U.S. election races...

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Nope:



Also:



Huh? What is this "vote"?

Now it's my turn: huh? What do you mean "this vote"? I want to vote for the guy!

[Nurvingiel]

Great article IRex!!

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

However, that is the same thing.

The article implied the culture was was about a specific set of morals not necessarily held by the majority of Americans, as opposed to a general moral approach, in the sense of trying to do what is best for society as a whole.

That's my understanding of the phrase.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

This can be disputed though, because the Republicans have their share of gays too.

Yes, from what I understood of that phrase, some of the gay Republicans would hypothetically be kicked out of the party in a sort of "there, now we don't have any gays anymore" attempt to maintain the illusion.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Now that last sentence, I just have to laugh.. It is most definitely NOT where we're headed...quite the opposite, IMO.

I certainly hope you're right.


You know who I wish would run, but isn't? Al Gore. He would most likely enact environmental legislation, and maybe get more support too, since California has shown is it works!

[hectorberlioz]

Well, I'd say he is almost definitely going to run. When a politician says he isn't going to run, you know the opposite is true.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Yes, from what I understood of that phrase, some of the gay Republicans would hypothetically be kicked out of the party in a sort of "there, now we don't have any gays anymore" attempt to maintain the illusion.

And more to the point, instead of treating this sad episode for what it is which is the failure and corruption of a single failed human being abusing his authority position and having their foibles and pathologies exposed publicly, many republicans have already attempted to spin this toward the “gays are sexual predators” outlet in an attempt to malign homosexuals as a group and not a republican congressman in specific. Pat Buchanan likes to scream about “these flamers” every time he gets a camera pointing his direction…

[hectorberlioz]

No they have not, Rex. I certainly have not heard it from anyone.

And it seems to me that the real thing the Dems wanted to DO was show how incompetent Republican leadership was...as you yourself suggest. But what is really the problem; tha fact that hastert did/didn't know, or that Foley did something wrong? Of course liberals don't think that Foley himself did anything wrong, since they think this kind of behaviour is OK; but they obviously wanted to wound the Republicans big time. And I thought Nancy Pelosi was sincere when she called Chavez a thug...but really it's the Democrats trying to look righteous.

It's not the Republicans who are the hypocrites, even if that's whats pasted all over the papers...
The real hypocrites are the Democrats, who point out a scandal that is only too reminiscent of their own party. The congressman who took a page down to central america, anyone? At least Foley had the honor to resign.


It's obvious to me, that the pages should be removed from Washington.

Page Scandal Goes Deeper, Congressmen
Stalked Them

By Ronald Kessler

The scandal involving inappropriate e-mail messages by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., to congressional pages understandably has led to calls for abolishing the page program.

Story continues below...





“Even if this scandal taught members of Congress not to hit on teenagers, the page program still wouldn’t be worth paying for,” the Kansas City Star editorialized. “It should be eliminated, as Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood has proposed, for the sake of both Congress and the pages. They need to be spared not just from lustful congressmen but from the chief lesson taught by the program: that success is all about making the right connections.”

Past Reforms

Media accounts of Foley’s sordid instant messages inevitably have recounted the previous 1983 scandals involving Rep. Daniel B. Crane, R-Ill. and a 17-year-old female page, and Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass. and a 17-year-old male page.

But the stories rarely mention the reforms instituted after the 1983 scandals. Before the scandals, Congress appointed 14- and 15-year-olds and let them run loose in Washington without any supervision. Pages had no dormitory and no curfews. As long as the pages brought them coffee and delivered their messages, members of Congress did not seem to care if minors entrusted to them became corrupted.

For my book “Inside Congress,” I interviewed Capitol Police officers, pages, and congressional staffers who described conditions back then. Most of the female pages lived in a four-story brick building that was formerly the Young Woman’s Christian Home. It became known as “virgin village.”

Staking Out the Pages

At the beginning of their shifts, Capitol Police officers would make it a practice to “stake out” the building at 235 2nd Street NE.

“It was nicknamed ‘virgin village’ because female pages undressed there without putting down their blinds,” Terry Coons, a former Capitol Police officer, told me. “It was a gathering place for officers for the first hour.”

“They left their blinds open, and undressed,” said Wayne Beckett, another former Capitol Police officer. “The officers watched. They [the female pages] were teases. They knew what they were doing. We would shine flashlights at them, and they would leave the blinds open . . . They totally undressed and pranced around.”

Another favorite pastime was swimming in the nude.

“In the fountains on the House side, you’d catch the pages, females and males, swimming bare-a**,” said former Capitol Police officer George L. Holmes.

Joel C. Raupe, a former congressional page from North Carolina, recalled that at 16, he learned from other pages to smoke marijuana. At 17, with a female page, he had his first sexual experience.

