Sean Hannity decided to have disgraced former representative, Mark Foley, on his show to discuss the Anthony Weiner non-sex "scandal". Foley, who was forced to resign after sending sexually explicit messages to underage congressional pages, told Hannity that it should not be illegal to send such messages to minors (via Think Progress):
It also shows how Fox views Weinergate. Foley was involved in extremely sexual exchanges with children under the age of 18. Not only that, these were children sent to our nation's capital to be taken care of by one of our branches of government. Foley betrayed the trust of these children and of our nation when he decided to pursue these children. And while there are reports that Weiner did engage in his naughty talk with a 17 year old, what Foley did was much worse, but not as bad as the cover-up.
Foley's activities were known about by Republicans on Capital Hill for years. Even then majority leader John Boehner and then-speaker Dennis Hassert admitted to knowing about Foley's problem at least a year before it was made public. The two most powerful members of the House of Representatives didn't want to protect the children in their charge - they wanted to protect the predator in their caucus.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said Jefferson should be expelled from Congress if he is found guilty and refuses to resign.
"The American people rightfully expect the highest ethical standards from their elected leaders," Boehner said.
Oh how 8 1/2 months changes things. What did John say last September about Bob Ney?
Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked whether Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) should step down from Congress. Ney pled guilty last week to federal corruption charges, admitting to prosecutors that “he had accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal favors from Abramoff and from a Syrian businessman nicknamed ‘the Fat Man.’â€
Apparently, in Boehner’s mind, this doesn’t necessarily disqualify you from serving in Congress. Boehner twice refused to answer whether Ney should step down, saying only that it was a decision Ney should make for himself.
Yup - it's ok for old white guys to stay in Congress when found guilty of accepting bribes, but don't let a black guy think about doing it.
I find this appalling. Today John Boehner, my congressman, decided to blame the generals on the ground for the failures in Iraq.
How dare Mr. Boehner take such a stance against our military. This on the very day he threatened to "beat Mr. Kerry to death" because of Kerry's comments.
Now will the media attempt to clear themselves of their label of "media bias" and report none stop on what Mr. Boehner said today? John Kerry is not running for office this year, John Boehner is. This story demands at the very least the same amount of attention that the Kerry story received. We have the Majority Leader blasting our troops on the ground and our President making jokes about the very reason why 2,800+ United States soldiers have died.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid released the following statement on House Majority Leader John Boehner's decision to blame the troops for Republican failures in Iraq.
Rumsfeld's leadership of the bloody mission in Iraq has become a divisive issue in the Nov. 7 elections. Many Democrats and a few Republicans are calling for his resignation, but President Bush repeatedly has defended him. So did House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, during an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that's happened to the Pentagon in 25 years," Boehner said. "This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation. And I think Donald Rumsfeld's the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution."
Yeah. Boehner also said that "Medicare was working great" (or his office did) when seniors in his district who could not get medicine called. They also refused to talk anymore about it - well that is until Mort Meier decided to run against him.
So what is happening in Boehner's district when he is out being the little whore for the incompetent Rumsfeld?
A Hamilton soldier has been killed in Iraq.
The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that Army First Sgt. Ricky L. McGinnis, 42, of Hamilton died on Thursday from injuries suffered earlier that day when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol.
McGinnis was assigned to the First Cavalry Division based out of Fort Hood, Texas.
That's it. My Town, the town next to Boehner's home, suffers yet another loss soldier in Iraq.
We can still get the idiot out of office. Remember to vote for Mort Meier and send lobbyist loving John Boehner packing.
Boehner is back in the spotlight on the Foley scandal. Now he is in the swing of attempting self survival:
ABC's Teddy Davis reports: In a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) placed responsibility for the Foley matter not being handled properly on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).
"I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," said Boehner. "And, and, and my position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with."
This follows an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show yesterday where Boehner was being more forth coming with the impact the Foley scandal will have on the GOP this fall:
The House majority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, dismissed that possibility. “To vote for this candidate, you have to vote for Mark Foley,” Mr. Boehner said on a conservative radio program hosted by Sean Hannity. “How many people are going to hold their nose to do that?”
That interview was very heated and I wish I had audio of it. Hannity was working his ass off to spin this around and Boehner actually wouldn't let him.
Of course this in no way let's Boehner off the hook. He still played around with his story and did not follow up on the incident as he should have. We still need to send Boehner home this fall and there is still time to do that.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today called upon the House of Representatives to appoint an outside counsel to investigate the House leadership's role in covering up Rep. Mark Foley's (R-FL) inappropriate email exchanges with a sixteen-year-old former House page.
Several members of the Republican leadership have now admitted to knowing for nearly a year that Rep. Foley engaged in email exchanges with a sixteen-year-old former House page. These members, including Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), John Shimkus (R-IL) and Tom Reynolds (R-NY) have all claimed that they failed to take action because the boy's parents did not want to pursue the matter. The decision not to investigate further left other House pages unprotected and vulnerable to a potential sexual predator.
