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I've been trying to cut down on the Schadenfreude lately, so I haven't posted about the Mark Foley scandal until now.  (If you haven't been paying attention, Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from the House of Representatives yesterday after ABC News got hold of his icky (and in some cases, sexually explicit) instant-message and e-mail conversations with former House pages.)  And, to make matters especially ironic (in a delicious/creepy/anger-inducing/kinda-sad sort of way), Foley was the chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and also apparently "wrote the sexual-predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July", according to the WaPo.

Now the AP is blowing the lid off the scandal with revelations that the House Republican leadership already knew about the problem almost a year ago.  Apparently the head of the National Republican Campaign Committee was notified (why notify the political side, and not House leadership, right away?  After all, a Member of the House of Representatives was apparently acting as a sexual predator toward a minor.  Wouldn't that justify -- even for the most callous, hardened, family-values-spouting "compassionate conservative" out there -- notifying the people who actually are in charge of policing the House?)  And then the House Page Board was notified -- all of them...except for the only Democrat on the Board, who was cut out of the loop.

Wait a sec -- which party is the cynical one, exploiting problems for political gain, again?  I forgot.

Geez, iffin' I didn't know better, I'd think that they were trying to cover this up, not get to the bottom of what happened and stop a sexual predator.

And House Majority Leader John Boehner told the Post that he told Speaker Hastert about it this spring.  And told Roll Call he didn't.  And then called back the Post and changed his story.

Boehner's been a busy guy lately -- so many cover-ups to orchestrate!  From CNN:

Boehner blocked a vote Friday on a resolution offered by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asking the House Ethics Committee to begin a preliminary investigation into Foley's conduct and the GOP leadership's response to it.

The California Democrat's resolution would have started an investigation of "when the Republican leadership was notified and what corrective action was taken," according to her statement.

House Speaker Hastert is furiously trying to cover himself as well. 

An interesting comment from Josh Marshall:

A number of the leadership principals who apparently knew about this for months have made two arguments -- a) that the evidence they saw didn't clearly point to wrongdoing and b) that the matter wasn't pursued because the parents wanted the matter dropped to protect their privacy. In the real world, I think those are mutually contradictory rationales for not pursuing the matter. If you're dropping the matter because the parents don't want you to pursue it, I think that means there was a problem. That also ignores the apparently criminal nature of the activity.

Looks like the Republicans on the Hill are desperately running for cover.  This scandal bears watching, and I hear that we haven't heard the last of this.

UPDATE:  Josh Marshall parses the Hastert press release, and connects the dots:

Basically, everyone's so mindful of the sensitivity of the matter they manage never to investigate what actually happened. Isn't that what they're saying?

And also, as luck would have it, the extreme sensitivity to the parent's feelings helps keep the entire matter hermetically sealed from Speaker Hastert.

So everyone's very mindful of the privacy of the family. But somehow Rep. Boehner and Rep. Reynolds found out about it from Rep. Alexander. And Reynolds mentioned it to Hastert. But Hastert doesn't remember. And Boehner told Hastert about it too. And Hastert said it was being taken care of. Only Hastert never heard about it ...

My question:  This appears to be involving multiple pages and formal pages.  The GOP response seems to consist entirely of circling the wagons and passing the buck.  Where is the concern for the victims?

At least, the kind of concern for the victims that the Speaker so forcefully spoke of back in July?

At home, we put the security of our children first and Republicans are doing just that in our nation’s House. We’ve all seen the disturbing headlines about sex offenders and crimes against children. These crimes cannot persist. Protecting our children from Internet predators and child exploitation enterprises are just as high a priority as securing our border from terrorists.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Well, now the House GOP leaders are calling for a criminal investigation into Foley.  If they knew about this for the better part of the year, what does it say about them that they're only looking into the situation now, when public disclosure forces them to?

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE:  More from Josh Marshall:

I'm not sure I've ever seen this big a train wreck where leaders at the highest eschelons of power repeatedly fib, contradict each other and change their stories so quickly. It's mendacity as performance art; you can see the story unravel in real time. . .

[T]he centerpiece point of the Hastert statement this evening appears to have been a fabrication.

It stood up for maybe three or four hours. 

At present, the Speaker is committed to portraying himself as a sort of Speaker Magoo. We're supposed to believe that pretty much everyone in the House GOP leadership knew about this but him.

These fibs and turnabouts amount to a whole far larger than the sum of its parts. Even the most cynical politicians carefully vet their stories to assure that they cannot easily be contradicted by other credible personages. When you see Majority Leaders and Speakers and Committee chairs calling each other liars in public you know that the underlying story is very bad, that the system of coordination and hierarchy has broken down and that each player believes he's in a fight for his life.

