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Title: Foley scandal reverberating in Florida gubernatorial race. Crist, Foley, and Jeb Bush. (WMR - 10/2 & 10/3)
Source:
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
URL Source: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Published: Oct 3, 2006
Author: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Post Date: 2006-10-03 15:39:25 by robin
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Views: 263
Comments: 12
October 3, 2006 -- Informed sources in Tallahassee, Florida have told WMR that Governor Jeb Bush was fully aware of ex-Rep. Mark Foley's conduct with underage male pages but sat on the information to protect Foley and another top GOP Florida official, Attorney General Charlie Crist, who is currently running for governor to replace Bush. Today, Jeb Bush said he had not previously known about Foley's behavior with the pages before being informed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in a letter dated October 1, 2006. Bush said he was "dismayed and shocked to learn about Congressman Foley's unacceptable behavior." However, according to our Florida sources, the FBI and Justice Department informed the Florida Governor's office, Attorney General Crist, and the Florida AG's Child Protection Cybercrime Unit at least a year ago about Foley's predatory emails and instant messages. WMR was told that Crist's conflict-of-interest in the case stems from Crist's and Foley's involvement in gay sex parties, some of which took place during 2003 in trendy Coconut Grove, Florida. Foley scandal reverberating in Florida gubernatorial race. Left to right: Crist, Foley, and Jeb Bush. Informed Florida sources claim that up until now, Crist and Jeb Bush have been able to keep a lid on the once-divorced Crist's life style, touting his conservative Christian credentials, but that the Foley revelations will severely impact the Crist gubernatorial campaign. The links between Foley and Crist are certain to harm Crist with his conservative backers who admire Crist for his anti-gay rights stance. Floridians begin early voting on October 23. October 3, 2006 -- WMR has learned from informed sources in the Justice Department that the salacious e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley were leaked to ABC News by career Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents who are incensed that Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales covered up the House page scandal for political reasons. The back story of Pagegate is that there was a criminal conspiracy by the top political leadership of the Justice Department to cover up the predatory activities of Foley and other GOP members of Congress since at least 2003 and, likely, as early as 2001. Other informed sources in the nation's capital report that Pagegate will soon implicate a number of GOP staffers in both the House and the Senate who intimidated and pressured male pages into inappropriate sexual relationships. One source confided that the staff members' contact with pages was "more egregious" than Foley's behavior. GOP in crisis, meltdown mode The Pagegate scandal also involves senior officials of the Republican National Committee, located near the House Office Buildings, according to our Capitol Hill sources. The bottom line is that the GOP is facing its worst political scandal since Watergate and the White House, already under assault from the revelations in Bob Woodward's insider account of the Bush presidency and the Iraq war, has told GOP members of Congress that they are on their own as far as Pagegate damage control is concerned. October 3, 2006 -- The Pagegate scandal surrounding ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) is growing in scope. According to congressional sources, Foley's predatory sexual advances on underage male pages was tolerated because Foley was a major campaign cash source for other Republican members. Although it has been reported that Foley gave National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Reynolds (R-NY) a $100,000 contribution, WMR has learned that Foley's contributions to Reynolds' committee totaled $330,000. Meanwhile, the conservative Washington Times, aware of the widening nature of the scandal, has called for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign his leadership position. WMR has also learned that Tom Reynolds, who is facing a serious challenge from Democrat Jack Davis, is now in serious political trouble in his northern New York district and looks likely to lose it in the November 7 election. Conservative newspaper calls for Hastert to resign. October 2, 2006 -- In August 2004, the GOP House leadership, which included Speaker Dennis Hastert, then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt, took no action against Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida for his repeated salacious contact by email with underage male teens even though a heterosexually-married Republican congressman resigned over trolling gay web sites for "younger men." In August 2004, one-term Republican Rep. Ed Schrock of Virginia resigned after it became public that he was surfing gay and dating web sites in search