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) decision to have Rep. Shimkus review the page system is particularly ludicrous, given that it was Rep. Shimkus who, despite having been made aware that the boy and his parents were concerned about Rep. Foley's emails, readily accepted Rep. Foley's explanation that he was merely mentoring the boy. Rep. Shimkus is the chairman of the House page board.
Although the matter allegedly was raised before the House page board, the failure to insulate pages from further contact with Rep. Foley and the failure to implement measures to protect the pages suggests that the leadership failed to take the matter seriously.
Chairman of the House Page Board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) interviewed Foley last year about some of the contacts with the page. The House clerk who is also a member of the Board was also present. Speaker Hastert's office was informed of the interview, but according to leadership sources who spoke to Roll Call, Hastert himself was not informed..
The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."
So who is lying - Boehner or Hastert? My guess is both of them are lying about it. This is the Republican leadership. Perhaps they should worry about the victims and be truthful so that any other victims can be found and taken care of. That would be putting people before politics - something the Republicans would never do.
They are so out to get Harry Reid that they will find anything and try to turn it into a scandal. The AP is really sinking to a new low on this one:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, who has criticized Republican ethics, accepted free ringside tickets to three professional boxing matches from Nevada officials who were trying to influence his federal legislation regulating the sport.
Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission.
Reid defended the gifts, saying they would never influence his position on the boxing bill and that he was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. "Anyone from Nevada would say I'm glad he is there taking care of the state's No. 1 businesses," he told The Associated Press.
So if a Senator accepting tickets to his states largest sporting event is against the rules then how do lobbyists even operate?
Here is the big irony of this. My congressman and the Majority Leader, John Boehner, accepted gifts from Indian Tribes directly related to the Abramoff scandal. For him though this is fine because as he said "he was working for his constituency". Now the interesting part is that the Indian tribe he accepted gifts from make up 0% of his constituency. So he was accepting gifts from someone out of his district and using those to help affect legislation and that is OK but for Reid to accept gifts from someone in his district that is not OK?
Mort Meier, 73, a retired bond underwriter from Hamilton, announced
Monday he will challenge new House Majority Leader John Boehner of West
Chester for the Ohio 8th District Congressional seat this fall. In a
statement released by Dan Gattermeyer, chairman of the Butler County
Democratic Party, Meier said was motivated to come out of retirement "to
help increase the strength and restore the reputation of America." Meier,
who did not return a call for comment, attacked Boehner's ties with
lobbyists and pledged not to accept any contribution of more than $5 from
any individual, group or corporation. He ran unsuccessfully against Boehner
in the GOP primary 15 years ago, and switched to the Democratic Party in
2000.
This is really good news. I got the privilege of signing the petition for his
candidacy tonight. I don't know that much on Mr.Meier yet but intend to find out
so I can report back. Boehner is not a popular person here in OH-8 so this
should be a good race and hopefully come out with a win for the Democrats.
To keep up on Boehner even more, here is another article tying his office to
Jack Abramoff:
A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader
John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that
was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from
Abramoff's firm show.
Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove,
accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but
later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.
The government of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
extended the invitations to Jackson and other high-level GOP House
leadership staff while Congress was considering legislation to control
immigration and labor practices in the remote Pacific island territory.
Abramoff, the central figure in a wide-ranging Justice Department
investigation of influence peddling in Congress, lobbied for the Marianas in
Washington. The commonwealth's government was accused of permitting
egregiously low wages and poor conditions for immigrants working in
sweatshops.
According to bills from Abramoff's former lobbying firm to the Marianas
government, Abramoff's staff contacted Boehner's office about island issues
at least 10 times in the first four months of 1996. Copies of the billing
records were obtained by The Associated Press through open-records requests
to the territorial government.
This morning on Meet The Press, new Majority Leader John Boehner was asked
about his dealings with Jack Abramoff. One part really got my curiosity going.
Boehner told Russert he would not return the money from the Chippewa tribes
because he was working on legislation for them as a Representative. Now being
part American Indian and living in Boehner's district, I decided to look into
some population numbers for the 8th district.
There is no breakdown of tribes, however I know for a fact that the largest
Indian tribe ever in this area was the Miami tribe. The total Indian population
in our district accounts for 0.2%. There might be a handful of Chippewa's here
that have migrated down from Michigan over the years but they would only
represent a small percentage of that 0.2%
What really gets me about this is the fact Boehner and his staff have
blatantly refused to work with seniors in this district on the new Medicare-D
program. I know of a few people who have called his office asking for help
because they were given a run around by the social security office, pharmacies,
drug companies and insurance companies. They call his office and get told flat
out that they won't address the situation.
Now lets look at the population of people 65 and over in Ohio's 8th district.
13.4%, or 67 times the population here is seniors. Those people need represented
now more than ever as they struggle to get the necessary medications to live.
Boehner and his staff do not care though. Boehner is another Republican slime
whose representation is for sale. Mr. Boehner does not have to deal with them.
He lives in his prestigious gated community of homes that cost upwards of a
million dollars.