Indeed.  They're in disarray and scrambling like mad.  They're in big trouble.

We haven't seen the last of this.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE:  Just the tip of the iceberg?

HEAVEN PRESERVE US, ANOTHER UPDATE:  Another contradiction surfaces:  Page Board chair  Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) says he saw the e-mails.  Hastert's press release says he didn't.  Now Shimkus's spokesperson says he didn't.

What did the leadership know, and when did they know it?

Principled Republican government.

As long as the principle is "help out your cronies while ignoring those who voted for you", that sounds about right.

I read, with some amusement and not a little horror, the story of Vernon "The Black Jesse Helms" Robinson's campaign for the House seat in North Carolina's 13th Congressional District:

"Brad Miller even spent your tax dollars to pay teenage girls to watch pornographic movies with probes connected to their genitalia."

That’s from a TV campaign ad by Vernon Robinson, who’s trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Miller for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 13th District of North Carolina. In the process, he’s created some of the most amusing campaign messages in recent memory. . .

His current campaign is wonderfully absurd and offensive, which makes it a joyful slapstick take on national politics. One radio ad uses a Mariachi soundtrack while claiming, “If Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.” And another, with banjo music in the background: “Hey all you illegals, put your shoes on. Go home. Don’t come back now, y’hear?”

Beyond ads, Robinson pulled an old trick of his and suggested that since Miller is middle-aged and childless, he must be homosexual. Miller then felt he had to explain that his wife is unable to bear children due to the fact she had a hysterectomy and suffers from endometriosis.

Then I Googled the relatively recently-formed 13th Congressional District, and found, to my horror, that it includes my parents' house, where I grew up.  Called my mom.  She informed me that she'd already given money to Brad Miller, has a Miller sign in our front yard, and is working as hard as she can to defeat Robinson.  (She's no dummy.)

The truly horrifying thing is that he actually seems to have a chance -- the black ultra-conservative thing might pull some votes from both sides of the aisle, and the Republican Party in North Carolina is certainly not above some dirty tricks (see "Gantt, Harvey.")

(Oh, and by the way, as if I had to point it out -- the ad quoted above is full of lies.)

Another person comes forward to attest to Sen. George Allen's (R-VA) racism.

Drip, drip, drip...

UPDATE:  Oh, and I see that yesterday, Allen introduced a bill to help black farmers:

John W. Boyd Jr. of Baskerville, Va., president of the National Black Farmers Association, sought the legislation, according to an Allen news release yesterday.

In an interview, Boyd said, "I'm glad he's finally stepped up and done something to help the nation's black farmers." Boyd also said, "Since he's been in [the Senate], we've been trying to get him to look at this issue."

Allen joined the Senate in 2001. Boyd, who voiced frustration over failed past efforts to get meetings with Allen's staff, said he finally got a meeting Friday. Boyd would not speculate on Allen's motivations for introducing the bill yesterday.

"Whatever the reason may be, we welcome the help because we're losing farmers every day."

Boyd is being pretty gracious, I'd say.

Apparently not content with insulting Guatemalans, cab drivers, firefighters, and Swedish-Americans, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), is on track to insult every group in America by Election Day.

Mark Schmitt catches the NYT doing some weaseling.

Eclipsing his rollover at the 2004 RNC, John McCain voted for torture last night.  One would think he'd have a vested interest in banning U.S. use of torture...but no.

Quoting Glenn Greenwald, who watched the debate intently:

During the debate on his amendment, Arlen Specter said that the bill sends us back 900 years because it denies habeas corpus rights and allows the President to detain people indefinitely. He also said the bill violates core Constitutional protections. Then he voted for it.

And I'm disappointed in Jay Rockefeller, too.  Greenwald again:

Jay Rockefeller (who voted for this bill) is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. When he was defending the amendment he introduced to compel the CIA to disclose to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees information about their interrogation activities, he complained that the White House has concealed all information about the interrogation program and that the Intelligence Committee members (including him) therefore know nothing about it. His amendment to compel reports to Congress was defeated with all Republicans (except Chafee) voting against it. He proceeded to vote for the underlying bill anyway, thereby legalizing a program he admits he knows nothing about (and will continue to know nothing about).

And, of course, morally bankrupt moralist Joe Lieberman voted for torture, too, but that's no surprise.

So this afternoon, the Senate will most likely vote on the torture bill.  Aside from the frightening, sickening, surreal repugnance that we even have to have a "torture debate", the bill had just ten hours allocated to debate it...well short of the three days of debate that Bill Frist scheduled for the anti-gay "Marriage Protection Amendment."

