that he needed help.

The E-mail Trail

At the end of August 2005, a 16-year-old page forwarded e-mails Foley had sent him to Danielle Savoy, a 29-year-old scheduler for Louisiana representative Rodney Alexander. As the page had worked with her in Alexander's office, the two were friendly, Savoy says. The e-mails' style was not really lurid, but alarming enough that the page called them "sick": "Send me an email pic of you as well," suggested the 52-year-old congressman. "What do you want for your birthday coming up ? what stuff do you like to do." There was talk of Foley's intended visit to the gym, as well as of the excellent physique of another teenager. Savoy says simply that Foley's language made her "curious." She forwarded the e-mails to another friend, with the note, "Hey, what do you think about this?"

In early November, the St. Petersburg Times, of Florida, received Savoy's e-mail. "From that day to this I have no idea how the media got to see it," says Savoy. "Who knows?" Adam C. Smith, a St. Petersburg Times reporter who was working on the story with Bill Adair, phoned the office of Representative Alexander, but, as executive editor Neil Brown would later point out in an oblique letter to readers, "We were unsuccessful in getting members of Congress who were involved in the matter ? to acknowledge any problem with Foley's ambiguous e-mail." The Miami Herald, which also received the e-mails, barely touched the story. "We didn't go as far as attempting to reach out to other pages," its executive editor, Tom Fiedler, later admitted, because the e-mails were "too ambiguous to lead to a news story." (Fox News also got the e-mails, but chose not to share them with its viewers.) Nonetheless, the newspaper's calls to congressmen had their effect.

After Representative Alexander was contacted by the St. Petersburg Times, he demanded to see exactly what his former page had sent Savoy—and he wanted it very quickly, judging by his staff's next actions. Savoy, who was home ill, was phoned by Alexander's press secretary, Adam Terry, who roused her from her sickbed so she could come to the office at once. Instead, she gave him her password, and the Foley e-mails were promptly ripped from her computer. (Savoy is quick to acknowledge that she is a registered Republican—contradicting Hastert's early response when the scandal erupted this past September, blaming "a lot of Democratic operatives" for the leak.)

A wave of panic swept through Congress as Republican leaders and staffers suddenly realized that Foley's predatory activities were attracting attention. As one deeply knowledgeable source tells V.F., "In November [2005], why did the whole issue of Foley come up at all? Was it self-enforcement on the part of Congress? No! The St. Petersburg Times was calling around, asking tough questions! It created the spark. Even though they didn't publish [the story], the act of reporting was the only oversight there." Within days of the calls from reporters, everyone went into action. Royal Alexander, chief of staff (but no relation) to the Louisiana congressman, swiftly informed a lower-level Hastert aide about the e-mails, although, citing the concerns of the boy's family, he did not reveal their exact contents. The Hastert aide, in turn, quickly talked to Mike Stokke, the Speaker's deputy chief of staff, as well as to his chief counsel, Ted Van Der Meid.

Foley's new chief of staff, Liz Nicolson, asked her boss for the e-mails, but she was out of luck, too. "I delete all my e-mails," he told her. So Nicolson called Representative Alexander's office for a copy of her own boss's e-mails. The response she got, according to one knowledgeable source, was "very odd." First Alexander replied, "Sure. Send someone over right away, and we'll give you a copy of the e-mail," according to the source. "Then they said, 'No, we're not going to give you the e-mail.'"

"Why not?" asked Nicolson.

"The congressman doesn't want to get involved," Nicolson was told. ("Apparently Representative Alexander's office had been advised by an attorney not to show the contents," Fordham says. Royal Alexander declined to comment.)

Jeff Trandahl, the House clerk and Capitol official who was most concerned about the pages, and Representative John Shimkus, a tall West Point graduate and Illinois Republican who heads the five-member House Page Board, confronted Foley in his Cannon House Office Building office, and the tenor of their dispute was swiftly communicated to various staffers, one of whom reveals what was said. "Why are you e-mailing kids? Stay away from the kid and stay away from the pages," warned Shimkus.

"It's important to me to mentor kids. These are kids who care about our government," Foley protested. "I was just being friendly, that's all."

Shimkus never told the other members of the page board about Foley's e-mails.

In the spring of 2006, Representative Alexander discussed the Foley e-mails with Majority Leader John Boehner and New York representative Thomas Reynolds, the quick-tempered head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Reynolds says he, in turn, went to Hastert. Boehner claims he also informed Hastert around the same time. But after the Foley affair exploded in the media, in September 2006, Hastert said he had no recollection of any of this. Not of Boehner's conversation with him, nor of Reynolds's. "If Reynolds told me, it was in a line of things, and we were in another crisis this spring," said the Speaker. "So I just don't remember that."

