I agree with your both parties quote above. This thread I guess, would mearly counter the Rep. Foley " don't you GOPer's preach to us and take the higher moral ground on us" thread. Not that there would be any excuse to defend any of these actions.
Then again, Foley didn't cause anybody to die like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. :icon_wink: Oops I did it again.
Last edited by TYLERTECHSAS; 10-12-2006 at 03:02 PM.
And again! Oh well.
Second U.S. lawmaker faces of misconduct allegations
Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:39pm ET
http://today.reuters.com/misc/GenIma...pg&resize=w192
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional board which oversees a Capitol Hill internship program rocked by a sex scandal, discussed allegations on Monday involving a second lawmaker, said Rep. Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat.
Kildee made the comment as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of a House ethics committee, which has been focused on the case of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who resigned last month following disclosure he sent inappropriate electronic messages to male teenage interns, known as pages.
"It's only been allegations made," Kildee told reporters of the House page board's discussion about a second lawmaker, who he declined to identify.
Kildee said he and other board members had a conference call earlier in the day about "other allegations, not about Mr. Foley." Kildee also indicated the page board had talked about the matter with the second lawmaker.
Last week, a law enforcement official confirmed a report by NBC News that the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI in Arizona were conducting a "preliminary look" into a camping trip Rep. Jim Kolbe took with two teenage pages and others 10 years ago.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said federal investigators were responding to a "single allegation" about Kolbe of Arizona. The official refused to say who made the allegation or what was being alleged.
Kolbe's office denied any wrongdoing.
"The rafting trip back in 1996 consisted of five current staff, two former pages and his sister," a spokeswoman for Kolbe said. "There is absolutely no basis and no truth to any (allegations of) inappropriate behavior."
As part of the ethics committee's investigation of Foley, it is trying to determine if any other House members demonstrated troubling behavior toward teenage interns.
With reports that some Republican House members or staff were told about Foley's troubling conduct months or even years ago, the panel is also trying to determine if there was a cover-up -- who knew what and when about Foley and what, if anything, they did about it.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
And yet again!
Reid to Reimburse Campaign for Donations
Oct 16 5:08 PM US/Eastern
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has been using campaign donations instead of his personal money to pay Christmas bonuses for the support staff at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives in an upscale condominium. Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.
Questioned about the campaign expenditures by The Associated Press, Reid's office said Monday he was personally reimbursing his campaign for $3,300 in donations he had directed to the staff holiday fund at his residence.
Reid also announced he was amending his ethics reports to Congress to more fully account for a Las Vegas land deal, highlighted in an AP story last week, that allowed him to collect $1.1 million in 2004 for property he hadn't personally owned in three years.
In that matter, the senator hadn't disclosed to Congress that he first sold land to a friend's limited liability company back in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He collected the seven-figure payout when the company sold the land again in 2004 to others.
Reid portrayed the 2004 sale as a personal sale of land, making no mention of the company's ownership or its role in the sale.
Reid said his amended ethics reports would list the 2001 sale and the company, called Patrick Lane LLC. He said the amended reports would also divulge two other smaller land deals he had failed to report to Congress.
"I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation," Reid said in a statement issued by his office.
He said he believed the 2001 sale did not alter his ownership of the land but that he agreed to file the amended reports because "I believe in ensuring all facts come to light."
Reid labeled the AP story as the "latest attempt" by Republicans to affect the election. AP reported last week that it learned of the land deal from a former Reid adviser who had concerns about the way the deal was reported to Congress.
On the Ritz-Carlton holiday donations, Reid gave $600 in 2002, then $1,200 in 2004 and $1,500 in 2005 from his re-election campaign to an entity listed as the REC Employee Holiday Fund. His campaign listed the expenses as campaign "salary" for two of the years and as a "contribution" one year.
Reid's office said the listing as salary was a "clerical error."
