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Congressman resigns for racy IMs to teen


Carter711

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No offense, but that's a pretty ignorant generalization.

Ok most are freaks and hypocritical. What we see and hear on the news and what I know about many personally, they're a billion miles away from the image they portray and like everyone to follow... and they know it. Yet they never really follow it themselves. It's always do as I say, not as I do. It doesn't mean that Democrats aren't capable of doing evil or being freaks and hypocrits, but you at least can expect a Democrat to be human and get freaky from time to time and not repressed .

Cigar anyone?

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i dated a young girl when i was 21, she was 17. i did a bit of research at least on CT and the surrounding states laws. it's definitely 16 for the age of consent.

as for the drinking age. that's also a state law. i don't know where you're from, but it's been 21 in the northeastern states since the 70's. my mother remembers being 18 when teh law bounced back and forth between 18 and 21 and had the right to drink and lost it a couple times. eventually it stayed at 21. i think that if you are old enough to go to war, you shoudl have teh right to drink.

also, i'm not so sure on teh accuracy of the 16 year olds being able to get married and leave home. they need parental consent here to do that before the age of 18. you can hold at job at 16 and get your driver's license (albeit a very restricted one in the states i'm familiar with) at 16, but you can't leave home, quit school, etc, until you're 18.

but all this aside, that congressman was way out of line and that was definitely sexual harrassment, for which, the kid should sue him royally. did the kid work for him? how did they know each other?

The drinking age here was 18 until the early 80s I think just about the time my mother had cleared 21. Is it at 16 or 17 that a kid can "divorce" their parents and be emancipated?

The boy was a page. I'm not sure if it's harrassment since he seems to go along with it. If it were me, I'd have blocked the guy and told someone right away.

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as for the drinking age. that's also a state law. i don't know where you're from, but it's been 21 in the northeastern states since the 70's.

You are correct it is a state law and in the mid 80s, most states allowed 18 year olds to purchase beer and wine, and 21 for booze. Many states lowered the miniumum age to 18 during the Vietnam war under the arguments that if they could go fight and kill people, they should be able to have a beer.

I thought it was in the 90s, but it turns out it was in 1984, the federal government under Reagan/Bush signed a Federal Highway bill into law that said if a state did not raise it's drinking age to 21, then they would lose all federal highway funding. Of course this forced the states to comply and all states raised the the minimum to 21. This is a favorite tactic of the federal government to force federal control over what would be otherwise a state issue.

It should be noted that if you take a cruise and once the ship leaves territorial USA waters, the drinking age becomes 16 which is the age in most of the world. Some cruise lines however limit this to 18.

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It should be noted that if you take a cruise and once the ship leaves territorial USA waters, the drinking age becomes 16 which is the age in most of the world. Some cruise lines however limit this to 18.

If i heard correctly in Italy while i was there, its 16 for beer, 18 for liqour (this is 99.9% never enforced).

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The Republicans are out there apologizing for this guy and his actions and are trying to blame Democrats for using it as an election gimmick. The supposed champions of family values and rights are out there defending a guy who obviously has an interest in young men while serving on the board that is supposed to protect children from such exploitation.

I know so many cases where 18 year old men are charged with statutory rape for having sex with a 15 or 16 year old girl, even though the girl was okay with it. By law, the authorities have to charge the 18 year old with statutory rape.

While Foley did not actually do this (as far as we know), the direction in which he was going was obviously pursuing that, and I think that it is wrong. 52 year olds should not be pursuing 16 year olds.

Should this mean that Democrats should be trying to tie Foley with the Republican party and naming the GOP the "Party of Foley"? No. We shouldn't sink to their level (even though they've tried to do it here with Keith Ellison). But this whole situation and the fact that congressional Republican leadership knew about it and tried to cover it up makes me sick.

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but all this aside, that congressman was way out of line and that was definitely sexual harrassment, for which, the kid should sue him royally. did the kid work for him? how did they know each other?

My understanding is that there were 3 different pages involved. One worked for him and the others did not. One of the boys parents made a complaint last year, but did not want it formally pursued. After those relatively tame e-mails became public, two others came forward with the sexually explicit IMs.