On July 21, 2006, Melanie Sloan, a slender, dark-haired former prosecutor who heads the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan government-reform organization, received copies of the same e-mails. Unlike the two Florida newspaper editors, Sloan, who had spent four years as an assistant U.S. attorney specializing in sex crimes, didn't find the contents ambiguous. On receipt of the e-mails, she focused on the Foley query "What do you want for your birthday coming up?"

"Grown men don't send e-mails to young men they hardly know asking for a 'pic' or what they want for birthdays," she says. "Those e-mails had PREDATOR stamped all over them. Obviously."

That July afternoon, Sloan says, she contacted Leanna Saler, of the F.B.I.'s Washington, D.C., public-corruption office ("because she had once been in touch with me and said if I learned of things that might interest her I should let her know"), then forwarded Saler the eight pages of e-mails. Saler called back that afternoon simply to inquire if Foley had written those e-mails. That was the last Sloan says she heard from the F.B.I. Then, on September 28, ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, posted excerpts from the same e-mails on the network's Web site.

A few days after the ABC scoop, an F.B.I. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Washington Post that the F.B.I. had not opened an investigation into Foley all summer long because the e-mails "did not rise to the level of criminal activity."

"And that's true—it didn't rise to that level!" Sloan concedes. "But that's why you open an investigation. To see if there's anything else to find."

Next, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials, again speaking on condition of anonymity, informed The Washington Post that another reason the bureau couldn't investigate Foley was that Sloan had heavily redacted the e-mails and may have sat on the document for months before sending it their way. "They are lying," Sloan says flatly. "And I think the reason they're lying is because the F.B.I. is a cover-your-ass agency, and they don't want to be responsible if, in the intervening months, some kid got hurt while they did nothing."

V.F. received a copy of the e-mails Sloan sent to the F.B.I., but from a different source. On it are all the names, unedited: Danielle Savoy, the distressed boy whom Foley was wooing, and the page with the excellent physique. "This is an issue that's being investigated, and it's not going to be debated in the press," says F.B.I. spokesman Richard Kolko.

Getting to the Bottom

Toward the end of September 2006, Foley's staff heard that ABC was investigating the e-mails received by the Louisiana page. (Stopsexpredators.blogspot.com was actually posting them, but at least this outlet attracted a more contained, less influential audience.) ABC's Ross was appealed to on various levels not to go with the story, the investigative journalist recalls. One Foley staffer, he says, informed him, "This is bad judgment on your part. Other media outlets have those same e-mails and no one's using it." In addition, Ross was told, "Foley was just being friendly. He liked kids. Brian should meet Mark. They'd like each other and then he'd understand."

At this recollection, Ross laughs. "Yeah, I'd understand all right."

Foley's staff began organizing consulting sessions with Foley pollster Dave Sackett and media adviser Sam Dawson. Even Fordham, who had quit more than two years earlier and was by then chief of staff for Reynolds, was pressed into service. After all, in two days Foley was due to fly back to his home district to start campaigning. "We decided Mark should mainly speak to local TV stations in Florida to discuss the e-mails," says one of those present at the sessions.

On September 28, as the ABC News Web site posted its first e-mail story, Liz Nicolson sat talking to Foley about what else the media might discover. Walking into the office, Fordham observed how uncomfortable his former boss was with this line of questioning. He says he pulled Foley aside and pushed him hard. "Mark, we need to know," he began, "was there ever any other instance of inappropriate behavior toward any other page? A dinner? Inviting someone to your house? Offering to buy them drinks? Any sexual activity with pages? We need to address the specifics, because it will probably all come out."

"No, no inappropriate behavior like that," said Foley. But he looked terrified, Fordham thought.

That night there was voting in the House, and Representative Ginny Brown-Waite, another Florida Republican and a good friend of Foley's, agreed to cheer him up, walking him to the floor of the House. After the vote, Fordham recalls, she came back, looking stern. She had just spoken to Peggy Sampson, who supervises the Republican page program, and received an earful about Foley, which she imparted, unvarnished and cold, to her friend.

"Mark, there was an occasion when you showed up in front of the page dorm, late at night," the congresswoman said evenly.

"Oh, you know—I guess all kinds of stories are going to come out now," Foley replied. "You just never know what people are going to say."

At noon the next day, Nicolson, Fordham, and another aide met with Foley at his D Street house to discuss campaign strategy. The house is small and compact, bordered by a pretty garden and a wrought-iron gate, its walls covered with paintings by Foley's mother. A lunch of portobello sandwiches was interrupted by ringing cell phones. On the other end of Fordham's was Foley's communications director, Jason Kello, calling from Florida. "Kirk, I just got off the phone with ABC News, and they have 36 pages of instant messages between Mark and former pages. They're sexually explicit" is how Fordham recalls the communications director's opening remarks.