of younger men for sex. Schrock, a political ally of his Virginia Beach constituent TV evangelist Pat Robertson and a retired U.S. Navy Captain, resigned after he was outed by a Washington, DC web site. However, rather than dealing with Foley's sexual habits on the Web, the GOP leadership sank deeper into cover-up mode, burying the Foley matter lest it shine a light on other GOP gay hypocrites in Congress whose anti-gay agenda would embarrass the party a few months before a critical presidential and congressional election year. It is now being reported that the House Page Board chairman John Shimkus (R-IL) actually enabled Foley to meet an underage pages for dinner dates after the House GOP leadership were aware of Foley's inappropriate communications with the teens. In fact, according to ABC News, Foley told the 2001-02 page class about them bidding for dinner with Foley: FOLEY: John [one of the pages] was the highest bidder on lunch with Mark Foley. Maybe you all do not know this story, but John had paid considerable sums to dine with me. I had offered to take the winning bidder to lunch in the Members' dining room. Then I heard how much John Eunice paid. And I said, ``John, there is no way in the world after you committed so much money to have lunch with me that I would dare take you downstairs to eat in the Members' dining room.'' I said, ``Where do you want to go?'' He says, without reservation, ``Morton's.'' I said, ``Morton's? Like in Morton's Steakhouse?'' He said, ``Oh, would that be too much?'' I said, ``Oh, no, we'll go.'' I said, ``Call your mother, get permission, make sure she notifies the Clerk and we will go to Morton's.'' And so we proceeded to cruise down in my BMW to Morton's. At the time Foley was auctioning himself off to pages for dinner dates, the House leadership was fully aware of his predatory behavior -- and may, in fact, have known about it since 1998, the same year Foley and his GOP House colleagues were railing against Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky and demanding his impeachment. It is doubtful that the pages' parents would have permitted contact between their sons and Foley had the House GOP leadership taken action to prevent any contact between Foley and pages. House GOP leadership permitted Foley to auction off dinner dates with underage male pages. The members of the House Page Board are currently its Chair, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Dale Kildee (D-MI). Although Shimkus knew about the Foley problem, Capito says she was never informed. Kildee, the only Democrat on the board, said he first heard about Foley when the news hit the media. Other Page Board members are Karen Haas, the House Clerk and former aide to Hastert, and Wilson Livingood, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House. The Page Program Coordinator position is currently vacant. From 2002 to 2005, the Board members were Shimkus, Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), Kildee, House Cleark Jeff Trandahl, and Livingood. The Page Program Coordinator was Grace Crews. From 2000 to 2001, the Page Board Chair was Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) and members included Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) (inexplicably replaced as chairman by Kelly), Kildee, Trandahl, and Livingood. Crews was the program coordinator. From 1999 to 2000, the Chairman was Kolbe and members included Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), Kildee, Transdahl, and Livingood. The coordinator was Crews. From 1998 (when the allegations first reportedly surfaced about Foley), the Chair was Tillie Fowler (R-FL) and members were Kildee, Kolbe, House Clerk Robin Carle, and Livingood. The page coordinator was Hugh Addington. Foley became a congressman in 1995. After leaving Congress in 2001 and joining the Holland & Knight law firm and working as an adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Tillie Fowler died from a sudden brain hemorrhage on March 2, 2005 at the age of 62. Past chairs of the House Page Board since 1998 (when allegations first surfaced about Foley): lefty to right: Jim Kolbe (replaced as chair in 2000), Sue Kelly, and Tillie Fowler (died from a brain hemorrhage at age 62). Past Page Board members include Heather Wilson and Jo Ann Emerson. In 2002, eleven House pages, all nominated by Republicans, were dismissed after they were found using marijuana in the Capitol Hill page dormitory. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is defending the GOP House leadership for their handling of the Foley matter, demanded in 1983 that Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds and GOP Rep. Dan Crane be expelled from the House for their sexual relationships with 17-year old male and female pages, respectively. October 2, 2006 -- With Bob Woodward's revelations in his book State of Denial that Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that Henry Kissinger is frequently consulted by both Cheney and George W. Bush, comes ironic news from our Pentagon sources. Kissinger, who as Secretary of State, helped oversee the U.S. military evacuation of South Vietnam in 1975, is trying to convince the Bush White House that it should remain in Iraq to make up for Congress' lack of resolve to win in Vietnam. However, our Pentagon sources report that plans for a massive and quick U.S. military evacuation from Iraq have been drawn up -- and that they borrow heavily from the U.S. evacuation experience in South Vietnam. Back to the future: Planned Iraq evacuation to mirror U.S. evacuation from South Vietnam in 1975. U.S. helicopter lifts off from rooftop of U.S. embassy in Saigon. Pentagon and U.S. Central Command contingency planners, fully expecting a major insurgent offensive against U.S. forces in Iraq that will result in a mandatory U.S. military withdrawal, have already identified evacuation staging locations, including from the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport. Other evacuation points reportedly include major hotels and U.S. military bases in Iraq. It is planned that evacuees will be airlifted by plane and helicopters to U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf, Kuwait, Jordan, and Germany. British forces in Basra have also drawn up evacuation plans. With Anbar province already lost to the insurgents and much of the country in turmoil, the failure of the United States to evacuate in the face of an all-out insurgent offensive could result in a number of U.S. forces being taken prisoner by insurgent forces. And with the recent decision of Congress to permit torture of enemy prisoners, the fate of a large number of U.S. military and civilian prisoners in insurgent hands has Pentagon officials extremely worried. October 2, 2006 -- Hastert's other major conflict of interest. Dennis Hastert's business relationship with the late 1970s/early 1980s Koreagate scandal figure Tongsun Park, who was a co-owner and 1966 co-founder of the members-only Historic George Town Club -- in the early 1980s a center of a prostitution scandal involving male and female congressional pages -- may have influenced his decision to avoid digging up dirt on the new congressional page sex scandal involving Mark Foley and other key House GOP leaders. Koreagate involved the channeling of money by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency to Park to influence members of Congress. Unification Church leader, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the owner of the Washington Times and close friend of the Bush family, was also involved in the scandal. The scandal, according to Peter Dale Scott, had links to Washington, DC mafia boss, Joe "The Possum" Nesline. The club was also linked to the CIA proprietary firm Consultants International. Sex, bribes, and Pagegates: Dennis Hastert and convicted former page procurer Tongsun Park Hastert's reported acceptance of bribes from Turkey and the resurfacing of Park in 2005 as a key figure in the UN Oil-for-Food scandal that involved Turkish intermediaries has investigators looking at the past Historical Georgetown Club page-prostitution scandal and Hastert's involvement with Park and bribes from Turkish businessmen and the current page scandal. In July, Park was convicted of conspiracy in the Oil-for-Food scandal.
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#1. To: robin, all (#0)
Okay - here's reality. In the world of politics, when you have a gay pol who likes young boys - EVERYONE around him knows it. His staff knows it, his friends know it, his bosses know it, the party regulars know it. You can't hide this stuff - not when you're a public figure like this working with others. This is not some hermit hiding in the woods with a vibrator.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
I've read that Foley and Crist roomed together before Foley went off to Washington.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
Here’s a scary thought. The party that will benefit from this will be the Ds. The Ds are tolerant to these types of scandals (see Barney Frank). SO, what we might see in Nov. is a changing of the guard (as it should be) with a new party who embraces such conduct. Bottom line; Americans politic is about power, nothing else.
Wayne Madsen is speaking on Randi Rhodes's show right now. They say Foley and Crist have been observed a lot partying together of late in Coconut Grove, which is apparently a place of questionable repute.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
This is one incestuous bunch. How difficult would it be for a foreign enemy to blackmail them? It must be common knowledge at some echelon in the global intelligence community.
"If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country." - Daniel Ellsberg Author, Pentagon Papers God, this crowd probably spends all their spare time on their knees one way or another.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
I quick search indicates that the Coconut Grove is without question, such a place. So, it was at least poor judgement to be seen there, but no doubt much more than that.
"If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country." - Daniel Ellsberg Author, Pentagon Papers FWIW, Madsen mentions it as dinner rather than lunch. I expect to know by the end of the week which it was.
OTOH, it's got to help Katherine Harris. A Florida Republican crazier than her.