“There was a lot of drug use,” Raupe said. “Marijuana, LSD, cocaine. We took our government paychecks and bought drugs.”

Meanwhile, “A lot of secretaries were enticing a lot of the good-looking pages and teaching them the facts of life really early, up in the attics and places like that,” said Roy L. Elson, the former Senate administrative assistant to Sen. Carl T. Hayden, who headed the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and later the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“The pages were wild, but they hushed it up,” former officer Beckett said. “They were [having sex with] everybody they could.”

When Steven R. “Rick” Valentine became a Senate page in 1970, he was amazed that 14- and 15-year-old pages had no dormitory and basically no supervision. “As long as you showed up for work and dressed well, you were basically on your own,” he said. “It was crazy to have kids of that age turned loose on a city like Washington.”

Valentine returned as a page in the House in 1972. At that time, he learned from two other male pages that Rep. Studds had made passes at them.

“He would take them out for drinks at night,” Valentine said. “They didn’t know what was going on. They thought, ‘Isn’t it great that a Democratic congressman thinks I’m interesting to talk to and wants to take me out for drinks?’”

Once he got them out for drinks, Studds made “unmistakably aggressive sexual moves on them,” Valentine said.

The two pages repelled his advances, but a third had sex with him.

Salacious Allegations

In 1978, Valentine wrote “Each Time a Man,” a book about his Quaker roots. The book mentioned some of Valentine’s experiences as a page. It also referred to some of the incidents involving Studds without naming him.

Valentine went on to become a deputy assistant attorney general during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He is now a partner in Preston, Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, a major lobbying law firm.

In 1982, two pages serving in the House made public allegations about the prevalence of sex and drugs in the page program. The media also picked up some of the allegations in Valentine’s book. The House appointed Joseph A. Califano Jr. to investigate, and he called Valentine to testify in executive session.

The two pages whose allegations led to the investigation ultimately recanted, saying they had made up or exaggerated the charges. Califano found that most of the allegations of misconduct were unfounded. But based on the Califano investigation, the House in 1983 censured Studds and Crane.

“They both should have been expelled,” said Valentine. “A member of Congress trying to have an affair with a teenage page who is an employee — what could be worse? If that doesn’t merit exclusion, what does?”

New Rules

After the 1983 scandal, Congress raised the minimum ages of pages from 14 to 16. It required pages to live in supervised dormitories and obey curfews — 10 p.m. on week nights.

Pages are basically gofers. The earliest historical mention of congressional “runners” was in 1827, when the House employed three of them. In the Senate, Massachusetts Sen. Daniel Webster hired the first page in 1829.

The term “pages” first appeared in the Congressional Globe, the predecessor of the Congressional Record, in 1839. Back then, no page could be taller than the shortest member.

Pages must have at least a B grade point average. They are nominated by their own members, who choose finalists chosen by congressional leaders. The House has 72 pages, while the Senate has 20.

House pages receive an annual salary of $18,817, and Senate pages are paid $20,491. They reimburse the government $400 a month for housing and meals.

The program introduced several members of Congress to politics, including Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a page.

Keeping Predators at Bay

While supervision of pages has cut down on the problems, there is no way ultimately to ensure that members of Congress will behave themselves with minors they encounter anywhere. But criminal laws pertaining to sex with minors, the threat of exposure, and the possibility of expulsion on the recommendation of the ethics committees should be enough to keep all but the most predatory members of Congress in line.

“I think the page program is an institution that has served Congress well,” said Valentine. “Additional safeguards against abuse can and should be put into place, but to end the program would be an overreaction.”

“The page program has become such a positive experience for so many girls and boys who are interested in government as a career or public service,” said Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide. “Why punish the pages by ending the program?”

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

No they have not, Rex. I certainly have not heard it from anyone.

Well then you either haven’t been watching any news since this happened or you’ve been in some kind of denial induced dream world to protect yourself from the clear embarrassment of this situation because Ive seen it from republican leaders more times then I can count. I mean haven’t you seen the Buchanan clips where he is foaming at the mouth about “those flamers”? Those clips have been played BECAUSE that kind of reaction is so pathetic and so frightening.

Of course liberals don't think that Foley himself did anything wrong, since they think this kind of behaviour is OK

What kind of nonsense is this Hector? That’s ridiculous slander even coming from you. Democrats think its ok for powerful congressmen to try to hook up with teenage pages? Come on… Of course they think it’s a problem. Its an abuse of authority and its sexual predation and its illegal. It’s a CLEAR problem. Whats truly sad is trying to lump that together with being gay. Its not a gay/straight issue at all.

but really it's the Democrats trying to look righteous.

