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Next on Senate agenda? 'Pedophile Protection Act' 'Hate crimes' law definitions would protect 547 sex 'philias' The leader of a pro-family organization says families across the nation need to contact their U.S. senators now to try to derail a legislative plan that already has passed the U.S. House and is being awaited by President Obama – after a Democrat confirmed it would protect "all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric Association."

By staying in office, Portland Mayor Sam Adams puts the city's interests well below his political ambitions Portland Mayor Sam Adams decided on Sunday to ride out his self-created debacle and remain in office, despite a looming investigation about possible sexual misconduct and abuse of power. He made his choice known in a manner befitting the occasion, by phoning a half-asleep city commissioner and leaving voice mails for two others. Adams doesn't get the final say, however. The community will decide his political fate, preferably through a recall election. The newly seated mayor admitted last week to lying repeatedly about...

You'd think, listening to Portland Mayor Sam Adams' apologies for his poor judgment in having sex with a teenager, that the whole thing was a passing mistake. A misjudgment, maybe, covered up by a pro forma lie in the heat of a campaign. When pressed, Adams on Monday reversed that long-standing lie about his 2005 relationship with a young man named Beau Breedlove and admitted that it was sexual, not platonic or mentoring. Adams apologized Tuesday for lying and for pressuring Breedlove into lying, too, when the rumors about them first arose in 2007, early in the mayoral campaign. Adams...

One thing we seem to breed in Oregon are big political scandals, and the latest one is hitting Portland Mayor Sam Adams with gale force. Adams admitted to The Oregonian and Willamette Week Monday that he lied back in September of 2007 when he denied rumors that he had had a sexual relationship with a teenager who had been a legislative intern. Adams, who is openly gay, said that while he first met the intern, Beau Breedlove, when he was 17, the two did not have sex until after Breedlove turned 18. When rumors about the two first surfaced in...

Allegations that state Rep. George M. Wilber, D-Colebrook sexually abused a young girl were no secret to Democrats, who investigated the claims in 2002 before Wilber then a first-time candidate for the seat he resigned Tuesday took office. Wilber said he paid the woman who made the sexual abuse allegation to avoid a lawsuit in 2005. The accusations prompted party leaders to withhold financial and staff support for Wilber's 2002 race, in which he edged out Winsted Republican David A. Cappabianca by 210 votes in a three-way race for an open seat. Wilber, 63, withdrew from the race for his...

Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL) is under fire for agreeing to pay $121,000 in “hush” money to a former mistress who was set to file a sexual harassment suit against him when he fired her from his campaign staff. “The point is, I was paying her for sex,” Mahoney said. “When she cut me off I had no further use for her. It’s not like she knew anything about campaigns or advertising. She’s the one who reneged on the agreement we had. Then she blackmailed me. Clearly I’m the victim here. I just hope the voters will appreciate that.” Senior Democratic...

COLEBROOK - A 2005 settlement agreement that state Rep. George Wilber, D-63, agreed to after sexual assault allegations does not constitute an "admission of guilt," he said Friday. Documents left with The Register Citizen Thursday suggest Wilber was accused of sexually abusing a girl from the time she was 11 years old. The woman is now in her 40s. Among the documents is a letter from the alleged victim's doctor to noted sex abuse attorney Susan K. Smith, which states that her patient claimed to have been the victim of sexual abuse from ages 11 through 18. Smith did not...

On Monday, NewsBusters wondered how much coverage the sex scandal involving Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fl.) -- the Democrat Congressman who in 2006 won the seat previously held by the disgraced Mark Foley -- would get. Early indications suggest that as far as the television news outlets are concerned, the answer is "not much." In fact, though all three broadcast network evening news programs covered the Foley sex scandal when it was first revealed on September 29, 2006, not one of them felt that the man who replaced him admitting to having an affair with a former campaign staffer was at...

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress Tim Mahoney Elected to Remove 'Ethical Cloud' of His Disgraced Predecessor, Mark Foley By EMMA SCHWARTZ, RHONDA SCHWARTZ, and VIC WALTER Oct. 13, 2008— West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen,...