Bottom line. Or something.
already happenning, sleeping big cells inside called sayanim
It's got a lot of gay bars that stay open all night. It's a very wild scene. I'm going to be near there tomorrow and the next few days. I'll see if I can slide over to the Grove and see what I can find out. I bet it's the talk of the town right now. Randi lived in that area for a long time; she knows the people there and is probably getting an earful. This could nuke Crist, who has a whole raft of problems he's refused to talk about. One is a raft of rumors that he is gay or bisexual, another is his link to a bunch of corrupt lobbyists, one of whom is on his staff, and the biggie is that he is the father of an out of wedlock kid. This is the guy who is running as an anti-gay, heavy religious type. Here's some of the story... The secret plot among a handful of Republicans to blow up their own party’s primary for governor just before election day was born out of frustration. Attorney General Charlie Crist was running away with it, light years ahead in the polls and leading comfortably in fundraising, too. Rival Tom Gallagher, the state’s chief financial officer and a veteran of Florida politics, had mounted a disappointing challenge. Gallagher conservatives saw even more at stake than the party’s nomination for governor. The winner of the Sept. 5 primary would be the leader of the state GOP in the post-Jeb Bush world, defining the party’s values for years to come. Crist was soft on core issues, they thought. The race had long been predicted to be close and nasty. The less it became of the first, the more it became of the second. Crist and Gallagher had spent about $100,000 each on opposition research, a polite term for hiring a company to dig up dirt on your opponent. Crist seemed to get the better of it. Gallagher suffered through a year of unpleasant revelations about possible conflicts of interest in his financial life and scandalous details from his first marriage and divorce, all pushed aggressively by Crist allies. But the digging on Crist had turned up nothing. So a band of Gallagher supporters, using an independent committee called “Coalition to Protect the American Dream,” paid $75,000 to launch an aggressive and less conventional approach to dirt-digging. They hired Steve Andrews, an old Gallagher friend and millionaire Tallahassee lawyer with deep ties to Crist’s home turf, Pinellas County. Andrews thought the detour from his usual courtroom work would be a kick, “like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” he said. He filed public record requests to examine Crist’s old work history and asked around. What did he hope to find? Unsavory business partners or close friends? Lies on resumes? Maybe finally prove the whispered rumor — repeatedly denied by Crist — that he might be gay? But Andrews struck out, too. At 50, Crist the bachelor and longtime public official had lived the kind of austere life, both socially and financially, that left few damaging footprints. Reporters at newspapers around the state hadn’t done much better. So there was a whiff of desperation attached to a last-minute rumor that tawdry allegations involving Charlie Crist had surfaced. Andrews didn’t know anything about it. Turns out another loyal Gallagher man had been digging around about Crist. Clifton C. Curry Jr. of Brandon, like Andrews, is not what you would expect of a political dirt peddler. He’s a lawyer, a Little League coach, 2004 Bush-Cheney regional campaign chairman, chairman of the Judicial Nominating Commission. He was a classmate of Crist’s at Florida State and he had copies of documents from a sealed court file that could be extremely embarrassing to Crist. Curry wanted them publicized before the primary. “It was brother shooting brother,’’ Andrews, son of a former Pinellas judge, said of the Republican war waged below the radar. “What you had was a split in Republicans who had been united in helping Jeb Bush get elected and united in electing George W. Bush, and now they were saying the most rude and outrageous things about each other. It was like Cain and Abel.’’ *** The story begins with a woman named Rebecca O’Dell Townsend. At 48, she’s an amiable and respected appellate lawyer in St. Petersburg and frequent lecturer on constitutional law to conservative groups. A past president of the Suncoast Women’s Republican Club and founding member of the Downtown Women’s Republican Club in Tampa, she was appointed by Gov. Bush to the Florida Film & Arts Advisory Council. The state Supreme Court put her on its Committee on Arts in the Courtroom. In 1988, she was an active Young Republican and a staunch social conservative. Crist was an up-and-coming politico, who had lost in his first run for political office, a state Senate seat. As Townsend tells it, she and Crist connected at a Feather Sound nightclub. After dancing, they went back to his St. Petersburg apartment early on Oct. 1, 1988. Some weeks later she realized she was pregnant. Separated from her husband and headed for divorce, she said she confronted Crist at a Republican Party event and told him he was the father. She said he replied, “that’s impossible.” Nonetheless, months later, Crist signed papers to help Townsend put a baby girl up