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Should this mean that Democrats should be trying to tie Foley with the Republican party and naming the GOP the "Party of Foley"? No. We shouldn't sink to their level (even though they've tried to do it here with Keith Ellison). But this whole situation and the fact that congressional Republican leadership knew about it and tried to cover it up makes me sick.

Should we be trying to paint all Republicans as child molesters? No. However, if there is evidence that the party leadership knew about Foley's actions and covered for him, that speaks to corruption within the party, and should by all means be an issue in the election.

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My understanding is that there were 3 different pages involved. One worked for him and the others did not. One of the boys parents made a complaint last year, but did not want it formally pursued. After those relatively tame e-mails became public, two others came forward with the sexually explicit IMs.

i have a feeling that if they didnt' want to formally pursue the complaints, it was because they were intimidated by the guy who they were about, and rightfully so being that he's in a position of a fair amount of power. i hope they all come forward and speak out against him.

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Indeed.

I won't make any claims about the whole of the Democrats with the actions of Kennedy's and the comments of Hillary (anti-Semitic) and Reid (racist).

It's not like Republicans don't generalize everything not Republican as Democrat/Godless/immoral/weak/anti-values etc. There are sordid peoples in each party, but as I said, Republicans stand for a certain image. Anything other than that image is supposedly that of a Democrat and it's much less shocking if a Democrat has an affair or mistresses etc. If this were a Democrat, Republicans would be screaming, "Typical!"

No matter who does it, it's still not acceptable.

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It's not like Republicans don't generalize everything not Republican as Democrat/Godless/immoral/weak/anti-values etc. There are sordid peoples in each party, but as I said, Republicans stand for a certain image. Anything other than that image is supposedly that of a Democrat and it's much less shocking if a Democrat has an affair or mistresses etc. If this were a Democrat, Republicans would be screaming, "Typical!"

No matter who does it, it's still not acceptable.

Yeah, plus every argument I get into with the Republicans always boils down to "What about Clinton and Lewinsky??????" So now, I'm replying, "Oh yeah, well what about Foley!!!"

I do have to say this though: I don't really get this kid. I mean, it sounds like he was either (a) messing with Foley, (b) really freaky himself, or really John Kerry or Howard Dean on a mission to destroy the Republican party one Senator at a time. I mean they were talking about cast fetishes!!! What is that? Who even has that at 16???

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I think most of us don't label all Republicans with anything, but they do set themselves up for heavy scrutiny and quite a backlash by always holding the Holy Grail at election time. Family Values, Impeachment of Clinton for an affair, "send'em up the river" for first offence drug charges, holier than thou attitudes about homosexuality, tough on crime. When you claim to be the bearer of all that is moral you make yourself a hypocrite if you don't live the life.

We have seen in recent years that most don't truly lead the life. Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict but the Florida authorities are unfair for prosecuting him, Republican congressmen have been caught in numerous scandals with money laundering, campaign fund ethical issues, Jack Abramoff, etc. This guy Foley is in charge of the commission FOR EXPLOITED CHILDREN, another Penn

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If a 16 year old is too inexperienced to have a fetish on anything, then he is certainly too inexperienced to outwit a seasoned politician that has gotten through the battles it takes to get elected into the congress. Let's see a 16 year old that isn't old enough to have a pointed sexual fantasy, but has the time to think out how to successfully bring down a member of congress!?? I am not buying it.

If the congressman didn't want this to happen then it would not have happened and now he has to pay his dues for it. If this was a normal work environment at a place of business, he would be fired for engaging in sexual harrassment.

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I don't feel sorry for the congressman at all. He knew quite well what he was doing, the big question is how long has he been doing it and to whom. Betcha this is the tip of the iceberg.

As for the kid's motivations, moot point to me, that is like saying a woman dressed in skimpy clothing is "asking for it" if she gets raped. He is/was a kid, at first he might have just thought all of this attention from someone in Congress was neato -- he was a page afterall and obviously had some interest in Congress. Calling a 16 year old's motivations into question is sad.

Welcome to the real world where everyone tries to screw you! He seems to have since screwed back.

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I think the kid was clearly uncomfortable, but just playing along b/c Foley was in some position of authority.

Notice that as soon as the conversation starts to get really disturbing and Foley tells him "take it out" the kid immediately makes an excuse that he has to go b/c his mom is calling him.