SOME FAMILY MAN: Asse Sam Hoyt ALBANY - A married assemblyman got caught with his virtual pants down - busted by XXX-rated e-mails to a 19-year-old intern.....In one sex message Hoyt made it embarrassingly clear they shared not only an interest in the people's business, but in lusty sex and personal hygiene. Titled "what i wish," the Democratic assemblyman's list included: ". . . that i could be painting your toenails right now . . . that i could see you do that little cheerleader move . . . that i could be your human lollipop . . ....

Data from the Defense Intelligence Agency indicates that enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians peaked in October 2006, the month leading up to the U.S. midterm elections. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgents were "very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled" and were trying to "break the will of the American people." Democrats, who cast the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on Iraq, ended up taking control of both the House and the Senate. The DIA data shows that between November 2006 and May 2007, attacks...

Democrats act like they’re smarter than Republicans. But deep down they’re very insecure. Deep down they think Republicans are not only smarter, but they have better secret plans and dirty tricks. So in some smoke-filled room, or at least a laptop filled room, nervous Democratic opposition researchers are trying to connect the Foley-Vitter-Craig dots. Because only a nit-wit could believe that three very sordid scandals could scourge the GOP in one session of Congress by sheer coincidence. Democrats do not believe in a God that generous. I am told Democratic counter-operatives are pursuing three conspiracy theories at this point. The...

Larry Flynt’s last effort to buy dirt on Washington politicians was what you might call a bust. But the Hustler publisher launched a new effort Sunday, offering $1 million for provable Potomac sleaze. Readers of the print edition of Sunday’s Washington Post, will have seen the all-type, full-page ad as they turned from “Russia’s Champion of Hopeless Causes Is Targeted for Disbarment” to “U.S. Warship Fires Missiles at Fighters in Somalia.” “Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine announce a cash offer up to $1 Million,” the headline on page A17 says. The ad explains: “Have you had a sexual encounter with...

HUSTLER magazine in the United States is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again - and is willing to pay for it. "Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?" read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine in Sunday's Washington Post. It offered $US1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and email address were provided. The last time Flynt made such an offer was in October 1998 during the drive...

If ever a news story bolstered Rush Limbaugh's low opinion of the "drive-by media," it is the tawdry saga of former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. When the story about Foley's e-mails to former House pages first broke, cable news was All Foley/All the Time. The chattering classes -- this columnist included were outraged at the GOP leadership's inexcusable failure to protect vulnerable House pages from Foley. Many pundits didn't need proof, so happy were they to embrace Nancy Pelosi's charge that there had been a "cover-up of Mark Foley's outrageous behavior." When the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct...

A new report raises questions about Rahm Emanuel’s assertion that he and his staff knew nothing about disgraced Rep. Mark Foley’s e-mails to former House pages. In an October 8 interview with ABC News, the Illinois Democrat said "no – never saw them” when asked if he knew about the e-mails or instant messages between Foley and former pages before news of the messages broke. Asked if he was "aware” of them, Emanuel repeated, "We never saw them.” But the new House Ethics Committee report on the scandal, released on December 8, discloses that a senior member of Emanuel’s staff...

A Democrat community leader who would "offer a homily during worship services" and facilitated his congregation's "opening our doors to all people regardless of sexual orientation" has been given a slap on the hand after pleading guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six. Authorities say Andrew Douglas Reed, 53, who reported for an abbreviated jail term just a few weeks ago, had pleaded guilty to a page-long list of counts of 2nd-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Court records in the Asheville, N.C., case said he admitted that he would "record, develop and duplicate material...

Ralph Mervine, executive director of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority, resigned Wednesday after a Tampa Tribune investigation found he is listed as the owner of a gay pornographic film production company. The San Diego-based company, Coast Productions, operates at least two adult Web sites and has an adult Yahoo membership group. All three advertise and display young men, ages 18 to 21, offering photos and video clips of explicit sexual activities. Coast Productions produces DVDs for sale at $39.95 apiece, as well as monthly Web site memberships to view shorter video clips of young men engaging in sex acts alone...