"What do you mean 'sexually explicit'?" asked Fordham.

Kello glanced at his notes and began reading passages that dealt with hand jobs and lotion. But there was more.

Messages, in which Foley used the screen name Maf54, were posted on the ABC Web site. In one, he presses for details about the boy's genitalia and his sexual habits:

Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
[Teenager] (7:46:38 PM): lol no
[Teenager] (7:46:40 PM): im single right now
[Teenager] (7:46:57 PM): my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi ?
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny
[Teenager] (7:47:29 PM): lol ? a bit
Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself
[Teenager] (7:48:04 PM): no
[Teenager] (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy
Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow ?
Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha ?
Maf54 (7:58:59 PM): but it must feel great spirting on the towel
[Teenager] (7:59:06 PM): ya
Maf54 (7:59:29 PM): wow
Maf54 (7:59:48 PM): is your little guy limp ? or growing
[Teenager] (7:59:54 PM): eh growing
Maf54 (8:00:00 PM): hmm
Maf54 (8:00:12 PM): so you got a stiff one now ?
Maf54 (8:01:21 PM): i am hard as a rock ? so tell me when your reaches rock ?
Maf54 (8:03:47 PM): what you wearing
[Teenager] (8:04:04 PM): normal clothes
[Teenager] (8:04:09 PM): tshirt and shorts
Maf54 (8:04:17 PM): um so a big buldge
[Teenager] (8:04:35 PM): ya
Maf54 (8:04:45 PM): um
Maf54 (8:04:58 PM): love to slip them off of you
[Teenager] (8:05:08 PM): haha
Maf54 (8:05:53 PM): and gram the one eyed snake
Maf54 (8:06:13 PM): grab
[Teenager] (8:06:53 PM): not tonight ? dont get to excited
Maf54 (8:07:12 PM): well your hard
[Teenager] (8:07:45 PM): that is true
Maf54 (8:08:03 PM): and a little horny
[Teenager] (8:08:11 PM): and also tru
Maf54 (8:08:31 PM): get a ruler and measure it for me
[Teenager] (8:08:38 PM): ive already told you that
Maf54 (8:08:47 PM): tell me again
[Teenager] (8:08:49 PM): 7 and 1/2
Maf54 (8:09:04 PM): ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Maf54 (8:09:08 PM): beautiful
[Teenager] (8:09:38 PM): lol
Maf54 (8:09:44 PM): thats a great size

Another conversation, with an 18-year-old former page, took place as Foley was waiting to vote on appropriations for the Iraq war.

Maf54: I miss you
[Teenager]: ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me too

After apparently engaging in cybersex with the boy, Foley concludes:

Maf54: ok ? i better go vote ? did you know you would have this effect on me
[Teenager]: lol I guessed
[Teenager]: ya go vote ? I don't want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
[Teenager]: :-*
[Teenager]:

After Kello had read Fordham only a few lines, Fordham cried, "Stop! That's all I need to know!" He heard female campaign workers weeping on the other end of the phone. When he hung up, he says he saw Foley, who was joining him on the patio, looking scared. Fordham told him the news.

"Are those instant messages authentic?" he asked Foley, who turned away, mortified.

When Foley looked back, he said, "Probably."

"Probably?"

"Yeah, I'm sure they're real," said Foley.

Nicolson joined them. "Liz, I've been stupid," said the congressman.

"Mark, I don't know how you can go on in this race," said Fordham. "Do you really want to spend the next 40 days of the campaign running around your district explaining sexually explicit e-mails to pages to your constituents?"

Fordham thought he made it clear that his old boss needed to quit, but Foley couldn't bring himself to do that. The N.R.C.C. headquarters was around the corner, and Fordham made it his next stop. There he found Representative Reynolds and Speaker Hastert. But before he could finish relaying the awful news, Reynolds's face got purple and he began to shout, "He needs to resign, and he needs to do it right now!" The Speaker just sat there, silent, according to Fordham: "He didn't react at all. This was weeks before the election, and they're thinking how this is going to impact us."

Everyone agreed that Foley needed to resign. They weren't sure how. A lawyer was called in and advised that Foley sign a letter to be delivered to Speaker Hastert on the floor of the House. Just then, Fordham was alerted that Foley's sister Donna Winterson had arrived at the congressman's office, totally unaware of the meltdown. He ran over and found Winterson sitting on the sofa, "looking like she was in a coma." Her life, having been devoted to her brother's campaigns, would be crushed, too. It took Fordham five minutes to get her composed enough to walk back to the house, where they would finally have to swallow the bitter pill.