Residents and workers at the Ritz said the fund's full name is the Residents Executive Committee Holiday Fund and that it collects money each year from the condominium residents to help provide Christmas gifts, bonuses and a party for the support staff.
Federal election law permits campaigns to provide "gifts of nominal value" but prohibits candidates from using political donations for personal expenses, such as mortgage, rent or utilities for "any part of any personal residence."
The law specifically defines prohibited personal use expenses as any "obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate's campaign or duties as a federal officeholder."
Land deeds show Reid and his wife, Landra, purchased a condominium for their Washington residence at the hotel for $750,000 in March 2001. The holiday fund has existed for years the at the condo, workers said.
Reid said Monday he believed the expenses were permissible but he nonetheless was reimbursing the campaign.
"These donations were made to thank the men and women who work in the building for the extra work they do as a result of my political activities, and for helping the security officers assigned to me because of my Senate position," Reid said.
Larry Noble, the Federal Election Commission's former chief enforcement lawyer, said Reid's explanation is aimed at a "gray area" in the law by suggesting the donations were tied to his official Senate and political work.
"What makes this harder for the senator is that this is his personal residence and this looks like an event that everybody else at the residence is taking out of their personal money as they're living there," Noble said.
On the land dealings, Reid announced Monday he had failed to disclose two other transactions on his prior ethics reports and would account for those on his amended reports along with the 2001 sale.
The first, he said, involved the sale in 2004 of about one-third acre of land in 2004 he owned in his hometown of Searchlight, Nev. And, he said he had not reported his ownership since 1985 of a quarter acre of land his brother gave him in 1985.
Reid said the failure to disclose those transactions previously was due to "clerical errors" and they amounted to "two minor matters that were inadvertently left off my original disclosure forms."
He had asked the Senate Ethics Committee last Wednesday for an opinion on the 2001 land sale but decided to amend his forms prior to the committee acting.
Reid's announcement came after numerous newspapers nationwide published editorials criticizing both his initial failure to disclose the full details of his Las Vegas land deal and his response to AP's story.
The $1.1 million land deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. Brown has never been charged with wrongdoing, except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court. Ethics experts told AP that Reid's inaccurate accounting of the deal to Congress appeared to violate Senate ethics rules and raised other issues concerning taxes and potential gifts.
Tyler,
I haven't checked the politics section lately. I would have thought you would have given this up. I could name hundreds of politicians on both sides of the aisle that would be in the same boat. I don't want to go digging for names, though. Suffice it to say that this Republican leadership has added significantly to the pile of garbage that has accumulated in the House and Senate over history.
Both parties have problems no doubt. The issue is the treatment by the mainstream media when there is a problem with a republican and how republicans respond, as to how these issues are treated and responded to when it is a democrat.
OK...OK.... The laugh is on me for that one post. What can I say except I was bored, PO'd about our DAWGS and in a hurry. Give one to you guys.
Let's just call it "Fair and Balanced" cut and pasting.
Yes, and I was bored and in a hurry when I posted that as well.
Was Hillary bored and or in a hurry when she told this little white lie? I know... just having some fun here.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52477
Last edited by TYLERTECHSAS; 10-17-2006 at 11:20 PM.
Hm."The Foley matter has impact in some limited districts, but the research we have shows that people are differentiating between a vote for their congressman and a member from Florida," Mr. Rove said
Just two quick thoughts, Tyler......
The democrats had 3 decades to rule congress and perfect the political art of corruption and sleeze.
The republicans have barely had time to learn how to freeze hot money.
2nd thought...... It is not time to "throw the republican bums" out because of a few bad pumkins in a political patch......
It is time to THROW THEM OUT because of their "do nothing" record.
And if the NEW BUMS fail to do what is needed...... It will also be time to throw them out in 2 years.
If the American electorate ever became barely sophisticated, and capable of ignoring party stupidity, and kept throwing out all the bums who failed to serve their interests well...... Even the dumbest and greediest boys within the beltway might eventually get the message.
And any such process can only begin at one's local ballot box.