The democratic politicians will use any means available to them to retake power as would the republicans if they were in the same position. So its rather disingenuous to complain about how the democrats are acting when you know very well the republicans would do the exact same thing if they had the chance.

It's not the Republicans who are the hypocrites, even if that's whats pasted all over the papers...

Yer gonna just have to swallow this one Hector. Theres nothing sadder then watching those republicans who are trying desperately to spin this as more of a democratic problem then a republican one. Its clearly the republicans who are hypocrites here. From moral revolution to this? And this is just one of dozens and dozens of scandals and corruptions that have plagued the GOP since the great Moral Revolution of 2004… Hypocrisy on the highest…

Youll note the democrats never claimed to be moral revolutionaries. But the republicans delight and holding themselves as the standard by which morality should be measured. Well then you best not live in glass houses then…

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Well then you either haven’t been watching any news since this happened or you’ve been in some kind of denial educed dream world to protect yourself from the clear embarrassment of this situation because Ive seen it from republican leaders more times then I can count. I mean haven’t you seen the Buchanan clips where he is foaming at the mouth about “those flamers”? Those clips have been played BECAUSE that kind of reaction is so pathetic and so

I don't usually watch TV...I read the papers and listen to NPR.

What kind of nonsense is this Hector?

The Best there is...

That’s ridiculous slander even coming from you. Democrats think its ok for powerful congressmen to try to hook up with teenage pages?

Did I say democrats? I said liberals. Are you trying to say liberals and democrats are all the same? For shame, Rex! ...

Come on… Of course they think it’s a problem.

Come election time, they do.

Its an abuse of authority and its sexual predation and its illegal. It’s a CLEAR problem. Whats truly sad is trying to lump that together with being gay. Its not a gay/straight issue at all.

I don't say that it is. But I insist: liberal DO NOT think that the Foley behavious was wrong per se. Thats why they are liberals. Abuse of authority? Yeah, they think that's wrong, especially since it wasn't them abusing it.

The democratic politicians will use any means available to them to retake power as would the republicans if they were in the same position. So its rather disingenuous to complain about how the democrats are acting when you know very well the republicans would do the exact same thing if they had the chance.

I wholly agree. I just find it ironic and funny...

Yer gonna just have to swallow this one Hector. Theres nothing sadder then watching those republicans who are trying desperately to spin this as more of a democratic problem then a republican one. Its clearly the republicans who are hypocrites here. From moral revolution to this? And this is just one of dozens and dozens of scandals and corruptions that have plagued the GOP since the great Moral Revolution of 2004… Hypocrisy on the highest…

Suddenly you label ALL republicans? Weren't you just defending gays by saying it wasn't a matter of all gays, but a particualr congressman? From particular to wide-swathing...

Youll note the democrats never claimed to be moral revolutionaries. But the republicans delight and holding themselves as the standard by which morality should be measured. Well then you best not live in glass houses then…

The democrats can't really claim anything when it comes to morality...
I don't deny that it is sad that the Republicans have not been as great as they promised, but is it such a surprise? Certainly not new to either party. And I think you too easily assume that people took the "Moral Revolution" to heart. Really though, I just think they didn't want the Democrats to win...

[Insidious Rex]

[

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

I don't say that it is. But I insist: liberal DO NOT think that the Foley behavious was wrong per se. Thats why they are liberals.

Ok let me get this straight… you think all liberals think its cool for a 55 year old congressman to proposition his 16 year old pages with sexual advances in the hopes of having illegal sex with them?

Suddenly you label ALL republicans? Weren't you just defending gays by saying it wasn't a matter of all gays, but a particualr congressman? From particular to wide-swathing...

Hector you need to figure out which side of your neck you want to talk out of… you JUST posted a post about the sexual indiscretions and low morals of democrats (and liberals) in response to the issue regarding a republican and then when I respond you accuse ME of bashing republicans? Your desperate wriggling about is only making my point here…

And I think you too easily assume that people took the "Moral Revolution" to heart.

Well we certainly had our share of gloating even from people here as I recall…

Really though, I just think they didn't want the Democrats to win...

Sure isn’t what I heard from many of the exit polls.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

[

Ok let me get this straight… you think all liberals think its cool for a 55 year old congressman to proposition his 16 year old pages with sexual advances in the hopes of having illegal sex with them?

I'm saying they think it's OK for a man to have sex with an underage person. Morally, they think it's fine. And don't give me this "all"...exceptions where exceptions are due...

Hector you need to figure out which side of your neck you want to talk out of… you JUST posted a post about the sexual indiscretions and low morals of democrats (and liberals) in response to the issue regarding a republican and then when I respond you accuse ME of bashing republicans? Your desperate wriggling about is only making my point here…

I'm saying that you are wide-brushing republicans when you had just defended all gays by implying that the Foley case was an exception.