for adoption. The story kicked around Pinellas Republican circles, mostly as a rumor, largely doubted by those who heard it, about Crist and a fellow party activist. There was plenty of reason to doubt Townsend’s word. Her divorce and subsequent custody battle for her two other children, which raged on long after the divorce was resolved, created an ugly paper trail. Among other things, the records show that she had mental problems at the time and had made a number of never-substantiated allegations of rape and domestic violence. Her father-in-law from that first marriage, a lawyer, had submitted an affidavit to the court in the divorce outlining what he called her pattern of lies. On his list: her story of getting pregnant by an unnamed politician, which the father-in-law said in his affidavit she later recanted. As a result, her story about Crist had been heard and dismissed by Republicans around Pinellas County for years. David Zachem, a Crist supporter and longtime Republican activist in Pinellas, told the Times that Townsend personally recanted her story about Crist to him years ago. She denies that. “I never kept it a secret from anybody,” Townsend said. “I told many people about it.’’ In high-profile races, campaign workers and news reporters receive all kinds of calls peddling dirt on candidates. Many they chase, some they ignore as far-fetched or impossible to prove. Professional opposition research is big business, and campaigns invest heavily in researching opponents through lawsuit searches, voting records and other avenues. Typically they even research their own candidates to prepare for attacks and measure vulnerabilities. Still, a political bombshell, the story Townsend had to tell, had gone unnoticed by the well-paid researchers hunting for ammunition against Crist. “We were looking in other directions,’’ said Andrews. That is until one week before the primary, when former Brandon Chamber of Commerce president Clif Curry stepped into the fray. Curry is a prominent civic leader and Republican who has been a key organizer for Bush-Cheney and money raiser for Republican chief financial officer candidate Tom Lee among others. Curry is currently a finance co-chairman for Gus Bilirakis’ congressional campaign. As a Gallagher supporter, Curry served as his lawyer earlier in the campaign when Gallagher’s old divorce records caused a public stir. In the past, Curry also supported Crist. He donated to Crist’s 2000 campaign for Education Commissioner and his 2002 race for attorney general. They have known each other since their days at FSU, where Crist narrowly defeated Curry for homecoming king. Townsend said she didn’t know Curry until one week before the primary, when he called. Is the story I’ve heard about you and Charlie Crist true, he asked. Yes, she said, I have documents. She gave him copies of three pages from a sealed adoption file: * An affidavit from Crist, dated May 2, 1989, denying that he was the father of Townsend’s child and relinquishing any future claim to parental rights. “Parenthood by myself is not possible as I never consummated the act necessary for parenthood,” Crist stated.n * An affidavit from Townsend (then Wharrie) dated June 24, 1989, asserting that Crist was the father of the baby born one day earlier, but declaring that he had made no parental claim to the child. * A consent for adoption signed by Crist, dated June 25, 1989. “I deny paternity of this child and claim no parental rights in relation to the child.” What the documents show is that a woman once accused Crist of fathering her child out of wedlock and that he readily surrendered parental rights. That’s a potentially damaging revelation when your political opponent is a hard-line champion for protecting family values. For Gallagher’s allies, the next move was clear: Get the story into the newspaper. Said Curry: “I felt very strongly that if there was truth to the allegations they should be printed before the primary.’’ For the good of the party. http://www.sptimes.com/2006/09/16/State/For_GOP_mantle__dirt_.shtml He might very well get blown out of the water. So to speak.
#2. To: robin (#0)
#3. To: all (#1)
#4. To: robin (#0)
#5. To: aristeides, mehitable (#2)
#6. To: robin (#5)
#7. To: aristeides (#4)
#8. To: aristeides (#4)
House GOP leadership permitted Foley to auction off dinner dates with underage male pages.
#9. To: robin (#0)
Foley scandal reverberating in Florida gubernatorial race. Crist, Foley, and Jeb Bush
I've already said too much.
#10. To: mehitable (#1)
Okay - here's reality. In the world of politics, when you have a gay pol who likes young boys - EVERYONE around him knows it.
There is more than one Institute. There is more than one Island. There is no outside world to which we can flee -- or if there is, it is just a bigger Institute, or a synthesis. The fact that all Institutes are prisons, and all Islands mostly lies, does nothing to reduce the danger of contamination.
#11. To: robin (#5)
How difficult would it be for a foreign enemy to blackmail them? It must be common knowledge at some echelon in the global intelligence community.
#12. To: aristeides (#4)
Coconut Grove, which is apparently a place of questionable repute.
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