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^ Exactly, there are obvious points where you can read between the lines that he is not exactly OK with what was going on, and was too afraid to be frank. And as was mentioed a few posts up, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg, I totally see that. I agree with metro that someone who is crafty enough to make it to the upper ranks of American politics has almost complete control over a 16 year old, and whether or not agains the law, is at the very least sexual harassment, if not worse.

As an aside, I did not realize until recently that Foley was single, aren't you required to be married with a family if you are a male republican? I ask that only half in jest, it is well known as one of the defacto laws of this political society, and I think says even more about the power of this man's mind or charm to get where he is.

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If a 16 year old is too inexperienced to have a fetish on anything, then he is certainly too inexperienced to outwit a seasoned politician that has gotten through the battles it takes to get elected into the congress. Let's see a 16 year old that isn't old enough to have a pointed sexual fantasy, but has the time to think out how to successfully bring down a member of congress!?? I am not buying it.

If the congressman didn't want this to happen then it would not have happened and now he has to pay his dues for it. If this was a normal work environment at a place of business, he would be fired for engaging in sexual harrassment.

I agree. I don't think that, that kid was intelligent enough to pull something like that off, especially with a congressman. It scares me to death that one of my friends was recently a page, paige....however you spell it. I have a high cofidence in my self to pull something like this off if I wanted to, but, I have doubts I could with a congressman or any kind of official of Foley's rank.

As for those that think that a 16 year old is not old enough to have or understand fetishes.....you'd be VERY surprised. Especially in 16 year old guys. More things go through a teenage boy's mind these days than adults think. If a parent thinks that any teenage boy, whether they're a geek or a jock, has not had some sort of sexual fantasy, they are hugely mistaken. I think fetishes are more rare at a teenage age than at an adult age, but, some teenagers do have fetishes.

All this being said, if this guy thinks he can get off saying he had a drinking problem and going into rehab, he has another things coming, this isn't just going to go away. You can tell that this 16 yo was not comfortable in these conversations. The good congressman Foley should've had some state of mind to say that this wasn't right, and the kid doesn't like it, so that he would stop.

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Well I read yesterday that the FBI is on this case.

That's true that fetishes can sometimes appeal to teenagers, even though I think it's somewhat rare. But I think we'd all agree if this kid does entertain fetishes as fantasies he shouldn't be living them out with a middle aged man~~~

I'm no prude, but this story is starting to creep me out more and more.

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16 year olds definitely have fetishes... i've had a catholic school girl fetish for as long as i can remember... and this goes back to my days in catholic elementary school. there's just something about taht uniform. of course this really only applies to girls about my own age now.

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^ everybody has those though!!!

I agree. I don't think that, that kid was intelligent enough to pull something like that off, especially with a congressman. It scares me to death that one of my friends was recently a page, paige....however you spell it. I have a high cofidence in my self to pull something like this off if I wanted to, but, I have doubts I could with a congressman or any kind of official of Foley's rank.

As for those that think that a 16 year old is not old enough to have or understand fetishes.....you'd be VERY surprised. Especially in 16 year old guys. More things go through a teenage boy's mind these days than adults think. If a parent thinks that any teenage boy, whether they're a geek or a jock, has not had some sort of sexual fantasy, they are hugely mistaken. I think fetishes are more rare at a teenage age than at an adult age, but, some teenagers do have fetishes.

All this being said, if this guy thinks he can get off saying he had a drinking problem and going into rehab, he has another things coming, this isn't just going to go away. You can tell that this 16 yo was not comfortable in these conversations. The good congressman Foley should've had some state of mind to say that this wasn't right, and the kid doesn't like it, so that he would stop.

Well said. This guy (Foley) obviously has some severe emotional problems and does need help, but the truth is he abused his position in power to take advantage of a young man, which is heinous (and I was just kidding about the kid really being John Kerry).

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^ everybody has those though!!!

Well said. This guy (Foley) obviously has some severe emotional problems and does need help, but the truth is he abused his position in power to take advantage of a young man, which is heinous (and I was just kidding about the kid really being John Kerry).

Hmm, I can actually see Kerry doin something like this. Seems like his style. Haha, j/k.. Big time

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