Well we certainly had our share of gloating even from people here as I recall…

Sure isn’t what I heard from many of the exit polls.

Well the first is evidence, the second is not a person. Polls are generally crap, IMO.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

I'm saying they think it's OK for a man to have sex with an underage person. Morally, they think it's fine.

And I would LOVE to see your sources on this… Show me all the articles that have come out since this event saying its perfectly ok for a congressman to have sex with a 16 year old page please.

I'm saying that you are wide-brushing republicans when you had just defended all gays by implying that the Foley case was an exception.

Wow are you in full spin and obfuscation mode…

First of all you didn’t answer how you can accuse me of speaking in general about republicans when its in response to YOU speaking in general about democrats and liberals. Secondly, what exactly was the Foley case an exception for?

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

And I would LOVE to see your sources on this… Show me all the articles that have come out since this event saying its perfectly ok for a congressman to have sex with a 16 year old page please.

So all those liberals who say its OK to have sex with animals, they don't think it's ok for men to have sex with boys? You would love to see my sources because you know it isn't something that gets pasted all over the NYTimes and all the other media.
NAMBLA, for one; though that's an extreme case. And Ginsburg works for lowering the age of consent all the time.

http://www.eppc.org/publications/pub...pub_detail.asp

BTW, isnt the age of consent 16 in DC?

Wow are you in full spin and obfuscation mode…

I was thinking the same of you...

First of all you didn’t answer how you can accuse me of speaking in general about republicans

And the reason I didnt was because you seemed to have avoided MY point before. Why should I respond when you don't?

when its in response to YOU speaking in general about democrats and liberals.

Secondly, what exactly was the Foley case an exception for?

You have rightly implied that the Foley case is NOT a gay/straight issue, that gays are not to blame for Foley. On the other hand, you have ridiculed the Republicans for their "Moral Revolution" agenda in 2004, as if they were ALL hypocrites and all corrupt. Double standard from the mooter who hates labeling and generalising? That was my point.

[Spock]

OK GUYS-SETTLE DOWN-THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AND WE DON'T HAVE A THREAD FOR THAT


and we're not going to

Don't pick on the poster-stick to the issues.

[Insidious Rex]

Hector, liberals = NAMBLA? Yeah you just completely made a joke out of your entire argument there...

Originally Posted by Spock

OK GUYS-SETTLE DOWN-THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AND WE DON'T HAVE A THREAD FOR THAT

Talking about the effects of a congressional scandal on the US Elections isnt appropriate in a thread about the US Elections? Interesting…

Will I be able to remind certain parties of that kind of double thinking when I see people go on about Clinton or other democratic dalliances in threads not named "Clinton and Democratic Dalliances?" Or shall I anticipate a double standard?

[Spock]

NO, NO-I'm reminding you that this is about the elections, issues, etc. DON'T get sidetracked into sex talk and right and wrong on the subject.

[Insidious Rex]

Well its all Hectors fault.

Anyway your state seems to have a competition to see which candidate can be the most offensive before election day. Or at least thats what the ads that bleed over the Potomac seem to indicate. How depressing.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Hector, liberals = NAMBLA? Yeah you just completely made a joke out of your entire argument there...

I did say it was an extreme case...

But if you want another, my boss' wife thinks it is ok.

Liberals may not= NAMBLA, but NAMBLA does=Liberal

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Well its all Hectors fault.

Rex and I promise to be nicer... Right, Rex? *elbows*

[Nurvingiel]

I can't believe you think those things of me Hector! I am socially liberal and I do not think that it's okay for people to have sex with animals, or for adults to have sex with minors. I mean, what the hell!?. I'll PM you to start further dialogue on the subject. (Or maybe I'm okay because I'm fiscally conservative? )

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Well, I'd say he is almost definitely going to run. When a politician says he isn't going to run, you know the opposite is true.

Doesn't that apply to everything politicians say?

I hope you're right though!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Great article IRex!!


The article implied the culture was was about a specific set of morals not necessarily held by the majority of Americans, as opposed to a general moral approach, in the sense of trying to do what is best for society as a whole.

Implied, it may be, but all the quote does is restate what it denies, and assert it. Which is deceitful.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I can't believe you think those things of me Hector! I am socially liberal and I do not think that it's okay for people to have sex with animals, or for adults to have sex with minors. I mean, what the hell!?. I'll PM you to start further dialogue on the subject. (Or maybe I'm okay because I'm fiscally conservative? )

What? You are? Noooooo.... then you're wrong all across the board.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

What? You are? Noooooo.... then you're wrong all across the board.

What are you talking about?

You think it's right to have sex with animals? Duly noted. (Just kidding buddy!!)