This bill, if it is passed -- as it most likely will be -- does more to eviscerate the Constitution and concentrate all power -- real life-or-death-power -- in the executive than almost anything else that the morally bankrupt Bush Administration has ever attempted.  And that's even the case when you don't talk about torture or the "quaint", "vague" Geneva Conventions.

It allows the President, through the Defense Department, to designate anyone -- including U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil -- an "enemy combatant", and detain them indefinitely without charge.  There will be no recourse to challenge one's designation of "enemy combatant" -- this afternoon, the Senate voted down the Specter amendment that would guarantee habeas corpus protections and federal court review of "enemy combatant" status.  (Some other thoughts on habeas.)  Indefinite detention with no hope of appeal is not what I see the Founders supporting, by my reading of the Constitution.

In an LAT editorial, law professor Bruce Ackerman points out that U.S. citizens and legal residents "can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison."

Another professor, Marty Lederman of Georgetown Law, writes:

the really breathtaking subsection is subsection (ii), which would provide that UEC is defined to include any person "who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

Read literally, this means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to "hostilities" at all. . .

Therefore if, as everyone is assuming, this definition does establish who may be detained by the military outside the civilian justice system, it would quite literally give the Secretary of Defense the statutory authority to detain just about anyone he wants, indefinitely. And if that's the case, then the habeas-stripping provision would really be the least of it, because even with all the due process and habeas protections in the world, it would be almost impossible to challenge the grounds on which someone is detained if the Executive itself can establish what the permissible grounds for detention are.

This is chilling stuff.  And the Republicans are pushing this through for cheap political gain, heedless of the incalcuable damage they are doing to the republic.

The New York Times editorializes on just some of this bill's flaws:

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

Glenn Greenwald quotes Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, then goes on to contrast them against the craven, power-mad bunch of fools that are killing our liberty:

In one sense, these observations are compelling because they define the core of what our country is supposed to be. But in another sense, they don't matter, because our Government is controlled by people and their followers who literally don't understand and, worse, simply do not believe in the defining values and principles of America. They know that this bill is a seizure of the most un-American powers imaginable, but their allegiance is to the acquisition of unlimited power and nothing else. . .

And as a result, we are now about to vest in the President the power to order anyone -- U.S. citizen, resident alien or foreign national -- detained indefinitely in a military prison regardless of where they are -- U.S. soil or outside of the country. American detainees are either cut off from any meaningful judicial review and everyone else is cut off completely. They can be subject to torture with no recourse, and all of this happens on the unchecked say-so of the administration. Really, what could be more significant than this?

Where is the outrage?  Why are the Dems not filibustering?  Where this all end?

After the next terrorist attack, when Americans start disappearing, will we remember what happened today? 

Could someone ask Tony Snow why he lied about the NIE timeline?

Dirty Diamond?

Kudos to Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY, on the release of his book and also this great front-page TONY article.

Joe Lieberman:  Terrorists were in Iraq before the U.S. invaded, and "that's a reason we went in."

Really?  Do Lieberman's statements at the time contradict this?

Do you want a judge with no legal training, who may not believe in such things as a fair trial, bail, or the presumption of innocence?

A horrifing three-part series in the Times shows us that exactly that is happening all over New York State.

Do Ziploc bags have the magical quality of containing any hazardous substance?  Guess so...

Bolton nomination officially dead:

John Bolton might agree to serve as the uncompensated Ambassador to the UN in a second recess appointment, or might agree to serve as a recess appointed political deputy at the UN and made "acting Ambassador and Chief of Mission" at a pay cut.

Either way, Ambassador Bolton will fill his term as the only unconfirmed Ambassador at the United Nations in American history.

George Allen, Compassionate Conservative: The College Years:

Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.

"Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place,'" said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. "He used the N-word on a regular basis back then."

A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word "nigger" to describe blacks. "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used," the teammate said.

A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word "nigger," though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. "My impression of him was that he was a racist," the third teammate said.

Shelton also told Salon that the future senator gave him the nickname "Wizard," because he shared a last name with Robert Shelton, who served in the 1960s as the imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. . .

Shelton said he also remembers a disturbing deer hunting trip with Allen on land that was owned by the family of Billy Lanahan, a wide receiver on the team. After they had killed a deer, Shelton said he remembers Allen asking Lanahan where the local black residents lived. Shelton said Allen then drove the three of them to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. "He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox," Shelton said.

Shocking, right?

UPDATE:  Allen denies it, of course.  But it seems to get worse and worse.

More "compassionate conservative" rhetoric:  Peter Roskam, who is running for Congress in Illinois' 6th District, accused his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq.