WASHINGTON -- The House ethics committee has been working hard to determine if Republicans covered up ex-Rep. Mark Foley's come-ons to former male pages, but even 12-hour work days won't bring conclusions by Election Day. The lack of a report leaves voters to sort through conflicting Republican accounts in deciding whether GOP leaders failed to protect teenagers in their care. Foley became overly friendly with male pages when they served as errand-runners for lawmakers and — after they left Congress — sent some of them inappropriate e-mails and lurid instant messages. It won't be easy for voters to find answers...

West Palm Beach, Fla. -- Former Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned over sexually explicit messages sent to male congressional pages, is remaining in treatment for alcoholism beyond his initial 30-day stay, his attorney said Wednesday. Foley checked into a 30-day treatment program at the Sierra Tucson center in Catalina, Ariz., near Tucson, on Oct. 1. There was no immediate indication how much longer Foley would remain there. "I can't say any information other than he's still there," attorney Gerald Richman told The Associated Press. The Florida Republican resigned from Congress in September after he was confronted with the explicit computer...

Tallahassee, Fla. (AP) -- Voters deciding on a replacement for disgraced Rep. Mark Foley may be provided with a list of candidates in the race as they enter the voting booth next month, an appeals court ruled Friday. Foley's name will appear on the Nov. 7 ballot because his resignation came too late to make changes after revelations that the Florida Republican sent lurid electronic messages to male teenage congressional pages. A replacement GOP candidate, Joe Negron, is running in Foley's place. Republicans proposed posting signs at polling places that explained a vote for Foley would go to Negron to...

Radar has learned that the anony-blogger behind StopSexPredators—the bogus blog that first posted the Mark Foley e-mails and got the ball rolling on PageGate—is a former Democratic Senate staffer named Lane Hudson.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 — A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation. A spokesman for the group, the Human Rights Campaign, said it first learned of its employee’s role this week and immediately fired him for misusing the group’s resources. The scandal surrounding Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, has been a burdensome distraction for members of his party in the month before the midterm elections, and some Republicans...

A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation.

Calling the Gay Mailers Bluff The mysterious blog spot (stopsexpredators) that first reported Mark Foley’s original ambiguous emails to a former page, has been tracked to Human Rights Campaign, a purportedly non-partisan group that  claims to advance the interests of lesbian,gay , bi-sexual and transgendered citizens (LGBT in this era of Balkanized interest groups). It is headed by Joe Solomonese, a  pro-abortion activist with ties to George Soros.One blog site that has been tracking the SSP site, warns that if HRC doesn’t come clean about its role in this Republican gay outing campaign, it will be exposed on Friday: Open...

THE HOUSE ETHICS Committee typically takes its time -- and then some -- when investigating accusations of ethical lapses among its members. Its work is usually conducted in deep secrecy. Often the public doesn't even know when an investigation is underway, or even who is being called to testify before the committee. The sleepy pace of these investigations reflects Congress' entrenched timidity in taking on its own members. The pace becomes even more glacial when the party that is in the majority has to investigate one its own. That's what makes the investigation into the Mark Foley e-mail scandal so...

Bill Kerr Set Out to Discover The Name of a House Page And Caused a Big Fuss For three days, William "Wild Bill" Kerr huddled over an old computer, trying to solve a curious mystery. - snip - The 32-year-old conservative blogger said he felt the news media were distorting the story, and he suspected, among other things, that the page in question was over the age of consent. Five days after the Foley news broke, Mr. Kerr thought he had found the former page -- a 21-year-old political operative who, by chance, worked about 10 miles north of Mr....

Gerry E. Studds, who championed environmental, maritime, and fisheries issues during 24 years in the US House of Representatives and lent an eloquent voice to health and human rights matters, died early yesterday. First elected in 1972, Studds entered politics as part of a generation emboldened by its opposition to the Vietnam War and turned his focus in Congress to issues close to the hearts of his constituents. A Democrat, Studds had been reelected five times when in 1983 he became the first member of Congress to openly acknowledge he was gay. [snip] He publicly disclosed his sexual orientation [only]...

Congressman Marty Meehan on Foxnews this morning was asked about Gerry Studds and the difference between Studds and Foley. Meehans response was "I was a sophmore (or Senior I cna't remember which) in High School when that happened." Implying that he couldn't be expected to respond to something that was that old and he was so young when it happened. That made me think. I was a junior in High School when that happened and I remember talking about it in our Social Studies/Current Events class. So that guy is my age?? Or within a year of it?? I looked...