"You have to get out," Fordham told Foley.

"You mean I have to drop out of the re-election race?

"No, you need to resign your seat in the House. Today. Now."

Fordham says that Foley dissolved into hysterics. His sister wrapped her arms around him, and they rocked together, in tears. Foley wailed to his sister, "I'm so sorry I've done this to you." Fordham says, "He thought he'd ruined everyone's life." Eventually, Foley asked what he needed to do next. "You need to sign this letter and then you both need to get out of here and go to a safe place," Fordham warned them. "Reporters are going to be staking you out." Foley and his sister took five minutes to pack and headed south toward Florida in his BMW. Fordham reached them on his cell phone. "Neither of you is in any state to be driving to Florida. You shouldn't even be behind the wheel!" he said. "Just go to a hotel somewhere in Virginia. Don't turn on the TV. Call your friends."

Damage Control

'You have to be curious—you have to ask all the questions you can think of," Republican whip Roy Blunt, of Missouri, said in early October. He was furious, because, he insisted, like a number of his senior colleagues, he had not been informed of Foley's misdeeds until the day before his resignation.

Hastert, believing the leadership needed to present a united front, as one by one his colleagues were repudiating his foggy recollections, called a Republican-leadership meeting. That same day, an ethics-committee investigation was pressed for by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (over the objections of those who wanted an independent counsel), its purpose to discover who knew what when about Foley. Blunt, Boehner, and Reynolds were all summoned "to basically get their stories straight for the press," according to a knowledgeable source, who adds, "That to me is where Hastert attempted a cover-up."

Reynolds balked at having such a meeting. "This is stupid! We can't all go and meet privately and try to get our stories straight, because this matter was just referred to the ethics committee," he told Hastert, according to the same source. "In fact, none of us are supposed to be talking to each other, because we are not supposed to talk to potential witnesses." Worse, added Reynolds, "I can tell you anything we say at this leadership meeting is something we have to share with the ethics committee."

The meeting eventually became a conference call, but without Reynolds's participation. Days later, on October 5, the often moribund ethics committee, a subject of frequent and widespread Hill derision, opened its investigation, without a lot of optimism about what would be accomplished, especially since practically the first utterance from ethics-committee chairman Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington, was that he thought Hastert "has done an excellent job as Speaker."

President Bush, who called Foley's behavior "disgusting," agreed. "Denny is very credible, as far as I'm concerned. And he's done a fine job as Speaker."

‘My desire, which I don't think will take place," says Florida representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an outspoken Democrat, "is that there's an independent investigation so we can make sure this doesn't happen again, so that the callous are held accountable." But there'll be no independence on the Republican side, she feels. "I think they'll try to leave this Foley matter in the ethics committee," the congresswoman adds bitterly. California Democrat Howard Berman, who sits on the ethics committee, is also concerned. Hill sources say that Pelosi had to strong-arm him to join the committee, and it's clear he isn't thrilled to be there. Although there had been early promises the committee would release its findings before the midterm elections, this did not happen. "I said when I took the committee job that if things go back to the way they were, with issues going partisan or stuff being swept under the rug, I would quit," Berman says. "For me, this is a huge test for us."

In mid-October, Fordham says, he learned that the Speaker's office was trying "to throw me under a bus." There were leaks to the press, he says, suggesting that he had tried to block a page-board investigation of Foley. As there never was an investigation to block, he found this accusation unsettling. "I was trying to be the loyal Republican and do this behind closed doors with the F.B.I. and the ethics committee in a way that probably wouldn't have hurt them—until after the election," says Fordham. His shoulders sag. He is very pale, clearly tired—of everything. "It's a pretty significant move for a staffer to go behind his boss's back," he says. "You know, it's not like we had a tip line to the courts, where you can call about congressmen who behave inappropriately to staffers," he says wearily.

After he resigned, Mark Foley was treated for sexual compulsion along with alcoholism at the Sierra Tucson treatment center, in Arizona. A full criminal investigation into his behavior was opened in Florida, where the age of consent is 18. Dennis Hastert, after the Democrats won the House, decided not to run for minority leader. Foley's House seat, despite a valiant defense by Palm Beach Republicans, fell to Democrat Tim Mahoney.

Will the Foley scandal prompt significant reform of the page program that failed to prevent these abuses? "As of this point, there are not any proposed changes for the program," says Salley Collins, a spokesperson for the Committee on House Administration. (The committee oversees the Office of the Clerk, which runs the page program.) "However, there are still multiple ongoing investigations, so I think we're still in a wait-and-see pattern," she adds. "We're always looking to improve the program."

Gail Sheehy and Judy Bachrach are Vanity Fair contributing editors.


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