Duckworth, a double amputee and war veteran, lost her legs in Iraq.

Oh, and I hope you didn't miss the NYT report that the Iraq war has actually worsened the terrorist threat, creating more jihadists and endangering America.

And no, it's not just the Times saying that, for those who are wont to dismiss it as the rantings of the moonbat left.

As Josh Marshall phrased it, "an NIE isn't some random government white paper.  It represents the consensus judgment of the entire US intelligence community, with input from all the different agencies, from CIA and DIA to INR and FBI and all the others.  In other words, this is the collaborative judgment of the people actually fighting the War on Terror."  As in, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte had to approve the NIE.

The White House says that the Times report "is not representative of the complete document."  But, the White House is also refusing to release the document -- even in redacted form to obscure classified intel information -- so that the public can judge for itself.  Especially when a crucial election is coming up.  And isn't this Administration the one that loudly proclaimed the importance of accountability?  Or at least used to, until it started doing things that it might be held accountable for?

From that Reuters link:

Negroponte said the analysis found that if the U.S. effort to create a stable government in Iraq succeeded, jihadists would be weakened and "fewer jihadists will leave Iraq determined to carry on the fight elsewhere."

This is a zero-sum game all of a sudden?  Jihadists can't be created by U.S. policy, as the report itself supposedly says?

One more reaction from Talking Points Memo:

The implication of course is that regardless of whether we succeed in Iraq, jihadists will leave determined to carry on the fight. It's just that if we fail, more will leave determined to fight.

Excellent. Our strategic objective now is to demoralize some of the jihadists. 

Actually, I think the sum total of the Bush foreign policy (and I had to pause for a fit of laughter as I typed those last three words) is to hang on until January 20, 2009, when all talk of wars and Iraq and terror and security and Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and torture will be swept away, safely obscured behind the SEP field.

On Friday, Pyrimyd hooked me up with an extra ticket to the Metropolitan Opera's first-ever open house -- he got up early a few days prior and waited in a mammoth line for free seats to the final dress rehearsal of the Anthony Minghella-directed "Madama Butterfly."  I'd never been to the opera before, and my prior experience with the form mainly consisted of me stumbling across it on the car radio and then stabbing wildly at the "scan" button...but to my slight surprise, I really enjoyed it.

We were sitting way up in the nosebleed seats, but the view was great.  I'd worried about not being able to follow the plot, but it made a lot more sense when you can see the acting (and the nifty supertitle system helped.)  And the staging was inventive and spare, with utterly fantastic lighting.

Staff were friendly and welcoming, the opera was preceded by an interesting technical discussion/Q&A about the auditorium, the staging and other behind-the-scenes stuff, and they even served us a free bag lunch.  Nice!

I think I'll be going back -- we're already talking about going back to see "The Barber of Seville" and Julie Taymor's "Die Zauberflote."  City Opera is also doing "Butterfly" later this season, so it might be interesting to see how two different companies handle the same work.

(I believe the Met will be showing tonight's opening gala performance of "Butterfly" on a big screen at the Lincoln Center plaza, as well as on the Times Square Jumbotron.)

Saturday, as promised, Chico, Pyrimyd and I went and performed in a John Cage tribute at the Brecht Forum.  I played AM radio in "Radio Music" by Cage, and also played CD player in John McDonough's Cage tribute "Landscape Under Construction."  Possibly even more fun than playing in these pieces was watching the audience reactions...which ranged from light dozing through bafflement to rapt attention. 

And yesterday?  I did absolutely nothing, and it was delightful.  B. returned from Connecticut, and we slept late, watched DVDs, hung out, made dinner, and prepped our lunches for next week.

P.S.:  Oh, didja catch Clinton's smackdown of Chris Wallace and Fox News?  It's definitely worth watching.

You know, Fox News, your "fair and balanced" channel.

AG Gonzales:  We don't send people abroad to be tortured.  At least, the Department of Justice doesn't.

(Homeland Security, on the other hand...)

Heh.

George Allen isn't only a racist and a liar -- he's crazy, too!

Give the lady a hand!

A John Cage Celebration, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

Just a brief note: I'll be performing (along with Chicobangs and Pyrimyd) in this John Cage tribute concert on Saturday night at the Brecht Forum. Should be interesting and fun. (I'll be playing the CD player and the AM radio.)

Hope you can make it.

Bill Kristol:  GOPers should campaign on torture.

Yup, "compassionate conservatism" at its finest.  (also: it's clear that 99% of what passes for conservative "thought" is not parsed for silly little things like, oh, internal consistency...all that matters is how shiny you can get the President's boots with your tongue.)