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, a hospital official said. He was 69. Christian Kiriakos, central administrator at the hospital, said Studds died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. He did not have additional information, and details of Studds' death could not be immediately confirmed. Studds, a liberal Democrat who spent more than 20 years in Congress, was censured by the House in the 1980s for having sex with a 17-year-old male page. He was re-elected for several more terms. Last year...

Former Massachsuetts Congressman Gerry Studds has died. The 69-year-old Studds died this morning at Boston Univesrity Medical Center. He'd been hospitalized after sustaining head injuries from an accident while walking his dog. Studds was a ranking member of the House Democratic leadership and advocated for New England fishermen and the ocean environment. studds, who grew up in Cohasset, was the first openly gay person elected to Congress. He served from 1973 to 1997. He is survived by his husband, Dean Hara. the couple was among the first same sex couples to be legally married in Massachusetts.

The story I posted Tuesday on the media's role in the Mark Foley scandal generated an enormous number of emails. The lion's share contained stimulating, illuminating insights such as “You really are full of sxxx.” But among the several hundred messages I received, a few merit a reply...What's more interesting is that some of that money started coming in late last year—around the time that the Foley emails were given to reporters in Florida—

Bill Pinyon (gay) and Ferrell Ard (gay) own/run Badpuppy.com, a multimillion dollar per year gay hardcore porn site. Bill Pinyon and Ferrell Ard also own/run Softec Systems, which is the server for Politics1.com (left/liberal), Gunzburger.com, HillZoo.com (Congressional Staffers), and the Congressional Club website (for Congressional spouses). Could the owners/operators of Softec Systems, both openly gay men making megabucks selling hardcore porn on their internet enterprise, BadPuppy.com, have access to their clients’ (at either site) private information and/or communications?

Mary Katherine Ham of Town Hall.com, Michelle Malkin, the "boss" of Hotair.com, Kirsten Powers of Fox News Channel fame, and La Shawn Barber, a black conservative who has her own blog discuss the never-ending Foley matter.

WASHINGTON -- By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON -- The chief congressional overseer of House pages, who says he tried to stop ex-Rep. Mark Foley from e-mailing a Louisiana page in late 2005, is ready to explain his actions to House investigators. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., scheduled for questioning Friday before the House ethics committee, says he kept the two other House members overseeing the pages in the dark as he confronted Foley last fall. Shimkus, chairman of the House Page Board, said he was following the wishes of the boy's parents by not telling the other members. A...

here goes nothing: I wrote this to you all last week(just didn't send it)....since then, much has come to light! My stuff has been sent to the FBI and Hastert's office from a (you'll love this).....KINKOS....lol. However..the FBI has my real name and all relevant info, should they ever give a damn. But this much I have ready to go tonight. Please excuse the typos, the somewhat disjointed format, etc.: Dear Fellow Freepers, Many of you have written and asked me to let you know what my research into the whole Foleygate has revealed and I think it is time...

CHICAGO -- President Bush stood shoulder-to-shoulder with embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday, offering a powerful boost in his moment of need and declaring the country "better off" with Hastert in power. "I am proud to be standing with the current speaker of the House who is going to be the future speaker of the House," Bush said as he opened a speech to raise money for two Illinois congressional candidates. The $1.1 million fundraiser provided the first picture of Bush with Hastert since a scandal broke involving a Republican congressman pursuing underage male pages. Although the president has...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Disgraced former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) complained to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush two years ago that the White House snubbed him during presidential visits to the state, according to e-mails obtained by the Palm Beach Post. In e-mails the newspaper excerpted on its Web site (http://www.palmbeachpost.com) on Thursday, Foley asked the governor to intervene on his behalf with his brother, President George W. Bush. "Have I done something to offend the White House? ... I am always getting the shaft," Foley wrote to Gov. Bush on September 29, 2004. The Republican former congressman...

I can foresee his response to this..."I was misquoted"

The complex nature of the "dirty trick" against the Republicans over the Mark Foley scandal is beginning to emerge. It doesn't involve a George Soros-funded group or emails that had been in the possession of the media or shopped around by Democratic operatives. Instead, the GOP has played a trick on itself. The party brought so-called gay Republicans into positions of power in Congress only to realize that the confidential information they held about a secret gay network was political dynamite that could backfire. SNIP The mystery man at the center of the scandal, Jeff Trandahl, is supposed to be...

Two of the news media's sources of Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former House pages said this week that they came forward to expose the Florida congressman's actions, not to help the Democrats in the midterm elections. But there are indications that Democrats spent months circulating five less insidious Foley e-mails to news organizations before they were finally published by ABC News late last month, which prompted the leaking of the more salacious instant messages. Harper's Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season....

New Testimony May Pose Problems for GOP Leadership By JAKE TAPPER, JOHN YANG and AVERY MILLER Oct 10, 2006 — - House speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., tries to change the subject. But the accusations about Hastert subordinates who were apparently told about Congressman Mark Foley's questionable behavior keep coming. Hastert spoke to reporters Tuesday, insisting that he and the GOP House leadership had done nothing wrong in the House page scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. The speaker heralded the economy: "We've lowered people's taxes. They have more money in their pockets to spend," he said. Meanwhile, ABC News has...

Ex-Boston City Councilor Scondras nabbed in underage sex sting By Laura Crimaldi Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - Updated: 06:06 PM EST LAWRENCE - Former Boston City Councilor David Scondras was busted in a Lawrence school parking lot before dawn Monday after showing up with lubricant and booze in hope of a tryst in the woods with a 15-year-old boy he’d met online, the authorities said. The ‘‘boy” that Scondras, 60, of Cambridge allegedly drove some 30 miles to meet for sex turned out to be a 20-year-old Lawrence General Hospital security guard, police say. The guard said he’d received a...

Most of you experienced the "media storm" over Bob Woodward's new book-criticizing Rumsfeld and the administration,natch. When the Department of Defense issued a blistering rebuttal, it was as if a tree fell in a deserted forest. Read the rebuttal - and a few other interesting facts- right here.

...and so did some others (about the Mark Foley emails). Harper's Silverstein writes his take up here. Last May, a source put me in touch with a Democratic operative who provided me with the now-infamous emails that Foley had sent in 2004 to a sixteen-year-old page. He also provided several emails that the page sent to the office of Congressman Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican who had sponsored him when he worked on Capitol Hill. "Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously, This freaked me out," the page wrote in one email. In the fall of 2005, my...

Latest details on Foleygate Boston Edition from CBS4 Former Boston city councilor David Scondras is facing charges for attempting to lure a teenage boy over the internet. Investigators said Scondras had several sexually explicit email exchanges with someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy. Police arrested Scondras at about 1:15 a.m. Monday in the parking lot of the Day Charter School in Lawrence where he thought he was going to meet the boy. The 60-year-old Scondras pleaded not guilty Tuesday to several charges including enticement of a child under the age of 16 and assault and battery on a police...

One of the stories going around Democrat Party circles is that party operatives like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and American Family Voices weren't quite ready for primetime with the opposition research materials they had gathered for the 2006 election cycle. According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and other party organizations, "I'm hearing the Foley story wasn't supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot." So why the rush? According to another DNC operative: bad polling numbers across the...

The Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Richard Pombo on Monday said the congressman should demand the resignation of House Speaker Dennis Hastert over his role in the congressional page scandal. Democrat Jerry McNerney also said Pombo should return any money Hastert, R-Ill., had raised for him in the past. McNerney's demands come as the page scandal is roiling Congress a month before the Nov. 7 election, when Democrats hope to take control of the House. Republican Rep. Mark Foley resigned from his Florida congressional seat after it was reported that he had sent suggestive e-mails and instant messages to teenage...

They wouldn't win any beauty contests, but naked mole-rats would take home the crown for longevity. And research into human aging might draw from knowledge of the wrinkly subterranean creatures. No bigger than a stick of butter, mole-rats [image] long outlive similar-sized rodents. They're known to approach age 30. Now scientists have gained some insight into this longevity: Mole-rats simply deal with the kind of cellular damage that life normally brings about. "The naked mole-rat, with its surprisingly long life span and remarkably delayed aging, seems like the perfect model to provide answers about how we age and how to...